Introduction to Excel 16/02/22

Contents
Create a Workbook .............................................................................................................................................. 2
Enter data................................................................................................................................................................. 2
Format the spreadsheet ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Apply borders to the cell ............................................................................................................................... 3
Change colour and text alignment ............................................................................................................ 3
Apply shading to the cell ............................................................................................................................... 4
Quickly calculate with Sum ............................................................................................................................... 4
Example 1................................................................................................................................................................. 4
Create a formula that refers to values in other cells .............................................................................. 5
See a formula ..................................................................................................................................................... 5
Example 2: ............................................................................................................................................................... 6
Available number formats in Excel ............................................................................................................... 6
Number formats ............................................................................................................................................... 6
Example 3................................................................................................................................................................. 8
Use conditional formatting to highlight information ............................................................................. 8
 Introduction to Excel 16/02/22

Introduction to Excel
Excel is a very effective tool to obtain meaningful information from large amounts of data.

It also works very well with simple calculations and to track almost any type of information.

The key to unlocking all this potential is the grid of cells. Cells can contain numbers, text or
formulas. Data is written to cells and grouped into rows and columns. This allows you to
add data, sort and filter it, put it on tables and create very visual graphics.

Create a Workbook
Excel documents are called books. Each book has sheets, which are usually called
spreadsheets. You can add as many sheets as you want to a book or you can create new
books to separate the data.

1. Click on File and then New.

2. In New, click on Blank workbook.

Enter data
1. Click on an empty cell.

For instance, cell A1 on a new sheet. The cells are referred to according to their location in
the row and column of the sheet, so that cell A1 is the first row in column A.

2. Enter text or a number in the cell.

3. Press Enter or Tab to move to the next cell.

To fill data in a series:

1. Enter the beginning of the series in two cells: such as Jan and Feb; or 2014 and 2015.
2. Select the two cells containing the series, and then drag the fill handle across
or down the cells.
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Types of data that can be entered:

 Text
 Number
 Date and Time
 Formula

Format the spreadsheet

Apply borders to the cell

1. Select the cell or range of cells to which you want to add a border.
2. In the tab Home, in the group Font, click on the arrow next to borders and then,
click on in the border style you want.

Change colour and text alignment

Select the cell or range of cells that contain (or will contain) the text to which you want to
format. You can also select one or more parts of the text within a cell and apply different
text colours to those sections

1. To change the colour of the text in the selected cells, in the Home tab, in the group
Font, click on the arrow next to Font colour and, then, click on the colour you
want.
2. To change the text alignment of the selected cells, in the Alignment group on the
Home tab, click the alignment option you want.

For example, to change the horizontal alignment of the cell contents, click on Left

alignment , on Centred or Right Alignment

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Apply shading to the cell

1. Select the cell or range of cells to which you want to apply shading.

2. On the Home tab, in the font group, select the arrow next to Fill Colour and
then, select the colour you want.

Quickly calculate with Sum

1. Select the cell below the numbers you want to add.
2. Select Sum in the Home tab:
3. Select the cells involved in the formula
4. Press Enter

For more calculations, select the

down arrow next to Sum, and select
a calculation. You can also select a
range of numbers to see common
calculations in the status bar.

Example 1
We receive from the different branches of the company the data corresponding to the sales
in euros of each salesman in the different trimester of the year.

Sales year 2021

Salesman Trimester 1 Trimester 2 Trimester 3 Trimester 4

Michael Smith 9000 12000 10500 12600

Ryan Jones 7200 8000 10500 10800

Helen Williams 8700 10200 10800 12000

Martin Johnson 66000 9600 9650 10200

Design a spreadsheet that reflects this data and allows you to obtain the following concepts:
 Introduction to Excel 16/02/22

 Total sales by trimester

 Total sales by seller

Create a formula that refers to values in other cells

Adding numbers is only one of the things you can do, but Excel can also do other
calculations.

1. Select a cell.
2. Type the equal sign =.

Formulas in Excel always begin with the equal sign.

3. Select a cell or type its address in the selected cell.

4. Enter an operator. For example, – for subtraction or + for the sum, * for product
or/for quotient.

5. Select the next cell or type its address in the selected cell.

6. Press Enter. The result of the calculation appears in the cell with the formula.

See a formula
1. When a formula is entered into a cell, it also appears in the Formula bar.

2. To see a formula, select a cell, and it will appear in the formula bar.
 Introduction to Excel 16/02/22

Example 2:
In view of the data presented in the following invoice format, obtain:

 The gross, net and VAT price for each product

 The gross, net total of the invoice

PRODUCT PRICE AMOUNT GROSS NET

Printer 99,9 2

CPU 349 4

Screen 79 4

Mouse 2,5 4

Keyboard 25 4

TOT.
GROSS TOT. NET

NOTE: Consider VAT= 21%

Available number formats in Excel

In Excel, you can format numbers in cells for things like currency, percentages, decimals,
dates, phone numbers, or social security numbers.

1. Select a cell or a cell range.

2. On the Home tab, select Number from the drop-down.

3. Select the format you want.

Number formats

To see all available number formats, click the Dialog Box Launcher next to Number on the
Home tab in the Number group.
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Format Description
General The default number format that Excel applies when you type a number. For
the most part, numbers that are formatted with the General format are
displayed just the way you type them. However, if the cell is not wide
enough to show the entire number, the General format rounds the numbers
with decimals. The General number format also uses scientific
(exponential) notation for large numbers (12 or more digits).
Number Used for the general display of numbers. You can specify the number of decimal
places that you want to use, whether you want to use a thousands separator, and
how you want to display negative numbers.
Currency Used for general monetary values and displays the default currency symbol with
numbers. You can specify the number of decimal places that you want to use,
whether you want to use a thousand separator, and how you want to display
negative numbers.
Accounting Also used for monetary values, but it aligns the currency symbols and decimal
points of numbers in a column.
Date Displays date and time serial numbers as date values, according to the type and
locale (location) that you specify. Date formats that begin with an asterisk (*)
respond to changes in regional date and time settings that are specified in Control
Panel. Formats without an asterisk are not affected by Control Panel settings.
Time Displays date and time serial numbers as time values, according to the type and
locale (location) that you specify. Time formats that begin with an asterisk (*)
respond to changes in regional date and time settings that are specified in Control
Panel. Formats without an asterisk are not affected by Control Panel settings.
Percentage Multiplies the cell value by 100 and displays the result with a percent (%) symbol.
You can specify the number of decimal places that you want to use.
Fraction Displays a number as a fraction, according to the type of fraction that you specify.
Scientific Displays a number in exponential notation, replacing part of the number with E+n,
where E (which stands for Exponent) multiplies the preceding number by 10 to
the nth power. For example, a 2-decimal Scientific format displays 12345678901
as 1.23E+10, which is 1.23 times 10 to the 10th power. You can specify the
number of decimal places that you want to use.
Text Treats the content of a cell as text and displays the content exactly as you type it,
even when you type numbers.
Special Displays a number as a postal code (ZIP Code), phone number, or Social Security
number.
Custom Allows you to modify a copy of an existing number format code. Use this format
to create a custom number format that is added to the list of number format codes.
You can add between 200 and 250 custom number formats, depending on the
language version of Excel that is installed on your computer.
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Example 3
We maintain a table with the data corresponding to the sales and base salaries of a group of
commercials, as well as the commissions established in the company. It is desired to prepare
a complete report with the pending data.

Commission 2%

Seller Sales Commission Base Salaries Total

Martin Smith 27600 1500

Greg Solo 36000 1500

Anna Hughes 23500 1500

Sienna Grey 45600 1500

Anthony Church 49500 1500

Helen Lewis 21000 1500

Victor Newman 32100 1500

James Hanks 25200 1500

Victoria Anderson 47500 1500

George Cortés 40700 1500

Use conditional formatting to highlight information

Use conditional formatting to help you visually explore and analyse data, detect critical
issues, and identify patterns and trends.

Conditional formatting makes it easy to highlight interesting cells or ranges of cells,

emphasize unusual values, and visualize data by using data bars, colour scales, and icon sets
that correspond to specific variations in the data.

A conditional format changes the appearance of cells on the basis of conditions that you
specify. If the conditions are true, the cell range is formatted; if the conditions are false, the
cell range is not formatted. There are many built-in conditions, and you can also create your
own (including by using a formula that evaluates to True or False).
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Conditional formatting of monthly record high temperature data for various locations, with
colors that correspond to the values in an intuitive way (hotter values are more orange/red,
while cooler values are more yellow/green)

Conditional formatting that uses cell background colors to highlight different product
categories, a 3-arrow icon set to show cost trends (up, level, down), and data bars to show
differences between product mark-ups.

Conditional formatting in Excel allows us to apply a certain format to those cells that meet
certain conditions and criteria. Formatting a column of data based on its own values is very
simple, you must select the column and indicate the desired rule from "conditional
formatting".

To achieve formatting a column of data based on values found in another column:

1. Select the data you want to conditionally format.

 Introduction to Excel 16/02/22

2. On the home tab, select “Conditional Formatting” and then “New Rule”.

3. In the option “Use a formula to determine which cells to format”, you must write an
“=” and then the first cell of the column on which we want to base our conditional
formatting. That is, there is a table with the sales of by product, and we want to format the
products whose sales have been greater than 100, if the range of products goes from C2 to
C8, and the sales are in the column D, D2 must be indicated. Then you must indicate the
function you want cell D2 to fulfill to apply the conditional format to C2. The same formula
will apply for the entire column. In this case we write “=D2 > 100” and then specify the
format that we want to apply to the product column:

You can apply conditional formatting to a range of cells (either a selection or a named
range), an Excel table, and, in Excel for Windows, even a PivotTable report.