Mastering Advanced Excel - With ChatGPT Integration: Learn Formulas and Functions, Advance Pivot Tables, Macros, VBA Coding, ChatGPT Integration with exercises (English Edition)

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Overview of Excel 2021

Introduction

Excel 2021 is a subscription-based version of Microsoft Excel that is part of the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity tools. It is a cloud-based version of Excel that provides users with access to the latest features and updates. Here is an overview of some of the key features of Excel 2021:

Collaborative editing: Excel 2021 allows multiple users to edit a spreadsheet simultaneously, making it easier for teams to work together on projects.

Cloud storage: Excel 2021 files are stored in the cloud, which means that they can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection.

Power Query: Excel 2021 includes Power Query, a tool that allows users to connect to and import data from a variety of sources.

Dynamic arrays: With dynamic arrays, users can perform calculations on a range of values and return multiple results in a single cell.

Artificial intelligence: Excel 2021 includes AI-powered features that can analyze data and provide insights, such as the Ideas feature, which suggests charts, graphs, and other visualizations.

New chart types: Excel 2021 includes new chart types, such as the funnel chart and the map chart, which allow users to display data in new and interesting ways.

Improved data analysis: Excel 2021 includes new data analysis tools, such as the Data Types feature, which allows users to convert raw data into structured data that can be used in calculations and analysis.

MS Excel is a spreadsheet software, which is a tool used to record data, support to make plot and analyse the entered data. This is a powerful tool with numerous features that supports you to keep a budget, or to create invoice of sales, maintain a training log. You can store the details of your products or services enquiries and it has lots of other applications in business.

As in the previous version, this version has a set of menus at the top of window known as the Ribbon and all the Excel commands are present in that. A document of excel is known as a Workbook and each Workbook is divided into a set of rows and columns and a intersection of this tabular structure is known as the Cell. Data is entered into cells, also all operations over the spreadsheet are applied to the cells. MS excel is having a set of tools by which we can do the formatting, analysis and also create charts.

Structure

In this chapter, we will go over the following topics:

Components of the Excel window

Back stage view

Saving and sharing files online

Interacting with Excel

Working with default settings

Formatting of table

Paste Special preview

Flash fills

Quick Data analysis

Data Mining

TAT saving technique

Objectives

After studying this chapter, the reader should be able to understand the new layout of MS Excel, figure out how to change the default settings of MS Excel, understand the Excel tool in general, and identify the different types of references, as well as the Named Ranges.

Components of the Excel window

Figure 1.1 shows the Excel window:

Figure 1.1: Excel Welcome window

When you open Excel by clicking its shortcut, a unique landing page known as the Welcome page appears. This welcome page offers you various sample spreadsheets for you, such as movie lists, personal budgeting, trend, analysis and more. Most importantly, it offers the Blank worksheet option, by which we can open a blank spreadsheet and enter the data according to our requirement. The Welcome Window of Excel is shown in Figure 1.1.

This window also has a search online template search textbox. Using this, you can synchronize yourself with online office templates library.

When you double click the Blank window option, a blank spreadsheet opens, as shown in Figure 1.2:

Figure 1.2: Various Components of an Excel 2016 Window

Back stage view

In the back stage view, you manage your documents and the data related to them. Here, you can create, save, send, inspect documents for hidden metadata or personal information. The File tab replaces the MS office button and the File menu used in the earlier releases of MS Office. Figure 1.3 features the various options available in the Backstage