Nonfiction Media - Excel

Excel Workshop

The Environment

• Menu, toolbar, formatting palette
• Workbook/worksheet
  • Creating, moving renaming worksheets
• Selecting Rows | columns | cells

Modifying the Worksheet

• Inserting a row/column: Insert > Row ...
• Resizing rows/columns:
  • mouse over column/row header and drag border to resize
  • or select row/colum and right click to set width or height
• The more you work with Excel you may want to customize the toolbar for those commands you use frequently: View > Customize Toolbars/menus
• Column Headers, page headers
• Split View

Cell Formatting

• Text
• Numbers, (decimals, scientific notation)
• Formulas (the formula bar) View > Formula bar
• Borders and shading

Adding, Selecting and Moving data

• Creating a series
• Different cursors for different operations: hand, plus sign, double-headed arrow
• Keyboard Shortcuts (control home, control end)

Formulas

• AutoSum - a quick and easy way to add cells
• Functions: Functions are predefined formulas that perform calculations by using specific values, called arguments, in a particular order, or structure.
• Arguments: Values that a function uses to perform operations or calculations Common arguments Include numeric values, text, cell references, etc.
• Operators: +-/*

Printing

• Views: Normal and Page Layout
• File > Page Setup
  • > Sheet to repeat headers across multiple pages
  • add Gridlines

Other tools for creating spreadsheets

• Google Docs
• OpenOffice