Basic Document Activities

Having reviewed the background information, you are ready to begin creating a spreadsheet. You need to be in Excel to do this section.

MOVING AROUND IN THE SPREADSHEET
You can move around in the spreadsheet by various means. The arrow keys can be used to move left, right, up, and down within the boundaries of the spreadsheet. The arrow keys move the active cell one cell at a time. You can hold an arrow key down and get a continuous one-cell movement until you let up. You can similarly use the [PageUp] and [PageDown] keys to move the active cursor up or down a screen at a time. Try moving the active cell around with these keys.

Another way of moving the active cell is to point to a cell with the mouse and click. The active cell will move to where you clicked with the mouse. Click on cell C5 and the active cell position will change. Try selecting another cell to be the active one.

You can also use the vertical and horizontal scroll bars to look at other parts of the spreadsheet. Scroll down with the vertical bar until you are looking at row 100. Notice that the active cell on the formula bar has not changed its reference. When the scroll bars are used, the active cell will remain where it was last selected and will disappear if the window of view moves beyond the view of the active cell. After using the scroll bars, you have to click on a cell in the new display to actually change the active cell.

Some other common keys to move the active cell are: 

    [Home]               moves to the first column on the current
                         row
    [Ctrl]+[Home]        moves to the top left corner of the
                         document or A1 (press both keys at the
                         same time)
    [End], then [Home]   moves to the last cell in the document
                         (lower right corner)
You move between sheets (pages) by clicking on the sheet tab or using the scrolling buttons to move more quickly through the sheets. Try moving between pages using these techniques. Again, since there is no information on these pages, the only difference is that the highlighted sheet tab changes.

MARKING A BLOCK
Marking a block can be a very challenging task, but you need to learn how to do it since it is a common procedure.

Exercise 4
Let's say you want to mark the block from B2 to D6. This will encompass 15 cells. To do this, click on cell B2 and hold down the left mouse button; then drag the mouse down and to the right. (Make sure you continue to hold the mouse button down.) If you see that cells are being blackened, you are progressing correctly. Continue to move the mouse arrow down to cell D6 and then release the mouse button. This should result in the desired 15 cells being in a blackened rectangle (the original active cell of B2 is not blackened but is included in the block).

Using the mouse is popular when marking a block, but you can also hold down the [Shift] key and simultaneously press arrow keys. Do not release the [Shift] key until all the cells you want are highlighted. Try this method of blocking as well.

DATA ENTRY
The initial spreadsheet you will build now is a simple one which will not require any type of formatting. (Formatting will be addressed in Lesson 2.)

The little example is going to record information about a fund-raising project where six people are selling different colored toothbrushes. This spreadsheet will let us know how many toothbrushes are sold by an individual, how many brushes are sold of each color, and the total number of toothbrushes sold. Remember, the process for accounting for six people will be similar for that of 600!

To enter data make the appropriate cell the active cell, and type in the information for that cell. Pressing the [ENTER] key will move you down one cell; you can also press an arrow key on the keyboard to move in a different direction on the grid. If you make a mistake you can type over the previous information.

Exercise 5
Enter this information in the same cells as indicated here. 
          A         B     C     D       E      F    G
     1             Red   Blue  Green  Totals
     2    Mary      23    25     25    
     3    Sam       16    18     19    
     4    Bill      19    33      4     
     5    Sue       24    22     33    
     6    Mandy     17    27     21    
     7    Tommy      9     5     18    
     8    Totals                    
     9
     10
Note: Text will display to the left and numbers to the right in each cell. Leave the justification alone. In Lesson 2 you will learn about justification options.

EDITING DATA
Now that you have entered data, you might need to alter the information. There are several ways to do this. Let's say you want to replace the name Tommy (A7) with Robert. First make cell A7 the active cell. Now type in Robert and press the [ENTER] key and the change will take place. Another way to edit is to double-click on the cell you want to edit and the insertion point will appear inside the cell. You can use the arrow keys and edit this cell as needed. Try doing this by changing Sue in cell A5 to Susey. Another means of editing is to select the cell (or cells) you want to change and press the [DEL] key on the keyboard to blank the marked cells.

ENTERING FORMULAS
Although the numbers are small and we could easily do the calculations in our head, another spreadsheet might have 500 numbers to add. A formula can be a combination of values (numbers or cell references) and math operators into an algebraic expression. Math operators include the following symbols:

+ for addition
- for subtraction
* for multiplication
/ for division
% for percentage
^ for exponentiation

In addition you can use parentheses and decimal points, where needed.

Excel requires that EVERY formula begin with an equal sign (=). If you just type without this symbol, Excel treats the entry as text.

Exercise 6
First make cell B8 your active cell. Enter the simple formula: =23+16+19+24+17+9 into B8. (Be sure to use number 1 and not the letter l and 0 and not the letter o.) Remember to begin this formula with the = sign. You should see the result of your formula 108 displaying in that cell in the spreadsheet. Look at the formula bar; it will be displaying what you typed as the formula.

Move to cell C8. Enter the formula: =C2+C3+C4+C5+C6+C7 into cell C8. Again compare the cell results displaying in that cell with the formula bar at the top of the screen.

Having entered the two formulas and having the totals appear, now enter a different number in both column B2 and C2 for Mary and see what happens to the total results in cell B8 and C8. What happened? For column B there was no correcting update to the total. This was because of the inflexibility of the formula, whereas in column C the formula referenced the position and was correctly updated when the numbers above changed. This is important to understand.

Let's look at another way to do this formula. If you had dozens of people in the fundraising project, and not just 6, you would not want to type in all the cells to add together. A shorthand formula format for adding a list of numbers in one column or in one row is:

=SUM(Beginning cell:Ending cell)

Exercise 7
Try entering this formula in D8. The formula should be: =SUM(D2:D7). Note the results. Again, enter a new number for Mary in D2 and see what the results are. If your formula did not function properly, check that the formula has been correctly entered. (The : between the two cells tells Excel to treat this as a block of cells, from D2 through D7.)

Adding or summing a series of numbers is a very common spreadsheet procedure and so Excel has added a button on the Standard toolbar to help.

Exercise 8
Move to cell B8 and press the [DEL] key to erase this formula. Click on AutoSum button near the middle of the Standard Toolbar. The symbol is the Greek sigma, and looks like a fancy E. AutoSum is designed to look for numbers above it and add those numbers together; if there are no numbers above, it looks for numbers to the left of the active cell. In this example, there are numbers above cell B8, so Excel displays a sum function of =SUM(B2:B7). Press the [ENTER] key to accept this formula. There is a new total in cell B8.

The AutoSum can be applied to several columns or several rows at once. For example, use your mouse to block from cells E2 through E8. Now click on the AutoSum and the totals for each row will be placed in column E.

You have just created an Excel workbook. The contents of this spreadsheet include constant values (numbers and text) and formulas, and that's what can be found in the most sophisticated of spreadsheets. From here, you would generally enhance the format of the information found in the spreadsheet. For example, you might need to change the width of a cell to contain more information, you might want to adjust the positioning of column or row headings to make it look nicer, or you might need to change the way the numbers were displayed--especially if you were using decimal places. These features will be described in the second lesson.

SAVING THE WORKBOOK
Once you have created your Excel application, you will want to save it. This can be done in several ways, which is similar to the way files are saved in other Windows programs. The workbook file is saved by either mouse clicking on the Save button on the Standard toolbar or using File, Save (or Save As) from the menu bar.

Go ahead and save your file. Name it FUNDRAS. You do not need to add an extension, since Excel automatically adds .XLS as the extension to any workbook. Pay attention to what directory the file is being stored in. Some people will want to create a directory area under EXCEL to store all of their own spreadsheets.

As you save a new workbook, you may see a "Summary Info" dialog box. This window allows you to enter a longer descriptive title, author, keywords and other comments. The words used here can be used in helping to find a particular workbook later. Thus, this feature is useful if you have LOTS of workbooks. If you only have a few, it is not critical to fill it out. Type in the title of Toothbrush Sales Project and click on the "OK" button to close this window and continue with the saving process.

It is a good idea to keep saving a file frequently as you create it. If, after you save a file, you make changes you do not want to keep, simply click on File and Close. When you are prompted to save changes, select "No".

PRINTING THE WORKBOOK
When you have your workbook as you want it, you can print it. Again, this is very much like what you would do in other Microsoft programs. Your printer should have already been set up for all your Microsoft applications including Excel.

Exercise 9
Click on File on the menu bar and then Print. You have options to select what or how much you want to print under the section of "Print What" in the Print dialog box. The default is to print the active sheet.

Before you print, click on the [Print Preview] button in the Print dialog box to see what it will look like. The small file you have created will not fill up the sheet of paper. You may want to click on the button [Margins] in the Print Preview screen to display lines for the location of top, bottom, and side margins. When you put the mouse over a dotted margin line, it changes shape from a magnifying glass to a cross arrow. Click and drag on one the dotted margin lines to move it in the display. You can use this technique to lower the display on the paper and move it to the middle. Go ahead and click on the [Print] button in the Print Preview screen to print the file to your printer.

We will look at other options for printing in Lesson 3.

QUITTING EXCEL
Once you are sure you want to quit Excel, be sure that you have saved everything you want to save first. It is a good idea to close your workbook before exiting but this is not a requirement. To close, click on File on the menu bar, then Close.

Some of the ways to quit Excel are to double-click on the Control menu box, press [Alt]+F4, or click on FILE, then Exit. If there are unsaved files open, you are asked if you want to save the open file(s).

OPEN VERSUS NEW
When you have an existing file, to modify or print it you open up Excel, and then select the Open icon on the Standard toolbar. The process is similar to other Microsoft programs. You can change the directory area or drive to look for files in other locations.

If you already have an Excel file displaying and click on Open you can load (or open) another file in another window. These are not the same windows. The number of windows (files) that can be open at once depends on your computer's memory, but normally you should be able to have at least 4 or 5. To see how many files you have open, click on Window on the menu bar and at the bottom of the drop-down window you will see a list of the open windows. Clicking on the filename in this listing is one way to jump to another spreadsheet without closing your active one.

You would use the Open button to open/retrieve an existing workbook. You would use the New button to go to a blank sheet layout to build a new workbook.

Learning Excel - Index