Digitizing Your PDD :: Microsoft Excel

Getting Started

Throughout the tutorial you will have two windows active; a window displaying the tutorial and a window displaying an Excel workbook. Let's begin.

Find and Open Excel 97. (Other versions of Excel may be used, however, slight differences will be found in the screen shots.)

Resize and position the window displaying the tutorial next to the blank Excel workbook.

Excel displays a new workbook when it is opened. In a new workbook all the cells are empty. A cell is active when the border is highlighted. When you enter information, the information is stored in the active cell. Let's learn how to enter information into a workbook.

Entering Information Into a Workbook

Entering Text and Constants

Click on the Excel window, select a cell by clicking on it, and enter: Excel is fun.

Observe the following:

Observe that your text is displayed in two areas. Text is displayed in the active cell within the workbook and it is also displayed in the formula bar. The formula bar is activated as soon as you begin typing in a cell. At the far left is the reference section, which will show the reference of the active cell.

Next to the formula bar are the Cancel and Enter buttons (). The Cancel and Enter buttons are only visible while Excel is in edit mode. Excel is in edit mode anytime you begin typing an entry. To put Excel in edit mode, click in the formula bar.

Within the Excel window, click in the formula bar to display the Cancel and Enter buttons.

The Enter button enters the text you typed into the cell. You could also press the Return key on the keyboard.

If you want to edit the text you entered into a cell, you click the formula bar, type your changes and click on the Enter button.

The Cancel button cancels your changes.

Within the Excel window, click in the formula bar and change the text: fun, to outrageous.

Click on the Enter button to enter the edit.

Click on the Cancel button to cancel the edit.

Entering constant values is the same as entering text, except that constant values are right-justified by default. You will learn how to change this default when you learn other formatting changes.

Entering Formulas

All formulas in Excel must begin with an equal sign (=). When a formula is entered into a cell, the formula itself is displayed in the formula bar when that cell is highlighted, and the result of the formula is displayed in the actual cell. When you are typing in formulas, do not type spaces; Excel will delete them.

Within the Excel window, select cell A2 and enter the constant value 12. (Remeber to click the Enter button or the Return key when you are done typing).

Within the Excel window, select cell A3 and enter the constant value 15.

Within the Excel window, select cell A4 and click on the formula bar.

Within the formula bar, enter an equal sign followed by A2+A3.

Observe:

Click on the Enter button or press the Return key to enter the formula.

Your worksheet should look as follows:

Excel displays the result of the formula in cell A4.

Within the Excel window, select cell A3 and change the number 15 to the number 40, and enter the edit.

The formula value should have changed in cell A4 to the number 52.

Now that you know how to enter information into an Excel workbook it is time to create a simple workbook.