Excel Basics

With Instructors Notes

A
New York Farm Viability Institute
Computer Training Course
By
Jack Kellogg and Juliet Carroll
Trainer
Professional Studies & Continuing Education
Finger Lakes Community College

Fruit IPM Coordinator

NYS Integrated Pest Mangement Program
Cornell University

2006

THE EXCEL WINDOW

TITLE BAR: Across the top of the window or screen (when
window is maximized). It contains the name of the open
program and the file name.
TOOL BARS: Standard, Formatting, and Address
CURSOR: Note its shape and position.
SCROLL BARS: Found at the bottom and right side of
screen.
CELL ADDRESS: Appears in the left end of the address bar.
The letter & number coordinates in the cell address identify the intersection of the column and row for that cell
(e.g. A1).
WORKBOOK SHEETS: At the bottom of the Workbook window there are 3 sheet tabs for the 3 worksheets that
makeup the Workbook (ex. Sheet 1.) A workbook can
have as many as 250 sheets. On a single sheet there is a
possibility of over 65,000 rows along with a possibility of
over 256 columns.

Instructor:

Draw an analogy to the old

spreadsheets that unfolded &
were kept in NOTEBOOKS.

Title Bar

Tool Bars

Cell Address

Worksheet Tabs

NYFVI Excel Basics Instructors, Kellogg & Carroll

Scrollbars

CURSOR NAVIGATION TECHNIQUES

The active cell is outlined in bold. To move to other cells, use
the techniques below:
DOWN: press Enter
UP: press Shift+Enter
ACROSS RIGHT: press Tab
ACROSS LEFT: press Shift+Tab
ARROW KEYS: Up, Left, Right, or Down
PAGE UP KEY or PAGE DOWN KEY allows you to move approximately 20 rows up or down at a time.
CLICKING THE MOUSE: into any cell changes its position to
that cell.

CREATE THE FOLLOWING SPREADSHEET:

City

January

February

March

Quarter Total

Chicago

Denver

Dallas

Boston

12

15

22

Los Angeles
New York
Total

Adjust column widths as needed.

Format column headers and row headers

Use Auto Sum, S on the tool bar, to total the columns

or rows. Remember: Auto Sum does not go through
empty cells.

Change data for one month and observe the totaling

results.

NYFVI Excel Basics Instructors, Kellogg & Carroll

Instructor:

Demonstrate the redefining of an

Auto-Sum range:
Remove Denvers 6 for March
Do Auto-Sum total for March
again
Using mouse redefine the
range for all of March

COPYING AND PASTING

Sometimes details of data need to be copied over to another

worksheet or to another workbook. This can be done by
copying and pasting rather than re-typing anew. A need for
this could be the start of a new season or start of a new year.

Open the workbook file you want to copy things into

(the target or new file).

Select (highlight) the cells to be copied from the existing worksheet (the source file) and copy them.

Move to the target workbook file and make sure your

cursor is in the CORRECT Cell and the CORRECT
Sheet, then click paste.

Instructor:

Point out that copying or cutting

and pasting arent much different
than any other program.

UN-DOING AND RE-DOING

When a mistake is made or you have tried something that
did not work out the way you wanted, such as pasting in the
wrong place, UNDO IT!
Simply click on the Undo button (the left-curving arrow) on
the icon toolbar and it will undo the last operation. Usually
several sequential actions can be undone one action for
each click on the button. Another way to undo is to use the
keystrokes Ctrl Z or under Edit on the Main Menu, click on
Undo.
It may be very convenient to REDO an action, such as inserting a column, by using the keystrokes Ctrl Y or under Edit
on the Main Menu, click on Repeat.
Sometimes a subsequent Undo will Redo the first action that
was undone, starting an endless loop.
Once a save has been completed, Undo and Redo are no
longer available options until additional editing is done. Undo
and Redo options can then be used back to the most recent
save baseline.

NYFVI Excel Basics Instructors, Kellogg & Carroll

For keystrokes Ctrl Z and Ctrl

Y, hold the Ctrl key down while
pressing the letter key.

USEFUL EXCEL SHORTCUTS

Excel contains several features that help enter or select data
quickly and efficiently. Below are a few suggestions.
SELECT A RANGE OF CELLS click on the corner cell in the
range to be selected, scroll to the opposite corner and
hold the Shift key down while clicking on the cell in the
opposite corner to select the range.
AUTOCORRECT Excel automatically corrects many common typographical errors.
AUTOCOMPLETE Excel automatically inserts data in a cell
that begins the same as a previous entry in the column.
Example: If Sunny and calm has been typed in a cell,
Excel will complete Sunny and calm as soon as you
begin to type this in another cell in that column. Press
Enter to accept the AutoComplete word(s).
DRAG TO AUTOFILL Fills cells with the same or sequential
information. Select cell with data, place cursor on the
lower right hand corner of the cell until the black cross
appears (the fill handle), click, hold, drag and let go.
Cells will fill with same or sequential information.
FILL USING KEYSTROKES Ctrl D Enter information in a
cell. Select that cell and the cells below where the same
information is to be copied. Key in Ctrl D. Cells will fill
with the same data.
FILL USING Ctrl Enter To enter the same data in several
cells, select all the cells first. Then type your data in the
first cell and press Ctrl Enter.
If entering data in a specific set of cells, select the entire
range of cells first, type the first data entry. Then when
you press Enter, the next cell in the selection becomes
active.

NYFVI Excel Basics Instructors, Kellogg & Carroll

Instructor:

Have students try some of these

shortcuts using the table created
on page 3 or create a new table.

For keystrokes Ctrl D and Ctrl Enter, hold the Ctrl key down while
pressing the second key.

SAVING A FILE
You know that your original save was successful by looking
at the title bar of the program and seeing the file name.

Click on the Save icon on the tool bar. If this is the

first time the file is saved a window will appear so you
can select the folder and assign a file name as illustrated below.

Or Select Save As from the drop down list under File

on the Main Menu and you can also select the folder
and assign a file name as illustrated below. Subsequent saves, using the Save icon, will over-write
the older version without asking for the folder or file
name.

Folder where it is saved in

Down arrow

File name

Select the Folder where it is to be saved by clicking

on the Down arrow by Save in: and selecting the
appropriate folder (directory).

Type the File name at the bottom of the window, then

press enter or click Save.

NYFVI Excel Basics Instructors, Kellogg & Carroll

SAVE your files before CLOSE ing

them.
CLOSE your files and programs
before SHUT ting DOWN.

Instructor:

Save the practice spreadsheet to

a folder. Then go to that folder and
have the students re-open it.

BACK-UP FILES FOR SAFEKEEPING

With the file open, click on the File menu and select Save As.
The Save As window appears (shown on page 6). Select the
backup location (drive) by clicking on the Down Arrow next
to Save in. The backup location (drive) should be something
OTHER than the hard drive (C:), for instance a CD-Rom (D:
drive), a floppy disk (A: drive), or a network drive. The file
name can remain the same for identification later. Like in the
old days - putting an extra paper copy in a safe place.

BACK UP your files (data, photo,

music, etc.) frequently and routinely.
Make and store copies on floppy
disks, CDs, etc.

SPELL CHECK ON A WORKSHEET

To run spell check on an entire spreadsheet could be rather
tedious, but to check just a column or some rows could be
very beneficial. Using consistently spelled words enhances
accurate data filtering and sorting in Excel.

Remind the students to highlight/

select the cells before running
spell check.

Select (highlight) the cells, columns, or rows to spell

check, then click on the ABC spell check icon on the
Standard Toolbar.

This will start the spell check wizard. If misspelled words

are found, a window appears, as below, giving options for
changing the spelling, adding to the dictionary, etc.

If no misspelled words are found, spell check will display a

finished window.

NYFVI Excel Basics Instructors, Kellogg & Carroll

Instructor:

In Excel, SPELL CHECK does

NOT run in the background like in
a word processor.

FINDING DATA IN A WORKSHEET

If you are looking for something somewhere in a large
spreadsheet, Excel can search each cell for you. Click on
the Edit menu, then the binoculars icon (Find). The following
window will appear:
Instructor:

Remind the students that Find is

literal. Have find look for a shortened word form, i.e. Bloom vs.
Bloomfield vs. Bloomington.

Find will find whatever you type in the Find what box,
searching by rows or columns.
The Find Next button will take you to the next occurrence.
Remember the Find is often very literal, so the check
mark(s) shown in the illustration above may be eliminated.

NYFVI Excel Basics Instructors, Kellogg & Carroll

PRINT PREVIEW
Before printing a worksheet, it is often helpful to see it as the
printer would see it. Use print preview to see an overview
of your work. The print preview icon on the toolbar will get
you started by opening the print preview window, as shown
below.

Click the Next and Previous buttons for navigation

to other pages or use the scroll bar on the right hand
side.

Click on the Margins button to click & drag margins as

needed.

Click on the Setup button to setup headers and footers, gridlines, page orientation, etc. This is the same
setup as under the File menu.

When done with Print Preview, click the CLOSE button on the tool bar (not the X) to return to your
worksheet in the open workbook file.

The Print Preview window (sample shown above) displays

the number of pages in the worksheet that will be sent to the
printer. By using the scroll bar you can see what these pages
look like and on what page numbers they are. See the following section for more on printing groups of pages and selected ranges of cells.
NYFVI Excel Basics Instructors, Kellogg & Carroll

Instructor:

Demonstrate the use of the Next,

Previous, & Zoom buttons.

CLOSE Print Preview using the

CLOSE button and NOT the X in
the upper right hand corner this
could close the file and program!

PRINTING OPTIONS
Clicking the Print icon on the toolbar results in 1 copy of the
contents in the entire active worksheet being sent to the local
(default, regular, or primary) printer for printing.
To print multiple copies, specific pages, parts of a worksheet,
and other options, click on File, then Print to open the Print
window, as shown below.

Choose a different printer from the drop-down list in

the box next to Name.

Choose specific page(s), if needed, under Print range,

and enter the beginning and ending page numbers
(From:---___ To:___).

If a limited section of the spreadsheet or group of

cells needs to be printed, Select those cells first. Then
come back to File, Print, and under Print What, click
Selection to print only those cells.

Set the number of copies.

Click OK and the printer will go to work.

Instructor:

If the file(s) will be saved to the

students disk, do it now. Then the
file(s) and perhaps the folder can
be deleted before shutting down,
if required.

Instructor:
NYFVI Excel Basics Instructors, Kellogg & Carroll

10

Have students fill out a Course

Evaluation form before leaving.