For all blog readers, whether you're a beginner or an experienced computer user, particularly with the Windows operating system, and regardless of how much experience you've had with Microsoft Excel, we recommend that you go through the Microsoft Word tutorial first before even touching Microsoft Excel. Check it out here. Microsoft Excel is a popular spreadsheet software used for organizing, analyzing, and visualizing data. As part of the Microsoft Office suite, Microsoft Excel provides users with a wide range of tools for working with tables, formulas, charts, and other functions. If you need to create and organize data in tables, especially for performing calculations, Microsoft Excel allows you to perfectly organize data in a table by entering information into Cells and using various formatting options for data presentation.
The emphasis is on calculations; otherwise, if you're just creating a simple table, you can do that in Microsoft Word as well. Microsoft Excel stands out for its powerful formula system, which allows you to calculate values, perform mathematical operations, and analyze data. You can organize your calculations into multiple tables and create data visualizations with appropriate charts. Microsoft Excel enables you to use various types of charts, such as bar charts, line charts, pie charts, and many others with your spreadsheet calculations. Additionally, when it comes to calculations and data analysis, Microsoft Excel offers advanced data analysis tools, including sorting, filtering, conditional formatting, and using pivot tables with all their capabilities.
Microsoft Excel is often used in business environments, especially in finance, accounting, marketing, and other sectors were dealing with large amounts of data is necessary. Individuals also frequently use it for tracking personal budgets, inventories, or any other information requiring calculations, organization, and analysis. While there are other tools for working with data, Microsoft Excel remains popular due to its broad usability, flexibility, and ease of use. It has a place even in environments where specialized tools are used because it is quick and easy to use for many everyday tasks. However, in some cases, for very complex data analyses, specialized software may be used. Additionally, most programmers prefer to keep data in databases and then perform manipulations on it, so they and companies with their own systems handling vast amounts of data use Microsoft Excel less frequently.
Nonetheless, Microsoft Excel remains an essential tool
for most users and smaller businesses due to its versatility and ease of use,
especially for users not involved in programming. This doesn't mean that
programmers don't know how to use Microsoft Excel; on the contrary, many tools
you use in Microsoft Excel can be programmed by developers or even integrated
into entirely different programs and systems. Similarly, advanced Microsoft
Excel users who know how to use the Developer tab and the VBA - Visual Basic
for Applications programming language can automate certain tasks. All in all,
keep in mind that Microsoft Excel has advanced so much in recent years that it's
simply amazing what you can do with it.
Excel Basics: How to Get Started in Microsoft Excel?
If you have Microsoft Office installed on your computer, start Microsoft Excel by clicking on its icon, which can be located on the desktop, taskbar at the bottom of the screen or on the start menu. The easiest way to find the Microsoft Excel icon or shortcut is to type excel in the search text box. In any case, click on the Microsoft Excel icon. Do not be confused by the fact that in some places, such as the desktop, it is necessary to click on the icon twice quickly, while in some places, such as the search panel, only once. It also depends on the operating system you are using. If you do not have Microsoft Excel installed; then see here how to install it. In any case, when you start Microsoft Excel, the splash screen will be displayed on your screen and when it closes, the Home panel of Microsoft Excel will open.
If everything looks correct, pay attention to what you see on the screen and compare it to the previous image. On the left side, you can see a green menu with the following available tabs:
- Home – The main panel that is always displayed when you start Microsoft Excel.
- New – The new panel allows you to create a new workbook or use one of the many templates available in the background.
- Open – The open panel enables you to open documents that your version of Microsoft Excel supports.
- Account – The account panel displays information about your account and the activation of your Microsoft Office package.
- Feedback – The feedback panel allows you to send suggestions to Microsoft developers.
- Options – The options panel allows you to change the settings of Microsoft Excel.
Click on the New tab, then on the blank template "Blank workbook". The result should look like the following image:
Depending on the literature, your entire workbook may simply be called a "Document" when referring to the Microsoft Excel file. To avoid confusion, this means that when someone says to open, save, rename, or delete a document, they refer to the workbook containing all the sheets. Note that your blank workbook doesn't look like a blank sheet of paper; it resembles a blank table with columns labeled with individual uppercase letters and rows labeled with numbers. The empty squares between the letters and numbers are called "Cells". Each cell has its own name in the format of a column and row, for example, A1, A2, A3... B1, B2, B3... and so on. This is great because it allows you to easily and accurately position yourself in a specific cell or multiple cells, an entire column, or an entire row. To make this clearer, let's move on to the practical part.
In this lesson, we will create something that resembles a To-Do List, specifically a list of items we will cover in this lesson. Since we won’t be focusing on formatting and creating tables in this first lesson, we will emphasize the basics: how to get started with Microsoft Excel, specifically how to enter data, create, open, save, and delete workbooks or worksheets, etc. Click on cell B2 and then type the following text:
Hello World - To Do List
When you enter something into any cell, the same text will appear in the Formula Bar, so the Formula Bar is the best place to type your text after selecting a specific cell or multiple cells. If you’re wondering why we didn’t start with cell A1, the reason is simple: we want some empty space around our imagined table. It’s purely a matter of aesthetics. In some companies, this is the norm, while in others, everything starts from cell A1. Now, type the number 1 in cell B3 and the following text in cell C3 so that the entire row looks like this:
1 Open Microsoft Excel!
In the Headings, specifically where it says column C, hover your mouse at the end of the column until it changes to a symbol indicating column resizing. Then, stretch column C to ensure that all the text you type and will type in that column is clearly visible. Also, note that even though we’re not doing any formatting, by default, numbers align automatically to the right side of the cell, while text always aligns to the left side of the cell. Next, move to cell B4; type the number 4 and in cell C4 type the following text:
2 Click on new blank document!
Here, it means to click on "Blank workbook". Next, we move to the following row:
3 Check Zoom Layout to be OK for you!
At the bottom of your editor, to the right of the status line, you’ll find Zoom Layout, where you have - Zoom out and + Zoom in. Using Zoom, you can move left or right and adjust the size of your workbook on the screen to fit your preference. For example, on our 14-inch laptop, Zoom is always set to around 130%. On a 27-inch PC monitor, it’s generally 120%. Overall, adjust the Zoom to suit your needs. Then type the next row:
4 Create a table with title 'Hello World - To Do List'!
We already did this step when we started typing in Microsoft Excel. We just need to center the title; so, a bit of formatting will be necessary. Type the following row:
5 Use Merge & Center with the title of the table!
This means: position yourself in cell B1, then hold down the Shift key and click on cell C2. This way, you’ve selected both cell B2 and C2. With both cells selected, click the "Merge & Center" button found on the alignment toolbar. Once you’ve done this, you’ll see that your title from cell B2 has expanded to cell C2 and is centered between both cells.
Type the following item:
6 Save the document!
Click the Save button or go to the File menu and then click on the Save menu item. Create a folder for this tutorial and name it microsoft_excel_tutorial. Save your Microsoft Excel document in that folder and name it 01. Hello World – My First Microsoft Excel Document; the Save dialog will automatically add the *.xlsx extension. If you were using macros or VBA - Visual Basic for Applications in your document, the extension would be *.xlsm. Now, type the next item on our To-Do List.
7 Close the document!
Click on File and then the Close menu item. Next, click on File -> Open -> Browse and locate your microsoft_excel_tutorial folder and open your Microsoft Excel document. Then type the following lines:
8 Open the document!
9 Save your document with another name!
Click on File -> Open -> Browse and name the new document 01. My First Microsoft Excel Document and press Save. If you look at the title bar of your workbook, you’ll see that the document name has changed. Type the next line:
10 Close and open the document!
Then close and reopen your workbook as you have done so far. Note that if you are prompted to save your work, click Yes. You may not have noticed, but unlike Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel 2021 and older versions do not have an AutoSave feature that automatically saves your work. Therefore, you often need to manually click the Save button to save your work. Let’s move on to the next line.
11 Delete the old document!
Click on File, and under the Home menu item in Recent, you’ll find two documents. Delete the older one by right-clicking on it and selecting Delete File. Similarly, you can remove a document from the list using the Remove from list menu item, but in that case, it will not be removed from your computer. Return to your workbook and type the following lines.
12 Create a new sheet!
13 Rename the second sheet to 'New Sheet 2'!
14 Delete the second sheet!
15 Create a copy of Sheet 1!
16 Delete the copy of Sheet 1!
17 Close the document!
Creating and manipulating sheets is quite simple, so I’ll leave these tasks for you to study and complete on your own. If you’re unsure or encounter any difficulties, check out the following video where you can also see everything, we covered in the first lesson of this excellent Microsoft Excel tutorial.
No comments:
Post a Comment