Excel Training

Customize Excel
Click the Office Button then click Excel Options. Under Popular you can change the size and
style of the font that is used to create your workbook.

Click on video to play.

Page 1 of 5
Naming a range
Select the cells that you want included in the range.

Click the Name box at the left end of the formula bar.
Type the name for the cells, for example, Depts and
press enter. Click on video for a demo.

Page 2 of 5
Creating a Drop-down list from a range of cells
Create a list of valid name for the drop-down list. The entries should be in a single column or
row without blank cells. You may want to sort them in the order that you want them to appear
in the drop-down list. Give the range a name.

Select the cell where you want the drop-down list. Click the Data tab, and click Data Validation
in the Data Tools group. In the Data Validation dialog box click the Settings tab. In the Allow
box, click List. Then enter the name for your range or the cells. Be sure the reference or name is
preceded by an equal sign (=). Click In-cell dropdown and click the Ignore blank check box if the
cell can be blank.

You may want to create an input message in which case click the Input Message tab and enter a
title and text for the message.

To show what will happen when invalid data is entered click the Error Alert tab and make sure
the Show error alert after invalid data is entered check box is selected. Select and option from
the Style box and type the title and text of the error message.

Vertical Lookup

Exact Match
Formula =VLOOKUP(“value”,range of cells,offset column)

Example: =VLOOKUP(“940000033”,A1:D200,4) will look up 940000033 in the first column and

return the matching value in the same row of the fourth column

Index and Match

Formula =INDEX(range1,MATCH(“value”,range2,0),2) where range1 is the entire range in
which you are looking up vales, MATCH(“value”,range2,0) determines the row number and
“value” is the value to find in the lookup column, range2 is the column for the MATCH function

Page 3 of 5
 to search and 2 is the column from which to return the value. Remember that the leftmost
column is always 1.

Look up values in a list of unknown size by using an exact match

Formula =OFFSET(A1,MATCH(“value”,range,0)1) where A1 is the upper left range or
starting cell, MATCH(“value”,range,0) determines the row number below the starting cell to find
the lookup value, “value” is the value to find, range is the column to search. Don’t include the
starting cell in this range and 1 is the number of columns to the right of the starting cell to find
the lookup value.

Helpful Formulas
If you need to analyze a list of data you can use the database functions like DSUM, DAVERAGE or
DCOUNT but this requires you to set up criteria ranges. A shortcut would be to use SUMIF and
COUNTIF.

=SUMIF(C16:C:45,”>10.2”,G16:G45) will sum all the values in column G where column C is

greater than 10.2

=COUNTIF(C16:C:45,”>10.2”,G16:G45) will count the number of rows where C is greater than

10.2

If you want to use the value from a cell in another worksheet within the same workbook in a
formula, reference the cell as sheet#!cell name where Sheet# is the sheet name where the
value is located. Example =A1+Sheet2!A2 adds the value of cell A1 in the current worksheet to
the value of cell A2 in the worksheet named Sheet2.

Charts
To create a chart first select the cells that contain the data you want to use in the chart.

Click the Insert tab and click the type of chart you want to create. You can modify the chart
after it has been created. You can leave it on the same worksheet or use the Move Chart button
to put it on a separate sheet or another worksheet.

To modify the labels and titles click the Chart, (you may need to click on the
Chart Tools button) on the Layout tab, click the Chart Title or the Data
Labels button this allows you to change the titles and labels.

Page 4 of 5
To copy the chart to a Word document first select the chart, click Copy on the Home tab, then
go to the Word document where you want the chart located and click Paste on the Home tab.

Click on the chart below for a demo.

Page 5 of 5