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By

Kevin E. Presley
Training Coordinator

October 2002

Complete Microsoft Excel .................................................................................................. 1


Toolbars .......................................................................................................................... 1
Standard ...................................................................................................................... 1
Formatting................................................................................................................... 2
Basic Data Entry ............................................................................................................. 3
Autosum.......................................................................................................................... 4
Copying Functions .......................................................................................................... 5
Manual Formulas ............................................................................................................ 5
Formatting Cells.............................................................................................................. 6
Titles and Deadspace ...................................................................................................... 9
Sorting and Filtering ..................................................................................................... 10
Chart Wizard................................................................................................................. 11
Altering Charts.............................................................................................................. 15
All Chart Types............................................................................................................. 18
Modifying Sheets .......................................................................................................... 21
Tools, Options Settings Some Basic Choices ............................................................... 22
Creating a Custom List ................................................................................................. 24
Security ......................................................................................................................... 24
Importing Data From Other Programs.......................................................................... 25
Page Setup Margins, Header and Footers, Orientation.............................................. 26
Setting the Print Area.................................................................................................... 27
Freezing......................................................................................................................... 27
Splitting......................................................................................................................... 28
Linking From Excel ...................................................................................................... 28
Pre-built Formulas ........................................................................................................ 29
Hyperlinked Spreadsheet .............................................................................................. 30
Further Help ................................................................................................................... 33

Kevin Presley

October 2002

Complete Microsoft Excel


This manual will contain all the guidance you will need to go from no experience to
advance Excel topics. It will start out with a discussion of the toolbars and then move
into how to enter data. The data used throughout most of the examples will be
cumulative, but the examples will be understandable as stand alone cases. This will make
this manual usable as a tutorial and as a reference guide.

Toolbars
First we will discuss the standard toolbars:

Standard
This icon has the same function as the
Maximize/Restore function in the upper left
hand corner of the screen.
File opens existing files.
Save current workbook.
E-mail Copy allows you to send a copy of the
spreadsheet in its current for to an Outlook
recipient.
Search allows you to search for words or
partial words in the worksheet.
Print to the last printer used. In order to be
sure which printer your are going to use, please
use File, Print instead of this.
Print Preview.
Check Spelling.
Cut.
Copy.
Paste.
Format Painter allows you to copy the
formatting of one Cell and transfer it to
another. See Borders and Shading.
Undo allows you to undo things you have
done. The arrow allows you to undo multiple
steps at a time.
Redo allows you to redo things you have
undone. The arrow allows you to undo
multiple steps at a time.
Hyperlink allows you to link a Cell or text to
another part of the spreadsheet, another
spreadsheet entirely, or a website.
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Functions Default is Autosum, but by


clicking the arrow you can choose other
functions.
Sort ascending or descending Do not use.
This method may actually jumble your data see
Sorting for proper information on how to sort.
Chart Wizard for designing charts.
Drawing toolbar(almost never used).
Percentage size of screen.
Help.

Formatting
Font allows you to change fonts.
Size allows you to change the size
of your font. You can type in a size
if it does not appear and hit Enter.
Bold.
Italics.
Underline.
Left Justify.
Center.
Right Justify.
Merge and Center merges all the
highlighted Cells into one and
centers the contents of the first Cell
across the resultant large Cell.
Currency changes numbers to
currency.
Percentage changes fractions to
percentage.
Comma puts in commas every third
numeral.
Add decimal places.
Remove decimal places.
Decrease or Increase Indent of
text, not often used in Excel.

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Borders Do not use this icon, see Borders and


Shading.
Fill will set a background color.
Font Color.

Basic Data Entry


To Enter data in a Cell, simply Left Click the Cell and then type the data. To move to
the next Cell to the right hit Tab. To move to the next Cell below hit Enter. You may
also use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move in any direction you prefer.

The screen is broken up into Rows and Columns. The Rows are numbered
sequentially starting at 1. The Columns are sequential alphabetically starting at A. To
find a particular Cell you need to know its Column and Row. In the example above
you see Cell A1. Above this Cell is a small interactive window that will always let you
know which Cell you occupy. The fx line beside this is known as the Formula Bar.
This will display the contents of the Cell. If the Cell is based on a formula, it will show
the formula. This line is the easiest way to correct a mistake in a particular Cell. You
can Left Click the Cell and then Left Click the bad data on the Formula Bar and
correct it. This will save you having to retype the complete Cell. The small gray
square above Row 1 and to the left of Column A is the Select All button. It performs
the same functions as Edit, Select All.

Now lets enter the data you see above. When typing the list of names, notice that when
you type the J in Jane, Excel offers to fill in Jack. This is known as Auto-Complete.
Auto-Complete keeps track of what you have already entered in a Column of Cells so
that if you are repeating place names such as cities or states, you have merely to enter
part of the word and then hit Enter or Tab to accept its suggestion.

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+
Now Left Click on Cell B1. You will notice that the bottom right corner of the Cell is
larger and darker than all the others. Hover the cursor over this corner and it will
become a plus mark as seen in the first picture above. Left Click and Hold, then Drag
the mouse to the left across Column C, D, E, and F. You will notice a text window
that says Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday as you type. Once you have
reached Friday Let Up on the mouse button.

After doing this you will see that Excel automatically puts in the days of the week.
This is known as a List. We will talk more about lists later in Custom Lists. Now add
it the data for the number of hours per day for each person. Then add a label for Total
in Column G and Row 7.

Autosum

To automatically total the hours for Monday in Column B, Left Click Cell B2 and
release the mouse. Then Left Click and Hold. Then Drag Down to Cell B7 as shown
above and then release the mouse.

icon to Autosum the numbers in the Column the result is


Now Left Click the
stored in the last highlighted Cell. If you did this properly the total should be 29 as
seen above. Now lets do this for the weeks total for Bobs hours. The process works
the same whether it is down or to the right. Left Click Cell B2. Left Click and Hold
B2. Drag the mouse to the right until you reach Cell G2. Left Click the
Autosum the total this time should be 27.

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Copying Functions

+
Starting with the data from the last section, Left Click Cell G2. You will notice that
the bottom right hand corner is wider just like in the example with the days of the week.
Let your cursor hover over that corner until it becomes a large plus sign. Left Click
and Hold. Now Drag down the screen until you reach G6 then release.

You will see that it copied the formula down Column G. If you click one of the Cells
and look at the formula line, you will see that copying the formula down the Column
changes the variables as it copies. The formula in Cell G2 is Sum(B2,F2) and in G3
Sum(B3,F3). This is the method to use when copying formulas down or across a long
Column or Row. You can also select a Cell that has a formula, copy it, and then paste
it in the new Cell. Now lets copy the formula for the day totals across Row 7. Left
Click the Cell B7, let your cursor hover over the bottom right hand corner till it
becomes a plus sign, Left Click and Hold, and then Drag across to Cell G7. You will
notice when you are done that it will easily total the totals based on formulas. If you
change any data based on a formula it will automatically be reflected throughout the
sheet. There is no need to refresh anything before it takes effect.

Manual Formulas

Manual formulas are formulas that we type in by hand. Any calculation that you can
write out on paper can be put into an Excel spreadsheet. Starting with the data from the
last example, type in the data seen above in the first picture. The Rate column is the
hourly rate of pay for each person. Now to calculate Gross (gross pay) we need to
multiply their Total hours for the week times their Rate of pay. So for Bob that would
be G2*H2, and that is exactly what we need to type. Left Click on Cell I2 and type in
the following: =G2*H2
Then hit Enter.

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The formula now takes effect. Now, we need to copy it down the Column using the
method discussed in Copying Functions. Finally Copy the Total Formula from Cell
G7 and Paste it into I7.

Formatting Cells

First we will discuss the formatting of the actual data and them we will look at formatting
for the Cell size, background color, and shape. Left Click on the gray H block for
Column H and Hold. Drag to the right so that it highlights both Column H and I and
then release. Both H and I should be highlighted as shown above. Right Click the
highlighted area and Left Click Format Cells.

The first window of Format Cells is Number.


Number deals with what type the data actually
is. For this example we would select Currency,
but first we want to discuss what each type does.

General is a generic data type. Excel will make assumption about how to treat your data.
Usually this is just fine, but as you say when we type in our data, trailing zeros after the
decimal point are dropped and leading zeroes before the decimal are as well. If you are
dealing with money or number strings such as Social Security Numbers or serial numbers
do not use this data type.
Number asks how many decimal places to use, whether to use a comma separator every
3 numbers to the left of the decimal place, and then gives you a variety of formats to
symbolize negative numbers. This is the best all around non financial format for numeric
data.

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Currency is the best format for monetary representation in a general spreadsheet. The
only major differences between this format and accounting will be described in the
accounting description. This format offers a choice of the number of decimal places, the
type of money(dollars, pounds, etc) , and how to represent negative amounts.
Accounting is the same as Currency but it only offers a choice of decimal places, and
the type of money. Negative numbers are shown in parenthesis with the same color of
font. The currency symbol such as $ are all left aligned.
Date offers a wide variety of choices to represent the date and or time and then a choice
of what country. If you have Date and Time information in your Cell and you choose a
Date only format, the Time information is discarded.
Time offers the same options as Date except for times. The same warning applies to lost
data.
Percentage takes decimal values or fractions and turns them into percentages. It gives
you a choice for the number of decimal places.
Fraction takes decimal values and translates them to fractions based on your choice of
rules such as how many digits or the nearest half, quarter, eighth, etc.
Scientific takes numeric data and represents it in powers of ten such as 1,000,000 is 1.00
X 106 . It also gives you a choice of how many decimal places.
Text is text. It is Left justified and that is about it. Do not use this unless you are
positive you will never have any other type of data in this field. If you are typing in
Social Security numbers without dashes or serial numbers, then this is a good format. If
you ever need to do calculations based on a field, never define it as type text. Once a
Cell gets defined as text, redefining it as something else will not work. If this occurs to
one of your spreadsheets, copy all your data and paste it into a new worksheet.
Special has four special purpose fields Zip, Zip + 4, Social Security Number, and
Phone Number for English. For other languages it has different field definitions.
Custom is a build your definition data type. If you need to use this consult the help
pages inside the software about what each formatting code means. Most users will never
use this format.
Now make sure you select Currency and Left Click OK.

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Now we will talk about how to make your Columns and Rows fit your data. You may
have noticed that Wednesday does not fit into Column D. Let your cursor hover over
the gray line between D and E until it becomes a line with two arrows as shown above.
Double Left Click. The Column will automatically expand to fit the data. This works
even for values that are not current on the screen. The other method is to click the A1
button to select all the data, then go to Format, Column, AutoFit Selection. This will
automatically fit all the Columns at once.

Now highlight the Cells A1 to I1 by Left Clicking and Holding then Dragging to I1.
Right Click the highlighted Cells and then Left Click Format Cells. Left Click the
Alignment Tab. This Tab controls how the text is placed in the Cells. Horizontal
allows you to change how it is aligned left to right, Vertical up and down. Indent allows
you to indent the text. Wrap text wraps the text in the Cell instead of only displaying
what can fit. When you turn this on, the Row width will automatically adjust to the data.
Shrink to fit will change the font size to fit the Column. Merge Cells joins the Cells
into one larger Cell. We will talk about merging Cells in Titles and Dead Space. Text
direction allows you to change the left to right orientation common to English to right to
left. This is not suggested. The vertical word Text changes the alignment from
horizontal to vertical. The half circle allows you to click the exact amount of incline you
wish. As if the half circle were half a clock, Left Click the large black dot around 2
oclock (45 degrees). Then Left Click OK.

The text will now appear as seen above. Now Right Click the highlighted Cells again.
And Left Click Format Cells. The Font tab is very simple and we will not cover it
except to not that the Underline feature is accessible here as well as Strikethrough,
Superscript, and Subscript. Left Click the Borders tab. To set a border, first select a
Color, then select a Style, and finally select where you want the borders to be. You can
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do this one of two ways. You can click on any of the preformatted tabs around the edge
of the large white targeting screen, or you click directly on the screen itself. Left Click
the Outline tab and then Left Click Alignment. Left Click the 3 oclock alignment spot
or zero degrees, and then Left Click OK. Finally Left Click the
icon.

Print Preview

This is what we would have if we printed the spreadsheet at this point. You may notice
that while our Column headers have a box around them, the gridlines are missing from
our data. We will discuss why and how to fix that in Printing. Left Click Close to
return to our spreadsheet.

Right Click the highlighted area again, Left Click Format Cells, and Left Click
Patterns. Left Click the color of your choice then Left Click OK. This text will show
the light gray color two up from the bottom left. Left Click any other Cell than A1-I1 to
see what this now looks like. The last Tab Protection is only used if you assign a
password to the spreadsheet. It will be discussed in Security. You can also of course use
the icons on the Formatting toolbar to changes the color, boldness, italics, and alignment
of the text if wish.

Titles and Deadspace

To put in a title we first need a blank line above our data. Left Click the gray number 1
button. Right Click the highlighted Cells, and then Left Click Insert. Next Left Click
and Hold on Cell A1 and Drag to Cell I1. Finally Left Click the
Center icon.

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Now if we type the Title as shown above and hit Enter, Excel automatically centers the
text within the newly merged Cell. Merge and Center can also be useful if you are
using Excel to create a printable form. You can use it to leave large blank areas for the
user to either insert large text descriptions, to sign once the form is printed, or by using
the Patterns option from Format Cells you can color in sections where you do not want
the user to write.

Sorting and Filtering

Sorting must be done carefully. The A to Z and Z to A icons on the toolbar should not
be used. They have a tendency to sort the selected Column only and mix up the data. To
properly sort, highlight the header Row and all of your data, not to include the totals.
Then Left Click Data, Sort. The Sort window will appear giving you a choice of up to
three items to sort by in precedence. At the bottom make sure to Left Click Header
Row and then it will allow you to choose the name of the field you wish to sort. Once
you have selected Name, Left Click OK. The data will now sort into order. If you will
notice in the pictures, Martin now moved above Mary.

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Filtering allows you to hide any data except for the criteria you specify. You can filter
on multiple Columns at one time. To begin filtering, highlight your data like we did to
sort. Then Left Click Data, Filter, AutoFilter. You will then see the arrows as shown
above next to our header names. Left Click the arrow next to Name and then Left Click
Jack. You will see that this hides temporarily all the data except Jacks. You may also
notice that the Column that is filtered gets a blue highlight mark. Set Name back to All
so that all the data returns.

Next we can filter on a range of values. Left Click the arrow next to Thursday and
select Custom. You can then choose up to two criteria joined with an AND or an OR.
AND allows you to be more restrictive; OR allows you to be more open. The first
criteria to select is is greater than and then in the window next to it put 4. Then Left
Click OK. This will give us every value for Thursday that was greater than 4 hours.
The easiest way to stop filtering is to go to Data, Filter, AutoFilter again. You could
find each filtered Column and unfilter it, but this method is much faster.

Chart Wizard

In the chart wizard we will center on the first Column chart in the second Row. For a list
of all the Charts please see All Chart Types. Highlight your data as shown above, and

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. Your first decision is what type of chart. Please


then click the Chart Wizard icon
select the chart shown in the picture and then Left Click Next.

Next you can choose to chart it as Rows with the Days of the Week across the bottom of
the chart and the Workers in the Legend, or by Columns with the Workers across the
bottom and the Days of the Week in the Legend. Please Select Rows and then Left
Click the Series Tab.

By choosing Series we can add or remove data sets at will. Left Click on Mary and then
Left Click Remove. Mary is now removed from the chart. To add her back, Left Click
Add. Series 5 is now added. Left Click the small chart icon next to the Name window.
This takes you back to the data. Left Click Mary, and then Left Click the little return
icon on the Chart Source Data Names window.

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Next Left Click the small chart icon next to the Values window. Highlight the values for
Monday through Friday for Mary and then Left Click the little return icon on Source
Data Values Window. Mary is now back in our Chart. Left Click Next to continue.

Many of the features of a chart are customizable. Here you can choose to have a Title, or
label the X (Days of the week) or the Z (Hours) axis. The Days of the Week are self
explanatory, but you could supply a heading for Hours if you think it might confuse your
audience. Next you can change the scale on the Axes and whether to show numbers or
not on the Z Axis. The Automatic scale is usually sufficient.

The next option is whether to have gridlines and how many. The first picture is with all
the gridlines turned on. The second picture has only the major gridlines. Major gridlines
is the setting we suggest that you use.

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You can then customize where the legend appears either the Bottom, Corner, Top,
Right, or Left side of the Chart. Then you can choose whether to label the actual bars of
data. In the example all of the types of label are activated. These data labels usually
make a chart too busy and should be discouraged. Do not use them for our purposes.

The final decision is whether to display the actual data with the chart. If there is not
much data, this can be an enhancing factor, if not, omit this option. Do not use it for our
purposes. Left Click Next to go to Step 4.

The final step in the wizard is to decide whether you want a full sheet chart or a small
chart in an existing sheet. If you are going to use this chart in Excel only, then the As
new sheet option is usually best. If you are going to copy it from Excel to paste it into
Word, PowerPoint, or some other software, use the As object in option. Please select the
As new sheet option and then Left Click Finish.

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This is what the finish chart looks like. We will use this chart for the next section.

Altering Charts
Using the chart wizard is relatively easy. Designing a new and interesting chart can be
difficult, but it does not have to be. Starting with the chart from the last exercise, Right
Click the white space about the chart Legend (ie where it says the workers names) and
select Chart Options.

This brings up the exact same chart options found in step Three of the Chart Wizard.
For examples and instructions on how to change this information, see the previous
section. Please Left Click Cancel.

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Next Right Click the white space above the Legend again. Then Left Click Format
Chart Area. The white space around the outside edge of the chart is called the chart
area. All the chart elements can be changed easily. Left Click a color from the listed
options and Left Click OK. Each of the next two options we will show can be used for
any of these color choices.

Now Right Click the Gray Cell walls of the graph and then Left Click Format Walls.
You have the same color choices for this section as well. Left Click Fill Effects.
Under Fill Effects, Left Click Two colors for a two color gradient. Select a light and
dark color of your choice for the two colors, then select Diagonal up or Diagonal down,
Left Click one of the four offered patterns, and then Left Click OK Twice. The Chart
now has a distinctive background motif.

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You may have noticed that the color of Marys and Jacks bar on the graph is very
similar. Right Click one of Marys bars and Left Click Format Data Series. Once
again, Left Click Fill Effects. For this bar you could select a Pattern which is a
foreground color and background color in one of 48 patterns. These are usually hard to
look at for long periods of time. Instead, Left Click on Texture. These are predesigned
color patterns based on marble and materials. Left Click the design of your choice and
then Left Click OK Twice.

You can also Right Click any of the gridlines, axes or labels and change their color as
well. One last thing you can change is the graph itself. By Right Clicking the now blue
green area above the legend and Left Clicking Chart Type you can select from any of
the hundreds of chart types. Once you choose remember to Left Click OK to see the
new chart. This chart will pick up as many of the coloring features as the new chart type
can use. One final word of note on modifying charts, if you change the data on which a
chart is based, then the chart will automatically change as well.

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All Chart Types


Line

Bar

Column

Pie

XYScatter

Donut

Surface

Area

Radar

Bubble
Cylinder

Cone

Stock

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Pie Explosion

Smooth Lines

Stack of Colors

Modifying Sheets
This section will cover how to Add and Delete Sheets, Move Sheets, Copy, and
Rename Sheets.
Adding another Sheet is very simple. Left Click Insert and then Left Click
Worksheet. The Sheet will be added as Sheet 4 (numbers go from 4 up in sequence).
To Delete a Sheet, Right Click the Sheet Name such as Sheet 4 at the bottom of the
screen and then Left Click Delete. If the Sheet has information, you will be prompted to
confirm the deletion. One word of warning, this process is not undoable. In Excel, there
is no Recycle Bin.
Renaming a Sheet is just as easy. Right Click the name of the Sheet and then Left
Click Rename. Now you can just type the new name for the sheet and hit the Enter
key.

To Move a Sheet, Left Click and Hold on the name of the Sheet. Next Drag the Sheet
to its new home. You will see a black arrow indicating where the Sheet will move.
Release the mouse button when you have the black arrow in the right spot.

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To make a Copy of a Sheet, Right Click the Sheet name and Left Click Move or copy.
Left Click Create a copy and then select the Sheet before which you wish to insert this
Sheet. Left Click OK, and the Sheet will be placed there with a (2) notation in its name.

Tools, Options Settings Some Basic Choices


Tools, Options is the menu area in all of Microsoft Office where you get to select the
basic rules for how the software will work. In this section we will discuss the options
that are most commonly of concern to Excel users. You must remember that after
changing any of these settings, you have to Left Click OK for them to take effect.
On the View menu, one of the most
significant options is Zero values. If you
do not want to see a zero in a column and
would rather it be just blank if the value is
zero, Unchecking this box will make the
zero values become blanks. Also if your
Sheet has lost all of its Gridlines, checking
Gridlines will bring them back. Lastly if
you are experiencing a problem getting a
formula to work, Checking Formulas will
show you the actual formulas instead of the
calculated values.

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Under General, if you wish for all of


your Spreadsheets to be saved in the My
Documents folder or a subfolder, change
the Default file location: box to this
folder. That way you will never have to
go looking for a saved Excel file.

If you wish to change the amount of time


between Autosaves for AtoRecovery, the
Save window has this option. You may
also chose to disable this options if you
wish, but this is inadvisable. You may also
change the location where these files are
stored. The AutoRecovery capability only
works if the system or Excel crashes while
you are editing a document. If this
happens, after getting your computer back
on-line (If Excel crashed but the computer
did not we suggest first rebooting your
system) immediately open Excel. Do not
have Excel open your file, just open the direct Excel icon. Excel will then automatically
recover the copy of your work immediately prior to crashing (i.e. since the last
AutoRecovery Save). If you load any other Excel document before doing this, the
AutoRecovery will be lost.

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Creating a Custom List

We discussed the Lists that come with Excel and how to use them earlier. Now we will
create one of our own. Left Click Tools, Options and then Left Click the Custom lists
tab. Where it says List entries, type in your list members separating them by hitting
Enter. Once the complete List is typed in, Left Click Add to add the list. In our
example we used the colors of the spectrum. Left Click Ok to exit the Tools, Options
menu.

Using a List is just the same as earlier when we typed in one of the days of the week.
Type in one of the colors, and then hit Enter. Then Left Click the Cell. You will notice
that the bottom right corner of the Cell is in bold and larger than the rest of the cell. Let
your cursor hover over this corner and it will become a plus mark. Left Click and Hold,
then Drag to the Right. You will see the colors briefly appear as you Drag. Once you
have the necessary List members, Release the mouse button. If you Drag past the
beginning of the List, the members will roll over to the beginning of the List and repeat.
If you Drag Down or Left the list increases, Right or Up decreases.

Security
Security is a step not to be taken lightly. Two methods exist in Excel for dealing with
securing either parts of or all of your Workbooks. The important thing to remember
when passwording Workbooks so that they may be shared is that if you lose the
password, you may never be able to open the file.
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The Tools, Options method allows you to set an overall security for the entire
Workbook. Simply type in a password for either Open (read only) or Modify (write
and read) permissions. It is also possible to set different passwords for each level. Once
you have a password in the desired level, Left Click OK.

The other option is to use Protection. Under Tools, Protection you can choose to
Protect Sheet. This means that Cells which are formatted as Locked will be
unchangeable by the user and those formatted as Hidden invisible. To set whether a Cell
is Locked or Hidden, Highlight the Cell, Right Click the Cell, and then Left Click
Format Cells. Then Left Click Protection as shown above. For a Cell to be editable by
the user, neither checkbox may be checked.

Importing Data From Other Programs


Microsoft Excel is a very versatile program when it comes to interpreting data from other
programs. For most programs all that is required is for you to select File, Open, set the
files of type box to the proper format, find the file, and then Left Click Open. If your
programs file type is not listed, see if your program can output the data in either D-Base
III-V (often shown as DBF, DB3, DB4, or DB5), Text Tab Delimited, or Comma
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Separated Value (CSV). Excel is adept at reading any of these formats. For the text
formats you will have to tell it what the delimiter is, either Tabs for Tab Delimited or
Commas for CSV.

Page Setup Margins, Header and Footers, Orientation


Under File, Page setup can be found most of the printing options in Excel.
The first option is whether to print in Portrait or
Landscape to better make the sheets fit the
paper. You can also use Adjust to to shrink the
size of the page. Easier to use is the fit to #
pages wide by # tall. Most often people use this
to make the printout one page wide, by however
long it would normally be.

Margins are easy to set with this visually


oriented screen. Simply type in the size you
wish the margins to be, or use the arrows to
increase or decrease them.

The Header and Footer show up at the top and


bottom of every page. If you want a particular
piece of text to appear at either of these
locations, simply type it here. The custom
options available are from left to right:
Custom Font, Page, Number of Pages, Date,
Time, Path and File, File, Tab(sheet), Insert a
Picture, and Format Picture.

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This tab allows you to set the Print Area,


discussed below using the File menu. It also
allows you to specify that Gridlines be printed
with the data. Also if you have an extra wide
page whether you want them printed 1a, 1b 2a,
2b or 1a, 2a, 1b, 2b you can use Over, then
down or Down, then over.

Setting the Print Area

Setting the Print Area is fairly simple. First highlight the section you want to print.
This does not have to be the full width or length of your Worksheet. The Left Click
File, Print Area, Set Print Area. The Print Area will be shown inside a dashed
rectangle as shown above. When you select File, Print and then OK to print the
Worksheet, only the Print Area will print.

Freezing

When you have a lot of Columns or hundreds of Rows it would be nice for the top
header Row, or the first Column usually used for a name or ID number to stay with the
data. To do this, you can Freeze the Pane. First you need to Left Click Cell A3. Then
select Window, Freeze Panes from the top menu. Now if you PageDn several pages
you will notice that Row 1 and 2 stay with the other lines. Freeze Panes freezes above
and to the left of the active Cell. Since we chose A3 there was nothing to the left of A,
but both Rows 1 and 2 were above. To Unfreeze, select Window, Unfreeze Panes. If
we had wanted to freeze the header Row and Column A, we would have needed to start
with Cell B3 before freezing.

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Splitting

Splitting is also only suggested for when you have more data than will comfortably fit on
one screen. To Split horizontally Left Click one of the gray number blocks such as 15
for example. This will highlight all of Row 15. The select Window, Split. You will
then have a heavy gray line splitting the screen at Row 15. What split does is give you an
independent Window above, below, left, and right of the current Cell. In the example
above we used a Row instead, so we get an independent Window above and below the
line. What this means is that we can be in two places looking at two totally unrelated
sections of data in our Spreadsheet. Highlighting a Column before splitting will give
you a Window on the right and left. We do not suggest just highlighting a Cell as four
Windows is rather unmanageable. To remove the extra Windows, simply select
Window, Remove Split.

Linking From Excel

Linking data from Excel to another place in the same Workbook, or another Workbook
entirely involve the same steps. First highlight the data you wish to link. Then Right
Click and Left Click Copy. The go to the Sheet or Workbook/Sheet where you wish to
put the linked data. The Right Click and Left Click Paste Special. If all you want is a
simple link, Left Click Paste Link. You can also use Paste Special to copy just the
Values or the Formulas by selecting that option and Left Clicking OK. This option
however does not link the data. Each time you open a linked Workbook it will ask if
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you wish to update the data. If you remove the data source or it becomes damaged the
linked Workbook may become unusable.
$1,622.50

Linking to other programs will be different. Word required a simple Paste, Left Click
the floating clipboard icon and select Keep source formatting and link to Excel.

In PowerPoint you must select Insert Object, Left Click Create from file, Browse to
the Object, Left Click Link, and then Left Click OK. This will display and link to the
first Sheet in the Workbook.

Pre-built Formulas

Pre-built formulas are the formulas that come standard with Excel. To access these
formulas make sure that you are in blank Cell, Left Click the arrow to the right of the
Autosum
icon, and the Left Click More functions. These functions are broken up
into categories which will be described below:
Most Recently Used is the most common formulas in Excel plus any formulas you have
recently used.
All shows all the formulas in alphabetic order.
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Financial has most of the formulas needed for accounting such as Depreciation, Interest
payments, etc.
Date and Time has formulas specific to date and time calculations such as the number of
days between two dates.
Math and Trig has all the formulas for determining angles, sine, cosine, etc.
Statistical has all the formulas for doing statistics, such as average, mean, and average
deviation.
Lookup and Reference deals with database type functions such as looking up references
in another sheet. We will use an example of this in the advanced topics.
Database is strictly functions used to help process data from an outside database.
Text has features that help you manipulate text such as concatenate to combine two or
more pieces of text, and len to give you the length of the text entry.
Logical allows you to make Boolean decisions based on values or formulas in your
spreadsheet. We will use an example of this in the advanced topics.
Information performs an analysis of the shape and format rather than the content of a
Cell. You will probably not use this feature.
User Defined is user defined functions that are almost never used

Hyperlinked Spreadsheet
Some of you may never use this feature. What this section will describe is how to build
an Annual Summary page and monthly pages for an expense tracking Spreadsheet.
This method could be used for scientific measurements done over the course of a year or
tracking hours of work just as easily.
First step:

Open a new Workbook, and then use the Insert, Worksheet option until
you have 13 pages.
Second step: Right Click the name (i.e. Sheet1) of each Worksheet at the bottom of
the page and Left Click Rename. Name the first page Summary and
then name the rest for the months of the year.

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Your Workbook should look like the picture to the left when finished. Ordinarily, you
would only be able to see a few of the Worksheet names as seen in the picture to the
right. This makes navigation between months fairly difficult. In this example we will
only set up January and February, but the other months would also be just as simple.
Left Click on the January Worksheet tab at the bottom of the screen.

Fill in the data shown above. For the numbers remember to use the series option. Fill in
the numbers out to 31.

Next Left Click Cell A1 and then Left Click the Hyperlink icon
. This will load the
Insert Hyperlink dialog window. Left Click Place in the Document, then Left Click
Summary, and then Left Click OK. Summary will now be in blue and underlined.
What this means is that when you now click the word Summary it will take us directly to
the Summary Worksheet.

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Now put the word Total in Cell AG. Then Highlight Cells B2 through B7 to AG7 as
seen above. Then click the Autosum
icon. This will of course total the values for
each type of expense for the month and total the expenses for each day.

Next Left Click the Summary Worksheet tab and then fill in the months and categories
as shown above. Then make sure that the format of the columns for the categories is
Currency.

Next Left Click January and then Left Click the Hyperlink icon
. Left Click Place
in this Document, Left Click January, and then Left Click OK. January will now be
highlighted and in blue on the spreadsheet. Repeat this for all of the months. Finally
Left Click the January link to return to the January Worksheet. On the January
Worksheet Copy Cell AG2 (the total for Pencils) and then click the link back to the
Summary Worksheet.

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Then Right Click Cell B2 and then Left Click Paste Special. On the Paste Special
menu, Left Click Paste Link. The total for Pencils in January will now be linked. If
you look in the fx window you can see the link to the January Worksheet:
January!$AG$2. Repeat these steps for the January Pens, Books, Paper, Copying,
and Totals.

The last step is to add the Grand Total field to Column A and then use the AutoSum to
total the Total Column. This Spreadsheet allows someone to quickly see the ongoing
annual and monthly totals for supplies without having to find the actual months and
perform the calculations as needed. This Spreadsheet will automatically update the
Summary page as you change the values for the month of January. If we add 5 dollars
more Pencils on the 28th of January, the Pencils Column on Summary will
automatically jump to $24.00. To fully automate the Spreadsheet you would need to
repeat the steps to build January for February through December.

Further Help
If you need further assistance, please contact:
Kevin Presley Phone: 541-737-0697 or E-Mail: kevin.presley@oregonstate.edu

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October 2002
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