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Essential Concepts

Using Excel

An Excel workbook is made up of worksheets. Each sheet contains cells where you enter data. The cells are described as rows (running left to right) and columns (running up and down). New worksheets can be added to a workbook using the (+) symbol at the bottom of the page.

If you want to modify your worksheet you can add or insert both rows and columns by right clicking and inserting. Right-clicking a row or column also gives the option of deleting that row or column. Just like with text in Microsoft Word, entire rows and columns in Excel can be moved using cut and paste.

Large data may exceed the size of the cell. In that case both the column width and row height can be autofit to the data or increased by clicking and dragging the edge of the row or column.

Basic Formatting and Layout

Excel comes with default styles in the Styles tab on the home page. This formatting can distinguish some rows as headers and apply alternating color backgrounds on the remaining rows. Different styles can indicate different tasks based on the contents of a cell. For example, red can indicate that the cell contains bad information or needs review.

Not only can we format the cells in Excel as a table, but we can control what type of data we expect in each row or column and how we format it. Certain data like dates (5/4/2024 or May 24th, 2024), money ($123.45), commas in large numbers (1,234,567) and percents (10%) require specific formats. We can set Excel to assign a specific format to the data in the cell rather than apply a default setting.

Glossary

autofit

a feature that automatically adjusts the width of a column or the height of a row to fit the contents.

cell

the intersection of a row and a column in a worksheet where data is entered.

cell format

options that control the appearance of data in a cell, including number format, font, and alignment.

cell style

predefined formatting options that can be applied to a cell to ensure consistent formatting.

column

a vertical series of cells in a worksheet, identified by letters.

column width

the horizontal measurement of a column.

delete

a function to remove cells, rows, columns, or data from a worksheet.

format

the arrangement and style of text and numbers within a cell.

insert

a function to add new cells, rows, or columns to a worksheet.

row

a horizontal series of cells in a worksheet, identified by numbers.

row height

the vertical measurement of a row.

sheet

a single page within an Excel Workbook that contains cells organized in rows and columns.

table

a range of cells that are organized into rows and columns, often with headers, to manage and analyze data.

Workbook

an Excel file that contains one or more worksheets for data organization and analysis.