OK – we now know how to highlight cells, but we still don’t have any data in them!

Cells can hold all sorts of data, including text, numbers and calculations.

In order to enter data into a cell, first select it. After you have highlighted the cell you want, you can add data to it either just by starting to type straight away, or by clicking the in to the right hand side of the formula bar and typing there:

To delete any unwanted or incorrect information simply press backspace. If you highlight a cell that already has data in it and start typing, the original data will be wiped. If you want to edit the data that is already in the cell, highlight that cell and press F2.

After you are satisfied that you have put what you want to in the cell, press enter to finish or if you prefer use the directional key buttons or mouse to move to another cell or area.

All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Course in Brighton, Sussex.

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The cells in a spreadsheet are quite small, so typing in a lot of information can lead to it overlapping and covering up other cells. One method for confining lots of information to just one cell block is text wrapping.

Try this out by typing a lot of text in to a cell so that is overlaps the edge. Next, select the cell by clicking on it, and then click on the Wrap text button in the ribbon above. After you have done this the text should be confined to the vertical cell borders, as seen below:

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If at any time when you are using Microsoft Excel you wish to save your work and quit, a simple and effective way of doing this is to press the close or “X” button at the top right hand corner of the program screen. When this is pressed Excel will automatically ask whether or not you wish to save your progress – simply select “Yes” to save your work and close Excel

You can also save your work without shutting Excel entirely, which is useful for saving your work as you go along.  To do this, click the Microsoft Office Button at the top left of your screen and select the “Save” or Save As” option.

The “Save” option will save any updates you have made to the current workbook in the location where it is already saved. If you have not saved the workbook somewhere already, Excel will ask you to give it a name and ask you where you want to save it (e.g. on your Desktop, or in My Documents). After you’ve given your workbook a name and a location once, pressing the “Save” button again will simply save the changes to the same file. A quick way of doing this is to press “Ctrl” & “S” keys together.

If you chose to “Save As”, you will be able to save a copy of the file in a different location with a new name, without overwriting the original. Only use “Save As” if you want to save a copy of the file with another name (for instance if you want to make a backup of the file in its current state before you make changes to it). If you just need to save the changes to the same file, use “Save” to avoid ending up with multiple copies!

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Two of the main reasons to use Microsoft Excel are its ability to format data and to calculate mathematical equations. We’ll start off by looking at some basic examples of this – but once you’ve got to grips Excel, you can use it to perform some quite powerful calculations that will save you a lot of time working out sums manually! All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Training Course in Brighton, Sussex.

Before we start, we first need to check that your Enter key is set to move one cell down when you press it. If this is not the case then you need to change your settings by clicking on the excel “options” button at the bottom of the Microsoft Office Button’s menu list:

Each cell in a spreadsheet can contain text, a number or a formula. A cell that contains a formula can be used to display the results of a calculation based on the numbers in other cells.

The benefit of this is that once you have entered a formula in to a cell, the results of the calculation will update automatically when you change the numbers in the cells the formula refers to. You don’t have to do a lot of manual calculations when your figures change.

This can sound complicated and daunting, so first lets take a look at the the basic calculations that are available:

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The basic mathematical formulae that you will need in a spreadsheet are as follows:

Important: When entering any formula in to a cell, you must always start with a “=” sign

For example, lets say that in cell A4 you wanted to show the result of the numbers in cells
A1 and A2 added together. You would need select cell A4, type in “=A1+A2″ and press enter.

The result will then display as follows:

Note: Cell A4 now displays the result of the calculation.

If you look in the formula bar when you have the cell selected,  it will display the formula.

Try changing the numbers in cells A1 and A2, and watch the result of the calculation on A4 change automatically.

This same method is used with each of the other four basic calculations.

Let’s change the formula in A4 to a multiplication instead of an addition. Select the cell, and click your cursor in to the formula bar above the spreadsheet where it currently says “A1+A2″. Replace this with “A1*A2″
and press enter. The result of the sum is now a multiplication.

The equation you choose can be as complicated as you want and can just contain numbers as well as call names: = 15+15. In the case of a more complicated equation excel will work out division and multiplication before and then move on to adding and subtracting. To prevent this you will need to tell it to do the adding or subtracting first. The way you do this is to put the bit you want done first in brackets, i.e. (1+2)/3< ><–>

All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Course in Brighton, Sussex. Once you have mastered these skills you will be ready to attend our Advanced Excel Course, and really advanced might want to try VBA for Excel.

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OK – so we can add the numbers in two cells together which is a good start.

Let’s say we want to add together a whole row of numbers. One way to do it would be to write a long formula – something like “=A1+A2+A3+A4+A5″. But that’s a right pain!

That’s why Excel has the “Auto Sum” button – it looks like this:

Try it out by entering a list of numbers that you want to add together in different cells one below the other – say A1-A4. Now highlight the cell below your list (in this case A5) press the Auto Sum button and hit enter. Excel will automatically add up the list of  numbers by adding a formula to the cell. If you look in the formula bar, you’ll now see “=SUM(A1:A4)”.

Auto Sum also lets you add together numbers from a wider area. To do this, highlight the cell you want the result to appear in and press Auto Sum again. Now, instead of hitting return straight away, click your mouse cursor on another cell and drag to select a range of cells. Once you’ve selected the area you want to add up, hit return and Excel will write the formula for you.

Click image to view full size

Tip: A quick way to write any equation rather than having to type in every cell, is to select the cells you want with the mouse.

To try this out, type “=” into a blank cell, which from now on will hold your equation, and then click on a cell with a number in it. When you have highlighted this, press “+”. You will then see that this has been added to your formula bar. Now click on another cell with the mouse and see that Excel adds the cell reference to the formula. You can keep adding “+” and more cells as much as you like. When you’re done, simply hit enter to finish the formula.

Once you have mastered these skills you will be ready to attend our Advanced Excel Training Course, and really advanced might want to try VBA for Excel in Brighton, Sussex.

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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 6th, 2009 | No Comments »

A number is never just a number! Numbers can represent currency, percentages, dates, times and a range of other things. We may also want to display a certain number of decimal points or other aspects of the way our numbers appear on a spreadsheet.

The “Number” section of the Excel ribbon provides a range of options which you can choose from in the drop down menu bar and even more if you select the “More Number Formats” button at the bottom.

The Number formatting section is located in the middle of the ribbon. Simply highlight the cell or cells containing the numbers you want to format, and then select the correct formatting option from the “Number” drop-down list.

Once you have mastered these skills you will be ready to attend our Advanced Excel Course, and really advanced might want to try VBA for Excel in Brighton, Sussex.

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Most spreadheets have some sort of formatting applied to them to make them easier to read and understand. Often you will want to create a border around a group of cells to differentiate them from others, or to put them in to a table.

There are two main ways that you can create a border in Excel.

The first is to draw the border using your mouse. You can draw a border along any cells you wish either horizontally or vertically. To do this: select the “Border options” button from the ribbon; this is the small arrow to the right of the actual “Border” button. This will display a list of options – click on the “Draw Border Line” option in the lower section of the list under the heading “Drawing Borders.”

With this option selected, your mouse cursor will become a pencil. You can now create borders by pressing and holding the left mouse button from where you want to start and dragging it to where you want it to end. You can either create a straight line or drag around a group of cells to draw a box around them.

If you want to draw a grid within your box use the “Draw Border Grid” button beneath the “Draw Border Line” option you used before.

All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Training Course. Once you have mastered these skills you will be ready to attend our Advanced Excel Training Course, and really advanced might want to try VBA for Excel in Brighton, Sussex.

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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 6th, 2009 | No Comments »