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Unit-IV Working with MS Excel

Features of Excel, Parts of Excel window, Workbooks, Creating, Opening and Saving a Workbook, Worksheets, rows
and columns: Inserting and Deleting rows and columns, cells, Entering labels, values, and formulas in worksheet,
Formatting: Adjusting row height and column width - Formatting cell values, Formulas and Functions: operators used in
formula, cell references in formula, Mathematical, Statistical, Logical and Text functions, Charts: Different types of
charts, Creating a chart.
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1. Overview of Excel features
Microsoft excel is an integrated electronic spread sheet program developed by Microsoft corporation. It is a core part of
Microsoft office Package. It includes the following features.
a) Autocalc: This feature is very useful to sum a group of numbers is selected them. Their sum will automatically
appear in the status area.
b) Auto complete: Excel now intelligence to anticipate what you are going to type! Based upon entries you’ve
already made, AutoComplete will try to figure out what you intended to type, once you’ve entered few
letters.
c) Autocorrect: Excel can support automatically correct mistakes. These include the same features you’ve used in
word and you can create your own AutoCorrect entries.
d) Better Drag-and-Drop: Do you want to move a group of cells? Excel’s drag and drop feature lets you reposition
selected portion of your spreadsheet by simply dragging them with your mouse.
e) Cell tips and Scroll Tips: To help you get around better with mouse, Excel now includes scroll tips. When you
click and drag a scroll bar, a small window tells you what row or column you are heading for.
f) Number Formatting: It’s easy to format numbers with excel’s new number formatting feature. Select your
numbers and choose cells command from format menu.
g) Templates and Template wizard: Excel’s template facility has been greatly enhanced. You can choose from a
variety of elegantly designed templates for your home or business. You can even have a template wizard link
your worksheets to a database.
h) Shared Lists: you can now have worksheets that are shared simultaneously over a network.

2. Explore Window in Excel 2010

The following basic window appears when you start the excel application. Let us now understand the
various important parts of this window.
a) The Ribbon
The Ribbon is designed to help you quickly find the commands that you need to complete a task.
Commands are organized in logical groups, which are collected together under tabs. Each tab relates
to a type of activity, such as formatting or laying out a page. To reduce clutter, some tabs are shown
only when needed. For example, the Picture Tools tab is shown only when a picture is selected.
b) File Menu
Here you will find the basic commands such as open, save, print, etc.
c) Quick Access Toolbar
The place to keep the items that you not only need to access quickly, but want to be immediately
available regardless of which of the Ribbon's tabs you're working on. If you put so many items on the
Quick Access Toolbar that it becomes too big to fit on the title bar, you can move it onto its own
line.
d) Formula Bar
A place where you can enter or view formulas or text.
e) Expand Formula Bar Button
This button allows you to expand the formula bar. This is helpful when you have either a long
formula or large piece of text in a cell.
f) Worksheet Navigation Tabs
By default, every workbook has 3 sheets. You are able to navigate the sheets by clicking on the sheet
tab.
g) Insert Worksheet Button
Click the Insert New Worksheet button to insert a new worksheet in your workbook.

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3. Workbooks and worksheets

A workbook automatically shows in the workspace when you open Microsoft Excel XP. Each workbook
contains three worksheets. A worksheet is a grid of cells consisting of 65,536 rows by 256 columns.
Spreadsheet information—text, numbers, or mathematical formulas—is entered into different cells.

Column headings are referenced by alphabetic characters in the gray boxes that run across the Excel screen,
beginning with column A and ending with column IV.

Rows are referenced by numbers that appear on the left and then run down the Excel screen. The first row is
named row 1, while the last row is named 65536.

Important terms
 A workbook is made up of three worksheets.
 The worksheets are labeled Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3.
 Each Excel worksheet is made up of columns and rows.
 In order to access a worksheet, click the tab that says Sheet#.

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The cell
An Excel worksheet is made up of columns and rows. Where these columns and rows intersect, they form
little boxes called cells. The active cell—or the cell that can be acted upon—reveals a dark border. All other
cells reveal a light gray border. Each cell has a name. Its name is comprised of two parts: the column letter
and the row number.

In the following picture, the cell C3—formed by the intersection of column C and row 3—contains the dark
border. It is the active cell.

Important terms
 Each cell has a unique cell address composed of a cell's column and row.
 The active cell is the cell that receives the data or command you give it.
 A darkened border, called the cell pointer, identifies it.

4. Creating, Opening and Saving a Workbook

Excel files are called workbooks. Each workbook holds one or more worksheets (also known as
spreadsheets).
To create a new blank workbook:
a. Click the File tab. This takes you to Backstage view.
b. Select New.
c. Select Blank workbook under Available Templates. It will be highlighted by default.
d. Click Create. A new blank workbook appears in the Excel window.
To open an existing workbook:
a. Click the File tab. This takes you to Backstage view.
b. Select Open. The Open dialog box appears.
c. Select your desired workbook, then click Open.

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To save a workbook

Once you are done with typing in your new excel sheet, it is time to save your sheet/workbook to avoid
losing work you have done on an Excel sheet. Following are the steps to save an edited excel sheet –

Step 1 − Click the File tab and select Save As option.

Step 2 − Select a folder where you would like to save the sheet, Enter file name, which you want to give to
your sheet and Select a Save as type, by default it is .xlsx format.

Step 3 − finally, click on Save button and your sheet will be saved with the entered name in the selected
folder.

To create a new worksheet

Three new blank sheets always open when you start Microsoft Excel. Below steps explain you how to create
a new worksheet if you want to start another new worksheet while you are working on a worksheet, or you
closed an already opened worksheet and want to start a new worksheet.

Step 2 − Now you'll see the Insert dialog with select Worksheet option as selected from the general tab.
Click the Ok button.

5. Q) Inserting and Deleting rows and columns, cells

To insert cell

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To delete cell

a. Select the cells you want to delete.

b. Choose the Delete command from the Ribbon.

To inset row

a. Select the row below where you want the new row to appear.
b. Click the Insert command on the Home tab.
c. The new row appears in your worksheet.

To insert column

a. Select the column to the right of where you want the new column to appear. For example, if you
want to insert a column between A and B, select column B.
b. Click the Insert command on the Home tab.
c. The new column appears in your worksheet.

To delete row

a. Select the rows you want to delete.

b. Click the Delete command on the Home tab.
c. The rows are deleted from your worksheet.

To delete column

a. Select the columns you want to delete.

b. Click the Delete command on the Home tab.
c. The columns are deleted from your worksheet.

6. Q) Entering labels, values, and formulas in worksheet

a) Entering and editing Text (OR) Numbers

You have several options when you want to enter data manually in Excel. You can enter data in one cell, in
several cells at the same time, or on more than one worksheet at the same time. The data that you enter can
be numbers, text, dates, or times. You can format the data in a variety of ways. And, there are several
settings that you can adjust to make data entry easier for you.

Enter text or a number in a cell

1. On the worksheet, click a cell.

2. Type the numbers or text that you want to enter, and then press Enter or Tab.

To enter data on a new line within a cell, enter a line break by pressing Alt+Enter

Editing text or a number in a cell

1. Double click the cell containing the data you want to edit.

2. Make any changes to the cell contents.

3. Press enter key. The change will accept. To cancel your changes, press Ese key.

Wrap text in a cell

a. Click the cell in which you want to wrap the text.

b. On the Home tab, in the Alignment group, click Wrap Text.

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b) Entering and editing Formulae

A formula performs calculations or other actions on the data in your worksheet. A formula always starts with
an equal sign (=), which can be followed by numbers, math operators (like a + or - sign for addition or
subtraction), and built-in Excel functions, which can really expand the power of a formula.

For Example, in the above worksheet, the formula = B5+C5+D+ adds the contents 10+20+30 and produce
the results. One can enter and edit formula in two ways.

1. Directly into cell by double clicking where the formula wants.

2. At formula bar after selection of required cell.

7. Q) Adjusting row height and column width

To change column widths

1. Select the column or columns that you want to change.

2. On the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format.

3. Under Cell Size, click Column Width.

4. In the Column width box, type the value that you want.

To Change Row Height

1. Select the row or rows that you want to change.

2. On the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format.

3. Under Cell Size, click Row Height.

4. In the Row height box, type the value that you want.

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8. Q) Formatting cell values

It is very common to enter various types of numbers for various applications. In Excel, you can use number
formats to change the appearance of numbers, including dates and times, without changing the number
behind the appearance. The number format does not affect the actual cell value, it changes the appearance
only.

1. Select the cell or cells which contain numbers.

2. On the home tab, under Number group click on down arrow mark.

Or Right click your mouse; from the short hand menu select format cell option.

3. It launches Formula cells window. Click on Number tab.

4. It lists all categories of number formatting like general, number, currency, accounting, date, time, and
percentage.
5. Select the suitable format and its sub options, click ok button.
6. The numbers in the selected cells will display as per new format.

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Chapter-II(Formulas and Functions)

Operators used in formula, cell references in formula, Mathematical, Statistical, Logical and Text functions.

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Formula is an expression that calculates the value of a cell. For example, =A2+A2+A3+A4 is a formula that adds up the
values in cells A2 to A4.

Function is a predefined formula already available in Excel. Functions perform specific calculations in a particular order
based on the specified values, called arguments, or parameters.

For example, instead of specifying each value to be summed like in the above formula, you can use the SUM Function
to add up a range of cells: =SUM (A2:A4)

You can find all available Excel functions in the Function Library on the Formulas tab:

Advantages of Functions

1. One of the key benefits of using excel functions is that they help simplify your formulas.

2. Another key benefit of using functions is that they help you accomplish tasks that would be difficult with
standard formulas.

3. Functions can also help save time by helping you automate tasks that would take you hours to accomplish
manually.

Parts of Function:

A function is a predefined formula that performs calculations using values indicated in a particular order. To
use functions correctly, you’ll need to be aware of the different parts of a function. The specific way in which
a function is written is referred to as syntax. The syntax for a function is:

Let’s look at these three parts individually.

1. Equals (=) – A formula in Excel always starts with an equal sign (=). It informs Excel that the succeeding
characters represent a formula. Everything placed after the equals sign will be used to calculate the final value
displayed in the cell.

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2. Function name – This is the name denoting a particular mathematical, logical or statistical function. For
instance, SUM is the function name for addition, MAX and MIN are function names for the largest and
smallest results from a range of numbers, and IF is used to determine whether a statement is True or False.

3. Argument

 Arguments supply the information for the function to calculate, such as a range of cell references.
 Arguments must be enclosed within parentheses.
 The individual values or cell references inside the parentheses are separated by commas or colons.

Examples: =AVERAGE(E4:E9) =SUM(D4,D9) =COUNT(C4:C9,C17:C21)

Colons – Colons apply the formula to the indicated range of cells. For instance, the first formula above will
calculate the average of contents of the cell ranging from E4 through E9.

Commas – Use commas when you want to apply a function to specific cells, but not over a range of cells.
You can separate the required cell references with commas.

Operators in Excel: The Excel Operators perform actions on numeric values, text or cell references. There are
four different types of Excel Operators. These are:

Operator Description Precedence

(1=top; 3=bottom)
% The percent operator 1
^ The exponentiation operator 1
* The multiplication operator 2
/ The division operator 2
+ The addition operator 3
- The subtraction operator 3

Q) Cell references in formulas

A cell reference refers to a cell or a range of cells on a worksheet and can be used in a formula so that
Microsoft Office Excel can find the values or data that you want that formula to calculate.

In one or several formulas, you can use a cell reference to refer to:
 Data from one or more contiguous cells on the worksheet.
 Data contained in different areas of a worksheet.
 Data on other worksheets in the same workbook.
For example:
This formula: Refers to: And Returns:
=C2 Cell C2 The value in cell C2.
=A1:F4 Cells A1 through F4 The values in all cells, but you must press
Ctrl+Shift+Enter after you type in your formula.
=Asset- The cells named Asset and The value in the cell named Liability subtracted from
Liability Liability the value in the cell named Asset.

There are three types of cell references

1. Relative cell reference

2. Absolute cell reference
3. Mixed cell reference

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1. Relative Cell References

 References that will change in relation to the new location of the formula.
 Relative references identify cells based on their relationship to the cell containing the reference.
 If the position of the cell that contains the formula changes, the reference is changed.
 If you copy or fill the formula across rows or down columns, the reference automatically adjusts.
 By default, new formulas use relative references.

For example, if you copy or fill a relative reference in cell B2 to cell B3, it automatically adjusts from =A1 to
=A2.

2. Absolute Cell References

 References that remain the same when a formula is copied to a new location. No matter where the
formula or the values in the original cell are moved, the formula will continue to refer to the same
cell.
 An absolute cell reference in a formula, such as $A$1, always refer to a cell in a specific location.
 If you copy or fill the formula across rows or down columns, the absolute reference does not adjust.

For example, if you copy or fill an absolute reference in cell B2 to cell B3, it stays the same in both cells:
=$A$1.

3. Mixed references

 A mixed reference has either an absolute column and relative row, or absolute row and relative
column.
 An absolute column reference takes the form $A1, $B1, and so on.
 An absolute row reference takes the form A$1, B$1, and so on
 If the position of the cell that contains the formula changes, the relative reference is changed, and the
absolute reference does not change.
 If you copy or fill the formula across rows or down columns, the relative reference automatically
adjusts, and the absolute reference does not adjust.

For example, if you copy or fill a mixed reference from cell A2 to B3, it adjusts from =A$1 to =B$1.

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Q) What is circular cell reference?

A formula in a cell that directly or indirectly refers to its own cell is called a circular reference. This is not
possible.

1. For example, the formula in cell A3 below directly refers to its own cell. This is not possible. Excel returns
a 0 if you accept this circular reference.

How to resolve circular cell reference?

A formula in a cell that directly or indirectly refers to its own cell is called a circular reference .This causes the
formula to use its result in the calculation, which can create errors. When a workbook contains a circular
reference, Excel cannot automatically perform calculations. You can use error checking in Excel to locate
circular references in a formula, and then remove them.

To find your circular references, on the Formulas tab, in the Formula Auditing group, click the down arrow
next to Error Checking.

Click Circular References.

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Q) Different types of functions available in Excel

Microsoft’s Excel program, widely used in business, comes with many built-in functions that perform
mathematical and logical operations on spreadsheet data.

In Excel, functions are simple formulas you type into a spreadsheet cell; they operate on numbers, text and
other kinds of data. Functions enable you to perform calculations ranging from simple arithmetic to complex
scientific, statistical and financial equations.

Mathematical Functions

SUM - Adds up all the values in a range

SUMIF - Adds all the values in a range that meet specific criteria

ROUND - Round a number to a specified number of digits

ROUNDUP - Round a number up to a specified number of digits

ROUNDDOWN - Round a number down to a specified number of digits

CEILING - Round a number up to a multiple of significance

FLOOR - Round a number down to a multiple of significance

Statistical Functions

COUNT - Counts all the values in a range

AVERAGE - Calculates the average number from a range of values

MAX - Finds the maximum value in a range

MIN - Finds the minimum value in a range

COUNTA - Counts all non-empty cells in a range

COUNTBLANK - Counts all blank cells in a range.

COUNTIF - Counts all the cells in a range that meet specific criteria.

LARGE - Return a value dependent upon its ranking in a range of values in descending order.

SMALL - Return a value dependent upon its ranking in a range of values in ascending order.

RANK - Returns the rank or position of a number within a range of numbers.

Logical Functions

IF - Tests a condition and takes an alternative action depending on the result

AND - Test up to 30 conditions using logical And

OR - Test up to 30 conditions using logical OR

IFERROR - Performs a specified action if a formula evaluates to an error, and displays the formula result if
not

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Text Functions

LEN - Returns the length, in number of characters, of the contents of a cell

REPT - Repeats a character a specified number of times

TRIM - Remove unwanted spaces from cells

LEFT - Extracts a specific number of characters from the start of a cell

RIGHT - Extracts a specific number of characters from the end of a cell

MID - Extracts a specific number of characters from the middle of a cell

UPPER - Converts the contents of a cell to uppercase

LOWER - Converts the contents of a cell to lowercase

PROPER - Converts the contents of a cell to proper case

REPLACE - Replace existing characters in a cell with a different set of characters

SUBSTITUTE - Replace existing characters with a different set of characters

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Chapter-III (Charts)

Different types of charts, creating a chart.

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Q) Different types of charts

Chart is graphical representation of numerical data. It improves the analysis and understanding of the data.
Excel offers both two dimensional and three dimensional charts. Some common chart types are:

1. Column chart: comprises the values across the categories and displays them in vertical bars.

2. Bar chart: It also comprises the values across the categories but displays them in horizontal.

3. Pie chart: It displays the contribution of each value for a total value.

4. XY Scatter chart: compares the values in pairs.

5. Scattered chart: It displays the trend of contribution of each value over time or categories.

6. Rader chart: It marks at each point.

7. Surface chart: It shows trends in values across two dimensions in continuous curves.

8. Bubble chart: It is similar to scattered chart, it compares 3 set of values, the third value displays at the
size of the bubble marker.

9. Stock chart: It requires 3 or 4 series of values to represent volume, high, low, close.

10. Cylinder chart: It is similar to column chart instead of bars it displays values as cylinder.

11. Cone chart: It is similar to column chart instead of bars it displays cones.

12. Pyramids chart: It is similar to column chart; Instead of bars it displays pyramids.

Q) Chart creation using wizard

A chart is a tool you can use in Excel to communicate your data graphically. Charts allow your audience to
more easily see the meaning behind the numbers in the spreadsheet, and to make showing comparisons and
trends much easier. In this lesson, you will learn how to insert and modify Excel charts and see how they can
be an effective tool for communicating information.

Charts can be a useful way to communicate data. When you insert a chart in Excel, it appears in the selected
worksheet with the source data by default.

To create a chart:

 Select the worksheet you want to work with. In this example, we use the Summary worksheet.

 Select the cells you want to chart, including the column titles and row labels.

 Click the Insert tab.

 Hover over each Chart option in the Charts group to learn more about it.

 Select one of the Chart options. In this example, we'll use the Columns command.

 Select a type of chart from the list that appears. For this example, we'll use a 2-D Clustered Column.
The chart appears in the worksheet.

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