Excel Fundamentals

If you master the basics of Excel, you open up a tool that supports business, analysis, planning and productivity.

There is more to Microsoft Excel than just rows and columns. It proves to be useful in organizing, computing and analyzing data.

Managing school work, business data or your daily schedule is much easier when you can use Excel which is why learning the basics is so important today.

Here, you’ll find out the main ideas about Excel, including its definition, its purpose and how to use it best.

What is the purpose of Microsoft Excel?

Microsoft is the company that developed Microsoft Excel as a spreadsheet program. You can use a spreadsheet to arrange information in tables, perform calculations, make charts and study the results speedily.

An Excel file is called a workbook and every page inside it is a worksheet or sheet. It’s like a digital record book: organized, clean and powerful.

What are the Important Parts of an Excel Worksheet

We should now explore how Excel works.

1. Cells

The basic element used in Excel. It is where you add your information.

 A1, B5 and C10 are the ways to define cells in a spreadsheet.

2. Rows form one part and columns another.

• Each row goes horizontally (and they are marked with numbers, starting with 1).
• The columns go vertically and they are labeled A, then B and so on.
• The two types of objects are positioned in a way that holds your data.

3. Formulas Bar

In this area, you can add and use formulas to finish calculations.

4. Ribbon

• The top of the screen holds tabs called Home, Insert, Formulas, Data and similar options.

Which kinds of data can be entered into a spreadsheet?

• Excel is able to handle various types of data.
• Text is formed using letters and numbers which appear on the database’s field labels or name tags.

Time and Dates

There are formulas and functions for making automatic calculations.

Example:

=A1 + B1 will give you the total of what is in A1 and B1.

The sum of all the values in range A1 to A5 is found by using SUM(A1:A5).

Basic Excel Functions You Should Know

These are your best friends as a beginner:

Function	What It Does
=SUM()	Adds numbers
=AVERAGE()	Finds the average
=MAX()	Finds the highest number
=MIN()	Finds the lowest number
=IF()	Performs logical tests
=COUNT()	Counts number entries

How to Style Your Worksheet

Neatness matters. With Excel, you can arrange your data so it’s clearer.

• The most common tools used in formatting are
• Use bold, italic and underline types for your texts.
• Background Color for Your Cell
• Formatting in Currency, Percentage and Date
• Drawing guidelines, as well as lines that limit areas, are known as borders and gridlines.
• Commit your focus to Merge & Center (when dealing with titles).
• This function is available from the Home tab.

Organizing Data in an Expert Manner

When your data is in Excel, there are a few ways to organize it.

You can arrange various types of information depending on their character type, for example, sorting names or prices from A–Z.

• Show only the data that is important to you.
• Using Freeze Panes allows headers to be seen even when you scroll down the page.
• Each of these options is located in the Data tab.

Using Charts to Show Data

Charts make your information clear and interesting to look at. You can include various elements in your spreadsheet by using Excel.

• Column and Bar Graphs
• Line Charts help in displaying trends well.
• Pie Charts are used when listing percentages.
• Combo Charts
• Choose Insert > Charts to look at various charts.

Why Excel is a Valuable Tool

You can use Excel for the following:

• It is important to budget and make financial plans.
• Inventory management
• Scheduling and tracking time
• Keeping an eye on student grades
• Analyzing information collected through survey and forms
• Easy ways to manage projects
• Simply put, it’s a versatile and strong tool for most kinds of projects.

Additional Pointers for Excel Excellence

• Regular practice will help you progress the most.
• Make use of the template files provided by Excel for budgeting, calendars and similar tasks.
• Keep going — when you know the basics, use PivotTables, charts and data validation.
• Frequent saves will make sure you don’t lose anything important.
• You can always rely on Google, YouTube and forums to help you understand more about programming.

In short, start with small projects and grow as you learn.

One nice thing about Excel is that you can learn its different skills in time. First, focus on the basic lessons and then move on to learning more advanced skills. All advanced Excel users started with simple site functions and putting filters into action.

Therefore, pick up your workbook, start working and let Excel guide you through being smart and tidy with your data.