4. Excel Menus: A snapshot [email protected] 234-808-938-2423
4 Weve got Home menu, Insert menu, Page Layout menu, Formula menu,
Data menu, Review menu and View menu. In the next slides, each of
these menus will be discussed in practical terms. There is one more
menu that is hidden by default: Developer menu. It wont be
discussed because it is used mainly for including a macro (program)
in an Excel file.
5. Excel Menus: Home Menu [email protected] 234-808-938-2423 5
The home menu is Excels most used menu. It has very straightforward
sub-menus. Clipboard: Allows you to copy, cut and paste in Excel
Font: Allows you to set font size, color, background color (fill)
& turn on bold or italics or underline. Alignment: Allows you
to set the position of whatever youve typed (or copied) into Excel.
It also allows you to set how its written: horizontal, vertical or
slanting. Number: Allows you to set how a number is shown in Excel:
regular number, currency, scientific, percentage, fraction Styles:
Allows you to set the format of an Excel cell based on the data it
holds (conditional formatting). It also allows you to convert a
selection of cells to table, and to set quick formats for a cell.
Cells: Allows you to insert new cells, delete cells and change cell
format. Editing: Houses the very useful Sort and filter tools. And
also Find & Select, Find & Replace. Theres also Autosum
which helps you sum all numbers in a selection.
6. Excel Menus: Insert Menu [email protected] 234-808-938-2423
6 The Insert menu houses some of Excels best tools. Tables: Allows
you to insert PivotTable, PivotChart and Table. Inserting a table
in Excel allows for quick formatting, and better formulas (via
named ranges). PivotTable and PivotChart will be discussed later.
Illustrations: Allows you to insert images and shapes. Charts:
Allows you to insert charts, which will be discussed later.
Sparklines: Allows you to insert charts that fit into one Excel
cell. Makes some reports beautiful and easy to read. Filter: Allows
you to filter out field values you are not interested in. Links:
Allows you point a cell content to a website or an email address.
Text: Allows you to insert texts and objects (pretty much anything,
including a PDF document) Symbols: Allows you to type out equations
and special symbols.
7. Excel Menus: Page Layout Menu [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 7 The Page Layout menu does just that: setting up
your Excel documents page look and for printing. Themes: Its not
very useful; it sets the look of the Excel window itself. Page
Setup: It allows you to set how the page comes out when printed.
Most used are the Orientation (to set as Portrait or Landscape) and
Print Area (to select on the cells you want to print). Scale to
Fit: It allows you to set how much is printed per page. Most
frequent use is to force Excel to print on one page, or fit all the
fields (columns) on one page width. Sheet Options: You wouldnt to
change the default. It allows you set whether Excel gridlines be
printed or not, and headings too. Default is no/off (unticked).
Arrange: It lets you rearrange overlapping objects (shapes, images,
textboxes). Or align them.
8. Excel Menus: Formulas Menu [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 8 The Formula menu gives you access to Excels
built-in formulas. Function Library: It has the formulas grouped by
category. Once you have an idea of what you want done, it helps you
locate the formula to use. Its good to look through it once in a
while to have an idea of the out-of-the-box analysis Excel can do.
Defined Names: Lets you name a selection of cells. Can be very
useful when analyzing a big database. Formula Auditing: Allows you
to check for errors in your formulas and see how your final result
is being calculated. Calculation: Allows you to set when the
formulas in your Excel sheet are calculated: automatic (whenever a
cell value changes) or manual (at first entry and when you force
them to be recalculated).
9. Excel Menus: Data Menu [email protected] 234-808-938-2423 9
The Data menu allows you to work with external data and do basic
data formatting. Get External Data: It allows you to import or link
to an external data file (non-Excel file). Youll use it whenever
you have a data in text file and need it worked on in Excel.
Connections: Allows you to make changes to the connections/links to
an external data file. Or force a refresh of the connections to
capture changes made in the external data file since last
connection. Sort & Filter: Allows you to sort data and do some
filtering too. Filter allows you to specify values to display. Data
Tools: Allows you do very basic data analysis. Especially removing
duplicate entries, and splitting one field into several
(text-to-column). Example is splitting full name into First name
and Last name. Outline: Allows you to group (and hide) several
rows. Useful for large data reports with few categories; helps to
group categories.
10. Excel Menus: Review Menu [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 10 The Review menu is for spell checks, commenting
and setting access restrictions. Proofing: Allows you to carry out
spell checks and word meaning checks. Language: Allows you to
translate the Excel file content from one language to another.
Comments: Allows you to include comments in an Excel sheet, view
all comments once or delete comments. Changes: Allows you to set
access restrictions and track changes to the Excel file. Also
allows you to share the file.
11. Excel Menus: View Menu [email protected] 234-808-938-2423
11 The View menu allows you to change the window layout of the
Excel document. It doesnt change anything in the actual document,
just the way its displayed. Workbook views: Allows you to set how
the workbook (Excel file) is displayed. Show: Controls what not
printing details are shown: Gridlines, Headings, Formula bar and
Ruler. The one youll be interested most in is Gridlines. If you
want your Excel sheet to look more like a Word file, untick the
Gridlines. Thats whats done to every Excel sheet you see that has
no Gridlines. Zoom: Does what it says: sets zoom. Window: Allows
you to freeze headers so when you scroll they will never be out of
view. And also allows you to split the Excel sheet display, so you
can compare two different parts of the sheet. Macros: Allows you to
see the macros programmed in the Excel file (if theres any macro in
it)
12. How Excel Handles What You Type [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 12
13. Entering Data in Excel [email protected] 234-808-938-2423
13 In Excel, you type into small rectangular boxes called cells. I
would be referring to everything you type or copy into Excel as
Data. Every cell has an address, because each cell is an
intersection of a row and a column. The cell selected in the image
on the left, is addressed as cell A1. It is the intersection of
column A and row 1. Sometimes, what you type into a cell takes more
space than the cell has. Dont worry, just expand the column width
by dragging the right border of the column header. Like this:
14. Different Data Types in Excel [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 14 Excel recognizes 4 different data types: Text,
Number, Boolean & Formula. Text: Whenever you type alphabets,
or a mix of alphabets and numbers into Excel (without preceding
with =), everything is recognized as text. Number: If all you type
into a cell are digits, they are recognized as Number by Excel.
Boolean: FALSE and TRUE are Boolean entries. Youll hardly use them.
They are used for setting up complex formulas. But always take note
that whenever you type false or true in a cell, Excel will put it
upper case and see it as Boolean. Formula: Once you begin a cell
entry with =, Excel treats everything you type after as a formula.
In the image on the left, I was multiplying the number in cell B2
by 45.
17. How Are Charts Made? [email protected] 234-808-938-2423 17
Charts are made from tables. Remember your elementary Math? Theres
always a table showing values for different variables (or
categories) that you want to visualize. Charts enable us to convene
information in powerful ways, visual ways that are easy to
interpret and act on. And thats why its important that you know how
to manipulate charts beyond the default Excel gives you. I will be
showing you how to make a great chart that is easy to read and good
to look at. Well be using the table on the right. State Male Female
Male to Female Ratio Arizona 1,067,974 1,120,122 0.95 Florida
466,134 727,256 0.64 Georgia 1,151,055 1,356,779 0.85 Indiana
1,514,051 1,582,127 0.96 Montana 1,006,313 1,906,112 0.53 Ohio
1,705,384 1,295,645 1.32 Texas 1,980,948 1,787,642 1.11
18. Inserting a Chart [email protected] 234-808-938-2423 18
Select the entire table Goto Insert menu and select the Chart type
you want There are 11 Chart types in Excel. But as long as you wont
be making charts for a Ph.D research, youll only bother yourself
about 4. Column: This chart type is the most used. Recommended for
comparing values directly (side by side). Line: This recommended
for comparing change in value over time. Or showing a trend across
variables (like a ratio across states). Pie: Used for showing how
much each variable take in a total. Shows a visual of the
percentage of each part. Bar: Same use as Column but used when the
variables have very long names, and for some economic data
visualization.
19. Inserting a Chart (contd) [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 19 Well be using two chart types in our chart:
Column chart to show the Male and Female population for each state,
and Line chart to show the ratio trend across the states. But we
are going to show all these in same chart. To start, select Column
chart after selecting the entire table. Select the first in the 2-D
Column chart types. Well change the chart type for the ratio and
move it to a secondary axis (right axis).
20. Inserting a Chart (contd) [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 20 This is the default chart Excel will give you:
Excel default charts are usually not good. Take a look at the one
we got. The Legends are taking a third of the Chart space. No Chart
title. And its not looking cool at all. We are going to change
that. But first lets move the Male to Female Ratio to a Line chart
type.
21. Inserting a Chart (contd) [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 21 Rightclick on one of the Male to Female Ratio
bars and Format Data Series. Move it to Secondary Axis
22. Inserting a Chart (contd) [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 22 The chart will change to one similar to this:
Now, we have to move it to a Line chart type. Rightclick on the
Male to Female Ratio bar again and select Change Series Chart
Type.
23. Inserting a Chart (contd) [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 23 Select the first in the Line Chart types And we
almost done! All that remains is to make the chart look
better.
24. Inserting a Chart (contd) [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 24 Well be moving the Legend down and inserting a
Chart title. But Excel has a nifty tool that does it all for us.
Goto Design menu and select the 3rd Chart layout type. The Design
menu shows only when you are working on a Chart. Heres the result.
Just one more step and we are done.
25. Inserting a Chart (contd) [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 25 I like including a fancy border in my charts.
Besides making the chart great, it allows you to make everything
blend by using your official colors (blue or purple). Goto Format
menu and select one of the Shape styles. Format menu shows when you
are working on a chart. And we are done!
27. PivotTable [email protected] 234-808-938-2423 27
PivotTable allows you to make sense of a very large database. Like
a census table containing the biodata of everyone living in
Indiana. With PivotTable you can easily create a table showing
population of Male and Female by towns. I love Pizza, so Ill show
an example with Dhorminos Pizza (they are more popular than
Dominos). Ive got a sales table showing 5000 Pizza sold on a Monday
morning between 8:00am and 10:00am
28. PivotTable(contd) [email protected] 234-808-938-2423 28
Our task is to show number of the Pizza categories (Meatzza,
Margarita) that were sold between 8:00am and 10:00am. We could
start counting them one by one. Maybe starting with Margarita. Or
we could use Pivot Table. If you dont have 40 hours to dedicate to
doing this, then Pivot Table is the answer. Select the entire
table, goto Insert menu and click on PivotTable. A dialogbox will
pop up. Click on OK.
29. PivotTable(contd) [email protected] 234-808-938-2423 29 A
new Excel sheet will be created. Click in the area specified to
show PivotTable control bar on the right.
30. PivotTable(contd) [email protected] 234-808-938-2423 30
The PivotTable Control bar has 5 sections: field selection part,
Report Filter, Column Labels, Row Labels and Values. What we want
is to create a table of all the different Pizzas sold and the
amount (count). To do this, drag Pizza Sold field to Row Label.
Then drag it again (from the field selection part) to the
Values.
31. PivotTable(contd) [email protected] 234-808-938-2423 31
And voila! The table of Pizzas and amount sold is created for
us.
32. Removing Duplicate Entries [email protected]
234-808-938-2423 32 Occasionally, youll have to work with an Excel
table/database that has duplicate entries that you want to get rid
off. Excel has a built-in tool for that. Just select the entire
table and goto Data menu, Remove Duplicates.
33. Conditional Formatting [email protected] 234-808-938-2423
33 Conditional formatting is great for: Highlighting duplicates
Highlighting values above a specified value Marking cells based on
their values Showing trends in a dashboard report Goto Home menu,
Conditional Formatting
34. Most Useful Excel Formulas & few tips
[email protected] 234-808-938-2423 34 Some Excel formulas are
extremely useful and are worth noting. There are: VLOOKUP HLOOKUP
IF IFERROR SUMIFS COUNTIFS INDEX MATCH Excel is not as tough to use
as most of us think. Sure it takes time to get used to, but once
you get the basics of how it works youll enjoy using it that
Microsoft Word (like me). The best way to become good in Excel is
to ask or Google for help whenever youre stuck. Guessing in Excel
seldom works and often lead to annoying errors. Always have a
second copy of any vital file before working on it in Excel. Its a
good practice that will save you headache someday. Once again,
Excel is fun.
