Keyboard Shortcuts, Excel Terminology, and Ninja Tips

Week 2: Toolbox

Keyboard Shortcuts

Insert new row/column

With an entire row selected, use Control + Shift + + (Mac: Control + I) to insert a new row.

With an entire column selected, use Control + Shift + + (Mac: Control + I) to insert a new column.

Delete row/column

Once you have a row/column selected, delete the row/column by using Control + - (Windows and Mac).

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Windows Shortcuts: Microsoft Office Support pages | Mac Shortcuts: Microsoft Office Support pages

Excel Terminology
Conditional Logic

This is a way to control the output in a cell based on the satisfaction/dissatisfaction of a certain condition. For
example, the IF statement will do one thing if a condition is satisfied; otherwise, it will do something else
which you will have to specify.

Argument

In relation to a function like IF, an argument is the input to the function. For example, the logical test is one of
the arguments of the IF function.

Logical Test

This is what you specify to Excel as what it should test to find out whether it’s true/false. This is the first
argument in the IF function. For example B4>5 is a logical test.

Logical operator

This is the mathematical relation that you use in the logical test; for example <> is a logical operator which
means not equal to. The logical operators are:

= Equals (use for text as well, not case-sensitive)

A nested function is a function inside another function. In terms of IF functions, this helps to further control
the output in a cell. For two IF functions nested within a 3rd one, this will mean that if the first condition (in
the outermost IF function) is not met, then Excel will still have another 2 conditions to test.

Logical functions

These are functions that return TRUE/FALSE as their output based on whether a certain set of conditions are
met. For example, for AND all conditions must be true for it to return TRUE and for OR only one of the
conditions must be true.

Logical value

This is to be differentiated from text; a logical value doesn’t go in quotation marks. An example of a logical
value is TRUE. Note that the logical value TRUE is different to the word "TRUE" - placing the term in
quotation marks tells Excel to treat it as text, rather than a logical value.

Ninja Tip of the Week

NOT
We can use the NOT function in IF statements like we have used the AND and OR functions. NOT is another
logical helper function and it is used to indicate that a logical test is not true. Consider the following example:

=IF(NOT(A5=1), B5*5%,0)

Reading out this function, it says "If the value in A5 is not equal to 1, then multiply the value in B5 by 5%; if
the test is not true, return the value 0 (zero)."

EXACT
When you use "=" to test if 2 strings are the same, it ignores the case of the strings. If you need to test that 2
strings are exactly equal, including the same case, use the EXACT function. EXACT is another logical helper
function. The EXACT function requires the two text strings that you are comparing to be separated by a
comma. Consider the following example:

=IF (Exact (A5, "JOHN"), B5*5%,0)

Reading out this function, it says "If the value in A5 is exactly JOHN, then multiply the value in B5 by 5%; if
the test is not true, return the value 0 (zero)."