EXCEL NOTES

 Excel is the world's most used spreadsheet program

 Excel is a powerful tool to use for mathematical functions

Excel is pronounced "Eks - sel"

It is a spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft. Excel organizes data in columns and rows and
allows you to do mathematical functions. It runs on Windows, macOS, Android and iOS.

The first version was released in 1985 and has gone through several changes over the years. However,
the main functionality mostly remains the same.

 Excel is typically used for:

 Analysis
 Data entry
 Data management
 Accounting
 Budgeting
 Data analysis
 Visuals and graphs
 Programming
 Financial modeling
 And much, much more!

This chapter is about giving you an overview of Excel. Excel's structure is made of two pieces,
the Ribbon and the Sheet.

Have a look at the picture below. The Ribbon is marked with a red rectangle and the Sheet is marked
with a yellow rectangle:

THE RIBBON
The Ribbon provides shortcuts to Excel commands. A command is an action that allows you to make
something happen. This can for example be to: insert a table, change the font size, or to change the
color of a cell.

The Ribbon may look crowded and hard to understand at first. Don't be scared, It will become easier to
navigate and use as you learn more. Most of the time we tend to use the same functionalities over
again.

The Ribbon is made up by the App launcher,  Tabs,  Groups  and  Commands. In this section we will
explain the different parts of the Ribbon.

APP LAUNCHER -the App launcher icon has nine dots and is called the Office 365 navigation bar. It allows
you to access the different parts of the Office 365 suite, such as Word, PowerPoint and Outlook. App
launcher can be used to switch seamlessly between the Office 365 applications.

TABS - the tab is a menu with sub divisions sorted into groups. The tabs allow users to quickly navigate
between options of menus which display different groups of functionality.

GROUPS - the groups are sets of related commands. The groups are separated by the thin vertical line
break.

COMMANDS -the commands are the buttons that you use to do actions.

THE SHEET

The Sheet is a set of rows and columns. It forms the same pattern as we have in math exercise books,
the rectangle boxes formed by the pattern are called cells.

Values can be typed to cells.

Values can be both numbers and letters:

Each cell has its unique reference, which is its coordinates, this is where the columns and rows intersect.
MULTIPLE SHEETS

You start with one Sheet by default when you create a new workbook. You can have many sheets in a
workbook. New sheets can be added and removed. Sheets can be named to making it easier to work
with data sets.

Are you up for the challenge? Let's create two new sheets and give them useful names.

First, click the plus icon, shown in the picture below, create two new sheets:
ACTIVE CELL - a cell that is currently selected.
it will be highlighted by a rectangular box and its address will be shown in the address bar
you can activate a cell by clicking on it or by using your arrow buttons.
to edit a cell, you double-click on it or use F2 as well.

COLUMNS - a column is a vertical set of cells.

a single worksheet contains 16384 total columns.
every column has its own alphabet for identity, from A to XFD.
you can select a column by clicking on its header.

ROWS -a row is a horizontal set of cells.

a single worksheet contains 1048576 total rows.
every row has its own number for identity, starting from 1 to 1048576.
you can select a row by clicking on the row number marked on the left side of the window.

FILL HANDLE - it’s a small dot present in the lower right corner of the active cell.
it helps you to fill numeric values, text series, insert ranges, insert serial numbers, etc.

ADDRESS BAR - it shows the address of the active cell.

if you have selected more than one cell, then it will show the address
of the first cell in the range.

FORMULA BAR - the formula bar is an input bar, below the ribbon.
it shows the content of the active cell and you can also use it to enter a formula in a
cell.

TITLE BAR - the title bar will show the name of your workbook, followed by the
application name (“Microsoft Excel”).

FILE MENU - the file menu is a simple menu like all other applications.
 it contains options like (Save, Save As, Open, New, Print, Excel Options, Share, etc).

QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR - a toolbar to quickly access the options which you frequently use.
you can add your favorite options by adding new options to the
quick access toolbar.

RIBBON - starting from Microsoft Excel 2007, all the options menus are replaced with ribbons.
ribbon tabs are a bunch of specific option group which further contains the option.

WORKSHEET TAB - this tab shows all the worksheets which are present in the workbook.
by default you will see, three worksheets in your new workbook with the names
Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3 respectively.

STATUS BAR - it is a thin bar at the bottom of the Excel window.

it will give you instant help once you start working in Excel.
QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR:
You will see this toolbar on the left-upper corner of the screen. Its purpose is to display the most
frequently used commands of the Excel. You can customize this toolbar based on your choice
commands.

FILE TAB:
In Excel 2007, it was an “Office” button. This menu do file related operation, i.e. create new excel
documents, open an existing file, save, save as, print file, etc.

TITLE BAR:
The header or title bar of the spreadsheet located at the top of the window. It presents the name of the
active document.

CONTROL BUTTONS:
They are those symbols in the upper-right of the window that allows you to modify the labels, minimize,
maximize, share and close the sheet.

MENU BAR:
Under the diskette or save icon or the Excel icon (this will depend on the version of the program); labels
or bars that allow modifying the sheet are displayed. These are the menu bar, and consist of a File,
Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, Review, View, Help, and a Search Bar with a light bulb icon. These
menus have subcategories that simplify the distribution of information and analysis of calculations.

RIBBON/TOOLBAR:
There are a series of elements that are part of each menu bar. On the selection of any menu, a series of
command options/icons will display on a ribbon. For example, if you press the “Home” tab, you will see
cut, copy, paste, bold, italic, underline, and etc commands. Similarly, if you click on the “Insert” tab, you
will see tables, illustrations, additional, recommended graphics, graphics, maps, among others. On the
other hand, if we press the option “Formulas”. Insert functions, auto sum, recently used, finances, logic,
text, date and time, etc.
Toolbar/Ribbon is a group of organized commands in three sections.

TABS: They are the top section of the Ribbon and contain groups of related commands. Home, Insert,
Page Layout, Formula, Data, etc, are examples of ribbon tabs.

GROUPS: They organize related commands; the name of each group appears below the Ribbon. For
example, a group of commands related to fonts or group of commands related to alignment, etc.

COMMANDS: They appear within each group as mentioned above.

DIALOG BOX LAUNCHER: This is a very small down arrow located in the lower-right corner of a
command group on the Ribbon. By clicking this arrow explore more options about the concerned group.

NAME BOX: Show the location of the active cell, row or column. You can make more than one selection.

FORMULA BAR: It is a bar that allows you to observe, insert or edit the information/formula entered in
the active cell.

SCROLLBARS: Those are the tools that allow you to mobilize both the vertical and horizontal view of the
document. They can be activated by clicking on the internal bar of your platform, or on the arrows you
have on the sides. In addition to that, you can use the mouse wheel to automatically scroll up or down;
or use the directional keys.

SPREADSHEET AREA: It is the working area where you enter your data. It constitutes the entire
spreadsheet with its rows, cells, columns and built-in information. By means of shortcuts, we can carry
out the activities of the toolbar or formulas of arithmetic operations (add, subtract, multiply, etc.). The
blinking vertical bar called “cursor” is the insertion point. It indicates the insertion location of the typing.

LEAF BAR: At the bottom, a text that says sheet1 is displayed. This sheet bar explains the spreadsheet
that is currently being worked on. Through this, we can alternate several sheets at our convenience or
add a new one.

COLUMNS BAR: Columns are a series of boxes vertically organized in the entire sheet. It columns bar is
located below the formula bar. The columns are listed with letters of the alphabet. Start with the letter
A to Z, and then after Z, it will continue as AA, AB and so on. The maximum limit of columns is 16,384.

ROWS BAR: It is that left part of the sheet where a sequence of numbers is expressed. Start with
number one (1) and as we move the cursor down, more rows will be added. The maximum number of
rows goes TO 1,048,576.

CELLS: Cells are those parallelepipeds that divide the spreadsheet into several segments that allow rows
to be separated from columns. The first cell of a spreadsheet is represented by the initial letter of the
alphabet and the number one (A1).

STATUS BAR: This bar located at the bottom of the window which shows very important information.   It
also shows when something is wrong, or the document is ready to be delivered or printed. This displays
quick calculation of the selected digits, like sum, average, count, maximum, minimum, and etc.
VIEW BUTTONS: It is a group of three buttons arranged at the left of the Zoom control, close the right-
bottom of the screen. Through this, you can see three different types of excel’s sheet views.

 NORMAL VIEW: This displays the Excel page in normal view.

 PAGE LAYOUT VIEW: This displays the exact view of Excel’s page as they will be printed.
 PAGE BREAK VIEW: This shows page break preview before printing.

ZOOM CONTROL: Zoom control is located at the lower-right area of the Excel window. It allows you to
ZOOM-IN or ZOOM-OUT a particular area of the spreadsheet. It is represented by magnifying icons with
the symbols of maximizing (+) or minimizing (-). In the most modern versions, it consists of a segment
with the icons of more, less and an element that separates both options, which allows you to
manipulate them by clicking on any of these.

On the other hand, it also explains how many times the document has been moved away or approached
in percentages (%). In the version of Microsoft Excel 2019, it allows you to zoom out by 10% and zoom
up to 400%.