What is Microsoft Excel?
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program used to record and analyze numerical and statistical data. Microsoft Excel provides multiple features to perform various operations like calculations, pivot tables, graph tools, macro programming, etc. It is compatible with multiple OS like Windows, macOS, Android and iOS.
A Excel spreadsheet can be understood as a collection of columns and rows that form a table. Alphabetical letters are usually assigned to columns, and numbers are usually assigned to rows. The point where a column and a row meet is called a cell. The address of a cell is given by the letter representing the column and the number representing a row.
Why Should I Learn Microsoft Excel?
We all deal with numbers in one way or the other. We all have daily expenses which we pay for from the monthly income that we earn. For one to spend wisely, they will need to know their income vs. expenditure. Microsoft Excel comes in handy when we want to record, analyze and store such numeric data. Let's illustrate this using the following image.
Where can I get Microsoft Excel?
There are number of ways in which you can get Microsoft Excel. You can buy it from a hardware computer shop that also sells software. Microsoft Excel is part of the Microsoft Office suite of programs. Alternatively, you can download it from the Microsoft website but you will have to buy the license key.
In this Microsoft Excel tutorial, we are going to cover the following topics about MS Excel.
- How to Open Microsoft Excel?
- Understanding the Ribbon
- Understanding the worksheet
- Customization Microsoft Excel Environment
- Important Excel shortcuts
How to Open Microsoft Excel?
Running Excel is not different from running any other Windows program. If you are running Windows with a GUI like (Windows XP, Vista, and 7) follow the following steps.
- Click on start menu
- Point to all programs
- Point to Microsoft Excel
- Click on Microsoft Excel
Alternatively, you can also open it from the start menu if it has been added there. You can also open it from the desktop shortcut if you have created one.
For this tutorial, we will be working with Windows 8.1 and Microsoft Excel 2013. Follow the following steps to run Excel on Windows 8.1
- Click on start menu
- Search for Excel N.B. even before you even typing, all programs starting with what you have typed will be listed.
- Click on Microsoft Excel
Understanding the Ribbon
The ribbon provides shortcuts to commands in Excel. A command is an action that the user performs. An example of a command is creating a new document, printing a documenting, etc. The image below shows the ribbon used in Excel 2013.
Ribbon components explained
Ribbon start button - it is used to access commands i.e. creating new documents, saving existing work, printing, accessing the options for customizing Excel, etc.
Ribbon tabs – the tabs are used to group similar commands together. The home tab is used for basic commands such as formatting the data to make it more presentable, sorting and finding specific data within the spreadsheet.
Ribbon bar – the bars are used to group similar commands together. As an example, the Alignment ribbon bar is used to group all the commands that are used to align data together.
Understanding the worksheet (Rows and Columns, Sheets, Workbooks)
A worksheet is a collection of rows and columns. When a row and a column meet, they form a cell. Cells are used to record data. Each cell is uniquely identified using a cell address. Columns are usually labelled with letters while rows are usually numbers.
A workbook is a collection of worksheets. By default, a workbook has three cells in Excel. You can delete or add more sheets to suit your requirements. By default, the sheets are named Sheet1, Sheet2 and so on and so forth. You can rename the sheet names to more meaningful names i.e. Daily Expenses, Monthly Budget, etc.
Customization Microsoft Excel Environment
Personally I like the black color, so my excel theme looks blackish. Your favorite color could be blue, and you too can make your theme color look blue-like. If you are not a programmer, you may not want to include ribbon tabs i.e. developer. All this is made possible via customizations. In this sub-section, we are going to look at;
- Customization the ribbon
- Setting the color theme
- Settings for formulas
- Proofing settings
- Save settings
- Click on the ribbon start button
- Select options from the drop down menu. You should be able to see an Excel Options dialog window
- Select the customize ribbon option from the left-hand side panel as shown below
- On your right-hand side, remove the check marks from the tabs that you do not wish to see on the ribbon. For this example, we have removed Page Layout, Review, and View tab.
- Click on the "OK" button when you are done.
Adding custom tabs to the ribbon
- Right click on the ribbon and select Customize the Ribbon. The dialogue window shown above will appear
- Click on new tab button as illustrated in the animated image below
- Select the newly created tab
- Click on Rename button
- Give it a name of Guru99
- Select the New Group (Custom) under Guru99 tab as shown in the image below
- Click on Rename button and give it a name of My Commands
- Let's now add commands to my ribbon bar
- The commands are listed on the middle panel
- Select All chart types command and click on Add button
- Click on OK Thank you !