Download - Introduction to Excel 20021. 2 This lesson will cover: What is Excel 2002? Spreadsheet Basics Starting Excel Understanding the Excel Window Shortcut Menus

Introduction to Excel 2002 1

Introduction to Excel 2002


Introduction to Excel 2002

This lesson will cover:• What is Excel 2002?

• Spreadsheet Basics• Starting Excel• Understanding the Excel Window• Shortcut Menus and Tool bars• On-Line Help• Exiting Excel

These topics are from Chapter 1 of the text...…Exploring Spreadsheet Software


What is Excel 2002?

Excel is an electronic spreadsheet program. The next few slides will explain what this means… Excel is developed by Microsoft, and is currently the most widely used spreadsheet program in the world. It is the defacto standard, so to speak.

Excel was one of the first spreadsheets to use a graphical interface with pull down menus that could be used with a mouse. It was originally written for the Apple Macintosh and released in 1984. The Excel spreadsheet with a graphical user interface was easier to use than the command line interface of DOS spreadsheet products, such as VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3. Many people bought Apple Macintoshes just so they could use Excel. Microsoft launched the first PC (MS-DOS ) version of Excel (version 2.0) in 1987, up to that point it was strictly an Apple product.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/s/spreadsheet.html

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/V/VisiCalc.html

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/L/Lotus_1_2_3.html

http://www.apple.com/


If Excel Were a Car...

• It would crash two or three times per day for no apparent reason. The driver is often hurt, but the car itself receives no permanent damage. You'd just accept this fact, restart the car, and begin your trip again. • Occasionally, your car would fail to restart after a crash, and you'd have to reinstall the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too. • You would be forced to buy a new model every 18 months, and your old model would have no resale value. Each new model would be bigger that the previous one, require more gas, and would operate differently. Furthermore, parts from the old car would not be interchangeable with the new car. • You could call a special phone number when you had a problem. The phone would be staffed by people who know less about your car than you do. • There would be a special Macintosh model, powered by the sun. However, it would only run on 5 percent of the roads and require different driving skills. • You would have to spend additional money to buy the operating manuals. • Before engaging, the airbag system would display a message, "Are you sure?" • Every time you looked under the hood, an obnoxious cartoon character would appear and ask if you need help. No matter how many times you refused help, it would keep appearing.


Spreadsheet Basics

For a history on spreadsheets visit this website:http://www.j-walk.com/ss/history/index.htm

Paper based spreadsheets have been used by accountants and other “number crunchers” for many years. They are basically tables or matrices of values that present data in an easily read or understood manner. Some of the more common uses for spreadsheets are to present balance sheets, or financial statements and analyses, but they can also include more complex data such as the results of research experiments or tests.Spreadsheets are arranged in a matrix of Columns and Rows. Data is entered into Cells that are the intersection of a column and a row. Electronic spreadsheets use this framework a bit more liberally and actually override it by adding graphics and merging or enlarging cells.

http://www.j-walk.com/ss/history/index.htm

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/s/spreadsheet.html


Test Results Presented in a SpreadsheetColumns…

Rows…

Cell…


A little History…

The “Spreadsheet Page” has very good information on spreadsheets in general:http://www.j-walk.com/ss/

The first electronic spreadsheet for the PC was VisiCalc, which appeared on the market in 1979. It was soon followed by Lotus 1-2-3 and others. The advantage of computer based (or electronic) spreadsheets is that they can display data graphically or textually or both; and they can easily recalculate hundreds of values as needed.Lotus 1-2-3 was at one time (in the late eighties and very early nineties) the unchallenged leader of PC spreadsheets. It pioneered the abilities to use spreadsheet functions, graphics and data management tools in one program (that’s the 1, 2, 3 of it). Somewhere along the way (probably with the introduction of Windows 3.1) Excel took the lead and now is by far the most widely used spreadsheet program

http://www.j-walk.com/ss/

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/V/VisiCalc.html

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/L/Lotus_1_2_3.html


Starting Excel

Excel can be started from the Programs Menu…the menu item may be under Microsoft Office or it may be on the menu by itself…


Wherever the shortcut is, the icon will usually look like this…

The shortcut may even be on the taskbar Quick Launch Menu…

http://www.microsoft.com/office/excel/default.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/office/excel/default.htm


When Excel starts up you will see a window similar to this…a default (empty) spreadsheet will be displayed showing many familiar Windows features…


Understanding the Excel Window

… when you open Excel it will generally open a “blank” spreadsheet named Book 1.


The Excel window will have Menus and Toolbars as usual…

…along with a title bar and control buttons…the title bar shows the name of the current spreadsheet, a generic one supplied by Excel, “Book1”.

…a status bar at the bottom of the Excel window will display various types of information…right now it just lets you know Excel is “Ready”…


The intersection of a column and a row is a Cell…it is named by its column and row…this one is A1.

The “Worksheet” is a grid, table or matrix of columns and rows …

Row numbers …

Column letters…

}


The active cell is the basic work area of a spreadsheet. Numbers, text, formulas or complex functions can be inserted in a cell by entering them in the input box located just below the Formatting bar…

This is cell D11 …

Notice the mouse pointer has become a “plus” sign.


Data entered here…

…is actually being entered into the active cell here.


..the look of the text can be changed by selecting different fonts, font sizes or font effects (such as Bold or Italic) from the Formatting bar. Or you could select a cell formatting option from the Format menu item. Usually there is more than one way to do something in Excel…

Font colors can be changed here…or from the Format menu.


Each “Worksheet” has tabs…and there are also scroll bars to move about…


The Window is actually a window within a window…if you click the Restore Window button …from the lower set of controls buttons…you will see this better….


Now the window has become “detached”…it was really just maximized inside the Excel window before. This way you can have several spreadsheets open at this same time while only having one instance of Excel open. Clicking the Minimize button on this window…


…will reduce the spreadsheet window down to the bottom of the Excel window…it has been minimized. You can Restore it to its full size or Close it by using the control buttons…


Shortcut Menus

Excel has all the usual pop-up and drop down menus…right-clicking on an object, like a cell, will open context based help for specifically for that object and its current state.


If you right click on the Formatting or toolbar the following menu will appear. From this menu you can add or remove toolbars or menus…say for example, you clicked on the WordArt menu item…


…the WordArt toolbar would appear…it actually could appear as a “floating” toolbar as shown here. You can move it to the other toolbars so that it will “dock” and become like the Formatting bar. It could also be docked on the bottom or the sides of the Excel window.


The WordArt toolbar is now docked…


You can also access the Customize menu or window from this pop-up menu…from there you can also change Excel’s “look and feel”.


You can add or remove toolbars from the “Toolbars” tab of the window…


…and change some of Excel’s display options from the “Options” tab…most of the other options that Excel makes available for you to personalize are accessed through the Tools > Options menu…


…the options displayed here are more complex, and relate to the actual operation of the program…


On-Line Help

If using Excel isn’t tough enough for you…there’s always Clippy to deal with…


When you open a spreadsheet in Excel a strange thing happens…this real annoying paper clip thingy appears (that is, unless someone has disabled him) and tries to “help” you…that thingy is Clippy the Office Assistant…if you need help, pressing the F1 shortcut key or selecting Help from the menu will display a balloon window…


The best thing about Clippy is that he “understands” natural language commands…for example, if I wanted to find out how to “Close the Office Assistant”, I would type that phrase into the input box in the “balloon”...


And then I click Search and Clippy starts to find an answer from within the Excel help system.


Next Clippy displays some options for you to select…“What would you like to do?”, he isn’t perfect, you still need to make some choices, but they have been limited. To view the help you simply click on one of the choices in the list. If I click on the first item…


…the actual Excel Help window appears…Clippy is just a gateway to Excel’s complex help. The help here is just like Windows help, an HTML help system.


You could also customize or Hide Clippy from the pop-up menu that appears when you right click on him…


Selecting Options from the Office Assistant’s pop-up menu displays this dialog box…from here you can make the Assistant behave as you wish…or even select another character all together.


Of course Excel Help is available from the Help menu or by pressing F1…whether the Assistant is disabled or not.


From the Help menu…selecting Microsoft Excel Help will open the Help window (or viewer). Notice the shortcut key!


There is a lot of information here, but it can be searched by using the Table of Contents, the Index or the Answer Wizard…the Wizard provides the same results as does the Assistant, but without the animation and sound effects…

The Excel help window acts like a web browser…


…and even hyperlinks, that will move you to other topics, or even to more help on the Internet.

The Excel help window works somewhat like a web browser…it has back and forward buttons…


…clicking on any of the matches displays the help topic or more links in the pane on the right.

To find help on a topic, enter a word, a question or a phrase in the “What would you like to do?” box…Click the search button and a list of possible answers appears below…


Clicking on any link that begins with any arrow expands it……


The Viewer can be expanded because it is actually a separate program running on its own, just like the Windows Help Viewer…it can be minimized to the taskbar while you continue to work in Excel.


Exiting Excel

The idea is to exit safely…and with grace…


To exit Excel, or just close the current spreadsheet use the File menu…to Close the current spreadsheet select Close…

To Exit the program, which will also close the current spreadsheet…select Exit…remember to save your work if necessary.


If you select Exit with an “unsaved” spreadsheet you will be prompted to save it…


Links for Excel on the Web

Excel 2002 Assistance centerhttp://search.office.microsoft.com/assistance/tasks.aspx?p=Excel

Excel 2002 tour from Microsofthttp://www.microsoft.com/office/excel/evaluation/tour/default.asp

Excellent Excel online tutorialhttp://www.usd.edu/trio/tut/excel/

…another good online tutorialhttp://www.extension.iastate.edu/Pages/Excel/homepage.html

Download - Introduction to Excel 20021. 2 This lesson will cover: What is Excel 2002? Spreadsheet Basics Starting Excel Understanding the Excel Window Shortcut Menus

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