Some functions of MS Excel

MS Excel

MS Excel is one of the very powerful tools of MS Office. Excel focuses on handling of data and numbers. Excel is a Spreadsheet application and handles the data through worksheets, workbooks, cells, rows, graphics, charts and tables. With graphs and chart facilities, excel is also useful in analyzing the raw data. You may use formulas while entering data.

Editing Cells

To edit the contents of cells, do as follow:

• Double-click the cell that contains the data you want to edit.
• Edit the cell contents.
• To enter or cancel your changes, press ENTER or Esc.

1. Inserting Blank Cells, Rows or Columns

You can insert blank cells, rows and columns and fill them with the data. If you are moving and copying cells, you can insert them between existing them between existing cells to avoid pasting over existing data.

To insert cells

• Select a range of cells where you want to insert the new blank cells.
• On the Insert menu, click Cells.
• Click Shift Cells right or Shift Cells down to insert accordingly

To Insert Rows

• To insert a single row, click a cell in the row immediately to the right of where you want new row. For example, to insert a new row above Row 10, click a cell in Row 10.
• To insert multiple rows, select rows immediately below where you want new rows. Select the same number of rows as you want to insert.
• On the Insert menu, click Rows.

To insert columns

• To insert a single column, click a cell in the row immediately below where you want new column. For Example, to insert a new column to the left of column C, click a cell in column C.
• To insert multiple columns, select columns immediately to the right of where you want the new columns. Select the same number of columns as you want to insert.
• On the Insert menu, click Columns.

2. Deleting Cells, Rows or Columns

You can delete cells, rows and columns in the following ways.

• From Edit menu, select Delete and then a dialog box appears.

• From the dialog box, you can delete current cell and shift the rest of cells left or up. You are also able to delete the current Row or Column.

FORMATTING TEXT

Worksheets can be pretty dry, so we need some tools to dress them up a little. We can use most of the tricks in our Word Processor to do the formatting of the text. We can use bold face, italics and underlines, change the color, align (left, right, center), font size, font etc.

We need to select the cell (or group of cells) that we wish to change the formatting and then go from the FORMAT menu - down to CELLS – click on FONT. Notice that you can choose to change the alignment as well a several other options.

• Font: Select the font you want, or type the name of the font in the box above the list. Check the message at the button of the Font tab for Information about the selected font.
• Font Styles: Lists the available font styles.
• Size: Lists the available sizes for the font selected in the Font box. Select a font size, or type size you want in the box above the list of the sizes.
• Underline: Lists the available underline formats.
• Color: Lists the available colors. Select a color from the lists or select automatic to set the color to the window text color defined in the Windows Control Panel. Unless you have changed the window text color, selecting automatic sets the text color to black.
• Normal Font: Sets the font, font style, size and effect to the Normal style.
• Effects: 

               Strikethrough: Formats selected characters with a line through the middle.

               Superscript: Formats selected characters higher on the line and changes the                                            font size. 

              Subscript: Formats selected character lover on the line and changes the font                                              size.

FORMATTING NUMBERS

We often need to format the numbers to display the appropriate number of decimals, dollar signs, percentage red (for negative dollars), etc. It is best to keep numbers describing similar items as uniform as possible.

If we have the number 3.67455677688, we should probably have to make the column wider and at the least bore more people. We need to set the number of decimal places to what is important. If this is a dollar figure that had calculated tax, it should be $3.67.

Here is a screen displaying what you would see  if you select a cell (or group of cells) and from the FORMAT menu-go down to format-click on number.

• Category: Lists the categories into which number formats are grouped. When you select a category, the built-in and custom formats for that category are displayed in the Format Codes box.
• Format Codes: Lists all available formats for a selected category. In a new Worksheet, the default number format for all cells is the General Format. When you type a number in a cell that has a general format, Excel assigns the number a built-in format based on what you typed. 

ALIGNMENT OF CELLS

To align the content of selected cells, wrapping text within cells, adjusting width of Column and Row. 

• Choose Cells from Format menu bar.
• Click Alignment tab.

The dialog box appears on the screen, which will have the following options:

Horizontal Option

• General: Aligns texts to the left, numbers to the right, an centers logical and error values. This is the default alignment.
• Left: Aligns cell contents to the left.
• Center: Centers cell contents.
• Right: Align cell contents to the Right.
• Fill: Repeats the contents of the selected cell until the cell is full. If blank cells to the right also have the Fill Alignment, they are filled a well. 
• Justify: Aligns wrapped text within a cell to the right and left. You must have more than one line of wrapped text to see the justification.
• Center Across Selection: Centers a cell entry across the selected cells.  

Vertical Options

• Top: Align all cell contents along the top of the cell.
• Center: Centers all contents in the middle of the cell.
• Bottom: Aligns cell contents along the bottom of the cells.
• Justify: Justifies the cell contents up and down within the widths of the cell. 

Orientation Options

Rotates selected cell entries. It will display four Orientation. Choose one orientation and click OK. You may click on the right box for angular orientation.

Wrap Text Option

Display long strings of text on multiple lines within a cell. Wrapped text may be left-aligned, centered or justified in the cells.

Wrapping text in the cells

• Select the cells in which you want the text to wrap.
• From the format menu, choose Cells.
• Select the Alignment tab
• Select the Wrap Text Box.
• Choose the OK button.

If you adjust the column width after wrapping text, you can quickly adjust the row height by double-clicking the line below the row heading.

  ADJUSTING COLUMN WIDTH

A question that everyone (who has ever worked on a spreadsheet) has asked at one time or another is, "Where did all my numbers go?" or same questions, "Where did all of those ###### come from and why are they in my spreadsheet?"

The problem is the number trying to be displayed in a particular cell does not have enough width to display properly. To clear up the problems we just need to make the column wider. You can do this many ways. Here are two ways to change the column width.

Menu Option

• Place the cell pointer in any cell in the column to be adjusted. To adjust multiple columns, select at least one cell from each column.
• From the Format menu, select Column.
• From the Column submenu, select Width.
• In the Column Width dialog box, type the desired width.
• Click OK

Mouse Option

• Along the column ID (A,B,C .......), point to the border between the columns
• When the pointer turns a double-arrow, click and drag to change the column width (drag to the left for a narrower column, drag to the right for a wider column)

A box appears next to the pointer telling you the current width of the column as you drag it.

• When the column is the appropriate width, release the mouse

Move the arrow to the right side of the column label and click and drag the mouse to the right (to make wider) or left (to make smaller). Let up on the mouse button when column is wide enough.

Notice the cursor changes to a vertical line with the arrow pointing left and right.

ADJUSTING ROW HEIGHT 

Menu Option 

• Place the cell pointer in any cell in the row to be adjusted. To adjust multiple rows, select at least one cell from each row.
• From the Format Menu, select Row.
• From the Row submenu, select Height.
•  In the Row Height dialog box, type the desired height.
• Click OK.

Mouse Option

• Along the Row ID (1,2,3.....), point to the border betweeen the rows.
• When the pointer turns a double-arrow, click and drag to change the row height (drag to the up for a narrower height, drag to the bttom for a wider row)

A box appears next to the pointer telling you the current height of the row as you drag it.

• When the row is the appropriate height, release the mouse.

Sometimes we (all) make mistakes or things change. If you have a spreadsheet designed and you forgot to include some important information, you can insert a column into an existing spreadsheet. What you must do is click on the column label (letter) and choose columns from the Insert menu. this will insert a column immediately left of the selected column.

Similarly you can also insert row(s), as much and when desired by selecting rows from the in Insert menu. 

WRITER: MR. KRISHAN KUMAR SAINI

TODAY WE HAVE LEARNT SOME USES OF "MS EXCEL". HOPE THIS LESSON IS USEFUL FOR YOU.