Welcome to the Session

BASIC EXCEL OPERATIONS

In this module, we shall use M/S Excel 2013 for learning basic knowledge of it.

GETTING STARTED
When you open Excel, this is how it looks.

There are 5 important areas in the screen.

1. Quick Access Toolbar:This is a place where all the important tools can be placed. When you start
Excel for the very first time, it has only 3 icons (Save, Undo, Redo). But you can add any feature of Excel
to to Quick Access Toolbar so that you can easily access it from anywhere (hence the name).

2. Ribbon:Ribbon is like an expanded menu. It depicts all the features of Excel in easy to understand
form. Since Excel has 1000s of features, they are grouped in to several ribbons. The most important
ribbons are Home, Insert, Formulas, Page Layout & Data.

3. Formula Bar:This is where any calculations or formulas you write will appear. You will understand the
relevance of it once you start building formulas.

4. Spreadsheet Grid:This is where all your numbers, data, charts & drawings will go. Each Excel file can
contain several sheets. But the spreadsheet grid shows few rows & columns of active spreadsheet. To see
more rows or columns you can use the scroll bars to the left or at bottom. If you want to access other
sheets, just click on the sheet name (or use the shortcut CTRL+Page Up or CTRL+Page Down).

5. Status bar:This tells us what is going on with Excel at any time. You can tell if Excel is busy
calculating a formula, creating a pivot report or recording a macro by just looking at the status bar. The
status bar also shows quick summaries of selected cells (count, sum, average, minimum or maximum
values). You can change this by right clicking on it and choosing which summaries to show.

ENTERING & FORMATTING DATA, NUMBERS & TABLES

CURSOR ACTIVITIES.

The thick white cross. This is used for cell selection.

The thin black cross. This is used for autofilling data and for copying formulas.

The four-headed arrow. This is used for moving cells or other items.

EXPAND DATA ACROSS COLUMN:

You can also easily expand data across columns by hovering the cursor over the
lower-right corner of the cell and when it turns into a thin black cross, dragging.
This will copy the data to multiple columns.

ADDING AND DELETING CELLS:

You can add and delete cells when working with a worksheet:
To add a cell to a worksheet:

Select the cell where you want to insert a new cell.

Right Click and Select INSERT.

In the INSERT DIALOGUE BOX select an option and click OK.

TO DELETE A CELL IN A WORKSHEET:

Select the cell you want to delete.

Right click and Select Delete.

In the delete dialogue box, select and option and click OK.

 ADDING

AN OUTLINE

You can group your data in Excel by using outlines. An outline allows you to group and
limit that data that you are viewing You have two types - Auto and Manual. Auto Outline
works well if you have used Summaries (formulas to tally rows). Manual works well if
you just have a list and you wish to choose the groups.

To add an outline to your data:

SelectAuto Outline

On theDATAtab, from theOutlinegroup, select theGroupdrop-down arrow.

Select Auto Outline.

Entering Numbers and Dates

Select the cell into which you wish to enter a number by clicking on it.

Begin typing a number.

Things to be aware of when entering numbers:

There is no need to enter commas. If you wish to display commas, you can format your numbers to display them. This
will be covered in the next lesson.

By default, trailing zeroes are not shown. For example, if you enter "5.00" into a cell and press Enter, the value shown
will change to just "5". We will cover displaying decimals in the next lesson.

To enter dates in Microsoft Excel:

Select the cell into which you wish to enter a date by clicking on it.

Type the date in the following format:mm/dd/yy(e.g., 12/21/12) orm/d/yy(e.g., 1/1/00).

Using the Fill Handle

If your data follows a pattern, you can use theFill Handleto quickly and easily add data to
multiple rows and columns.

To use theFill Handle:

Click on theFill Handle, which is located in the bottom right cell of the selected cells :

Drag theFill Handlefor as many rows or columns as

Examples of scenarios in which it might be useful to use theFill

Entering a numbered list

USING FORMULAS

MATH OPERATORS:

The six mathematical operators you need to know to enter basic formulas in Excel are:

Addition. Plus sign (+).

Subtraction. Minus sign (-).

Multiplication. Asterisk (*).

Division. Forward slash (/).

Percent. Percent sign (%).

Exponentiation. Exponents sign (^).

ENTERING FORMULAS:

The way to enter a formula in Excel is to:

Select the cell in which you wish to enter a formula.

Press "=" on your keyboard.

Select the first cell which contains data you will use in your formula.

Type the operator (+, -, *, or /).

Select the second cell which contains data you will use in your formula.

If necessary, type additional operators and select additional cells. If some operations should be
performed before others, enclose those operations in parentheses.

Common Auto-Formulas

AUTOSUM:

To quickly sum a row or column of data:

1.

Select the cell to the right or at the bottom of a set of numbers:

2. On the HOME tab, in the Editing group, click the AutoSum command:

Note that Excel guesses the data you wish to sum and gives you the option to
edit the formula

Press Enter.

Count Numbers

1. Select the cell to the right or at the bottom of a set of numbers:

2. On the HOME tab, in the Editing group, click the drop-down arrow to the
right of the AutoSum command:

3 Select Count Numbers:

4. Note that Excel guesses the cells in which you wish to count numbers and
gives you the option to edit the formula if you wish:

5. Press Enter.

Average

1. Select the cell to the right or at the bottom of a set of numbers:

2. On the HOME tab, in the Editing group, click the drop-down arrow to the
right of the AutoSum command:

3. Select Average

4. Note that Excel guesses the cells in which the data you wish to average lies
and gives you the option to edit the formula if you wish:

5. Press Enter.

MIN

1. Select the cell to the right or at the bottom of a set of numbers:

2. On the HOME tab, in the Editing group, click the drop-down arrow to the
right of the AutoSum command:

3. Select Min

4. Note that Excel guesses the cells in which you wish to find the minimum
number and gives you the option to edit the formula if you wish:

5. Press Enter.

MAX

1. Select the cell to the right or at the bottom of a set of numbers:

2. On the HOME tab, in the Editing group, click the drop-down arrow to the
right of the AutoSum command:

3. Select Max:

4. Note that Excel guesses the cells in which you wish to find the maximum
number and gives you the option to edit the formula if you wish

5. Press Enter.

Copying Formulas and Functions

Select the cell which contains the formula you wish to copy.

On the HOME tab, in the Clipboard group, click the Copy command

Select the cell into which you wish to copy the formula.

On the HOME tab, in the Clipboard group, click the Paste command.

Autofill to copy formulas:

Enter a formula in one cell

Click on the Fill Handle, which is located in the bottom right cell of the
selected cells:

Drag the Fill Handle for as many rows or columns as desired:

Release the mouse to enter the formula into the desired cells:

Displaying Formulas

When working with formulas, if you wish to display the formula within its associated cell
in a worksheet, in Excel 2013, select the FORMULA tab and in the Formula Auditing group,
select Show Formulas.

Relative Cell References

When we copied the formula from one cell to others, the formula automatically changed to add
the cells in the corresponding rows: The formula in cell E4 added B4, C4 and D4.The formula in
E5 added B5, C5 and D5.etc...This happened because the formula we entered contained
Relative cell references. Relative cell references are the default in Excel. They are called
"relative" because the actual cell row and column used in the formula are not significant.
Instead, the significant thing is the location of the cell used in the formula relative to the
location of the cell in which the formula is entered. The way to think of the formula E4 = B4 +
C4 + D4 is Result = (cell 3 places to the left) + (cell 2 places to the left) + (cell 1 place to the
left) of the cell in which the Result is entered.

Absolute Cell References

Sometimes you want a formula to refer to a specific cell regardless of where in your worksheet
the formula is executed. In the following example, the formulas in column F all refer to cell B1:

The way to tell Excel that a formula should always refer to a specific cell is to use dollar signs ($).
In the above example, the formula we used in cell F4 is =E4 / $B$1. No matter where we put this
formula in our worksheet, it will divide the cell one to the left of the cell in which we enter the
formula by cell B1.Finally, notice that we entered the dollar sign twice in the above formula,
before the "B" and before the "1". The first $ made the column an absolute reference and the
second made the row an absolute reference. In this example, it was not actually necessary to
make the column an absolute reference. The takeaway here is that when you refer to a cell in a
formula, you can make either or both of the column and row references Absolute or Relative.