Note: Much of the information in this handout was derived from the Excel 2007 tutorial on the iSchool IT lab website. This tutorial can be found at http://sentra.ischool.utexas.edu/technology/tutorials/excel_2007/index.php. Many thanks to the tutorial’s creator!
What’s New in Excel 2007
New User Interface
Microsoft Excel 2007 looks significantly different from earlier editions of Excel. The new interface is designed to group tasks thematically on a Ribbon, theoretically making it easier to find the tools you are looking for. However for some users accustomed to earlier versions of Microsoft Excel the transition can be frustrating.
If you are not familiar with the new interface and the Ribbon, please reference the handout from the Microsoft Office Basics short course, which can be found on the iSchool short courses webpage, http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/technology/instruction/short_courses.php. For the Microsoft Office Excel course, it will be assumed that you are familiar with the layout of the Ribbon and the new interface.
New Default Save Format
An Excel 2007 file saved with the extension .xlsx will not open in earlier edition of Excel, instead you will need to save your file as a .xls.
To do this click the Office Button, go to Save As and select Excel 97-2003 Workbook. Your file will be saved with the .xls extension.
To change the default
save format, click the Office Button and go to Excel Options (at the bottom) and click Save in the left menu bar. In the “Save files in this format” drop-down menu, choose Excel 97-2003 Document (*.doc). Your files will be saved in the .doc format from now on!
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Customizable Toolbar Excel 2007 offers a customizable, easy-to-find toolbar called the Quick Access Toolbar, located in the upper left corner of the document next to the Office Button. The toolbar automatically includes the save, undo, and repeat buttons. To add a new action to the toolbar, right-click any frequently used action (such as Paste) and choose Add to Quick Access Toolbar.
Introduction: The elements of a spreadsheet
Basic Terminology An Excel worksheet consists of rows and columns of cells. When a cell is selected, it is an active cell and will have a black border on all four sides.
To select an entire row, click on the number along the left (“1”). To select an entire column, click on the letters along the top (“A”). The cursor will change to an arrow when you hold it over the row/column headings. Click and drag to select multiple.
When working with Excel, you are actually working in a workbook of worksheets. To move between worksheets in a book, click on the tabs "Sheet 1", "Sheet2" and "Sheet3" at the bottom of the screen. You can change the names of these tabs by right-clicking the tab and selecting Rename. Select multiple by holding shift and click.
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Data Types Labels - Labels are typically used as column or row headers or simply to identify whatever you have entered into the cell.
Constants - Constants refer to the (typically) numerical data that you have entered into cells. They are the entries in your spreadsheet that are not derived from equations or other analysis tools.
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Functions and Formulas - Functions and formulas are expressions that you can use to manipulate or analyze information that you have entered into a cell. These expressions always begin with an = sign.
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Part 1: Formatting Tools You can format the cells of a worksheet to reflect the type of data entered. Excel defaults to align text on the left side of cells and dates on the right side of cells.
There are three groups of tools that are useful when visually formatting cells, numbered in red in the above graphic.
Font Group Use these tools to change the font type and size, and make data bold, italicized, or underlined. You can also add or remove borders to a single cell or to a set of cells. To add a border to one or more cells (or full rows and columns), select the cell(s) to
be included and then press the arrow button next to the Border icon . Another useful tool in the Font group is the Fill Color tool , which can be used to change the background color of a cell, row, or column. This can be helpful both for sorting purposes and for creating a visually appealing document for printing and sharing.
Alignment Group Use this group to position your data within the cell, whether aligned left, top left, or centered, for example. You can also change the angle of the font with the Orientation
tool . Another important tool is Word
Wrap . This fits all of the data or
text in a cell within the cell itself, instead of letting it run on to other cells. You can use
Merge and Center to merge
cells across several rows or columns and center the text (select all cells, then select merge and center).
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Number Group The number group allows you to dictate how Excel understands and represents the data you have entered. For example, changing the style to Accounting will add two decimal places and a $ to each cell. The drop down menu gives you an example of how the data will look for each option. The icons below the drop-down menu add or
remove the $ ,% , comma , and number of
decimal places .
Cells Group You can insert, delete and format cells, rows/columns and full sheets with the Cells group. Formatting includes setting the row height, column width, naming the sheet or giving the tab a color. You can also insert or copy sheets here.
View Tab / Window Group
A very useful tool for working with larger spreadsheets is the Freeze Panes tool located in the View tab. Clicking on Freeze Panes will give you the options to freeze the top row, the first column, or a selection of your choice. These frozen panes will not move as you scroll through the document, allowing you to see column and row labels while you work.
If you choose the Freeze Panes option, be aware that you must first select the cell directly under and to the right of the panes you wish to freeze.
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Part 2: Working with Your Data
Extending Series Excel is really good at noticing patterns in your data. This makes it easy to enter series such as sequential numbers (18, 19, 20, 21), multiples of a certain number (2, 4, 6, 8), or even months (January, February, March). To take advantage of this, select the cells in which you have started entering the data for your series. When you place the pointer arrow in a corner of the cell last, it will change to a cross, or +. Drag this down to include as many cells as needed for the series.
Sorting Data Sorting data can be useful when you want to change how your information is organized. In the example below we have a list of courses and the semester in which they were taken. Right now the information is organized by year and semester. However, we need to view the list in order of Course Number.
To sort the data, first we need to select the cells we want to sort. In this case, since we want all of the data in our worksheet included, we will select all. This is easily done by clicking on the triangle in the upper left corner of the worksheet, between the column letters and row numbers.
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Once the data is highlighted, go to the Data tab on the ribbon and select Sort. A screen like the one below will appear:
Notice that in the top right corner a box is checked that says My data has headers. Excel assumes we are using headers to identify the information in each row, so it uses those names as labels. If you uncheck that box, then the row of labels will be included in the information sorted.
In this example we will sort by course number, so select Course No. from the Column drop-down menu. Leave the Sort On drop down on Values. Notice that you can also sort by Cell Color, Font Color, or Cell Icon. This might be useful when you have used cell color to note an approaching deadline for a project and want to group those projects due soonest together.
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Choose the Order to be A to Z so that the list is sorted alphabetically.
Now our spreadsheet is arranged differently:
Editing Data on Multiple Worksheets
Sometimes you will be working on
multiple worksheets within a workbook and will want to change an item, such as a column label, on all of the worksheets. To do this, select all of the sheets you want to change by holding down the Control key and clicking on the
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worksheet tabs of the sheets you want to include. Once they are selected, any change you make on one sheet will affect all of the selected sheets. To stop editing multiple sheets, simply click on any worksheet tab and the other sheets will be deselected.
Inserting Charts To insert a chart, select the data that you want to chart, including the column titles and the row labels. Click the Insert tab, and in the Charts group, click the type of chart you want to insert (column, line, pie, bar, etc.). Each of these will bring up a drop-down menu of options.
After your chart is inserted on the worksheet, the Chart Tools appear on the Ribbon with three tabs: Design, Layout, and Format. On these tabs, you’ll find the commands you need to edit your chart. When you click outside of the chart, these tools go away.
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Part 3: Importing and Printing Data Importing data is useful when the information you need is in another type of file, or in another location. Common file types that can be imported include .txt and .csv. In the first example, our information is in a .txt file in a tab-delimited format. Download the file "downloadable.txt" at http://sentra.ischool.utexas.edu/technology/tutorials/excel_2007/downloadable.txt.
Importing from Text
To import the text file, click on the Data tab in the ribbon and select From Text in the Get External Data group on the left. When the Open screen appears, find downloadable.txt wherever you saved it and click Import.
The following screen, Step 1, will appear. Choose Delimited and click Next.
For Step 2, make sure Tab is selected for the type of delimiter. Notice the other types of delimiters that are possible. If you download a file and are not sure what type of delimiter is used, try clicking through the options - the format of the text in the Data preview area will change. When the data is presented in a way that
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makes sense (like the image below), that is when you have chosen the correct delimiter type. Click Next.
Step 3 allows you
to define the data format for each column. For instance, if we were importing dates, we could note here how we want them presented. To make changes to the data format, click on a column in the Data preview area and then make a new selection under Column data format. In our example, everything is in General format. Click Next.
Now we choose where we want to put the data. Choose Existing worksheet if you are working from a blank worksheet. If not, choose new worksheet - it is like opening a blank document in Microsoft Word. Click OK.
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Your worksheet should now be filled with data:
Importing from the Web
Now we are going to import data from the Web. In our example we will use NCAA college football rankings on espn.com. Select From Web in the Get External Data group under the Data tab in the Excel ribbon.
A modified browser window will open. Navigate to:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/rankingsindex. Notice the yellow arrows on the page. This signifies all of the tables on the page that you can select to import. Select the yellow arrow next to the AP Top 25 list on the right side of the page. (Notice that you can select multiple tables for import at one time.) Then hit Import in the bottom right corner of the window.
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Just like when we imported a text file, we are asked where we want to put the data. Select Existing worksheet if you are working from a blank worksheet, or select New worksheet to start a new one. Select OK.
Your data should now look like this:
The best part
about importing data from the Web is that Excel has now established a Connection with the chart. Therefore, whenever it changes, the data in our worksheet will change when we select Refresh All from the Connections group under the Data tab.
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Printing Your Data Before you print, select the print area of the worksheet to make sure you print only the data you want. Under the View tab of the ribbon, select Page Break Preview.
Blue lines will appear that outline the print area of the worksheet. To change the print area, click on these blue lines and move them in or out.
The example below uses the data imported from the espn.com Web site. Notice that the information in one cell takes up more than two pages. To fit this into one cell, select the particular cell and use the Wrap Text feature under the Home tab.
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Now your page should look like this:
Repeat Rows
Say that you
continued to add information to this worksheet so that when you were ready to print, it took up several pages. In this case, you might want to include the column headings on every printed page.
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Under the Page Layout tab, select Print Titles. This will open a menu where you can make several selections for how you want your printed project to look.
Click on the button for Rows to repeat at top. This will open a small window that allows you to select the rows from the open worksheet. While this window is open, click on the row in the worksheet so that the top row is bordered by a flashing dotted line and the small window now looks like this:
Click the button on the small
window again to return to the original screen. Note that you can do the same for selecting columns to repeat.
Print Gridlines
On this same Page Setup screen
you can also select if you want to print the gridlines. Check the box next to Gridlines. If you are not sure, Click Print Preview in the bottom right to see how your worksheet looks in printed form.
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Part 4: Excel for Macs and Excel Alternatives
Excel for Macs
Excel looks very different on Mac computers because it has a completely different interface. All the functions are the same, they are just located in different places. Instead of a Ribbon, Macs have a toolbar and formatting palettes that contain the tools used to format and customize documents.
The toolbar and formatting palette.
Alternatives to Microsoft® Excel
If, in spite of all these nifty features, you decide you don’t like Excel, don’t want to purchase Excel, or simply don’t have it on your computer, here are some alternatives.
Open Office • Files can be exported to Microsoft Office • Open source software (anyone can report bugs, request new features, or enhance the software) • Completely free! • http://www.openoffice.org
Google Docs • Online documents can be accessed from anywhere and shared with other Google users (great for group projects!) • Files can be uploaded from or exported to Microsoft Office • Completely free! • http://www.docs.google.com
ThinkFree Office • Designed to be compatible with Microsoft Office • $49.95 for software including word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations plus a file manager • http://product.thinkfree.com/office
Written by: Helen Kuncicky, Spring 2009 | Updated by: Rebecca Holte, 8/27/09 Filename: excel_1_20090827_print.doc
