Notes on Computer- MS Excel 2007

Notes By Tanuja Banerjee, Computer teacher St. Anne’s Girls” High School

The notes here deal with MS Excel which is part of school computer curriculum. It deals with introduction to MS Excel, an application software that helps calculation, data storage, organisation and manipulation.

MS Excel is a spreadsheet program, which enables the user to store, organize and manipulate data in tabular format, that is rows and columns.

Features of MS Excel-

• Functions and Formulas- Functions are the built-in formulas used for calculating percentage, interest, average etc. In MS Excel , Formulas are used for simple and complex calculations.

• Formatting features- Improve the appearance of data.

• Auto- calculation- Data is automatically recalculated in the whole worksheet every time a change is made in a single cell .

• Fast searching and instant replacing of data.

• Entering data in series using AutoFill option.

• Data can be viewed in a graphical form as charts, which help to understand, analyse and compare data in an effective manner.

Notes on MS Excel-How to start

Start –All Programs– Microsoft Office– Microsoft Excel 2007

Excel Window

Components of Excel-

1. Title Bar– At the top of the screen Title bar is located. It displays name of the workbook.
2. Active cell– The cell with black outline, in which we can enter data and make changes is called Active cell. The black outline is called cell pointer.
3. Office Button– Office Button, when clicked, displays a drop-down menu containing a number of options, like- New, Open, Save, Print etc.
4. Ribbon– The ribbon is the strip of buttons and icons located above the work area in Excel 2007. Each ribbon is divided into different groups. The various ribbons are- Home, Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, Review and View.
5. Column Headings– Alphabets across the top border of each worksheet are called Column Headings. These headings identify columns with letters A to Z, AA to AZ and upto XFD. Total no. of columns in a worksheet are 16,384.
6. Row Headings– Row headings are the numbers marked as 1 through 1,048,576 along the left border of the worksheet.
7. Formula Bar– The formula bar is located above the worksheet. This area displays the contents of the active cell. It can also be used for entering or editing data and formulas.
8. Name Box– It is located next to Formula bar, the Name Box displays the cell reference or the name of the active cell.
9. Sheet Tab– The Sheet tabs appear above the Status bar. By default there are three sheets. They are numbered as Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3. On clicking a particular Sheet tab , that worksheet becomes active. According to our need we can add Sheets.
10. Quick Access Toolbar– This customizable toolbar allows us to add frequently used commands.
11. Worksheets– A grid of cells is called worksheet. Workbooks are made up of several worksheets. Worksheets are like pages and Workbooks are like notebooks.
12. Status Bar– Status bar is located at the bottom of the Excel window. It reports the average , count and sum of the selected cells.

Entering Data

To input data in a worksheet , we have to move the cell pointer from one cell to another with the help of various keys-

• Click a cell on the worksheet.

• Enter the data and then press Enter key or Tab key.

• To enter data on a new line within a cell, enter line break by pressing Alt+ Enter.

Data Types- In MS Excel following type of data can be used

• Text– Combination of letters, numbers and special characters can be defined as text. If any data cannot be recognized as a number, date, time or formula, Excel considers it as text. A cell can contain upto 32767 characters. By default text is aligned to the left of cell.
• Numbers– We can enter numeric data in cells on which we can perform calculations. Numeric data may be whole numbers or numbers with fractions. Example- 234,-235, 0.0234, -0.234 etc. By default numbers are right aligned
• Date and Time- MS Excel provide special features to handle date & time so that necessary calculations can be performed on them.
• Formula- A formula is an expression consisting of values for performing calculation using suitable operators. It starts with an equal to (=) sign. In Excel there are predefined formulas called functions that makes calculations easy.

Merge and Center

Merge cell is a function of excel that enables different nearby cells to be joined into a larger cell. Merge and Center button is present in the Alignment group on Hometab.

Saving a workbook– To avoid data loss because of any hardware fault or power failure, it is important to save our work at frequent intervals. Click Save option from Quick access toolbar. Give a filename and click on Save button. The shortcut key to save a file is CTRL + S.

Performing Calculations– Excel has a powerful feature to perform calculations on the data. We can perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of numbers either using formulas or using functions.

Entering Simple Formulae– Formulae are equations that perform calculations on values in our worksheet. A formula starts with an equal to sign (=). The result of the calculation is displayed in the cell where the formula is entered. A formula consists of a combination of cell references, numbers, operators and Excel functions.

• We can use upper or lower case letters while entering the cell address in a formula.
• AutoSum ( ∑ )-Excel also provides a quicker and easier way of performing calculations using AutoSum button present on Formula tab.

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