MS Excel 2007 Beginning Class
MS Excel 2007 Beginning Class
This class is designed to give a basic introduction into Microsoft Excel 2007. Specifically, throughout
the class, we will progress from learning how to open Microsoft Excel to actually creating a
document. It is impossible in this amount of time to become totally proficient using Microsoft
Excel, but it is our hope that this class will provide a springboard to launch you into this exciting
world!
Course Objectives
By the end of this course, you will be able to
Open Excel and create a new worksheet.
Format columns and rows.
Apply basic text formatting.
Know the difference between deleting and clearing a cell.
Automatically fill in Labels.
Merge cells.
Use Autosum.
Perform simple mathematical calculations.
Create simple formulas.
Print.
This booklet will serve as a guide as we progress through the class, but also can be a valuable tool
when you are working on your own. Any class instruction is only as effective as the time and effort
you are willing to invest in it. We encourage you to practice between classes. There are computer
workshops on Sundays and Wednesdays where you can practice the skills you have learned.
We have also provided several lists of resource materials that can be used for more information or
practice at the end of this booklet
Janice Collins
Technology Supervisor
West Palm Beach Public Library
This class teaches Microsoft Excel basics. To begin, let’s open Microsoft Excel. You can do this by
clicking on Start, All Programs, and Microsoft Excel. Let’s look at the toolbars.
This is the Title Bar. It gives the name of the program and the title of the workbook you are using.
Since we have just opened up a new workbook and have not saved it with a name, the default title
is Book1.
The Office Logo Button is located at the upper left of the Title Bar.
Clicking on it will open a dropdown menu that contains many of the
menu items that used to appear under File in prior versions of Excel.
Right beside the Office Button is the Quick Access Toolbar. You can
Add or subtract commands to the toolbar by simply clicking/ on
them in the list.
Next we have the Ribbon. The Ribbon has seven Tabs that give instructions to the software. The
Ribbon Tabs begin with Home and continue with Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, Review, and
View. On the right-hand end, there is an icon for the Help Menu, Minimize, Restore Down, and
Close.
Clicking on one of these Tabs will open the Group. The Group that belongs to each Tab shows
related Command items together. You may then choose a Command.
When Excel is opened, a workbook appears with three worksheets. Each worksheet contains
columns and rows. There are 1,048,575 rows and 16,384 columns. The combination of a column
coordinate and a row coordinate make up a cell address. For example, the cell located in the upper
left corner of the worksheet is cell A1, meaning column A, row 1. The cell address is visible in the
Name Box.
Place your cursor in the first cell, A1. The formula bar will display the cell address in the Name Box
on the left side of the Formula bar. Notice that the address changes as you move around the sheet.
You can easily move from cell to cell by pressing tab or using the arrow keys.
Exercise 1
1. To change the location of a newly added worksheet, click once on the tab and hold down
the left mouse button and drag the worksheet to its new location.
2. It is also possible to change the name of each worksheet. Right-click on the Sheet 1 tab and
left-click on Rename. Once you click on Rename, the name of the sheet becomes
highlighted and you can simply type in a new name. Double-clicking on the tab will also
enable you to type in a new name.
3. You can also change the color of the tabs by right-clicking on the tab and choosing Tab
Color. Then simply choose a color!!!
4. It is possible to change the magnification of a worksheet so that you can read it better. To
do this, click on View and then Zoom. Go ahead and try the different magnifications to see
which works best for you. You can also make use of the Zoom bar in the lower right-hand
corner to zoom to a comfortable reading size.
Moving around a worksheet is easy! You can easily move from cell to cell by using the arrow keys
or pressing tab (will move the cursor to the right) or shift-tab (shift-tab will move you to the left).
You can also use your mouse to click within a cell which will select that cell. Sometimes you will
want to select a range of cells.
A range is a group of one or more cells. If you select more than one cell at a time, you can then
perform actions on the group of them at once, such as applying formatting or clearing the contents.
A range can even be an entire worksheet.
A range is referenced by the upper left and lower right cells. For example, the range of cells B1, B2,
C1, and C2 would be referred to as B1:C2.
To select a range:
With the mouse: Drag across the desired cells with the left mouse button held down. Be
careful when you're positioning the mouse over the first cell (before pressing the mouse
button). Position the pointer over the center of the cell, and not over an edge.
If you drag while the pointer is on the edge of the cell, Excel interprets the selection as a move
operation and whatever is in the cell(s) is dragged to a different spot.
With the keyboard: Select the first cell, and then hold down the Shift key while you press
the arrow keys to expand the selection area.
To select a nonrectangular or noncontiguous range, select the first portion of the range (that is, the
first rectangular piece), and then hold down the Ctrl key while you select additional cells/ranges
with the mouse.
To select an entire column, click the column header (where the letter is). To select an entire row,
click the row header (where the number is). You can click one row or column and then drag to
select additional columns, or hold down Ctrl as you click on the headers for noncontiguous rows
and/or columns.
Exercise 2
Let’s practice:
1. Click column B's letter to select that column.
2. Hold Shift and click column D's letter. Columns B, C, and D should all be selected.
3. Release the Shift key.
4. Hold Ctrl and click column G's letter. Now B, C, D, and G are all selected.
5. Release the Ctrl key.
6. Click row 2's number. The columns are deselected, and row 2 is now selected.
7. Click in cell B4. The row is no longer selected, because you weren't holding down Shift or
Ctrl. Now only B4 is selected.
8. Press and hold the Shift key while pressing the down arrow key two times. Now B4 through
B6 are selected. This range is called B4:B6.
March 22, 2025 Page 4
9. Still pressing the Shift key, press the right arrow two times. Now the range B4:D6 is
selected.
10. Release the Shift key and then press and hold the Ctrl key.
11. Drag across cells B9, C9, and D9. Those cells are selected in addition to B4:D6.
12. Release the Ctrl key.
13. Press Ctrl+A. This is a shortcut for selecting the entire sheet.
14. Click in any cell to undo the selection.
15. Click the square containing a gray triangle at the upper intersection of the column letters
and the row numbers. The entire sheet is selected again.
Let’s learn how to enter data into your worksheet. First, you place the cursor in the cell in which
you would like to enter data. Then you type the data and press Enter.
Exercise 3
1. Place the cursor in cell A1.
2. Type Jane. Tab to the next cell and type Smith.
3. Move the cursor back to cell A1.
4. Change "Jane" to "Joe."
You can also edit information in a cell by double-clicking in a cell or by clicking in the formula bar.
Try these two options.
Exercise 4
1. Click on the Office button and then on Open.
2. Click on Desktop and then look for Business Trips.xls.
3. Double-click on the file.
4. Edit the text in cell A1 to read Gross Receipts Summary.
5. Change the value in cell D5 to 18.
6. Change the value in cell G12 to 28.
7. Change the value in cell J18 to 25.
8. In cell A19, type # nights @ $155.
9. In cell A18, change the text to read # nights @ $95.
10. In cell A17, select the cell and press the Delete key, clearing that cell's contents.
11. In cell K11, type December, and then press Enter.
12. In cell K17, type December, and then press Enter.
13. In cell K18, type 16, and then press Enter.
14. In cell K19, type 2, and then press Enter.
15. Click on the Save button in the Quick Access Bar.
Inserting Columns and Rows
Exercise 5
To insert a column or row:
1. Click on the cell on the right of the two columns between which you wish to insert. To insert
rows, click on the lower row of the two between which you wish to insert.
2. Go to “Insert” and select “Columns”. To insert a row, go to “Insert” and select “Rows”.
3. Appearing to the left of your highlighted column or above your highlighted row will be a new
row or column. Insert a row to the left of Column I and a row under Row 1.
Often you will need to change your columns and rows in order for text to fit or for the text to fit on
the page correctly. There are a number of different methods one can use to do this. Let’s start with
columns.
Column Width: The formatting that is unique to columns is Column Width. Column Width is
measured in characters. A column's width can be from 0 to 255 characters, which is a really wide
column! Decimal values are allowed. In fact, the default size is 8.43 characters.
A width of 12, for example, means the column is wide enough for 12 average characters, using
whatever you chose as the Standard font. The default is Calibri 11 pts. To change the font from the
default, go to Tools-Options-General-Standard font.
Column Width
Be careful when you set a column's width with AutoFit. The column may wind up wider than you
expected. Any text will be on a single line in its cell. No matter how long the text is! If you
accidentally find you've widened a cell out of sight to the right, use Undo. (my favorite button!)
Then resize the column with another method.
Dragging is a natural method of adjusting column width. But since you can't see the change until
you release the mouse button, it may take you several attempts to get a satisfactory width.
Row Height
T he only unique formatting for rows is Row Height. Row Height is measured in points, like font
size, from 0 to 409 points. A row height of zero hides the row.
The default setting for Row Height is AutoFit. The row height adjusts to the largest font size in the
row.
AutoFit will leave a little white space, called the cell padding, between the text in the cell and the
cell edges. When Arial 10 pt. is the Standard Font, the Row Height is 12.75 points. You may find
that this looks a bit crowded when the gridlines are shown. If you don't print the gridlines, your
paper version will look OK.
In Microsoft Excel, each workbook is made up of several worksheets. Before moving to the next
topic, let’s move to a new worksheet. You can move from worksheet to worksheet by clicking on
the tabs at the bottom of the worksheet. Let’s move to Sheet 2.
Once information has been entered into a cell, you might want to change or enhance the way the
information is displayed. Text can be formatted in the same way that one uses in Microsoft Word
or PowerPoint. Most of the formatting choices can be found in the Font grouping under the Home
tab. There are numerous ways to format data. Let’s look at some. First remember to always make
sure that the cell you want to format is selected.
Using Formatting Buttons – On the Ribbon, make sure the Home tab is selected. In the Number
Group box, there are several buttons which allow one-click formatting.
Exercise 8
1. Type in the number 214567 in Cells A1, B1, C1, and D1.
2. With the cursor in A1, click on the Currency button.
3. With the cursor in B1, click the Percent button.
4. To add decimal places, click the Increase Decimal button for cell C1.
5. To decrease decimal places, click the Decrease Decimal button for cell D1.
6. Type in 345678 in E1. Click on the Comma button to separate thousands.
Exercise 9
1. Move the cursor to cell A5.
2. Type 145657800. Hit enter and then move back into A5. At this point it is necessary to move
out of the cell and then back in. I’m not sure why, but it is the only way to get the
appropriate menu up!
3. Right click on the number. A menu will pop up. Click on Format Cells.
4. Click on “Number”. Click on the comma.
5. The thousands should now be separated by commas.
After formatting
Many beginners get confused about clearing versus deleting in Excel, so let's look at this concept
briefly. When you clear the content from a cell, the formatting for that cell is still there. It may be
helpful to think of an Excel worksheet as a stack of empty cardboard boxes, each one with its open
side facing you. You can put something into a cell or take something out. When you take something
out of a cell, it's called clearing its content. The cell itself remains in the "stack," but it's now empty.
In contrast, deleting the cell removes the cell itself from the stack and makes the surrounding cells
shift. Think about what happens when you pull a box out of a stack of boxes -- the boxes above it
fall down one position, right? It's the same thing with Excel cells, except it's reverse-gravity (cells
fall up rather than down), and you have the choice of making the remaining cells shift up or to the
left. Let’s look at how this works.
You can use Microsoft Excel to fill cells automatically with a series. For example, you can have Excel
automatically fill in times, the days of the week or months of the year, years, and other types of
series. Days of the week and months of the year fill in a similar fashion.
Exercise 10
1. Let’s move to another worksheet.
2. In cell A1, type Sunday.
3. Find the small black square in the lower right corner of the highlighted area. This is called
the Fill Handle.
4. Grab the Fill Handle and drag with your mouse to fill cell A1 to G1. Note how the days of
the week fill the cells in a series. Also, note that the Auto Fill Options icon appears.
Filling Time
Exercise 11
1. Click on a new worksheet. Type 1:00 into cell A1.
2. Grab the Fill Handle and drag with your mouse to highlight cells A1 to A24. Note that each
cell fills using military time.
3. Click anywhere on the worksheet to remove the highlighting.
Filling in Numbers
4. Choose the Fill Series radio button. The cells fill as a series starting with 1, 2, 3.
1. Go to cell A1.
2. Type Lesson 1.
3. Grab the Fill Handle and drag with your mouse to highlight cells A1 to A6.
4. The cells fill in as a series: Lesson 1, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, and so on.
When you enter text that is too long to fit in a cell into a cell, it overlaps the next cell. If you do not
want it to overlap the next cell you can wrap the text.
Exercise 13
1. Open another new sheet.
2. Move to cell A1.
3. Type Text too long to fit. (After typing, click out of the cell and back in again.)
4. From the Ribbon, choose Home >Cells > Format. This will open a dropdown menu.
5. Click on Format Cells at the bottom of the dropdown menu.
6. Choose the Alignment tab.
7. Click Wrap Text.
8. Click OK. The text wraps.
Merging Cells
Sometimes, rather than having text wrap in a cell, you will actually want the text to run across the
width of the data. Usually when making a spreadsheet, you need to create a heading for the sheet.
This heading should run across the width of your data. To do this, one must merge the cells across
the width of the data.
Exercise 14
1. Select the range A1:B1.
2. Click the Merge and Center button. The heading is now centered over the data.
Let’s add a column of numbers using the AutoSum Button . To select the AutoSum button
choose Home > Editing > and automatically add a column of numbers.
2. Move your cursor to select C7. Click the AutoSum button found on the Ribbon under
Home > Editing.
3. C1 to C6 should now be highlighted.
4. Press Enter. Cells C1 through C6 are added together.
What's a formula?
A formula is an equation that performs some type of operation and issues a result. In Excel,
formulas always begin with an equal sign. Here are some formula examples:
=2+6: This formula is strictly math. If you place this formula in a cell, the cell displays 8.
=A1+6: Same as the preceding, but this time you're adding 6 to whichever value is in cell A1
and displaying the result in the cell into which you enter this formula. This formula does not
change A1's contents.
=A1+A2: Same thing again, but you're adding the contents of cell A1 to the contents of cell
A2.
=A1+A2-A3: In this example, multiple cells are referenced.
Here are the symbols you can use in formulas to indicate mathematical operations:
+: Addition
-: Subtraction
*: Multiplication
/: Division
Exercise 16
To try a basic formula, do the following:
Exercise 17
Now let’s create the following formulas:
1. In cell A5, create a formula that adds A1+A2+A3+A4.
2. In cell A6, create a formula that adds A1+A2, and then multiplies the result by the sum of
A3+A4. (Remember, operations that you want to perform first should be put in
parenthesis.)
3. In cell A7, create a formula that adds A1+A2+A3+A4 and then divides the result by 4.
4. In cell A8, create a formula that first calculates A1+A4 and then divides it by A3.
5. Here are the correct answers!
Printing
Let’s prepare to print! If your worksheet is more than one printed page, it is possible to have the
heading on each page by going to the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group and click Print
Titles.
On the Sheet tab, under Print Titles, do one or both of the following:
In the Rows to repeat at top box, type the reference of the rows that contain the column
labels if you want the heading repeated on each page.
In the Columns to repeat at left box, type the reference of the columns that contain the row
labels if you want those to show.
We want our sheet to print with no gridlines, and centered horizontally across the page, but not
vertically. Let’s go the Page Layout > Sheet Options. There should not be a check under Print in the
Gridline section.
Not putting in all the required arguments: If a function is expecting more arguments than
you have entered, and you get a dialog box, be sure you've placed commas between the
arguments and that you haven't overlooked any.
Circular references: If you refer to the cell's own address in a function, you create a circular
error, which is like an endless loop. Suppose that you enter =A1+1 into cell A1. You'll get an
error message like the one below. If you click OK at this message, a Help window appears to
help you find the problem.
Text in an argument: Most functions require numeric arguments. If you enter text as an
argument, for example, =SUM(text), the word #NAME? appears in the cell. This happens
because Excel allows you to name ranges of cells using text, so technically =SUM(text) isn't
an invalid function. It is invalid only if there's no range that has been assigned the name
"text."
Hash marks (###) in a cell: This happens when the cell isn't wide enough to display its value.
Widen the column to fix this.
If you receive an error when copying a formula, don't panic; it happens to everyone. Use the skills
you learned earlier in this chapter to display the formulas and then check them for the common
errors discussed here.
Published
Title Author Date Call Number
Microsoft Office Excel 2003 step by step Curtis Frye 2003 005.369FRY
Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Craig Stinson & Mark 2004 005.369 STI
Dodge
Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Timothy J. O'Leary & 2004 005.54 OLE
Linda I. O'Leary
Sams teach yourself Microsoft Office Excel 2003 in 24 hours Trudi Reisner 2003 005.54 REI
DVDs
Published
Title Author Date Call Number
Excel 2007 : beyond the manual
Helen Dixon 2007 005.54DIX
Excel 2007 charts made easy
Kathy Jacobs, Curt Frye, 2009 005.54JAC
Doug Frye
Excel 2007 bible
John Walkenbach 2007 005.54WAL
Microsoft Office Excel 2007 plain & simple
Curtis D. Frye 2007 005.54FRY
Microsoft Office Excel 2007 for dummies
Greg Harvey 2007 005.54HAR
Special edition using Microsoft Excel 2007
Bill Jelen 2007
Sams teach yourself Microsoft Office Excel 2003 in 24 hours Trudi Reisner 2003 005.54REI
DVDs
Microsoft: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/FX100646951033.aspx
Internet4Classrooms: http://www.internet4classrooms.com/on-line_excel.htm