Ms Excel And Its Features

Learning Objectives

1. What Is Ms Excel And Its Features
2. Excel Features And Functions
3. Microsoft Excel Features And Functions
4. Microsoft Excel Feature

1. Examine the value of using Excel to make decisions.
2. Learn how to start Excel.
3. Become familiar with the Excel workbook.
4. Understand how to navigate worksheets.
5. Examine the Excel Ribbon.
6. Examine the right-click menu options.
7. Learn how to save workbooks.
8. Examine the Status Bar.
9. Become familiar with the features in the Excel Help window.

Microsoft® Office contains a variety of tools that help people accomplish many personal and professional objectives. Microsoft Excel is perhaps the most versatile and widely used of all the Office applications. No matter which career path you choose, you will likely need to use Excel to accomplish your professional objectives, some of which may occur daily. This chapter provides an overview of the Excel application along with an orientation for accessing the commands and features of an Excel workbook.

Worksheet functions are categorized by their functionality. Click a category to browse its functions. Or press Ctrl+F to find a function by typing the first few letters or a descriptive word. To get detailed information about a function, click its name in the first column.

Taking a very simple view, Excel is a tool that allows you to enter quantitative data into an electronic spreadsheet to apply one or many mathematical computations. These computations ultimately convert that quantitative data into information. The information produced in Excel can be used to make decisions in both professional and personal contexts. For example, employees can use Excel to determine how much inventory to buy for a clothing retailer, how much medication to administer to a patient, or how much money to spend to stay within a budget. With respect to personal decisions, you can use Excel to determine how much money you can spend on a house, how much you can spend on car lease payments, or how much you need to save to reach your retirement goals. We will demonstrate how you can use Excel to make these decisions and many more throughout this text.

Microsoft Excel Features Almost all the professionals use this spreadsheet tool, and MS Excel is the universal language that speaks in almost all the offices. Fnaf 4 open box. As a starter or intermediate level user, you need to know some of the important features of MS Excel. In this article, we will show you 'Features of MS Excel.'. The beauty of Excel is its easy scalability. Get the formula right once and Excel will churn out the right calculation a million times. The + crosshair is handy. Double clicking it will take it all the way down if you have continuous data. Excel can perform large number of calculations on data easily in a table like format. The main file of Microsoft Excel is called an Excel Workbook. By default, each workbook has three Excel Worksheets. A Worksheet is divided into Rows, Columns and cells. Microsoft Excel provides many easy to use features as follows.

Figure 1.1 shows a completed Excel worksheet that will be constructed in this chapter. The information shown in this worksheet is top-line sales data for a hypothetical merchandise retail company. The worksheet data can help this retailer determine the number of salespeople needed for each month, how much inventory is needed to satisfy sales, and what types of products should be purchased.

1. Locate Excel on your computer.
2. Click Microsoft Excel to launch the Excel application and present you with workbook options.
3. Click the first option; 'Blank Workbook'.

Once Excel is started, a blank workbook will open on your screen. A workbook is an Excel file that contains one or more worksheets (sometimes referred to as spreadsheets). Excel will assign a file name to the workbook, such as Book1, Book2, Book3, and so on, depending on how many new workbooks are opened. Figure 1.2 shows a blank workbook after starting Excel. Take some time to familiarize yourself with this screen. Your screen may be slightly different based on the version you're using.

Your workbook should already be maximized (or shown at full size) once Excel is started, as shown in Figure 1.2. If necessary locate the Maximize button as shown in Figure 1.3.

Data are entered and managed in an Excel worksheet. The worksheet contains several rectangles called cells for entering numeric and nonnumeric data. Each cell in an Excel worksheet contains an address, which is defined by a column letter followed by a row number. For example, the cell that is currently activated in Figure 1.3 is A1. This would be referred to as cell location A1 or cell reference A1. The following steps explain how you can navigate in an Excel worksheet:

1. Place your mouse pointer over cell D5 and left click.
2. Check to make sure column letter D and row number 5 are highlighted, as shown in Figure 1.4.

Note: Your highlighted column letter and row number may be different than figure shown.

1. Move the mouse pointer to cell A1.
2. Click and hold the left mouse button and drag the mouse pointer back to cell D5.
3. Release the left mouse button. You should see several cells highlighted, as shown in Figure 1.5.

This is referred to as a cell range and is documented as follows: A1:D5. Any two cell locations separated by a colon are known as a cell range. The first cell is the top left corner of the range, and the second cell is the lower right corner of the range.

1. At the bottom of the screen, you'll see worksheets. Depending on your version of Excel, you will see either three as displayed above or just one. If you only have one sheet, click the 'Insert Worksheet' to add a worksheet. Depending on your version, you instead may have a + sign; a click on the + adds an additional worksheet as well. This is how you open or add a worksheet within a workbook. Add another worksheet so that you now have three sheets displaying here.
2. Click the Sheet1 worksheet tab at the bottom of the worksheet to return to the worksheet shown in Figure 1.5.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Basic Worksheet Navigation

What Is Ms Excel And Its Features

• Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to activate cells on the worksheet.
• Hold the SHIFT key and press the arrow keys on your keyboard to highlight a range of cells in a worksheet.
• Hold the CTRL key while pressing the PAGE DOWN or PAGE UP keys to open other worksheets in a workbook.

Excel's features and commands are found in the Ribbon, which is the upper area of the Excel screen that contains several tabs running across the top. Each tab provides access to a different set of Excel commands. Figure 1.6 shows the commands available in the Home tab of the Ribbon. Table 1.1 'Command Overview for Each Tab of the Ribbon' provides an overview of the commands that are found in each tab of the Ribbon.

Table 1.1 Command Overview for Each Tab of the Ribbon Macos mojave indir.

The Ribbon shown in Figure 1.6 is full, or maximized. The benefit of having a full Ribbon is that the commands are always visible while you are developing a worksheet. However, depending on the screen dimensions of your computer, you may find that the Ribbon takes up too much vertical space on your worksheet. If this is the case, you can minimize the Ribbon by clicking the button shown in Figure 1.6. When minimized, the Ribbon will show only the tabs and not the command buttons. When you click on a tab, the command buttons will appear until you select a command or click anywhere on your worksheet.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Minimizing or Maximizing the Ribbon

• Hold down the CTRL key and press the F1 key.
• Hold down the CTRL key and press the F1 key again to maximize the Ribbon.

The Quick Access Toolbar is found at the upper left side of the Excel screen above the Ribbon, as shown in Figure 1.7. This area provides access to the most frequently used commands, such as Save and Undo. You also can customize the Quick Access Toolbar by adding commands that you use on a regular basis. By placing these commands in the Quick Access Toolbar, you do not have to navigate through the Ribbon to find them. To customize the Quick Access Toolbar, click the down arrow as shown in Figure 1.7. This will open a menu of commands that you can add to the Quick Access Toolbar. If you do not see the command you are looking for on the list, select the More Commands option.

In addition to the Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar, you can also access commands by right clicking anywhere on the worksheet. Figure 1.8 shows an example of the commands available in the right-click menu.

The File tab is also known as the Backstage view of the workbook. It contains a variety of features and commands related to the workbook that is currently open, new workbooks, or workbooks stored in other locations on your computer or network. Figure 1.9 shows the options available in the File tab or Backstage view. To leave the Backstage view and return to the worksheet, click the arrow in the upper left-hand corner as shown below.

Excel Features And Functions

Included in the File tab are the default settings for the Excel application that can be accessed and modified by clicking the Options button. Figure 1.10 shows the Excel Options window, which gives you access to settings such as the default font style, font size, and the number of worksheets that appear in new workbooks.

Once you create a new workbook, you will need to change the file name and choose a location on your computer or network to save that file. It is important to remember where you save this workbook on your computer or network as you will be using this file in the Section 1.2 'Entering, Editing, and Managing Data' to construct the workbook shown in Figure 1.1. The process of saving can be different with different versions of Excel. Please be sure you follow the steps for the version of Excel you are using. The following steps explain how to save a new workbook and assign it a file name.

Saving Workbooks in Excel 2013

1. If you have not done so already, open a blank workbook in Excel.
2. When saving your workbook for the first time, click the File tab.
3. Click the Save As button in the upper left side of the Backstage view window. This will open the Save As dialog box, as shown in Figure 1.11.
4. Click in the File Name box at the bottom of the Save As dialog box and use the BACKSPACE key to remove the current default name of the workbook.
5. Type the file name: CH1 GMW Sales Data.
6. Click the Desktop button on the left side of the Save As dialog box if you wish to save this file on your desktop. If you want to save this workbook in a different location, such as a USB drive, select your preferred location.
7. Click the Save button on the lower right side of the Save As dialog box.
8. As you continue to work on your workbook, you will want to Save frequently by click either the Save button on the Home ribbon; or by selecting the Save option from the File menu.

Saving Workbooks in Excel 2016

1. If you have not done so already, open a blank workbook in Excel.
2. Click the File tab and then the Save As button in the left side of the Backstage view window. This will open the Save As dialog box.
3. Determine a location for saving on your computer by clicking Browse on the left side to open the Save As dialog box.
4. Click in the File Name box near the bottom of the Save As dialog box. Type the new file name: CH1 GMW Sales Data
5. Review the settings in the screen for correctness and click the Save button.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Save As

• Press the F12 key and use the tab and arrow keys to navigate around the Save As dialog box. Use the ENTER key to make a selection.
• Or press the ALT key on your keyboard. You will see letters and numbers, called Key Tips, appear on the Ribbon. Press the F key on your keyboard for the File tab and then the A key. This will open the Save As dialog box.

Skill Refresher

Saving Workbooks (Save As)

1. Click the File tab on the Ribbon.
2. Click the Save As option.
3. Select a location on your PC.
4. Click in the File name box and type a new file name if needed.
5. Click the down arrow next to the 'Save as type' box and select the appropriate file type if needed.
6. Click the Save button.

The Status Bar is located below the worksheet tabs on the Excel screen (see Figure 1.13). It displays a variety of information, such as the status of certain keys on your keyboard (e.g., CAPS LOCK), the available views for a workbook, the magnification of the screen, and mathematical functions that can be performed when data are highlighted on a worksheet. You can customize the Status Bar as follows:

1. Place the mouse pointer over any area of the Status Bar and right click to display the 'Customize Status Bar' list of options (see Figure 1.13).
2. Select the Caps Lock option from the menu (see Figure 1.13).
3. Press the CAPS LOCK key on your keyboard. You will see the Caps Lock indicator on the lower right side of the Status Bar.
4. Press the CAPS LOCK on your keyboard again. The indicator on the Status Bar goes away.

The Help feature provides extensive information about the Excel application. Although some of this information may be stored on your computer, the Help window will automatically connect to the Internet, if you have a live connection, to provide you with resources that can answer most of your questions. You can open the Excel Help window by clicking the question mark in the upper right area of the screen or ribbon. With newer versions of Excel, use the query box to enter your question and select from helpful option links or select the question mark from the dropdown list to launch Excel Help windows.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Excel Help

• Press the F1 key on your keyboard.

Key Takeaways

• Excel is a powerful tool for processing data for the purposes of making decisions.
• You can find Excel commands throughout the tabs in the Ribbon.
• You can customize the Quick Access Toolbar by adding commands you frequently use.
• You can add or remove the information that is displayed on the Status Bar.
• The Help window provides you with extensive information about Excel.

Hard disk format types. Adapted by Barbara Lave from How to Use Microsoft Excel: The Careers in Practice Series, adapted by The Saylor Foundation without attribution as requested by the work's original creator or licensee, and licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

The past 10 years have seen a wave of innovative big data software designed to analyze, manipulate, and visualize data. Yet for the regular knowledge worker, Microsoft Excel, 30 years on, remains the go-to product for people looking to make sense of data. Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, maintains that Excel is still the one Microsoft product that stands above the rest — and 750 million knowledge workers worldwide support that claim every day.

We've been teaching and testing Microsoft Excel for a decade, and a survey of several hundred office staff we ran suggests we spend more than 10% of our working lives spreadsheeting, and for those working in research and development or finance, it's more like 30%, or 2.5 hours a day.

Imagine, then, if this substantial proportion of the global workforce were a little better at using the application. Time would be saved, and productivity would improve.

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Last year we put together The Definitive 100 Most Useful Excel Tips, for which we consulted Excel experts and looked at tens of thousands of test results and course usage data. Though every Excel feature has a use case, no single person uses every Excel feature themselves. Cut through the 500+ functions, and you're left with 100 or so truly useful functions and features for the majority of modern knowledge workers. We've selected ten from that list which are especially easy to learn (approximately 2 hours total) and which can make a material difference to productivity. These ten are listed in decreasing order of utility from our top 100 list. If, like many, you're stuck on what to learn next in Excel, you might want to look at this 2×2 matrix, which factors in usefulness and time needed to learn a skill.

Paste Special (10 minutes to learn)

Copy and paste is one of the simplest and most used functions in Excel. But we often carry over a format we don't want, or we copy a formula over, when instead we just want a value.

These little frustrations can take time to fix, which is why Paste Special is so… special. Paste Special enables you to pick which elements of the copied cell you bring over. After you've copied your cell (Ctr+C) hit Ctrl+Alt+V (or go to the Clipboard section of the Home ribbon, or Edit > Paste Special) to bring up Paste Special and make your selection. Alt+E+S+V is the shortcut to just paste values — probably the most common use of Paste Special.

Add Multiple Rows (2 minutes to learn)

We often need to add new rows between existing rows. The shortcut (Ctrl, shift, +) is pretty handy, especially as you can toggle the + to add multiple rows. Often, just highlighting the number of rows you want to add (say 5) and using right click, insert is quicker when adding in bulk as it will add the number of rows you've highlighted.

Flash Fill (30 minutes to learn)

Excel developed a mind of its own in 2013 with this feature. Flash Fill automatically fills your data when it senses a pattern.

Suppose you have a list of product numbers in the first ten cells of column A, e.g. ‘ABC-00001' to ‘ABC-00010' and you only need the numbers after the ‘-'. You can easily discard the ‘ABC' using Flash Fill. Pre-2013 this was possible, but relied on a combination of functions (FIND, LEFT, &, etc). Now, this is much faster and will impress people. Red bull bc one apk data download.

Establish the pattern by typing ‘00001' into the first blank cell. If Flash Fill is turned on (File Options, Advanced) just start to type the next product number in the cell below and Flash Fill will recognize the pattern and fill down the remaining product numbers for you. Just hit the Enter key to accept. Or, get it going manually by clicking Data > Flash Fill, or Ctrl+E.

Flash Fill is like magic, and can be used in many different scenarios. It's a fantastic time saver when you need to input or change a lot of data quickly and accurately. Flash Fill is a jaw-dropping feature.

INDEX-MATCH (45 minutes to learn)

Aside from VLOOKUP (which looks up the value in one column and returns a corresponding value from another column), INDEX and MATCH are the most widely used and most powerful tools in Excel for performing lookups. Used separately, these functions are invaluable, but it's when you combine them that their true power is unleashed. INDEX and MATCH used in combination help you extract the data you need from a large dataset efficiently and precisely. Mastering these functions will not only make you look like an Excel whiz to your colleagues and manager, but can make a tedious, mundane task quick and simple. Here's how these functions work:

Microsoft Excel Features And Functions

VLOOKUP is a great function, but it has its limitations. It can only look up values from left to right. The lookup value must be on the left in the lookup table. INDEX and MATCH allows you to look up a value anywhere in the lookup table regardless of its position.

Let's say you have a spreadsheet with a list of products. You have columns titled 'Product Number', 'Profit', 'Product Name', and 'Revenue'. On another spreadsheet, you have a list of the product names and you want to look up how much profit each product has generated. In this scenario, we are using the product name (our lookup value) to look up the profit. The product name sits to the right of the profit and so VLOOKUP would not work. This is the perfect scenario for INDEX and MATCH.

The syntax would be:

=INDEX(Profit column,MATCH(Lookup Value,Product Name column,0))

Here's a good way to remember how it works:

Microsoft Excel Feature

=INDEX (Column I want a return value from, MATCH (My Lookup Value, Column I want to Lookup against, Enter '0' )) (Zero gives you an exact match, you can match against less than (-1) or greater than (1) as well.)

At first and even second glance, INDEX and MATCH looks complex. Wii games iso highly compressed. It certainly needs some practice, but it's worth getting your head around as it is more flexible and more powerful than a VLOOKUP. It's one of the most important uses of Excel, period.

SUM (2 minutes to learn)

This is one of the first functions you're likely to learn in Excel — how to sum a row or column. But did you know you can select the cell at the end of a row or column and press Alt + to do this functions in seconds?

INDEX-MATCH (45 minutes to learn)

Aside from VLOOKUP (which looks up the value in one column and returns a corresponding value from another column), INDEX and MATCH are the most widely used and most powerful tools in Excel for performing lookups. Used separately, these functions are invaluable, but it's when you combine them that their true power is unleashed. INDEX and MATCH used in combination help you extract the data you need from a large dataset efficiently and precisely. Mastering these functions will not only make you look like an Excel whiz to your colleagues and manager, but can make a tedious, mundane task quick and simple. Here's how these functions work:

Microsoft Excel Features And Functions

VLOOKUP is a great function, but it has its limitations. It can only look up values from left to right. The lookup value must be on the left in the lookup table. INDEX and MATCH allows you to look up a value anywhere in the lookup table regardless of its position.

Let's say you have a spreadsheet with a list of products. You have columns titled 'Product Number', 'Profit', 'Product Name', and 'Revenue'. On another spreadsheet, you have a list of the product names and you want to look up how much profit each product has generated. In this scenario, we are using the product name (our lookup value) to look up the profit. The product name sits to the right of the profit and so VLOOKUP would not work. This is the perfect scenario for INDEX and MATCH.

The syntax would be:

=INDEX(Profit column,MATCH(Lookup Value,Product Name column,0))

Here's a good way to remember how it works:

Microsoft Excel Feature

=INDEX (Column I want a return value from, MATCH (My Lookup Value, Column I want to Lookup against, Enter '0' )) (Zero gives you an exact match, you can match against less than (-1) or greater than (1) as well.)

At first and even second glance, INDEX and MATCH looks complex. Wii games iso highly compressed. It certainly needs some practice, but it's worth getting your head around as it is more flexible and more powerful than a VLOOKUP. It's one of the most important uses of Excel, period.

SUM (2 minutes to learn)

This is one of the first functions you're likely to learn in Excel — how to sum a row or column. But did you know you can select the cell at the end of a row or column and press Alt + to do this functions in seconds?

CTRL Z / CTRL Y (1 minutes to learn)

This is your Excel get-out-of-jail-free card. If you aren't using Ctrl Z to undo mistakes in Excel, then you should be. What many people don't know is that Ctrl Y does the opposite — redo. The two work in tandem very nicely, and you cycle through iterations of your work until you find the right one.

Remove Duplicates (10 minutes to learn)

This is so simple and quick to use. Remove Duplicates does exactly what you'd expect — it removes the duplicates in any given range of data. Our advice is to remove the values you want to dedupe and place them in another sheet. It's found on the Data tab in the Data Tools section of the Ribbon.

If you just want to highlight duplicates, you can do this using Conditional Formatting. The shortcut to get you there is Alt H L. (Or find it on the Home ribbon under Styles).

Freeze Panes (15 minutes to learn)

Ever scroll down a large table of data only to forget which columns are which? Freeze Panes is the answer here. You can freeze just the top row, first column or any number of either. Identify the columns and rows of the area you want to freeze. Then select the cell immediately to the right of those columns and beneath those rows. Go to the View tab and Freeze Panes in the Window section. Alt W F is the shortcut.

F4 (10 minutes to learn)

There are two especially satisfying ways to use F4 in Excel. The first is when creating an Absolute Reference: F4 toggles you through the various options. The second is one that few people know about, but could seriously improve your Excel productivity. F4 repeats your last action, where available. For example, if you've just applied a border to one cell, use F4 to apply it to others.

CTRL + Arrows (5 minutes to learn)

If you've found yourself scrolling through a dataset to reach the bottom of it, stop right now and start using Ctrl + the arrow keys! This simple shortcut takes you straight to the end of the data in a column or row you are using. Combine it with Ctrl, Shift to highlight/select large areas of data in seconds.

Warning: If you have gaps in your data this will just take you down to the first gap. So if you want to get to the bottom fast, choose a column of data which has no gaps.

Harness just a few of these ten items, and you can transform your typical work day. Whether you want to help justify data-driven business decisions at a high level, or simply get home to your family earlier, mastering the right Excel functions is a quick and easy way to maximize your productivity.