ict-design.

org
COMPUTER COURSE 2.1b – Say hello to your friends: Word
and Excel
Welcome back!! Today we will be looking at and talking about two
a programs which I am sure you are familiar with or have at least heard
about: Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. (Word was viewed at an earlier date)

REVIEW

Rows………… go ……… across Columns

are

up
This is a cell
& down

In excel, we need to notice

A B C D

1 This is cell A1 This is cell B1 This is cell C1 This is cell D1

2 This is cell A2 This is cell B2 This is cell C2 This is cell D2

VIDEO
The video you just watched was “Microsoft No More Keyboards Needed” found at
http://www.cyberthing.net/video-play.php?id=78

Now on to …

Why we would use a Spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel

Although you can use a spreadsheet to set up tables of just textual information, its
real usefulness lies in its ability to calculate formulas - and recalculate them
automatically when values change. Spreadsheets are great for budgets, financial
statements and other tasks that require calculations.

We can easily sort data, create charts and also notice that things change
dynamically in the charts when our data is changed.

1
 We can, of course, export our data from Excel into programs like Word or
databases for use.
Cursors
The first and very important thing that we notice in Excel is the cursor and how it
changes.

This is the Common cursor: Ready to click and type in a cell

This is the Drag cursor: When a cell, or group or cells have been selected. If the
cursor is at the edge of the cell, it changes to this style and can drag
the cell contents to another part of the document

+ When a cell is selected, notice the bottom right hand corner of it

has a Larger DOT. If the cursor is moved over this part, it changes
to look like this. This means this cell, or this selection of cells can be
dragged out to create a SERIES or FILL.

You can select a whole row or

column by clicking on the
Alpha or
Numeric which corresponds with
that row

Getting Started
In Cell C7, type: 3

In Cell D7, type: 5

By doing this, we are creating a little bit of data to
In Cell E7, type: 3 work with and manipulate. Yay..fun!!

In Cell F7, type: 5 You can now say to someone you were doing: Data
Entry
In Cell G7, type: 6

In Cell H7, type: 7

2
In Cell I7, type: 2

In Cell J6, type: Autosum

In Cell K6, type: Total

In Cell L6, type: Average

Now it’s time for some fun

In Cell C6: Type Monday or Mon

Select cell C6

Drag to here

See you at the next class, entitled:

Now select that DOT in the bottom right hand corner of Cell C6 and drag it to the
right to cell I6.

Notice that a week series is being created. This will save us a whole bunch of time

(You can also do this with Months)

AUTOSUM

Select Cells C7 – J7 (J7 is an empty cell)

3
Press the AUTOSUM Button

Formulas
We can achieve the same result as the Autosum by creating an addition formula.

All Formulas start with an =

For example, in cell K7, type: =(3+5+3+5+6+7+2)

Press Enter

(You should receive a number 31 in the cell)

Select Cell L6

Select the of the cell and drag the contents to M6 using this cursor

Select the edge and Drag

AVERAGE a cell to the right

Your document
should look like
this

In Cell L6, type: Total using Cells

Press Enter

(You will notice that all of the cells contents are not shown)

To correct this problem, double-click between the column letters L and M

Your cursor will change to this when it is correctly placed

4
(You can double-click between other columns to auto-fit the columns to the
width of the cell contents)

SUM
In L7, start to type this formula: =sum(

Then select and drag from Cells C7 – I7

You will notice the formula creating itself in BLUE something like this: =sum(C7:I7

Finish the formula with and end parenthesis ) so the formula looks like this =sum(C7:I7)

Press Enter

(You will notice the same results as before. But now if we were to change a
number in the addition set, it will also change the outcome of cell L7)

Try changing E7 to 4

To do so, you have to double-click into a cell or select in the formula field

(Notice L7 change to 32)

AVERAGE
In Cell M7, type: =Average(

Again, select Cells C7 – I7 or type C7:I7 to explain to excel the range of cells to
average

Finish your formula off with an end parenthesis ) and press Enter

The formula will look like this =Average(C7:I7)

Your answer should be 4.571429

But this is not the whole answer. Show it all by double-clicking between the column
letters M and N. It should reveal 4.571428571
5
 (If a number is too large to be shown, it often will look like ## in the cell, use
this process to show the cells contents)

This is all we are going to explore with formulas today.

If you would like to learn more about formulas, check out this website:
http://geog.arizona.edu/~comrie/geog230/excel/index.htm

or search EXCEL FORMULAS in Google

DELETE
Select Column K

Press Delete (The contents of the cells are all

gone)

To delete the whole column:Go to

EDIT  DELETE

(Notice how L becomes a new K and each further column renames itself sequentially)

FORMATTING
Select Cells C6 down to I6

Notice that you can change the cells with any of the same functionality we are
used to in WORD.

We can also format the cells beyond these parameters under FORMAT  CELLS

You can change the way the

numbers format under the number
tab. For example, you may want all
of the numbers to have a dollar sign
and only two decimal place holders
for if it is money.

Try the text orientation alignment by

dragging the red dot up 45 degrees

6
CHARTS
Charts are super easy to make in Excel

First, in Cell B7 type: “Number of times I think about Tom in a week”

(In understand these numbers are extremely low, but let’s persist)

Now select B6 – L7

Press the CHART WIZARD button

The CHART WIZARD dialogue box opens up

Choose the type of chart you would like to

make and then press Next

For our example, try this one

You will be shown an example of what the

chart will look like, press Next

When you are shown the TITLES with

the Category (x) axis, type: Days of the
Week

For Category (y) axis, type: Thoughts

7
(If we had not typed, “Number of times I think about Tom in a week” we would
be asked now to fill in a Chart Title as well. But Excel has figured out, by the
placement of our data, what the title should be.

Press Next
Now we are presented with

This is a good time to notice that there are indeed tabs at the bottom of the page
that we can use to organize out data entries. For example, we might have
different tabs for different months, etc.

Press Finish

And your chart should be inserted where ever you chose for it to be placed.

8
 Go back and change I7 to a more realistic number, like 78 and notice the chart also
change

You can play around with many of the different variable with chart creation on your own.
Let’s look at MERGE AND CENTER

If you had some data in the table itself that we wanted to better format, for example a title.
We may want to dedicate more space to it, as well as have it centered up.

In Cell E4, type: Silly Chart

Select Cells E4 – G4

Then press the MERGE AND CENTER button

Notice these cells have now done just as expected.

To undo a Merge and Center, select the cells and press the button again.

PRINTING
**A WARNING** - Always do a PRINT PREVIEW before printing in Excel. You may think
you are printing something completely different from what you are actually going to get.

To print just a chart, select it. The 8 dots around the outside will be showing and you
can just press print.

9
To print from the table itself you can set the Print Area.

Select B4 – L7, the area you would like to print

Go to File  Print Area  Set Print Area

(You will notice a dotted line going down between columns J and K. This means that
columns K and L are going to end up on another page)

Press File  Print Preview to find out.

Ahh-haa…

We can try to fix that a couple of ways.

We can change the font size of everything in the document.

We can also change the Page Setup

Go to File  Page Setup

Change the Orientation from Portrait to Landscape

Press Ok and look again at the document and the Print Preview

It should be okay and ready to print.

10
 See you next week at the course entitled

“Computer Course 6.1 – Follow-up and Special Guest Presentation”

Cognitive Life Strategies

www.netvibes.com

Why am I so Crazy about Netvibes.com?

When you sign up, which is really easy, you can import everything that you frequent
on the web in to ONE accessible area.

For example, I can see:

• Multiple email accounts (even if they are the same email provider, like two
Gmails at once)
• Facebook, MySpace, etc.
• News
• Weather
• RSS Feeds
• My MSN, AOL, GChat, etc.
• Searches
• Games
• And even sites that I always open through HTML

It is an excellent time saver and organizer and I strongly recommend that you play
around and figure it out.

11