The “Excel” program
“Excel” is a spreadsheet program that can calculate, compare, organize and present data.
You can start “Excel” by double clicking the icon on your desktop, or by clicking the “Start” button, at the bottom left corner of the taskbar, select “Programs” and click “Microsoft Excel.”
Once “Excel” starts, we can immediately start creating “Spreadsheets”.
But let us first see what we get to see when you start “Excel”.
If you want to work quickly and efficiently with “Excel”, you must know where you can find everything.
We can see a box with bars on the far top left corner of the window where all toolbars are accessible. When we click the bars we can have a floating toolbar by clicking and dragging to where you want it.
The beam is placed back again by clicking and dragging it to the place where it came from on the title bar.
The “Title bar”
It indicates the name of our document, with the buttons:
to minimize:
to maximize:
last size:
close:
If we click all links in the title bar on the Excel icon, we open dropdown menus that give us the same choices as the buttons we find on the right side of the title bar. Beside to the icon, we find the name from the application “Microsoft Excel”. We can find the name we have given to our database in the application title.
The “Menu bar”
(“File”) (“Edit”) (“View”) (“Insert”) (“Format”) (“Tools”) (“Data”) (“Window”) (“Help”) (Type a question)
In the menu bar, we find many names, which we call commands.
Clicking on these commands, gives us a drop-down menu from which we can choose any function.
If you choose a job where an arrow appears beside it, a second dropdown menu appears. To close a menu or a command, click again to select the menu name or click anywhere outside the menu.
If a command is in Gray color, it means that it is not available now. Fo eg. the command “Paste” (“Paste”) in the “Edit” menu (“Edit”) will be Gray if you do not first use “Copy” (“Copy”) Or “Cut” (“Cut”) command.
If there is a keyboard shortcut mentioned next to a command, this means that using this combination of keys performs the same action, without first having to open the menu.
The buttons minimize, close, etc. in the menu bar, refer to our spreadsheet, not on the application.
Note that for each Menu item(command), a line is placed under a particular letter (eg in the “File” F is underlined, in the “Edit” E).
Click now on the F on your keyboard while pressing ‘Alt”-key. Then this command will be executed.
This can be useful for people who like to work with keyboard shortcuts.
The Standard toolbar
The standard toolbar has the most standard commands that are used in “Excel”.
Overview:
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“New” file |  |
“Open” file |
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“Save” file |  |
“Email” your file |
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“Search” |  |
“Print” file |
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“Preview” |  |
“Spell Checker” |
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“Cut” |  |
“Copy” |
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“Paste” |  |
“Formatting copy / paste” |
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“Undo” |  |
“Redo” |
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“Inserting Hyperlink” |  |
“Auto sum” |
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“”Descending order” |  |
“Ascending sort” |
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“Chart Wizard” |  |
“Sign” |
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“Help” |  |
“Worksheet zoom in / out“ |
“Toolbar” options
(Clicking on this arrow allows us to quickly and easily adapt our bar)
Some buttons have a black arrow next to them. Clicking on this arrow indicates a submenu from which you can make your choice.
The “Formatting toolbar “
The formatting toolbar gives us many opportunities by which we can change the appearance of our document.
It is important to see that our document is easy and convenient to read.
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Type | ||
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“Font size “ |  |
“Bold” |
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“Italic” |  |
“Underlined” |
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“Left align “ |  |
“Center align” |
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“Right align “ |  |
“Merge cells “ |
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“Currency formatting” |  |
“Percentage markup “ |
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“Thousand notation “ |  |
“More decimal places” |
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“Fewer decimal places “ |  |
“Reduce indentation “ |
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“Increase indentation “ |  |
“Border formatting” |
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“Fill color” |  |
“Text color” |
“Toolbar” options
(Click on this arrow allows us to quickly and easily adapt our bar)
The “Formula bar”
The “Formula bar” is normally found below the “Formatting toolbar”.
In the left box (“Name field”) we find the name of the selected cell in your “Worksheet”.
In the right box (“Formula field”) fx (or = in Office ’97 and 2000), we place our “Formula”
The “Drawing toolbar “
The Drawing toolbar makes it possible to insert various objects such as lines, arrows, circles, rectangles, pictures etc. into our “Spreadsheet”.
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Sign options |  |
Selection arrow |
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Choice of “AutoShapes” |  |
Draw lines |
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Drawing arrows |  |
Rectangle |
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Ellipse |  |
Text area signs |
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Text effects |  |
Chart card draw |
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Insert “Clip Art” |  |
Insert picture |
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Fill modify / delete |  |
Line color change / delete |
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Change text color |  |
Set line thickness |
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Line style |  |
Arrow style |
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“Shadow effects” |  |
“3D effects “ |
‘Toolbar” options
(Click on this arrow allows us to quickly and easily adapt our bar)
If you want to insert an object multiple times, double-click on the drawing object’s button in the “Drawing toolbar”.
The button stays selected. Click on the desired position (s) in the “Worksheet”.
Once the object (s) is inserted, click the drawing object ‘s button again to “de-select” it or press the “Esc” key on your keyboard.
The “Worksheet” window (“Spreadsheet” window)
The “Worksheet” (“Spreadsheet”) window always shows you the “Worksheet” that is selected at the bottom of the “Worksheet” titles. Almost all the work is done in this window.
A “Worksheet” can consist of 256 columns and 65,536 rows.
The first 26 columns are labeled A through Z, then they are labeled AA to AZ, then BA to BZ etc …
The rows are simply numbered from 1 to 65,536.
The point of intersection of a column and a row is called a cell. As explained below the cell C5 is selected.
So we place information in the “Cells”.
We can only enter information into the selected “Cell”.
After entering our information we click enter or click on another “Cell” in the “Worksheet”.
The “Status Bar”
The “Status Bar” provides us with information of our “Spreadsheet”.
In “Excel”, we have three options regarding the state of the “Excel” application:
“Ready”, “Edit”, or “Enter”.
If the status displays “Ready”, it means that “Excel” is ready to receive information.
If the status displays “Edit”, it means that we are currently editing the “Cells”.
If the status displays “Enter”, it means that we add data to an empty “Cell”.
Many may think this does not matter, but it might be nice to know.
The “Task Panel” (2003/XP)
This is a feature of only Office 2003 and Office XP.
On the right side of our “Spreadsheet”, we find the “Task panel”.
The “Task panel” can be used for different functions.
We can open an existing “Excel” document, we can create a new one, we can search for text in the open document or a document on our hard disk by clicking on the arrow, we can add pictures and do much more.
To turn off the “Task panel” we click on “View” – “Task Panel”.
