Excel Basics in St

8/8/2019 Excel Basics in St

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Excel Basics With Instructor’s Notes

A

New York Farm Viability Institute

Computer Training Course

By

Jack Kellogg and Juliet Carroll

2006

Trainer

Professional Studies & Continuing Education

Finger Lakes Community College

Fruit IPM Coordinator

NYS Integrated Pest Mangement Program

Cornell University


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NYFVI Excel Basics – Instructor’s, Kellogg & Carroll

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THE EXCEL WINDOW

TITLE BAR: Across the top of the window or screen (when

window is maximized). It contains the name of the open

program and the file name.

TOOL BARS: Standard, Formatting, and Address

CURSOR: Note its shape and position.

SCROLL BARS: Found at the bottom and right side of

screen.

CELL ADDRESS: Appears in the left end of the address bar.

The letter & number coordinates in the cell address iden-

tify the intersection of the column and row for that cell

(e.g. A1).

WORKBOOK SHEETS: At the bottom of the Workbook win-

dow there are 3 sheet tabs for the 3 worksheets that

makeup the Workbook (ex. Sheet 1.) A workbook can

have as many as 250 sheets. On a single sheet there is a

possibility of over 65,000 rows along with a possibility of

over 256 columns.

Instructor:

Draw an analogy to the oldspreadsheets that unfolded &

were kept in NOTEBOOKS.

Cell Address

Title Bar

Tool Bars

Worksheet Tabs Scrollbars


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CURSOR NAVIGATION TECHNIQUES

The active cell is outlined in bold. To move to other cells, use

the techniques below:

DOWN: press Enter

UP: press Shift+Enter

ACROSS RIGHT: press Tab

ACROSS LEFT: press Shift+Tab

ARROW KEYS: Up, Left, Right, or Down

PAGE UP KEY or PAGE DOWN KEY allows you to move ap-

proximately 20 rows up or down at a time.

CLICKING THE MOUSE: into any cell changes its position to

that cell.

CREATE THE FOLLOWING SPREADSHEET:

City January February March Quarter Total

Chicago 4 4 6

Denver 4 6 6

Dallas 8 5 4

Boston 7 8 8

Los Angeles 12 15 22

New York 4 6 7

Total

Adjust column widths as needed.

Format column headers and row headers

Use Auto Sum, S on the tool bar, to total the columns

or rows. Remember: Auto Sum does not go through

empty cells.

Change data for one month and observe the totaling

results.

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Instructor:

Demonstrate the redefining of an

Auto-Sum range:

Remove Denver’s 6 for March

Do Auto-Sum total for March

againUsing mouse redefine the

range for all of March

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COPYING AND PASTINGSometimes details of data need to be copied over to another

worksheet or to another workbook. This can be done by

copying and pasting rather than re-typing anew. A need for

this could be the start of a new season or start of a new year.

Open the workbook file you want to copy things into

(the target or new file).

Select (highlight) the cells to be copied from the exist-

ing worksheet (the source file) and copy them.

Move to the target workbook file and make sure your

cursor is in the CORRECT Cell and the CORRECT

Sheet, then click paste.

UN-DOING AND RE-DOING

When a mistake is made or you have tried something that

did not work out the way you wanted, such as pasting in the

wrong place, UNDO IT!

Simply click on the Undo button (the left-curving arrow) on

the icon toolbar and it will undo the last operation. Usually

several sequential actions can be “undone” – one action for

each click on the button. Another way to undo is to use the

keystrokes “Ctrl Z” or under Edit on the Main Menu, click on

Undo.

It may be very convenient to REDO an action, such as insert-ing a column, by using the keystrokes “Ctrl Y” or under Edit

on the Main Menu, click on Repeat.

Sometimes a subsequent Undo will Redo the first action that

was undone, starting an endless loop.

Once a save has been completed, Undo and Redo are no

longer available options until additional editing is done. Undo

and Redo options can then be used back to the most recent

save baseline.

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For keystrokes Ctrl Z and Ctrl

Y, hold the Ctrl key down while

pressing the letter key.

Instructor:

Point out that copying or cutting

and pasting aren’t much different

than any other program.


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USEFUL EXCEL SHORTCUTS

Excel contains several features that help enter or select data

quickly and efficiently. Below are a few suggestions.

SELECT A RANGE OF CELLS – click on the corner cell in the

range to be selected, scroll to the opposite corner andhold the Shift key down while clicking on the cell in the

opposite corner to select the range.

AUTOCORRECT – Excel automatically corrects many com-

mon typographical errors.

AUTOCOMPLETE – Excel automatically inserts data in a cell

that begins the same as a previous entry in the column.

Example: If “Sunny and calm” has been typed in a cell,

Excel will complete “Sunny and calm” as soon as you

begin to type this in another cell in that column. PressEnter to accept the AutoComplete word(s).

DRAG TO AUTOFILL – Fills cells with the same or sequential

information. Select cell with data, place cursor on the

lower right hand corner of the cell until the black cross

appears (the fill handle), click, hold, drag and let go.

Cells will fill with same or sequential information.

FILL USING KEYSTROKES “Ctrl D” – Enter information in a

cell. Select that cell and the cells below where the same

information is to be copied. Key in “Ctrl D”. Cells will fill

with the same data.

FILL USING “Ctrl Enter” – To enter the same data in several

cells, select all the cells first. Then type your data in the

first cell and press “Ctrl Enter”.

If entering data in a specific set of cells, select the entire

range of cells first, type the first data entry. Then when

you press Enter, the next cell in the selection becomes

active.

Instructor:

Have students try some of these

shortcuts using the table created

on page 3 or create a new table.

For keystrokes Ctrl D and Ctrl En-

ter, hold the Ctrl key down while

pressing the second key.


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SAVING A FILE

You know that your original save was successful by looking

at the title bar of the program and seeing the file name.

Click on the Save icon on the tool bar. If this is the

first time the file is saved a window will appear so you

can select the folder and assign a file name as illus-trated below.

Or Select Save As from the drop down list under File

on the Main Menu and you can also select the folder

and assign a file name as illustrated below. Sub-

sequent saves, using the Save icon, will over-write

the older version without asking for the folder or file

name.

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SAVE your files before CLOSE ‘ing

them.

CLOSE your files and programs

before SHUT ‘ting DOWN.

Select the Folder where it is to be saved by clicking

on the Down arrow by “Save in:” and selecting the

appropriate folder (directory).

Type the File name at the bottom of the window, then

press enter or click Save.

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Down arrowFolder where it is saved in

File name

Instructor:

Save the practice spreadsheet to

a folder. Then go to that folder and

have the students re-open it.


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BACK-UP FILES FOR SAFEKEEPING

With the file open, click on the File menu and select Save As.

The Save As window appears (shown on page 6). Select the

backup location (drive) by clicking on the Down Arrow next

to Save in. The backup location (drive) should be something

OTHER than the hard drive (C:), for instance a CD-Rom (D:drive), a floppy disk (A: drive), or a network drive. The file

name can remain the same for identification later. Like in the

old days - putting an extra paper copy in a safe place.

SPELL CHECK ON A WORKSHEET

To run spell check on an entire spreadsheet could be rather

tedious, but to check just a column or some rows could be

very beneficial. Using consistently spelled words enhances

accurate data filtering and sorting in Excel.Select (highlight) the cells, columns, or rows to spell

check, then click on the ABC spell check icon on the

Standard Toolbar.

This will start the spell check wizard. If misspelled words

are found, a window appears, as below, giving options for

changing the spelling, adding to the dictionary, etc.

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Instructor:

Remind the students to highlight/

select the cells before running

spell check.

In Excel, SPELL CHECK does

NOT run in the background like in

a word processor.

BACK UP your files (data, photo,

music, etc.) frequently and rou-

tinely.

Make and store copies on floppy

disks, CDs, etc.

If no misspelled words are found, spell check will display a

finished window.


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FINDING DATA IN A WORKSHEET

If you are looking for something somewhere in a large

spreadsheet, Excel can search each cell for you. Click on

the Edit menu, then the binoculars icon (Find). The following

window will appear:

Instructor:

Remind the students that Find is

literal. Have find look for a short-

ened word form, i.e. Bloom vs.

Bloomfield vs. Bloomington.

Find will find whatever you type in the Find what box,

searching by rows or columns.

The Find Next button will take you to the next occur-

rence.

Remember the Find is often very literal, so the check

mark(s) shown in the illustration above may be elimi-

nated.

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PRINT PREVIEW

Before printing a worksheet, it is often helpful to see it as the

printer would see it. Use print preview to see an overview

of your work. The print preview icon on the toolbar will get

you started by opening the print preview window, as shown

below.Click the Next and Previous buttons for navigation

to other pages or use the scroll bar on the right hand

side.

Click on the Margins button to click & drag margins as

needed.

Click on the Setup button to setup headers and foot-

ers, gridlines, page orientation, etc. This is the same

setup as under the File menu.

When done with Print Preview, click the CLOSE but-ton on the tool bar (not the “X”) to return to your

worksheet in the open workbook file.

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The Print Preview window (sample shown above) displays

the number of pages in the worksheet that will be sent to the

printer. By using the scroll bar you can see what these pages

look like and on what page numbers they are. See the follow-

ing section for more on printing groups of pages and select-

ed ranges of cells.

CLOSE Print Preview using the

CLOSE button and NOT the X inthe upper right hand corner – this

could close the file and program!

Instructor:

Demonstrate the use of the Next,

Previous, & Zoom buttons.


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PRINTING OPTIONS

Clicking the Print icon on the toolbar results in 1 copy of the

contents in the entire active worksheet being sent to the local

(default, regular, or primary) printer for printing.

To print multiple copies, specific pages, parts of a worksheet,

and other options, click on File, then Print to open the Printwindow, as shown below.

Choose a different printer from the drop-down list in

the box next to Name.

Choose specific page(s), if needed, under Print range,

and enter the beginning and ending page numbers

(From:---___ To:___).

If a limited section of the spreadsheet or group of

cells needs to be printed, Select those cells first. Then

come back to File, Print, and under Print What, click

Selection to print only those cells.

Set the number of copies.

Click OK and the printer will go to work.

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•Instructor:If the file(s) will be saved to the

student’s disk, do it now. Then the

file(s) and perhaps the folder can

be deleted before shutting down,

if required.

Instructor:

Have students fill out a Course

Evaluation form before leaving.

Documents

Excel Basics in St