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The first thing that you will need to learn is how to move around a Spreadsheet. One way of doing this is to use the arrow keys on your keyboard to highlight a particular cell. The highlighted cell has a thicker black border than the others. Using the arrow keys you can move the selected cell up, down, left or right one cell at a time. You can also use the page up or page down keys to move a whole page at a time. All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Course in Brighton, Sussex.
It’s easy to lose track of where you are in a spreadsheet – at any time you can hold the “Ctrl” key the “Home” keys together to return the selected cell to the top left of the sheet (cell A1). If you are new at this then it is worthwhile practicing this for a few minutes before continuing so as to get a better feel for moving around.
For a quick and easy way to locate a cell press the F5 key. This will open the “go to” box, where in you can enter the address of the cell that you want to go to, and be taken there immediately. Alternatively, you may find it easier to use the left part of the Formula bar at the top of your spreadsheet. Just type the address of the cell (e.g A1 or C4 etc…) and press enter
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
In the last section we explored how to select one cell at a time, however there are times when you might want to select a group (or “range”) of cells together. All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Training Course in Brighton, Sussex.
There are two ways to do this. The first is to simply press and hold the left mouse button and then drag the curser over the area which you which to highlight.
The second way is to highlight one cell (for example A1), and then press the F8 button on your keyboard. When you have done this the “Extend Selection” notification will appear on you status bar. Now select the last cell you which to highlight by clicking on it with your left mouse button and the computer will then highlight all the cells in between those two points. For instance if you click on A1 then E13 then all the cells between those two rows and columns will now be selected. Try it now!
In order to highlight more than one separate area at a time you can hold down “Ctrl” whilst using the dragging technique described earlier. Also if at anytime you want to completely clear your spreadsheet of all highlighted areas then press Esc.
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
As well as being able to draw borders by hand, Excel also provides some pre-set options that you can apply to groups of cells. This will be covered in our Microsoft Excel Course in Brighton, Sussex.
To do this, highlight the cells that you wish to affect and then, using the “Border Options” button in the Formatting section of the ribbon, select the border Style you want around them. The options are in the top section of the drop down menu under “Borders” as shown below:
Tip: To save time, simply pressing the Border button will apply the border style you used last which will save you having to choose it from the drop-down menu each time.
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 6th, 2009 | No Comments »
Excel 2007 can create a range of graphs and charts based on data in your spreadsheet, including line, column, area, line, pie, scatter, and bar charts.
Once created, Excel graphs will automatically update to represent any changes in data that you may make.
Before we start you’ll need a set of data so that you can give Excel something to make a graph out of. Copy the data shown below, or use something similar that’s relevant to you.
Using this example, highlight cells A5 to D8, i.e. all the information in the table apart from the total sales and the title. After you have highlighted the cells, click on the insert tab at the top of the ribbon which will give you a range of graph and chart options – select “column chart”. You will now be presented with a list of column charts to choose from, select the “Clustered chart”; this is the first one in the list under the 2D section.
The following basic graph will appear containing the relevant information:
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 6th, 2009 | No Comments »
The default size and position of the chart that Excel has created will not neccesarily suit your requirements.
When you select a chart in Excel 2007, handles will appear around the outline. to change the size of the chart, hover your mouse over one of these handles until your pointer turns into a multi-directional arrow. Now press and hold the left mouse button and drag to make the chart bigger or smaller.
You can also move the chart. Simply click and hold while your cursor is over a blank section of the chart and drag the chart to whatever position you prefer.
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 6th, 2009 | No Comments »
You may want your chart to appear on its own worksheet within your workbook. To do this open the chart options ribbon by clicking on your graph. Along with the options you have already used earlier, i.e. chart styles; there is an option on the right called the “move chart location” – click on this:
You will now be asked whether you want to move the chart to another worksheet that already exists, or to a brand new chart sheet.
A worksheet is the default sheet format that Excel works from (the sheet that you are currently working from is a standard worksheet). If you choose to move your chart to another worksheet you will have to choose which one you want to send it to, i.e. worksheet 2 or 3.
Tip: These other worksheets are available through tabs at the bottom left hand corner of your current work sheet.
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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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 6th, 2009 | No Comments »
A Chart sheet is a type of worksheet that is completely devoted to a chart and can’t contain any other information. If you choose this option when you move your chart Excel 2007 will create a new Chart sheet which you can access using the tabs in the bottom left hand corner of your screen.
In the Move chart option bar, you can create a chart sheet by clicking on the “New sheet” option. Before you press OK give the chart a sensible name – in this case call it “Vehicle Sales”. When you press OK Excel will take you to the new chart sheet which will look like this:
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 6th, 2009 | No Comments »
If you’re not happy with the default layout of the chart you have chosen, Excel allows you to edit it. First, click on the design tab at the top of the ribbon, under the “chart tools” heading, (this is obtainable by selecting your graph). This will give you a range of options, including changing the chart type, the colour, and which information it displays on its X and Y axis.
In our example, select is layout 5. Excel 2007 will change your graph so that it now shows a main title, a title for the Y axis and a table of all the information used in the graph underneath the X axis.
In order to change the main title and the Y axis’ title all you need to do is to double click on the title itself and retype it.
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Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 6th, 2009 | No Comments »
