Getting Started

Launching Excel

As with other Macintosh applications, to start Excel, you can usually double-click on the application icon or one of its documents. To get to the Excel application icon, follow the instructions on the document entitled CSO Public Sites Software.

The Environment

Upon launching Excel, the Excel logo will appear briefly. If you have opened a previously created document, the data will appear. Otherwise, the Excel work environment appears which should look similar to the following:

Environment Item	Description
Title Bar	The title bar displays the name of your current spreadsheet.
Menu Bar	The menu bar contains the Excel command menus, e.g. File, Edit, etc., which consists of commands for performing specific tasks. Also available are the Apple Menu, the Help Menu, and the Application Menu. To issue a command, click on one of the menu items,drag to the command and release the mouse button.
Tool Bar	The tool bar buttons are shortcuts to some of the commands available from the menus.
Workspace Area	The worksheet area is a matrix of cells where your information will be displayed. Notice the A1 cell. It has a square outline around it. This outline is known as an active cell indicator. Excel has 256 columns ranging from Column A through Column IV, and 16,384 rows.
Reference Area	The reference area displays the name of the currently active cell.
Formula Bar	The Formula Bar is where you actually make changes to cell contents. When a cell is selected, its contents are displayed in the Formula Bar. To edit the contents, you edit what is in the Formula Bar.
Column Header & Row Header	Letters and Numbers used in combination (e.g. K11) to specify the exact location of a cell or range of cells.
Status Bar	The status bar located at the very bottom of your screen displays brief information about activity within your workspace area. Currently, it should say Ready.

Working with Workbooks

Opening a Workbook

Excel automatically opens a new workbook "untitled" when you launch the program. If you wish to work with a workbook that you have saved previously, you can open it by selecting Open from the File menu.

Switching between Spreadsheets

Since workbooks are collections of spreadsheets, when you have a workbook open you can choose which spreadsheet you are working with by selecting the folder icons that say "Sheet 1," "Sheet 2," "Sheet 3," etc. at the bottom of the screen.

Movement Within a Spreadsheet

Basic movement within the Excel spreadsheet may be accomplished by using the arrow keys on the keyboard, the mouse via point and click, or the scroll bars. For quick access to a remote place in your spreadsheet, use the Goto command:

1. From the Edit menu choose Go To...
2. Enter the name of the cell (e.g., Z49) using Row Header and Column Header labels.
3. Click on OK or press return.

In the table below, the 'cursor' is the active cell indicator. The active cell is the one with the highlighted border around it.

To do this	Use this
Move the cursor one cell to the right	--> or tab
Move the cursor one cell to the left	<-- or up-arrow-tab
Move the cursor down one cell	down-arrow or return
Move the cursor up one cell	up arrow or up-arrow-return
Move the cursor to cell A1	apple-home
Move the cursor to the end of the data	apple-end
Move the cursor up one screen	page up
Move the cursor down one screen	page down
Remember you may also use the mouse point and click method or the scroll bars to navigate through a spreadsheet.

Save and Save As...

To save what you are working on to disk...

1. From the File menu choose Save.

If it is your first time to save this file to disk, you will be prompted with a dialog box that allows you to specify several things:

• What name you wish to give the file.
• Where you wish to save the file (on what disk in what folder)
• What format / type the file should be.

The last option, format, is commonly ignored. You will not need to worry about this until you want to make your file available to someone else who uses a different kind of computer or application.

After you save the file, the name you gave it will be displayed in the Title Bar.

NOTE: Once you've first saved a file, using the save command again will not result in this dialog box. This is because Excel assumes you wish to save over the previous file. If you wish to save the document with a different name, or in a different location, use the Save As... command

Save vs. Save As...

If you wish to make a copy or create a different version of your file, you will want to use the Save As... command. This will take the file that you are working on and open the same dialog box you saw the first time you saved the file. This will allow you to save it in a new location with a new name, or a new format. (It's kind of like forcing Excel to think that this is the first time you are saving the file so that you can tell Excel where and how to save it.)

Caution: When you are working on a document, the changes you make go into a very temporary kind of memory called RAM, which is erased when the computer loses power or restarts. Because of this, it is absolutely critical that you save changes to your disk or hard drive. If you don't do this and your machine crashes or is accidentally turned off, you lose all of the changes you've made since it was last saved to disk. It is recommended that you save your work to disk approximately every 10-15 minutes.

Printing

To print your spreadsheet...

1. From the File menu choose Print...

   Although no changes should be needed to print a single copy of the entire document, the Print dialog box provides all kind of options.

2. Edit the dialog box as appropriate.
3. For multiple copies of the document, change the number in the Copies: box.
4. To select specified pages, fill in the From: and To: boxes with starting and ending pages inclusive.
5. Press return or click on Print.

If, however, you would prefer to see how your spreadsheet will look before it is actually printed...

1. From the File menu choose Print Preview.

   A "What you See is What you Get" version of your spreadsheet will appear, which is exactly what the spreadsheet will look like when printed out.

   Click on...	to...
   Next	Display Next page of previewed document
   Previous	Display Previous page of previewed document
   Zoom	enlarge or reduce the size of the image.
   Margins	see where your left, right, top, and bottom margins are set.
   Setup	make changes to margins and other options.
   Print	print

Entering Data

Basic Data Entry

Entering data is very easy, however, there are some features of a spreadsheet that make it confusing to first time users. The first thing you may want to do is visualize how the data needs to be laid out (drawing lines on a piece of paper sometimes helps).

When you are ready to enter the data, remember that you need to select the cell in which you want to enter data:

1. Highlight the cell, using the mouse or arrow keys.
2. Enter data.

When a cell is selected, the cell's contents are placed in the Formula Bar which serves as a very short term container (buffer). You can edit away in the Formula Bar without making changes to the cell until you are ready. When you begin to edit a cell, these two buttons show up in the Formula Bar:

Cancels any editing of the cell.

Enters the contents of the Formula Bar into the cell.

In addition to the button with the check-mark, you can enter the contents of the Formula Bar into the cell simply by moving to another cell (see Movement Within the Spreadsheet above).

It is highly recommended that you begin to use the return and tab keys to speed up your data entry. The most common movement is usually down (return) or to the right (tab).

Data Types and Features

Excel tries to interpret what you enter. Fortunately there are only three kinds of data that Excel understands. It will force whatever you type into one of those three types.

Type	Example	Description
Number	744.556	Consists of numbers only.
Text	Boeing 737	Consists of numbers and at least some text (can be completely text)
Calculation	=A1+4	Begins with an equals sign (=) and conforms to rules of math. Cell names are used as variables (to stand for cell values). Can also consist of a function (see Entering Formulas below).

You can see here why people have trouble when they wish to enter data that is to be treated as text but only consists of numbers. For example, if you attempt to type, say zip code 07101, the zero will be removed. To get around this, you have to tell Excel to treat the value as a text value, by entering in an apostrophe before the number such as:

'07101 '123 '4567 '62966 '000069.001M

Editing Data

Editing a Single Cell

We all make mistakes. When you wish to correct something, you must first highlight the cell that contains the incorrect data:

1. Highlight the cell that contains the incorrect data.
2. Edit the contents in the Formula Bar (using the mouse and/or delete keys).

Note: When editing the contents of a cell, do not use the arrow keys. Using the arrow keys here, will change the currently selected cell instead of moving the cursor.

If you wish to simply replace a particular cell's contents, you can just highlight it and start typing. This also means that you can press delete to replace the contents with nothing. You can, at any time, press ESC to cancel the changes and return the cell to the original value.

Deleting (Clearing) Cell Contents

If you want to delete more than one cell, you can select the range and clear the contents with the Clear command from the Edit menu:

1. Select the range of cells
2. From the Edit menu, choose Clear.
3. Select All or Formula.
4. Press return or click on OK.

TIP: Instead fo clicking on Edit and dragging to Clear, you may simply press the del key (located beneath the help key on your keyboard) to obtain the same dialog window.

Moving Cell Contents (Cut, Copy, and Paste)

To copy cell contents, we need to employ the Copy command.

1. Select the cell or range of cells you wish to copy.
2. From the Edit menu choose Copy .
3. Place the cursor where you wish the cell to be moved to.
4. Press enter to paste (Notice the Status Bar).

Note: enter is the key on the number pad. Pressing return will not work.

To move cell contents to different cells (removing the contents from their original location), we need to employ the Cut command...

1. Select the cell or range of cells you wish to copy.
2. From the Edit menu choose Cut.
3. Place the cursor where you wish the cell to be moved to.
4. Press enter to paste (Notice the Status Bar).

Note: Excel modifies the Cut and Copy commands so that if you choose Paste from the Edit menu to paste, you will still be in an edit mode. To get out of this edit mode, press esc.

Move Shortcut:

1. Select the cell or range of cells you wish to copy.
2. Place the cursor at the border of this selected cell or range so that the cursor turns to an arrow.
3. Click and drag the cells to a new location.
4. Release the mouse button.

Calculations

In Order of Priority
(...)	Parenthesis
^	Exponentiation
* or /	Multiplication
+ or -	Addition or Subtraction

For example, if you wished to add ten to five, then multiply the result by three, the answer would be 45. However, if Excel were to perform the calculation without the proper parenthesis, the answer would be 35. Due to the mathematical priorities listed above, you must use parenthesis to preform the addition first, like so:

(5 + 10) * 3

Formulas

Although it will be rare that you will actually attempt to calculate isolated or random numbers, you can do so. Try this by entering the following into any cell:

=3+(5+7)/2

At any point, any of the values in the above example could be replaced with cell names:

=3+(5+7)/B4

If B4 = 2, you'll get the same answer as before (go ahead and try it). Now you can begin to see how Excel does its work.

Functions

What's the difference between Formula and Function?

A formula is something that you might see on one side of an equation such as the examples above. A function, on the other hand, can be seen as a shortcut for a formula. To demonstrate, let's take a look at how a formula might be employed to add up the numbers in the cells B6 through B8:

=B6+B7+B8

That works fine. But say we had a list of all fifty states. That would be one long formula.

Here is the same calculation using a function, the SUM function (for summate):

=SUM(B6:B8)

A function consists of the equals sign (of course), then the name of the function (e.g., SUM) followed by its arguments within parentheses (e.g., B6:B8). Arguments are the values upon which functions act. For instance, the SUM function above acts on the cells, B6, B7, and B8ัthe colon : represents a range from the previous cell to the following cell.

Function Shortcuts

Summation Button

Because addition is such a common calculation, Microsoft has included a summation button (the one with the sigma (… on the tool bar). What this button does, when clicked on, is tell Excel to look above and/or to the left of the currently active cell. If there is a row or column of values, it automatically includes them into its function as arguments. All you have to do is tell Excel that you accept the values. To use it...

1. Highlight a cell below a column of numbers (or to the right of a row of numbers).
2. Click on the summate button on the tool bar.
3. Press enter.

Example

1. Make cell F6 your active cell, so that you can obtain the horizontal totals.
2. Point and click on the Summate button located in the tool bar. Notice the "marching ants" located around the parameter of the four numbers to be added. The Formula Bar should contain the formula =SUM(B6:E6).
3. Press enter to obtain your answer in the active cell.

Insert Function

To find out what kind of functions are available from Excel, and for a replacement of typing it in, you can paste in functions with the Paste Function... command.

To paste a function...

1. click on Formula and drag to Paste Function
   An alphabetical list of available functions will appear.
2. Select a function (e.g., SUM).
   If the Paste Arguments check-box is selected, click on it to deselect it.
3. Click on OK

   By deselecting the Paste Arguments check-box, the function will be pasted without the sample arguments (number1, number2, ...). The sample arguments are helpful on in that they tell you how the function needs its arguments laid out within the parentheses.

   Look at the Formula Bar. It should contain =SUM(). The insertion point is located between the parentheses (|), waiting for information.

4. Select the range of cells to be used as arguments (e.g., B6 through B8).
   Your Formula Bar should contain the following formula: =SUM(B6:B8)
5. Press enter to enter the formula into the cell.

Copying Calculations

Using Copy and Paste

1. Highlight the cell with the calculation you want to apply to other cells.
2. Choose Copy from the Edit menu.
3. Select the cell or range of cells which are to receive this calculation.
4. Press enter.

Example

1. Highlight B9. (Make sure it has the correct function or formula)
2. Choose Copy from the Edit menu.
3. Select C9 through F9.
4. Press enter.

Using the Fill commands

There is an even easier and faster way to accomplish this:

1. Starting with the cell that has the calculation you want to apply to other cells, drag through the whole range of cells that should contain this particular calculation.
2. Choose Fill Down (or Fill Right) from the Edit menu (depending on whether your range flows down or to the right).

Example 1

1. Drag from B9 to F9. (Cells C9 through F9 should be empty--see Clearing Cells above.)
2. Choose Fill Right from the Edit menu.

Example 2

1. Drag from F6 to F8. (Cells F7 and F8 should be empty--see Clearing Cells above.)
2. Choose Fill Down from the Edit menu.