Excel - The Basics for Beginners

Welcome once again readers to another edition of El Toro's Tech Blog.

A common question I get as a techie are Excel questions, mostly about what it is and what they can use excel for. In this article, I hope to be able to answer that question and give you a very basic look and feel on what Excel is.

What is Microsoft Excel?

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application that is developed my Microsoft. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications. (quote taken from Wikipedia)

I look at that description and even I am a loss at what the heck it is (and I am a techie so that's hard to do). Here is the short and sweet of it. Excel is an Electronic Spreadsheet Program with the ability to store, organize and manipulate data. It is used mostly to store financial data. Using these spreadsheets, you can apply formulas (you know, like the ones our math teachers showed us in school) to calculate important things like "what are my total expenses in the month", or "I need to make a pie chart that shows the budget we have and what we are using it for".

That description is a bit easier to digest isn't it? As with most spreadsheets, there are columns and there are rows. Excel is no exception to that. Each column name is labeled with letters starting from A and the rows are numbers chronologically. Someone jokingly asked me how many columns and rows are in a spreadsheet in Excel, I told them 1048576 rows, by 16384 columns. They started to laugh, until they saw my face and realized I wasn't kidding. =)

Of course I haven't seen a spreadsheet THAT big though and if one ever existed where every column and row had content in it, it would have to be a supercomputer using it. The more information you have in a spreadsheet, the more resources your computer will use making your system much slower. This is one of the biggest issues I have as a tech when I see people using excel just because they can make a table presentation "look better". For things like that, use Microsoft Word, not Excel. The image below illustrates what Excel 2010 looks like:

Looking at the picture, you can see why people like using this to organize their tables but again, this can be done easily in Word using Tables. Leave Excel for financial calculations. Please! I BEG YOU!!!

Reading a spreadsheet is rather simple if you look at it as cells. A cell consists of a column and row. If we refer back to the image above look at the selection, Column A, Row 1 is selected. so this is cell A1 (not the steak sauce here, that one is much too salty LOL) The cell to the right of it is B1, and so on. Likewise, the cell below A1 is called A2. This makes using Excel much easier when later you are using formulas to calculate a sum of several cells. That will be an entry for another day.

If you look right above the A column you will see A1 followed by a dropdown arrow. This field is known as a cell reference. We use cell references when creating math formulas. We also use it to tell us what cell is currently selected. Sometimes when a person receives a spreadsheet in an email and they open it up, the selected cell may not always be A1, so by viewing the cell reference, you will know what cell is selected (or referenced).

To the right of the cell reference you see the letters fx. This is where you would enter a formula to tell a specific cell you are in "hey, I want you to calculate something for me that is on my spreadsheet". Remember all those times in school when you said (at one point or another) "Why am I wasting my time with Math? I am never going to use it!". Well, if you don't know how to add, subtract, multiply, divide, etc, then you are going to have a hard time using Excel. (more on creating formulas in another entry).

So in short, this is the basic structure of a spreadsheet

Structure of a Microsoft Excel Worksheet (Spreadsheet)
	Name Box: displays the cell name or cell reference↓	Formula Bar: displays contents of selected cell ↓
Column Letters→
	↑ Row Numbers	↑ Selected Cell

The Name Box is located in the area above Column A, and displays the selected cell - the cell you've clicked in and where the cursor is resting. In our spreadsheet above, the selected cell is C2. Notice that the column letter (C) and the row number (2) change color.

The beginning of the Formula Bar can be seen in the area above Column D on our worksheet. The Formula Bar displays the contents of the selected cell.

A workbook is a collection of worksheets or spreadsheets. When the Excel program is opened, a workbook opens with three blank worksheets. The names of the worksheets are displayed on tabs at the bottom of the Excel window.

Moving From Cell to Cell

The arrow keys can be used to move left, right, up, and down from the current cell. Press the Enter key to move to the cell immediately below the current cell, and press the Tab key to move one cell to the right.

Selecting Cells

There are a variety of ways to select cells in an Excel spreadsheet:

• To select one cell, click in the cell.
• To select one or more rows of cells, click on the row number(s).
• To select one or more columns of cells, click on the column letter(s).
• To select a group of contiguous cells, click in a corner cell and, with the left mouse button depressed, drag the cursor horizontally and/or vertically until all of the cells you want selected are outlined in black.
• To select multiple cells that are not contiguous, press and hold the Ctrl key while clicking in the desired cells.
• To select every cell in the worksheet, click in the upper right corner of the worksheet to the left of "A."

Entering Data into Cells

To enter data into a cell, just click in the cell and begin typing. What you type also displays in the Formula Bar. When entering dates, Excel defaults to the current year if the year portion of the date is not entered.
You may edit cell contents from the Formula bar, or from directly inside the cell. To edit from the Formula Bar, select the cell and click inside the Formula Bar. When done typing, either press the Enter key or click inside another cell. To edit directly inside a cell, either double click inside the cell, or select the cell and press the F2 key.
Each cell has a specific format. This format tells Excel how the data inside the cell should be displayed.

Moving and Copying Cells

To move cell contents, right-click in the selected cell and click Cut.
To copy cell contents, click Copy. Then right-click in the new location and click Paste.
To paste a group of cells, right-click in the cell where the top left cell of the group should be located, and click Paste. Remove the animated border around the original cell by pressing the ESC key, or start typing in a new cell.

Adding and Deleting Rows and Columns

To insert a new row in a spreadsheet, right-click on a row number, and click Insert. Excel always inserts the row ABOVE the row that was clicked on. To delete a row, right-click on the row number, and click Delete.

To insert a new column, right-click on a column letter and click Insert. Excel always inserts the column to the LEFT of the column that was clicked on. To delete a column, right-click on the column letter, and click Delete.

Working with Worksheets (Spreadsheets)

Viewing, Renaming, Inserting, and Deleting Worksheets

Worksheet tabs are found in the bottom left area of the workbook. To view a worksheet, click on its tab. If the workbook window is not wide enough to display all of the tabs, use the arrows to the left of the tabs to navigate left or right, or right-click on any of the arrows and select the tab from the list that displays.

To rename a spreadsheet, right-click on the spreadsheet tab, select Rename from the context menu, and type a new name. Or, double-click on the worksheet tab and type a new name.

To insert a worksheet, right-click on a worksheet tab and select Insert from the menu. Excel always inserts the spreadsheet to the left of the current worksheet.

To delete a worksheet, right-click on the worksheet tab and select Delete from the context menu.

Moving Worksheets (Spreadsheets)

Sometimes we want our spreadsheets to be arranged in a different order.  
To move a worksheet in the same workbook, right-click on the tab of the source worksheet and click "Move or Copy." In the Move or Copy window, click the name of the worksheet that you want the sheet to be inserted before, and click OK.


To move a spreadsheet to a new workbook, right-click on the tab of the source spreadsheet and click "Move or Copy." In the Move or Copy window, click the drop-down arrow under "To Book:" and click (new book). Excel removes the worksheet from the existing workbook and opens a new workbook containing the moved worksheet.


To move a worksheet to another existing workbook, we recommend copying the worksheet as instructed below, and then deleting the original sheet when the worksheet has been successfully pasted. Using cut and paste is an option, but if something happens to the PC before pasting occurs, a valuable worksheet could be lost.

Copying Worksheets (Spreadsheets)

Rather than start from scratch, it is often easier to copy, and then modify, an existing worksheet.
To copy a worksheet in the same workbook, right-click on the tab of the source worksheet and click "Move or Copy." In the Move or Copy window, check the "create a copy" box, click the name of the spreadsheet that you want the sheet to be inserted before, and click OK.


To copy a worksheet into a new workbook, right-click on the tab of the source worksheet and click "Move or Copy." In the Move or Copy window, click the drop-down arrow under "To Book:" and click (new book). Excel opens a new workbook containing the copied spreadsheet.


To copy a worksheet from one workbook to another existing workbook, right-click the top left corner cell to select all cells and click Copy. Open the other Excel workbook, find an empty worksheet, right-click the top left corner cell to select all cells, and click Paste. Return to the first worksheet and press ESC to remove the animated border.

That is all for today. Keep an eye out for the next entry, where I will show you how easy it is to create a simple formula that will add up, subtract, multiply and divide numbers.

Thanks for reading and until next time … Be Safe! =)