Starting and Using Microsoft Excel and getting to work

By Kh. Atiar Rahman

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program - a program designed to work with numbers (as opposed to a word processor, such as word, which is designed to work with words of text data) we need to work with data and enter it in cells arrayed into horizontal rows and vertical columns on a worksheet, an arrangement some what reminiscent of an accountant's ledger but far more flexible. Excel organizes worksheets by workbook, on the basis that we may need more than one worksheet for any given project. Each new workbook we open contains three worksheets by default, but we can add worksheet up to a maximum of 255  (We can also remove one or two worksheets from the original three if we need fewer). Each worksheet contains 65,536 rows and 256 columns. We can use Microsoft Excel for accounting statement based on mathematical calculation. That is to say, we can use it for preparing budget, monthly expense account, and Payroll report and for planning, controlling and managing the worksheet data for decision making purpose. We can also use Microsoft Excel for summarizing text data with the help of Pivot Table techniques.

In using Microsoft Excel, the following things are generally followed step by step.

¨     Moving about the worksheet

¨     Moving among worksheet

¨     Selecting worksheet data

¨     Adding a working sheet

¨     Deleting a Worksheet

¨     Renaming a Worksheet

Enter numbers, text, a date, or a time

¨     Click the cell where you want to enter data.

¨     Type the data and press ENTER or TAB.

¨     Use a slash or a hyphen to separate the parts of a date; for example, type 9/5/96 or Jun-96.

¨     To enter a time based on the 12-hour clock, type a space and then a or p after the time; for example, 9:00 p

Otherwise, Microsoft Excel enters the time as AM.

Note:

          To fill in rows of data in a list, enter data in a cell in the first column, and then press TAB to move to the next cell. At the end of the row, press ENTER to move to the beginning of the next row. If the cell at the beginning of the next row doesn't become active, click Options on the Tools menu, and then click the Edit tab. Under Settings, select the Move selection after Enter check box, and then click down in the Direction box.

¨     To enter today's date, press CTRL+; (semicolon).

¨     To enter the current time, press CTRL+SHIFT+: (colon).

Enter a formula

For information about how formulas calculate values, the following are the rules.

1.       Click the cell in which you want to enter the formula.

2.       Type = (an equal sign).

If you click Edit Formula or Paste Function, Microsoft Excel inserts an equal sign for you.

3.       Enter the formula.

4.       Press ENTER.

Note:

You can enter the same formula into a range of cells by selecting the range first, typing the formula, and then pressing CTRL+ENTER.

You can also enter a formula into a range of cells by copying a formula from another cell. For more information about copying a formula, the following are the rules.

 

Enter the same data into several cells at once

1.       Select the cells where you want to enter data.

The cells can be adjacent or nonadjacent.

2.       Type the data and press CTRL+ENTER.

 

Enter or edit the same data on multiple worksheets

When you select a group of sheets, changes you make to a selection on the active sheet are reflected in the corresponding cells on all other selected sheets. Data on the other sheets may be replaced.

1.       Select the worksheets where you want to enter data.

          How?

2.       Select the cell or cell ranges where you want to enter data.

3.       Type or edit the data in the first selected cell.

4.                 Press ENTER or TAB.

5.                  

Microsoft Excel automatically enters the data on all selected sheets.

Note:  If you've already entered data on one worksheet, you can quickly copy the data to the corresponding cells on other sheets. Select the sheet that contains the data and the sheets to which you want to copy the data. Then select the cells that contain the data you want to copy. On the Edit menu, point to Fill, and then click Across Worksheets.

 

Select sheets in a workbook

If you select more than one sheet, Microsoft Excel repeats the changes you make to the active sheet on all other selected sheets. These changes may replace data on other sheets.

To select     Do this

A single sheet Click the sheet tab.

Two or more adjacent

Sheets         Click the tab for the first sheet, and then hold down SHIFT and click the tab for the last sheet.

Two or more

Nonadjacent sheets Click the tab for the first sheet, and then hold down CTRL and click the tabs for the other sheets.

Ø All sheets in a workbook

Ø Right-click a sheet tab, and then click Select All Sheets on the shortcut menu.

 

Quickly fill in repeated entries in a column

If the first few character you type in a cell match an existing entry in that column, Microsoft Excel fills in the remaining characters for you. Microsoft Excel completes only those entries that contain text or a combination of text and numbers; entries that contain only numbers, dates, or times are not completed.

To accept the proposed entry, Press ENTER.

The completed entry exactly matches the pattern of uppercase and lowercase letters of the existing entries.

v To replace the automatically entered characters, continue typing.

v To delete the automatically entered characters, press BACKSPACE.

You can also select from a list of entries already in the column. To display the list, press ALT+DOWN ARROW to display the list, or right-click the cell, and then click Pick from List on the shortcut menu.

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