Excel Applied to Business Online Version 6.

Excel for Beginners

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All materials on these pages are copyrighted, unless otherwise indicated.

All rights reserved to Voitto Online.

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Editorial Supervision: Thiago Coutinho de Oliveira

Text Preparation: José Gabriel Baronto Couto Nagata

Review: Stella Schettino Muzzi

Version 6.0

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Excel Applied to Business Online Version 6.0

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets

opportunity.”

Elmer Letterman

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Excel Applied to Business Online Version 6.0

Presentation

The spreadsheet is a powerful tool to support the management and decision making process,
in the business context and in private life. In general, it is used for the preparation of tables,
spreadsheets and formulas for quick and accurate results.

A spreadsheet replaces the manual process or mechanical bookkeeping and calculations,

allowing the user to treat a great number of different information easily and quickly. If there
are modifications in your data, the formulas which these data are linked will be automatically
updated.

In this course, we will work from simple spreadsheets to advanced ones, through the
application of software tools in order to make possible your understanding and practical use.

This training is based on Excel 2013, however, you can work with other versions due to
similarities.

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Why Microsoft Excel?

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Excel for Beginners

1.1 Introduction to Excel Elements
Excel forms part of Microsoft Office Suite. Thus, the interface is the same as other programs of
the package, such as MS Word and MS PowerPoint. The image below shows the initial interface
of the software.

The Quick Access Toolbar, located on the top left, displays shortcuts of commands, and they can
be operated with just one click. This toolbar is customizable, allowing you to configure it the way
you find convenient.

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Below, and highlighted in red, are the Navigation Guides. They group together a number of
features, like other MS Office applications.

Excel works with rows and columns to make its operations, very similar to an array architecture.
This structure is called spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is a two-dimensional structure that has its
references in rows and columns. Fully completed, there are 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns.

The intersection of a vertical column and horizontal row is called a cell. In the example above,
the identified cell is named by marking its row and column, then the cell is C5.

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1.2 Formatting cells (CTRL + 1)

First of all, let's learn some tools used to format a spreadsheet. Formatting is important, because
we visually organize information in order to facilitate the interpretation of the recipient.

By clicking the right button on a cell, we find the "Format Cells...":

In this menu, there are 6 formatting features:

 Number: It refers to the type of information contained in the cell. When you select, for
example, the Currency Category, every number we enter there will be shown in the
following format:

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You can access it quickly in the Start menu at the top of the screen:

 Alignment: Text layout editor. It is next to the previous tool.

 Font: Specify font, color and size of letters or numbers. You can also change border
formatting and filling (the cell background color).

 Border: Let you choose the border style of the cell, such as line and color.

 Filling: Allows you to change the cell's background color and insert filling effects.

 Protection: Allows you to block a cell (content discussed further).

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1.3 Gridlines
Depending on the type of work, Excel may not look a "good-looking" software due to its rows
and columns, called gridlines.

The gridlines are used to help the user to view the boundary of each cell and which are merged.
However, the gridlines do not appear when you print the documents. It will be printed only the
borders applied to specific cells, as shown below.

Excel user view Prints

Voitto Tip:

The gridlines are used to help the user to view the boundary of each cell and which are
merged, but the gridlines do not appear when you print the documents. It is possible to
eliminate gridlines in order to improve appearance. Click the Display Tab > Uncheck
Gridlines and check that out!

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1.4 Inserting Images

Inserting pictures in Excel is very simple. Just copy it from a web page or another source and
paste to your spreadsheet. You can also go to the Insert tab, select Picture, and browse to the
picture you want to add.

1.5 Print Setup (CTRL + P)

Many times we need to print our spreadsheets, and some features help us to get the desired
result. Just click File > Print > Print Preview, as shown:

Then we can check how our excel files will be splited between pages before printing.

We can also change some settings such as the orientation (portrait or landscape), adjust the
margins, or add a header or footer. Just click the Settings tab.

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1.6 Find (CTRL + L) and Replace (CTRL + U)

Many times we need to search for a particular character in the entire spreadsheet, or even
replace it. The Find and Replace command can help. Just click Home tab > Find and Select > Find
or Replace on the right of the screen.

This tool is handy, because when we need to import system data (mainly foreign language), it is
very common to occur formatting problems. Replacing “.” with "," can be useful, since some
systems use the American numbering system.

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These replacements are also notable when we use Excel and another applications, like Minitab
(statistical analysis) and Arena (simulation). These softwares use the American System, so we
need to replace these details when exporting data.

A Freight Company calculates costs based on the weight carried. In order to make a data analysis,
the analyst downloaded the system information. He faced a problem: the column "Total" has na
error. After further analysis, it was found that the error was due to some kind of problem
performing the download, since the weight values came with "." in place of ",". Using the
previous feature, check how simple it is to work around this problem.

Vehicle Weight (kg) Price per kg Total

Truck 1 4605.87 $12,00 #VALOR!
Truck 2 4856.84 $12,00 #VALOR!
Truck 3 5453.39 $12,00 #VALOR!

Just find all the points and replace them by commas. We will use the shortcut Ctrl + U > perform
the proper typing > Replace All. Check the results!

The exercise presented above demonstrates the replacement of all characters in the workbook,
according to what we specified in the "Find". However, if there are only a certain range you want
to perform the replacement, you must select only this range and then use this feature (Ctrl + U).

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1.7 Paste Special

It is often necessary to paste a cell in a specific way. To do this, select and copy a cell by clicking
CTRL + C. Then, go to the Home tab, and Paste.

A window opens with a few preset options. Click the last option Paste Special.

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After that, the following window appears:

This feature lets you paste cells from a variety of ways. The option paste Values, for example,
paste the value that is in the cell of origin, regardless of how it was generated. For example, if
the cell of origin has a formula as the result of addition, when we copy and paste Value in
another cell, it pastes just the nominal value of the result.

1.8 Linked Paste

After learning this feature, you will remember for sure the numerous times you worked with
Excel spreadsheets in MS Word, and because of some minor modifications on the original
worksheet, you had to do all the work again.

Voitto Tip:

This feature is often used for performance reports made during the projects, in other
words, the data is updated frequently. For students there is wide applicability for
homeworks, particularly during the course of final papers and thesis.

This feature applies to all Microsoft tools!

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The ABC Supermarkets have operations in four regions of the country and intends to carry out
the survey of sales by product type.

With the worksheet "Company ABC" opened, select the cells B3 to G10 > Use the shortcut CTRL
+ C.

Open a new file on Microsoft Word to paste the selected table. Go to Home Tab and click on:
Paste > Paste Special > Paste Link. Select the options in the dialog box as shown below:

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Select OK and go back to our Excel spreadsheet without closing MS Word. To find out if the
feature actually worked, let's change the value of cell D8 to 50,000 and check if the value has
also changed in the Word document.

Also check on that:

As explained previously, this feature applies to all MS Office tools. In the same example
we have a chart (more details during the module 8), generated from the table. We will
perform the same procedure for the chart, however Paste Link in PowerPoint.

We chose to work with a chart in PowerPoint, it visually have greater acceptance by

listeners in a presentation. On the other hand, a table is not so accepted visually, more
used in reports.

Common Mistakes:
When working with documents copied into reports or presentations, they can come with
some sort of unwanted link to their sources, especially charts. To avoid this, it can be
selected: Paste Special > Values.

When we change the table and the value does not change directly into the pasted file,
you may have forgotten to check the option Paste Validation or Paste Link. If you have
made the correct procedure, just click the right button on the pasted file> update link.

1.9 Formulas

Excel performs a number of operations with formulas. Formulas are equations that perform
mathematical calculations on the worksheet. The data to be used in the calculations may be
provided by the user or references from other cells. To characterize a mathematical operation
in the cell, we need to start with "=".

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Voitto Tip:

As mentioned above, the values involved in a mathematical operation can be entered

by yourself or just referencing a cell. The second option is the most appropriate, since
values are always being updated, for example: inflation rate, interest rate and others.
Therefore, changing these values in the worksheet generates a huge rework. So, you
may always try to reference cells.

Below there is a simple example for you to understand the concept of mathematical operations
in Excel. This rule always start with "=" is also valid for functions, as described in Module 4.

Sylvio Andrade works at a cosmetics store and sold two products in different quantities.
However, he wants to know the total amount of units sold. How should he proceed?

As mentioned, the first argument is the "=" > select cell B4 > insert the "+" > select cell C4 > press
the ENTER key.

To perform multiplications use the "*", and divisions use the "/". Next, we will see the previous
case, however performing the multiplication of quantities. The result is 150?

Also check on that:

For those who already know the mathematical rules, Excel follows the same default,
the multiplications and divisions occur before additions and subtractions. If you want
to change this order, parenthesis are needed. For example: =(B4+C4)*D4.

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1.10 Functions

Pre-defined operations that work with the values of a spreadsheet. They range from simple to
complex functions such as statistical, financial, logical, and others.

Example 1 – Functions (Tab 4)

The retailer store Voitto recorded the number of cement bags sold in June 2015. The manager
needs to know the total amount sold to check the remaining quantity in stock.

We learned math operations, however, it is time consuming to sum each cell individually.

In this case, we can use functions. So let's type in cell G3 “=” > select the function SUM > select
the range C4: C33 > press ENTER.

Voitto Tip:

The range of cells can be made using the mouse cursor or holding down SHIFT and the
arrow keys.

However, for a faster selection of a range, we can use CTRL + SHIFT + ARROW. In this
case, Excel will select the whole range until it finds an empty cell. Be careful not to
have an empty cell in the middle of the range. It can cause errors in your calculations.

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Common Mistakes:
A common mistake is to use the semicolon ";" instead of the colon ":" to create a range
selection. Check the difference:

= SUM(C4,C7) > Returns the sum of the value C4 and C7 (180)

= SUM(C4:C7) > Returns the sum of the values from C4 to C7 (291)

Voitto Challenge:

Stella makes monthly purchases at a school. This is one of her many responsibilities, so
she decided to do a shopping list to preview and estimate the expenses for greater
control.

The goal is to find the total value of purchases and then Linked Paste this table in
Microsoft Word, simulating a sales report.

Extra Exercise 1

1.11 Briefing Module 1

It is possible to work with most of the features taught in the module after solving the Voitto
Challenge. However, to consolidate the knowledge, you can find a small brief of the main
topics covered in Module 1.

 Introduction to main Tabs used in Excel;

 Features, tools and formatting options;
 Find and/or Replace (Ctrl + L and Ctrl + U);
 Linked Paste (CTRL + C > Paste > Linked Paste). After changing the value, if it does not
change, use "Update Link" clicking the right mouse button;
 Mathematical operations: addition (+), subtraction (-), multiplication (*) and division (/);
 Function SUM.

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