Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a commercial spreadsheet application, written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. At the time of writing this tutorial the Microsoft excel version was 2010 for Microsoft Windows and 2011 for Mac OS X.
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet tool capable of performing calculations, analyzing data and integrating information from different programs.
By default, documents saved in Excel 2010 are saved with the .xlsx extension whereas the file extension of the prior Excel versions are .xls.
Audience
This tutorial has been designed for computer users who would like to learn Microsoft Excel in easy and simple steps. It will be highly useful for those learners who do not have prior exposure to Microsoft applications.
Prerequisites
Before proceeding with this tutorial, you should have a basic understanding of Computer peripherals like mouse, keyboard, monitor, screen etc. and their basic operations. You should also have the basic skills of file management and folder navigations.
This chapter teaches you how to start an excel 2010 application in simple steps. Assuming you have Microsoft Office 2010 installed in your PC, start the excel application following the below mentioned steps in your PC.
Step 1 − Click on the Start button.
Step 2 − Click on All Programs option from the menu.
Step 3 − Search for Microsoft Office from the sub menu and click it.
Step 4 − Search for Microsoft Excel 2010 from the submenu and click it.
This will launch the Microsoft Excel 2010 application and you will see the following excel window.
The following basic window appears when you start the excel application. Let us now understand the various important parts of this window.
File Tab
The File tab replaces the Office button from Excel 2007. You can click it to check the Backstage view, where you come when you need to open or save files, create new sheets, print a sheet, and do other file-related operations.
Quick Access Toolbar
You will find this toolbar just above the File tab and its purpose is to provide a convenient resting place for the Excel's most frequently used commands. You can customize this toolbar based on your comfort.
Ribbon
Ribbon contains commands organized in three components −
· Tabs − They appear across the top of the Ribbon and contain groups of related commands. Home, Insert, Page Layout are the examples of ribbon tabs.
· Groups − They organize related commands; each group name appears below the group on the Ribbon. For example, group of commands related to fonts or group of commands related to alignment etc.
· Commands − Commands appear within each group as mentioned above.
Title Bar
This lies in the middle and at the top of the window. Title bar shows the program and the sheet titles.
Help
The Help Icon can be used to get excel related help anytime you like. This provides nice tutorial on various subjects related to excel.
Zoom Control
Zoom control lets you zoom in for a closer look at your text. The zoom control consists of a slider that you can slide left or right to zoom in or out. The + buttons can be clicked to increase or decrease the zoom factor.
View Buttons
The group of three buttons located to the left of the Zoom control, near the bottom of the screen, lets you switch among excel's various sheet views.
· Normal Layout view − This displays the page in normal view.
· Page Layout view − This displays pages exactly as they will appear when printed. This gives a full screen look of the document.
· Page Break view − This shows a preview of where pages will break when printed.
Sheet Area
The area where you enter data. The flashing vertical bar is called the insertion point and it represents the location where text will appear when you type.
Row Bar
Rows are numbered from 1 onwards and keeps on increasing as you keep entering data. Maximum limit is 1,048,576 rows.
Column Bar
Columns are numbered from A onwards and keeps on increasing as you keep entering data. After Z, it will start the series of AA, AB and so on. Maximum limit is 16,384 columns.
Status Bar
This displays the sheet information as well as the insertion point location. From left to right, this bar can contain the total number of pages and words in the document, language etc.
You can configure the status bar by right-clicking anywhere on it and by selecting or deselecting options from the provided list.
Dialog Box Launcher
This appears as a very small arrow in the lower-right corner of many groups on the Ribbon. Clicking this button opens a dialog box or task pane that provides more options about the group.