Free Online Excel Course Part 4 Editing and Saving

You are essentially finished with data manipulation for this exercise.  However, the spreadsheet is not clearly labeled.  In order to make the sheet easier to understand, you will now insert some labels.
Highlight cell A1.  Use the right mouse button (the one you normally do not use!).  This will bring up a menu specific for dealing with cells.  An example is shown below.

All these menu items deal with cells.  Note, any changes you make will only occur on the highlighted cells.  In this case, the changes will only occur to cell A1.  If you highlight several cells and then right click, the changes will occur to all the highlighted one.  Also, you will find that the right click is a very convenient trick in Excel.  You can right click over almost anything and get a menu specific for that item.  It always pays to try it.  Play with the various menu items to see what they do.
In any case, let us select the INSERT item.  This will bring up a new dialog box, check "entire row" and press OK.  This will insert a new, empty row and shift all other rows down 1 row.  Insert a column to the left of column A using the same technique.  You should now have an empty row 1 and an empty  column A.

Insert Labels

Type "Dogs" into cell B1, "Cats" into cell C1 and "Aardvarks" into cell E1.  In A8 and A9, type in "Total".  Finally, in F1, type "Total Animals".  By using labels, you can identify what the values in the spreadsheet represent.

Save the File

You are now done with the exercise and must now save the file.  From the FILE menu item, select save and complete the dialog box.  Name the file firstinitiallastnamequiz1 (using you first initial and last name - my file would be named emeyertholenquiz1.xls - the xls extension will be added automatically).  Save the file in some place where you will be able to access it so that you can email the file to your instructor if required. Good luck.

Free Online Excel Course Part 3 An easier way to insert a formula

While the ability to create your own formulas in Excel is powerful, it is time consuming (not to mention that it requires that you know the formula!).  The people at Excel realize this and have created a set of formulas (they call them functions) ready for you to use. There are several hundred predetermined functions in Excel, one of them is the SUM function (which sums a series of cells).

How to get to SUM

In your spreadsheet, select the cell A8.  To access the formulas, use the INSERT menu item and select FUNCTIONS.  You should now get the FUNCTION dialog box which is shown below.

In the category select window (labeled 1 in the figure), select All (as shown).  As you become familiar with the different categories, you can use them to make your search a bit easier, but for now, we know that all the functions will be found in the All category.  Scroll down the selection window (section 2) until you reach the SUM function and highlight it with a single mouse click (as shown in the figure).  The functions are sorted in alphabetical order, so you will need to scroll down to the S's.  Note that a brief description of the function is shown in section 3 of the dialog box.  With the SUM function selected, press the OK button.  You will now see a new dialog box titled FUNCTION ARGUMENTS.  In this dialog box, you will indicate which numbers you want summed.  This box is shown below:

The important section is the input box (number 1 in the figure).  As you should see, Excel automatically inputs a range of values that it thinks you want summed.  In this case, it is the column of number above the cell containing the function (A8 in this case) - A1:A7.  The colon (:) is the Excel convention to indicate all cells between A1 and A7 inclusive.  One could also write this by typing all cells individually, but the shortcut is easier.  Note, this is not the range of cells you want to sum as it includes A7 (which is the sum function you previously created) - you do not want to include this in the sum.  In other words, you want the sum of A1:A6.  Use the mouse and click on the first input box (labeled Number 1) so that the cursor is blinking to the right of the 7.  Use the backspace to erase the 7 and replace it with a 6.  The input box should now read A1:A6, which is the range you want to sum.  By the way, suppose you wanted to sum all the numbers in rows 1-6 of both columns (A and B). You can input the B column range in the window 'Number 2' by clicking on the window and typing B1:B6. You will notice two thing after doing this, one is that the sum (shown next to 2 in the dialog box) is now 707 and that a third input window is formed.  You can add up to 30 (I think) different input windows.  Delete the values in "Number 2" but make sure that the cursor in blinking in that window.  Here is another way to input values into an input window.  With the cursor blinking in the "Number 2" window, use your mouse and highlight the cells B1-B6 (highlight by clicking on B1 and drag the cursor down to B6 - do not release the mouse button until you reach B6 - and do not 'drag the box', you do not want to change the values in the cells).  When you finish, you will find that the highlighted cells are now included in the input box.  I find that this is generally the easiest way to input values into input windows.  Now, delete all values in 'Number 2" and press the OK button.  You should find the value in A8 is equal to that in A7.  "Drag the box" and copy A8 into B8.  Your screen should look like this:

Note the function listed in the formula bar.
Now, insert 6 values of your own choosing and place in the first 6 rows of column D.  Sum the column in D7 (the hard way) and D8 (the function way).  In cell E2, please sum all the values in cells A1-A6, B1-B6 and D1-D6 for a grand total.

Part 4 Editing and Saving

Free Online Excel Course Part 2 Inserting Data and Formulas

To insert data, you simply use your mouse to select a cell and then simply type.  Start the Excel program.  Select the cell A1 (that is the cell in column A, row 1) by using your mouse and clicking the left mouse button (this is the 'normal" mouse button).  Note that the name of the cell is displayed in the Name Box.  By default, the name of the cell is its address with reference to the row/column although you can name a cell anything you want using the Insert/Namemenu item..

• Insert the following data into the first 6 rows of the A column:

• 56, 67, 76, 55, 62, 69.

To do this, simply select the cell (A1 should already be selected) and type in the number 56 and press the ENTER key.  This will insert the number 56 into cell A1 and automatically move the active cell to A2.  Now type in 67 into A2, and press enter.  Continue in this fashion until all six numbers are inserted in the first 6 rows of column A.

• Insert the following set of numbers into the first 6 rows of column B.

• 34, 44, 123, 89, 22, 10

WARNING NOTE: In many instances, you will be using numbers with units (like meters, or grams).  When using Excel, never mix numbers with letters in a cell.  If you do, Excel assumes that you are inserting text and not inserting numbers.  For example, if the units for the numbers you inserted in the previous example are grams, do not type  34 g (or 34 grams) in a single cell - Excel will not recognize this as a number.  Simply type 34. You can use a label on the column to indicate the units.  You will learn later how to insert a label.
That should have been easy - now lets do some calculations.

The Hard Way

Let's add the numbers in each column and place the sum in the 7th row of each column.  One way (the hard way) would be as follows:

• Select cell A7.  This is the cell where the sum will be displayed.
• Type in the equal sign (=).  All calculations (or formulas) in Excel must begin with an equal sign. 
• Type in the arithmetic expression summing the various cells so that that the following expression is inserted into the cell   =A1+A2+A3+A4+A5+A6, and press the ENTER key.  Your sheet should look similar to the following figure.

Note that the sum of the numbers in column 1 is displayed in cell A7 and that the formula is shown in the window of the formula bar.  If you were to change the value of cell A1 from 56 to 55, you would find that the sum shown in A7 would also change. (Try it, but remember to change it back).  NOTE: If you were to forget to start the formula with the equal sign, Excel would assume that you are typing in text and would not do any calculations! 
One can do the same procedure to sum the values in column B and type =B1+B2+B3+B4+B5+B6 into cell B7 (actually, you could type it into any cell, but it is more logical to use B7).  But there is an easier way.  Note that there is small box in the lower right corner of any selected cell.  Select cell A7 (as shown above) and move, without pressing a button, the cursor over the box.  You should note that the cursor changes when over the box, changing from a hollow cross to a simple line cross.  This will occur automatically whenever the cursor lies over the little box.  Do this several times so that you are familiar with its appearance.
Now, with the cursor over the box in cell A7 (and thus in the line format), press down and hold the left mouse button and drag the mouse over cell B7.  Once you observe that B7 becomes selected, release the button.  If done correctly, you should find that the formula was copied into B7 but that it changed so that it summed the contents of Column B!  Pretty amazing!  Your screen should look like the following figure (with cell B7 selected).  This is much easier than typing in all of the cell names into the formula.  This process (where you use the little box to copy a formula to adjacent boxes) will be know as "dragging the box" in this tutorial.

Part 3 An easier way to insert a formula

Free Online Excel Course Part 1 Introduction

Excel is the spreadsheet program created by Microsoft.  Although you can use any spreadsheet program for analyzing data, the instructions given here are specific for Excel and you must use Excel for the three Excel quizzes.  NOTE: Microsoft also makes a less powerful spreadsheet program as part of Microsoft Works or some similar title.  Some of the features that we will use in these exercises are not found in MS Works, so you will not be able to complete all the exercises using MS Works.
Excel is, in its most basic form, a very fancy calculator.  The information given in this quick tutorial is meant to give a working knowledge of how to use Excel.  There are usually several different ways to perform the same function in Excel, this tutorial will usually just give one way.  If you need more information on how to use Excel, there are many web sites dedicated to using Excel, a simple 'google' search will find many of them.  In addition, accessing the HELP menu from within the program can also be useful!

The Interface:

The first figure shows the typical Excel sheet with the important parts of the programs interface labeled.  Please become familiar with these.

Part 2 Inserting Data and Formulas