Microsoft Excel - SPREADSHEETS

- an application program with rows and columns which enables us to carry out numerical
work quite easily

- each spreadsheet application (workbook) contains worksheets

- SPREADSHEETS are used for statistics, loan calculations, company accounts, club
accounts, student grades, payrolls, stock keeping in a supermarket etc

CELL: - point at which a row meets a column

RANGE: - a continuous group of cells that forms a square or rectangle and is treated as one
CELL REFERENCE/CELL ADDRESS the column position and row position of a cell (e.g.)
A2 - Column A and row 2 (meets here)

CONTENTS OF A CELL: can be

TEXT: - characters that cannot be or will not be used in a formula (e.g.) words
VALUE: - data that can be used (will be used) in calculation (e.g.) numbers
FORMULA (FUNCTION): - instruction to perform operation on values

ENTERING DATA

Select the cell you wish to enter data with mouse or arrow keys

Type in data

Press enter or arrow keys to go on to another cell

TO ADJUST CHARACTERS OF CONTENTS IN A CELL

Double click on the cell which contains the content you wish to adjust

Carry your cursor to the desired location

Make the necessary adjustment

Press enter

TO DELETE CONTENTS FROM THE CELL

Select the cell of which you need to delete its contents by the use of the mouse or arrow
keys

Press delete

TO REPLACE CONTENTS OF CELL WITH SOMETHING ELSE

You will perform the same instruction as entering data into that cell

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 CHANGING THE WIDTH OF A COLUMN
The appearance of number signs (######) in a cell indicates that the width of the cell is too small
to hold its contents and needs to be widened.

Carry your cursor at the top of the column where its label is found and place the cursor
between that column and the following column.

Once the arrow changes appearance, click and hold down the mouse and move the mouse
to the right until you get your desired width

Release your finger from the left button of the mouse

CHANGING THE HEIGHT OF A ROW

Place cursor on the row label you wish to make larger.

Carry the cursor between that row and the following row until the cursor changes
appearance

Once the cursor changes appearance, you will click and hold down on the mouse

Move the mouse towards you until you get the desired height of the row then release your
finger from the left button of the mouse

DELETING A WORKSHEET

Right click on the name of the worksheet

Click on delete then OK

RENAMING A WORKSHEET

Right click on the name of the worksheet (e.g.) sheet 1

Click on rename

Type your new name and press enter OR click on the worksheet itself
COPYING A WORKSHEET

Right click on the name of the worksheet (e.g.) sheet 1

Click on move or copy

Click make a copy

Select move to the end or after any worksheet

Press OK

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 ALIGNING CONTENTS IN A CELL

Select the cell or cells of which you wish to align the contents

Click on the desired alignment in the toolbar.


Merge and Centre
NB: If you wish to align a content of a cell in the centre of that cell only, you will use align
centre. However, if you wish to centre that content across a selection of cells e.g. from Columns
A to I, you will use merge and centre.
FORMATTING CONTENTS OF A CELL
 Select the cell or cells to be formatted
 Go to FORMAT (menu bar) cells OR right click on the selected cells then choose
Format cells
 Click on the number tab found on the Format Cells dialog box
These formatting features can be invoked
 General no specific number format
 Number if you desire a number of decimal places
 Currency if the content is monetary
Clicking on the font tab found on the format Cells dialog box allows you to format the font in
the cells
INSERTING A COLUMN/ROW
 Place your cursor in the column that is found to the right where the insertion is to take
place (place your cursor in the row just below where the insertion is to take place)
 Go to INSERT (menu bar) columns (Rows)

DELETING A COLUMN/ROW
 Right click on the column you wish to delete. (right click on the row you wish to delete)
 Click delete
 Select entire column (row)
 Click Ok

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 SORTING DATA
SORTING ON ONE COLUMN (FIELD)

Select/highlight (only) the items of the column to be sorted

Click on the Az icon in the toolbar for ascending OR ZA icon in the toolbar for
descending order OR

Right click on selected items and choose the ascending and descending icons
SORTING ON TWO OR MORE COLUMNS (FIELDS)

Select the all the data involved in the sorting

Go to DATA (menu bar) SORT . A sort dialog box will appear

In the first box select your primary field (the first field you want to sort on) then choose
the order of sorting (ascending or descending), do the same for the secondary field
(second box) or tertiary field (third box) if there is one

Click OK
COPYING TO OTHER CELLS
CONTIGUOUS CELLS
 Click on the cell you wish to copy
 Carry your cursor to the bottom right corner of that cell until the cursors appearance
changes to a black cross.
 When this black cross is visible. Click and hold down the left button of the mouse.
 Drag your mouse to select the other cells you wish the content or formula to be copied
into then release the left button of the mouse.

NON CONTIGUOUS CELL

 Right click on the cell you wish to copy and click copy OR use the other means of
copying mentioned in Microsoft word
 Right click on the cell you wish the content to be copied to and select paste or use any
other means of pasting mentioned in Microsoft word

USING FORMULA
Before you enter a formula into a cell start with the equal (=) sign
* multiplication + addition - subtraction / division ^ power
When using values of cells in a formula, one should not retype the values but click on the cell
containing the values

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AUTO SUM: () fx
Sigma sign () found in the standard toolbar
Finds the sum of a set of contiguous values
o Select the cells containing the values to be summed
o Click on the auto sum () icon

INSERTING FUNCTIONS

Click on the fx (Insert Function) icon found left of the Formula Bar window

From the insertion dialog box select the function you wish to insert

If the function is not in the list, click on the drop down arrow next to Most Recently Used
to change it to All then scroll through the list to find the function you want.

Click on that function and click OK

If necessary, Drag across the Function Arguments dialog box to select the desired cells
containing the values to be involved in the function.

1. AVERAGE
Select the cells which contain the values of which you are finding the average then click OK.
2. COUNT
-Counts the number of cells which contains values. Select the cells you wish to count then
click OK.
3. COUNTA
-Count the number of cells which contains text. Select the cells you wish to count then click
OK.
4. COUNTIF
-Counts a cell if it meets a certain condition. (e.g.) if the cells contain a value more than 50
Range select the cells from which the count is to be made.
Criteria in this case our criteria will be >50
Click OK
5. IF
-displays text or value if condition is TRUE else displays something else if condition is
FALSE. (e.g.) If cell A5 contains a value greater than or equal to 10 display EXCELLENT
else display POOR.

Logical Test select the cell with the mouse then type >=10

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Value_if_true type EXCELLENT
Value_if_false - type POOR
Click OK
6. MAX
-finds the maximum (largest, highest value) of a set of values.
7. MIN
- finds the minimum (smallest, lowest value) of a set of values.
8. NOW
Inserts the system date

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE CELL ADDRESSING

When copying formula to other cells the cell addresses change increasingly relative to the
cell which contains the formula. This sometimes gives a wrong result. This is known as
RELATIVE CELL ADDRESSING.
There are times when you do not want a certain cell(s) addresses to change when the
formula is copied to those cells. This is known as ABSOLUTE CELL ADDRESSING.
To invoke ABSOLUTE CELL ADDRESSING place a dollar sign before the letter
(column reference) and a dollar sign before the number ( row name)
Eg. B20 will become $B$20
A10 will become $A$10

FILTERING DATA
This allows you to extract (copy) a portion of the data elsewhere on the same sheet or
another sheet, and to use criteria to show what of the extracted sheet you wish to be
displayed.

Select the all the data involved that you wish to extract.

Go to DATA (menu bar) FILTER ADVANCED FILTER. An Advanced Filter
dialog box will appear
Click radio button to select copy to another location
In the copy to space, place the first cell the extraction range
will begin at OR click this icon, click on the cell you wish
the extraction range to begin at then click the same icon
once again. CLICK OK

Click on the first cell of the extraction range to make it active.

Go to DATA (menu bar) FILTER AUTO FILTER. Drop down arrows will appear
on the extracted range.

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Click on the drop down arrow for the columns for which the criteria come from then click
custom.

A Custom AutoFilter dialog box will appear

Click on the drop down arrow to select the desired criteria and type your figure in space
on the right.

CLICK OK.
INSERTING CHARTS
- used to display information graphically from statistical data. (e.g.) bar chart, line graph,
pie chart (etc). NB: A column chart is referred to as a BAR GRAPH

- select the data values that will be needed to create your chart. If the columns containing
the values are not adjoining each other so that they can be selected together then select
the first column normally, then press and hold down the CTRL key before selecting the
next column.

- Go to INSERT (menu bar) CHART OR click on the chart wizard found in the
standard toolbar

- Select the type of chart you want to insert and click on the chart sub-type you wish to use
then click next.

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 CREATING A PIE CHART
Go to step 3 of the chart wizard, using the following tabs:
Titles: insert the chart title here
Legend: places legend at different positions alongside the graph
NB: If you will not be printing the chart in coloured then a legend will be
irrelevant. You will uncheck the box Show Legend.
Data Labels: check category name to show the name of the slice
check percentage to get the percentage of each slice or check value to get
the value of each slice.

Go to step 4.
To place your chart on a separate sheet, you will check the radio button As a new sheet or
As an object in to place the chart on the same worksheet as the data values

CREATING A BAR CHART

Select Column Chart and go to Step 3 of the Chart Wizard, using the following tabs
Titles: insert the chart title, the title for the x-axis and the title for the y-axis
Gridlines: you can add MINOR gridlines if you desire
Legend: may not be necessary since the x and y-axis will contain the values used
to create the chart
Data Labels: add these if asked since the values are already shown on the chart
Go to step 4 and follow the last step for creating Pie Charts.