What is Excel?

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet (computer application that allows storage of data in a tabular
form) developed by Microsoft. It can be used on Windows, macOS, IOS and Android platforms.
Some of its features include:
 Graphing tools
 Functions (Count, sum, text, date and time, financial, etc)
 Data Analysis (Filters, charts, tables, etc)
 Visual Basic for Application (VBA)
 Contains 300 examples for you
 Workbooks and worksheets
 Data Validation, etc
How to launch Excel?
Follow the steps given below to launch Excel:
1. Download MS Office from the official website
2. In the search bar, type MS Office and select MS Excel from the same
Once this is done, you will see the following screen:

Screen Options:
Title Bar:
It displays the title of the sheet and appears right in the middle at the top of the Excel window.
Quick Access Toolbar:
This toolbar consists of all commonly used Excel commands. To customizing the quick access
toolbar, just right-click on it and select the option “Customize Quick Access Toolbar”. You will
see the following window from where you can choose the appropriate commands that you would
like to add.

Ribbon:
The ribbon tab consists of the File, Home, Insert, Page Layout, View, etc tabs. The default tab
that is selected by Excel is the Home tab.
Just like the Quick Access Toolbar, you can also customize the Ribbon tab.
In order to customize the Ribbon tab, right-click anywhere on it and select the option “Customize
the Ribbon”. You will see the following dialog box:
From here, you can select any tab that you want to add to the Ribbon bar according to your
preference.
The Ribbon tab options are tailored into three components i.e Tabs, Groups and Commands.
Tabs basically appear right on the top consisting of Home, Insert, file, etc. Groups consist of all
related commands such as the font commands, insert commands, etc. Commands appear
individually.
Zoom Control:
It allows you to zoom-in and zoom-out the sheet as and when required. To do this, you will just
need to drag the slider towards the left side or the right side to zoom-in and zoom-out
respectively.
You can also use ctrl + mouse scroll button to zoom-in and zoom-out.
View Buttons:
There are three options namely, the Normal Layout View, Page Layout View, and the Page
Break View.
Normal Layout View displays the sheet in a normal view.
Page Layout View allows you to see the page just like it would appear when you take a print out
of it.
The Page Break View basically shows where the page is going to break when you print it.
Sheet Area:
This is the area wherein the data will be inserted. The flashing vertical bar or the insertion point
indicates the position of data insertion.
Row Bar:
The Row bar shows the row numbers. It starts at 1 and the upper limit is 1,048,576 rows.
Column Bar:
The Column bar shows the columns in the A-Z order. It starts at A and goes on till Z following
which, it goes on as AA, AB, etc. The upper limit for columns is 16,384.
Status Bar:
It is used to display the current status of the cell that is active in the sheet. There are four states
namely Ready, Edit, Enter, and Point.
Ready, as the name suggests, is used to indicate that the worksheet can accept the user’s input.
Edit status indicates that the cell is in the editing-mode. In order to edit data of a cell, you can
simply double click on that cell and enter the desired data.
Enter mode is enabled when the user starts to enter the data in the cell that is selected for
editing.
Point mode is enabled when a formula is being entered into a cell with reference to the data
present in some other cell.
Backstage View:
The Backstage view is the central managing place for all your Excel sheets. From here, you can
create, save, open print or share your worksheets. To go to the Backstage, simply click
on File and you will see a column with a number of options which are described in the following
table:

Option Description

New Used to open a new Excel sheet

Info Gives information about the current worksheet

In order to open some sheets created earlier,

Open
you can use Open

Close Closes the open sheet

Recent Displays all the recently opened Excel sheets

Share Allows you to share the worksheet

Save To save the current sheet as it is, choose Save

 When you have to rename and select a
Save As particular file location for your sheet, you can
use Save As

Print Used to print the sheet

Allows you to create a PDF or XPS document

Export
for your sheet

Account Contains all the account holder’s details

Options Shows all Excel options

Workbooks and Worksheets:

Workbook:
Refers to your Excel file itself. When you open the Excel app, click on the Blank workbook
option to create a new Workbook.
Worksheets:
Refers to a collection of cells wherein you manage your data. Each Excel workbook can have
multiple worksheets. These sheets will be displayed towards the bottom of the window, with
their respective names as shown in the image below.
Working with the Excel Worksheets:
Entering the Data:
The data can be entered into the Sheet Area and the flashing vertical bar represents the cell and
the place where your data will be entered in that cell. If you wish to choose some particular cell,
just left-click on that cell and then double-click on it to enable the Enter mode. You can
also Move around using the keyboard’s arrow keys.
Saving a new Workbook:
To save your worksheet, click on the File tab and then select the Save or Save As option. Select
the appropriate folder where you would like to save the sheet and save it with an valid name. The
default format in which an Excel file will be saved is .xlsx format.
You can also use shortcut Ctrl+S and Floppy Icon in the Quick Access toolbar to save your
worksheet easily.
Creating a new Worksheet:
To create a new Worksheet, click on the + icon available next to the current Worksheet as shown
in the image below:
You can also right-click on the Worksheet and select the Insert or Shift+F11 to create a new
Worksheet.
Moving and Copying a Worksheet:
When you have a Worksheet and you want to create another copy of it, you can do as follows:
1. Right-click on the sheet that you want to copy
 2. Select the ‘Move or Copy’ option

A dialog box will appear where, you will see an option as ‘Create a copy’. By checking that box,
you will be able to create a copy of an existing sheet.
You can also left-click on the sheet and drag it to the required position in order to move the
sheet. To rename the file, double-click on the desired file and rename it.
Hiding and Deleting Worksheets:
In order to hide a worksheet, right-click on the name of that sheet and select the Hide option.
Conversely, if you want to undo this, right-click on any of the sheet names and
select Unhide option. You will see a dialog box that contains all the hidden sheets, select the
sheet that you want to unhide and click on OK.
To delete a sheet, right-click on the sheet name and select the Delete option. In case the sheet is
empty, it will be deleted or else you will see a dialog box warning you that you might lose the
data stored in that particular sheet.
Opening and Closing a Worksheet:
To close a Workbook, click on the File tab, and then select the Close option. You will see a
dialog box asking you to optionally save the changes that have made to the Workbook in the
desired directory.
To open a previously created Workbook, click on the File tab and select the Open option. You
will see all the worksheets that have created previously when you select Open. left-click on the
file that you intend to open.
Excel Context Help:
Excel has a very special feature called the context help feature that provides appropriate
information about the Excel commands in order to educate the user about its working as shown
in the image below:

Editing the Worksheets:

The total number of cells present in an excel sheet is 16,384 x 1,048,576. The type of data i.e
entered can be in any form such as textual, numerical or formulae.
Inserting, Selecting, Moving and Deleting Data:
Inserting Data:
In order to enter the data, simply select the cell wherein you intend to insert the data and type the
same. In case of formulas, you will need to enter them either directly in the cell or in the formula
bar that is provided on top as shown in the image below:
Selecting Data:
there are two ways to select Excel data. The first and simplest way is to make use of the mouse.
Just click on the required and cell and double click on it. Also, in case you want to select a
complete section of data entries, hold left-click and drag it down till that cell which you intend to
select. You can also hold the Ctrl button and left-click on random cells to select them.
The method is to use the Go To dialog box. To activate this box, you can either click on
the Home tab and select the Find and Select option or simply click Ctrl+G. You will see a
dialog box appearing that will have an option “Special”. Click on that option and you will see
another dialog box as shown in the image below:
From here, check the appropriate region that you want to select and click on OK. Once this is
done, you will see that the entire region of your choice has been selected.
Deleting Data:
In order to delete some data, you can use the following techniques:
 Click on the desired cell and highlight the data that you want to delete. Then press Delete
button from the keyboard
 Select the cell or cells whose data is to be deleted and hit right-click. Then select the
Delete option
 You can also click on the row number or column header to delete some entire row or
column
Moving Data:
Excel also allows you to move your data easily to the desired location. You can do this in just
two simple steps:
1. Select the entire region that you want to move and then hit right-click
 2. Click on “Cut” and select the first cell where you want your data to be positioned and
paste it using the “Paste” option
Copy, Paste, Find and Replace:
Copy and Paste:
If you want to Copy and Paste data in Excel, you can do it in the following ways:
 Select the region that you want to copy
 Right-click and select Copy option or press Ctrl+C
 Select the first cell where you want to copy it
 Hit right-click and click on the Paste option or just press Ctrl+V
Excel also provides a Clipboard that will hold all the data that you have copied. In case you want
to paste any of that data, simply select it from the Clipboard and choose the paste option as
shown below:

Find and Replace:

To Find and Replace data, you can either select the Find & Replace option from the Home tab or
simply press Ctrl+F You will a dialog box that will have all the related options to find and
replace the require data.

Special Symbols:
In case you need to enter a symbol that is not present on the keyboard, you can make use of the
Special Symbols provided in Excel where you will find Equations and Symbols. In order to
select these Symbols, click on the Insert tab and select Symbols option. You will have two
options namely Equation and Symbols as shown below:
If you select Equation, you will find a number equations such as the Area of a circle, the
Binomial Theorem, Expansion of a Sum, etc. If you select the Symbol, you will see the
following dialog box:
You can select any Symbol of your choice and click on the Insert option.
Formatting the cells:
Cells of an Excel sheet can be formatted for the various types of data that they can hold. There
are a number of ways to format the cells.
Setting the cell type:
The cells of an Excel sheet can be set to a particular type such as General, Number, Currency,
Accounting, etc. To do this, right-click on the cell to which you intend to specify some particular
type of data and then select Format cells option. You will see a dialog box as shown in the image
below that will have a number of options to select from.
Type Description

General No specific format

Number General display of numbers

Currency The cell will be displayed as a currency

It is similar to currency type but used for

Accounting
accounts

Date Allows various types of date formats

Time Allows various types of time formats

Percentage Cell displayed as a percentage

Fraction The cell is displayed as a fraction

Scientific Displays the cell in exponential form

Text For Normal text data

You can enter the special type of formats such

Special
as a phone number, ZIP, etc

Custom Allows Custom formats

Selecting Fonts and Decorating the data:

You can modify the font on an Excel sheet as follows:
 Click on the Home tab and from the Font group, select the required Font
 Right-click on the cell and select Format cells option. Then, from the dialog box, select
the Font option and modify the text accordingly
In case you want to modify the look of the data, you can do so using the various options such as
bold, italic, underline, etc that are present the same dialog box as shown in the image above or
from the Home tab. You can select the effects options which are Strikethrough, Superscript, and
Subscript.
Rotating the cells:
Cells of an Excel sheet can be rotated to any degree. To do this, click on the Orientation group
tab present within Home and select the type of orientation you desire.
This can also be done from the Format cell dialog box by selecting the Alignment option. You
also have options for aligning your data in various ways such as Top, Center, Justify, etc and you
can change the direction as well using Context, Left-to-Right, and Right-to-Left options.
Merge and Shrink cells:
Merging:
The cells of an MS Excel sheet can be merged and unmerged as and when required. Keep the
following points in mind when you merge cells of an Excel sheet:
 When you merge cells, you do not actually merge the data, but the cells are merged to
behave as a single cell
 If you try to merge two or more cells that have data in them, only the data contained in
the top-left cell will be preserved and the data of the other cells will be discarded
To merge cells, simply select all the cells you wish to merge and then select the Merge and
Control option present in the Home tab or check the Merge cells option present in
the Alignment window.
Shrink/ Wrap:
In case the cell holds a lot of data that starts to highlight other cells, you can use the Shrink to
fit/ Wrap text options in order to reduce the size or align the text vertically.
Adding Borders and Shades:
In case you want to add borders and shades to a cell in your worksheet, select that cell and right-
click over it and select the Format cells option.
Borders:
To add borders, open the Border window from the Format cells window and then choose the type
of border that you would like to add to that cell. You can also vary the thickness, color, etc.

Shades:
In case you want to add some shade to a cell, select that cell and then open the Fill pane from the
Format cells window then choose the appropriate color of your choice.
Margins and Page Orientation:
Margins:
The unprinted regions along the top-down and left-right sides are referred to as margins. All MS
Excel pages have a border and if you have selected some border for one page, then that border
will be applied to all the pages i.e you can’t have different margins for each page. You can add
margins as follows:
 From the Page Layout tab, select the Page Setup dialog and from there, you can either
click on the Margins drop-down list or open the Margins window pane by maximizing
the Page Setup window
 You can also add Margins while printing the page. In order to do that, select the File tab
and click on Print. Here, you will be able to see a dropdown list having all the Margin
options
Page Orientation:
Page Orientations refer to the format in which the sheet is printed i.e Portrait and Landscape. The
Portrait orientation is default and prints the page taller than wide. On the other hand, the Landscape
orientation prints the sheet wider than tall.
To select a particular type of page orientation, select the drop-down list from the Page Setup group
or maximize the Page Setup window and choose the appropriate orientation. You can also change
the page orientation while printing the MS Excel sheet just like how you did with Margins.
Headers and Footers:
Headers and Footers are used to provide some information at the top and at the bottom of the page.
A new workbook does not have a Header or a Footer. In order to add it, you can open the Page
Setup window and then open the Header/ Footer pane. Here, you will have a number of options
to customize the Headers and Footers. If you want to preview the Header and Footers that you
have added, click on the Print Preview option and you will be able to see the changes that you have
made.
Page Breaks:
MS Excel allows you to precisely control what you want to print and what you want to omit. Using
Page Breaks, you will be able to control the print of the page such as restrain from printing the
first row of a table at the end of a page or printing the header of a new page at the end of the
previous page. Using page breaks will allow you to print the sheet in the order of your preference.
You can have both Horizontal as well as Vertical page breaks. To include this, select the row or
column where you intend to include a page break and then from the Page Setup group, select the
option Insert Page Break.
Horizontal Page Break:
To introduce a Horizontal Page Break, select the row where you want the page to break from.
Take a look at the image below where I have introduced a Horizontal Page Break in order to
print the row A4 on the next page.

Vertical Page Break:

To introduce a Vertical Page Break, select the column where you want the page to break from.
Take a look at the image below where I have introduced a Vertical Page Break.
Freeing Panes:
MS Excel provides an option of freezing panes which will enable you to see the row and column
headings even if you keep scrolling down the page. In order to Freeze Panes, you will have to:
1. Select the Rows and Columns that you want to freeze
2. Open the View tab and select the Freeze Pane group
3. Here, you will have three options to freeze rows and columns