 Dear students, welcome to Lesson 2 of our Introduction to IT for Business course. In Lesson 2, we are going to cover Microsoft Excel. We will learn basic data structuring and formatting tools, including developing tables, wrapping and rotating data, merging cells, review and view management. Microsoft Excel is one of the most widely used programs for organizing information and data using spreadsheets. This is due not only to the ease of learning and use of the program, but also to the wide range of customization options that it has to offer. For this reason, we aim to become proficient at understanding the basics of this program, because many users in the labs are using Excel for their schoolwork. With the strong knowledge of the most commonly used elements, we can efficiently help users with the majority of their questions. To start Excel, you can do by either of the following two methods. In the application list under Start, find Microsoft Excel, or press Excel icon on the Quick Launch toolbar. Navigating. Home tab. This tab contains all of your basic formatting functions that allow you to edit cells and the appearance of the information they contain. In third tab, this tab allows you to place objects and images into your spreadsheet to supplement your data. Page Layout tab. This tab contains all of the tools that allow you to edit the actual page characteristics of the spreadsheet and decide how it will look when it is exported to another format or printed. Here is where you can also decide which information to include for printing. Formulas tab. This tab allows you to create, edit and automate formulas in your spreadsheet. Data tab. This tab allows you to import data from other sources as well as manage the data in your spreadsheet. Review tab. This tab allows you to check your document for errors and it also contains tools for editing, collaborating and protecting your information. View tab. This tab allows you to change the views not only of the spreadsheet that you are currently working on but also the actual orientation of the program window in case you are working with multiple files. Working with worksheets. Files in Excel are organized into pages called worksheets. File can have just one worksheet or it can have multiple. To create a new sheet, click on the plus sign button at the bottom of the screen next to your existing worksheets. To rename an existing sheet, right click on the sheet you want to rename and select rename. To delete a sheet, right click on the sheet you want to delete and select delete. Entering data. You can add data by entering it directly in a cell or by using the formula bar. A cell can contain a maximum of 32,767 characters and can hold any of three basic types of data which are text, numbers or formulas. Numeric entries contain only numbers and are automatically aligned to the right in a cell. To enter a number, do the same as to enter the text. To enter a date type, type the month, day and year with each number separated by forward slash or a hyphen. To enter a time, type the hour, a column and the minutes. Press the space bar. Type A for AM or B for PM. Editing data. If a cell contains a long entry and you only want to change a few characters, it is faster to edit the data than to retype the entire entry. To edit data, first double click the cell that contains the data you want to edit. The cursor, a blinking vertical line appears in the cell in the location that you double clicked. Second, to insert characters, click where you want to make changes and then type the new characters. Replace data. You can replace the entire contents of a cell with new data. Any formatting applied to the cell remains in place and is applied to the new data. To replace data, firstly select the cell that contains the data you want to replace. Secondly, type the new data and then press the entry key. Delete data. To delete data, select the cell that contains the data you want to delete and then press the delete key. Clearing cells. You can clear a cell to remove its contents, formats or comments. When clearing a cell, you must specify whether to remove one, two or all three of these elements from the cell. To clear a cell, first select the cell that you want to clear. Second, on the home tab in the editing group, click the clear button and select the desired option from the menu. Whenever you make a mistake, you can easily reverse it with the undo command. After you have undone one or more actions, the redo command becomes available and allows you to restore the undone actions. To undo, use Ctrl Z hotkey. To redo, use Ctrl Y hotkey. Formatting worksheets. You can format cells and cell contents by changing the font, font size, font style and font color, as well as adding cell borders and changing the background color of cells. To change the font on the home tab in the font group, click the font arrow and select the desired font from the list. To change the font size on the home tab in the font group, click the font size arrow and select the desired font size from the list. To change the font color on the home tab in the font group, click the font color button to apply the most recently used color, or click the font color arrow and select a different color from the color palette. To change the fill color on the home tab in the font group, click the fill color button to apply the most recently used color, or click the fill color arrow and select a different color from the color palette. To bold or italicize data, click the bold button or italic button. To apply a single underline, click the underline button. To apply a double underline, click the underline arrow and then click double underline on the menu. You can add borders to any or all sides of a single cell or range. First, select the cell to which you want to add borders. On the home tab in the font group, click the borders button to apply the most recently used border, or click the borders arrow and select a different border from the menu. You can apply number formats to cell containing numbers to better reflect the type of data they represent. For example, you can display a numeric value as a percentage, currency, date, or time, and so on. On the home tab in the number group, you can find drop-down list with all available types. Positioning cell contents. You can change the alignment, indentation, and orientation of cell contents. Wrap the contents within a cell and merge cells. You can align content to left, center, right, top, middle, or bottom on home tab in alignment group. Rotating data. You can rotate data clockwise, counterclockwise, or vertically within a cell. This is usually used to add visual impact. On home tab, alignment group, click orientation button and select desired option from menu. Wrapping data. Wrapping displays data on multiple lines within a cell. The number of wrapped lines depends on the width of the column and the length of the data. On the home tab in the alignment group, click the wrap text button. The row height automatically adjusts to fit the wrapped data. Merging cells. Merging combines two or more adjacent cells into one larger cell. On the home tab in the alignment group, click the merge and center button to merge the selected cells into one cell and centered data. Copying cell formatting. You can copy the formatting of a specific cell and apply it to other cells in the worksheet. This function saves a lot of your time and effort. On the home tab in the clipboard group, click format painter button. Then select the cell to which you want to apply the copied formatting. Applying cell styles. A cell style is a set of formatting characteristics that you can use to quickly format the cells in the worksheet. On the home tab in the styles group, click the cell styles button and select the desired style from the gallery. Working with rows and columns. Although the number of rows and columns in the worksheet is fixed, you can still insert rows and columns if you need to make room for additional data. Or delete rows and columns if the data they contain is no longer needed. These operations do not change the total number of rows and columns in the worksheet. You can insert rows and columns into a worksheet to add empty space for additional data. Rows are inserted above the selected row. Columns are inserted to the left of the selected column. In the home tab in the cells group, click the insert arrow and then click insert sheet rows or sheet columns. You can delete rows and columns from a worksheet to close up empty space or remove unwanted data. In the cells group, click the delete arrow and then click delete sheet rows or sheet columns. Excel automatically adjusts row heights to accommodate the total entry in the row. You can however manually increase or decrease row heights as needed. In the cells group, click the format button and then click row height. In the row height dialog box, type a value in the row height box and then click the OK button. The default worksheet columns are wide enough to display about 8 characters. To change column width in the cells group, click the format button and then click column width. In the column width dialog box, type a value in the column width box and then click the OK button. You can hide rows and columns within a worksheet. Any data or calculations in hidden rows and columns are still available through references. They are simply hidden from view. When you need the data, you can unhide rows and columns. Choose rows or columns you want to hide. Then in the cells group, click the format button, point to hide and unhide and then click hide rows or hide columns. To unhide, click unhide row or column. Working with comments. Some cells in a worksheet may contain data that requires an explanation or special attention. Comments provide a way to attach this type of information to individual cells without cluttering the worksheet. By default, comments are hidden and appear only when you position the mouse pointer over a commented cell. To add a comment on the insert tab in the comments group, click the new comment button. On the review tab in the comments group, click delete to remove comments. Working with views. Excel provides several ways in which you can view worksheets and workbooks. There are a variety of viewing options that change how a worksheet is displayed on the screen. These views can be useful for performing various tasks. Normal. This is the default view. Page Break Preview. This plays a preview of where pages will break when the worksheet is printed. Use this view to easily adjust page breaks. Page Layout. Displays the worksheet as it will appear when printed. Use this view to see where pages begin and end and to add headers and footers. Custom Views allows you to save the current display and print settings as a custom view that you can quickly apply in the future. You can zoom in to make a worksheet easier to read or zoom out to see more of the worksheet. In the Zoom group, click Zoom and choose Scale. Freezing Paints is a useful technique for keeping an area of the worksheet visible while you scroll to another area of the worksheet. You can choose to freeze just the top or bottom rows, left or right columns, but not anything in the middle. Select rows or columns you want to freeze. On the View tab, in the Window group, click the Freeze Paints button and then click Freeze Paints. You can split the Workbook window into two or four resizable paints, all with independent scroll bars. This allows you to view different parts of a worksheet at the same time. In the Window group, click the Split button. Split bars appear in the Workbook window. Changing Page Layout The commands used to define the layout of a printed page are available on the Page Layout tab. They can be used to change the page margins and orientation. Set a print area, control page breaks, adjust the scale and specify whether or not to print gridlines. Margins define the printed area on a page. They control the amount of blank space between the printed data and the top, bottom, left and right edges of the page. To change page margins on the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click the Margins button and select the desired margin setting from the menu. In Excel, you can print a worksheet in either portrait or landscape orientation. Portrait orientation is useful for long worksheets that are not very wide. Landscape orientation is useful for worksheets with many columns. In the Page Setup group, click the Orientation button and then click Portrait or Landscape. By default, Excel prints the entire worksheet. If you frequently print a specific section of a worksheet, you can set a print area that includes just that section. That way, when you print the worksheet, only that section will print in the Page Setup group. Click the Print Area button and then click Set Print Area. The print area is outlined with the dark gray line. Scaling allows you to adjust the size of a worksheet for printing. By default, Excel prints a worksheet at a scale of 100%. You can change the scale percentage from 10% through 400% to fit more or less data on a printed page. You can also adjust the scale by specifying the number of horizontal and vertical pages on which the worksheet should fit. In the Scale to Fit group, enter the desired percentage in the Scale box. Grid lines are the light gray lines that appear around cells. In the worksheet, by default grid lines are displayed on the screen, but they are not printed. You can choose to print a worksheet with grid lines to make the data easier to read on a printed page. In the Sheet Options group, under Grid Lines, select the Print checkbox. In this lesson, we have learned how to enter data to Microsoft Excel. How to create tables, rotate and wrap data, merge cells, apply cell styles. We have also covered working with columns and rows, inserting comments and changing page layouts. In our next lesson, we will continue covering Microsoft Excel with more sophisticated topics. Thank you for your attention. We will have our Q&A session during our lessons. Please check your timetable. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please feel free to email them to me. Thank you very much. Bye for now!