Using Microsoft Excel

What is a Spreadsheet?
Even if you arent familiar with the term spreadsheet, you have probably seen many
spreadsheets. A spreadsheet is a document containing rows and columns of data. The data
can be represented by either numbers or text. A spreadsheet can be quite simple, like a
nutrition label from a muesli bar, or it can be very complex, such as a detailed accounting
worksheet for a large company.

Why Use Excel?

Many times, it is desirable to manipulate spreadsheet columns and rows for some business
purpose. For example, we might wish to add up every number in a column, and record the
total at the bottom of the column. It would be very tedious to add the columns manually,
especially if the data were constantly changing or if the column had many items to be
summed. We might also want a graph of our data, but if prepared manually, a graph would
quickly become a burdensome project involving rulers and coloured pencils. What if we
graphed our data and then decided we wanted a different type of graph?! That would again
require more valuable time.
Instead of undertaking those time-consuming manual options, Excel enables us to enter the
data into columns and then execute a command to show the total at the bottom of each
column automatically. If we change any numbers in the column, the spreadsheet would
automatically re-calculate the total. We could do this as often as we like.
Excel is capable of producing high quality graphs of many different styles, in just a few
seconds. Changing the graph can be done with a simple click of a button. Excel also has
many other valuable features, as you will learn.

What to Learn?
You will quickly realise that the Excel software package is very powerful and capable of a
vast array of computations, suitable for many business and academic applications. Obviously,
it would be impossible to cover all of Excels available features in these guides. Although
you are encouraged to explore as much as you like, remember that these guides are designed
to get you familiar with the most important features; specifically, those features that you will
need to master in order to successfully complete your assessments.

How Much do I Need to Know about Using Excel?

We understand that some students have never used Excel before, while others have used it
extensively. The activities on the next few pages will guide you through some of Excels
basic functions, providing you with the Excel skills you need to complete the tutorial work
and assignments in this course. You can treat these activities like a choose your own
adventure: attempt the activities that cover the material with which you are unfamiliar.

Activity 1 Opening Excel on the Monash Student PC Network

Activity 2 Some Fundamental Excel Features Explained
Activity 3 Creating a Spreadsheet
Activity 4 Copying and Pasting Spreadsheets
Activity 5 Computing Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion
Activity 6 Using Chart Wizard
For example, if you have never used Excel before, we would recommend you attempt all 6
activities. Or, if you have used Excel before and feel comfortable with basic commands such
as using pull-down menus, creating spreadsheets and copying and pasting with formulas, you
may choose to begin at Activity 5.

Activity 1 - Opening Excel on the Monash Student PC Network

Turn the computer on and you will be prompted to simultaneously press <Ctrl> <Alt> <Del>.
You may then log into your student account. Windows will now load.
Click the Start button with the left-hand mouse button. Move the mouse to Programs and
then select Microsoft Excel.

Activity 2 - Some Fundamental Excel Features Explained

Once you open Excel, you will see the main Excel screen. There are several important things
to note about this screen. First, notice that most of the screen is taken up by rectangular
boxes, called cells. These cells form the building blocks of all the spreadsheets you will
create. The rows are numerically labelled on the left-hand side of the screen. Although your
spreadsheet can contain as many rows as needed, you will only see the first 24 or so rows at
any one given time, due to the constraint of the screen size. Similarly, the columns are named
alphabetically at the top of the cells. You can view additional rows and columns in a
spreadsheet by clicking on the up/down and left/right arrow buttons located to the right and
below the visible cells.
All cells can be referenced easily by their row number and column letter. For example, cell
C2 refers to the third column and second row of the spreadsheet. Notice that since this
column/row combination forms an intersection, only one cell can occupy this position. In
other words, there can be only one cell labelled C2 on the entire spreadsheet.
The editing tabs (or ribbons) are located near the top of the screen. They are:
File

Home

Insert

Page Layout

Formulas

Data

Review

View

Locate each of these and click on them, so that you can view the options available in each
menu. Additional tabs will appear if you click on any graphs or images in your spreadsheet.
Located within each editing tab, you will see several icons. These allow you to execute a
command by simply clicking on the appropriate icon. Some icons also contain pull-down
menus with more editing options. To find out what an icon means, point the mouse onto the
icon and wait until a text box appears, which will reveal the icons particular job.
You will notice that cell A1 is framed. This indicates that the cell is active. Anything you
type will be stored and displayed in this cell. You can select any cell to be the active cell
simply by clicking in that cell or by using the Tab key to move about the spreadsheet. After

selecting a cell, just start typing. Typing appears in the active cell and in the formula bar,
located just above the column letters of the spreadsheet.
You can select a range of cells when you want to work with more than one cell. A range is
a rectangular group of cells on your worksheet. To select a range of cells, click in the cell
located in the top left-hand corner of the range. Then click and drag your mouse to the cell
that will be the lower right-hand corner of the range. Selecting a range of cells is useful when
you wish to perform the same action on all the cells, such as copying and pasting.
You may find it useful to have several worksheets in one file. An Excel file is called a
workbook, which can be comprised of worksheets and charts (graphs). To switch to a
different worksheet, simply click the sheet tabs at the bottom of your workbook. These sheet
tabs can be re-named for easy reference. Just double-click the word Sheet1 and edit it to
whatever name you prefer.
Excel offers an extensive on-line Help menu. If time permits, you should click on Help (the
question mark icon located at the top right of the screen) and explore the many features
available to you in the Help menu. You will quickly discover that Excel has a vast library of
help available, and you will certainly want to refer to it in your future work.
You may also type in specific questions for which you require Excels help under the Answer
Wizard tab. Try this and see what happens. For example, try typing (into the question box)
How do I format numbers? and then click Search. Help will provide you with a list of items
that you can read to assist you in formatting numbers.
At any time, you can exit Help by clicking the X icon on the top right of the window.

Activity 3 Creating a Spreadsheet

Lets create a simple spreadsheet, so you can get some practical experience using some of
Excels features.
Imagine that you are a consultant for a local ice-cream shop, Clayton Cones. Your
assignment is to summarise, using a spreadsheet, the sales revenue of Clayton Cones over the
past three years. You are given quarterly information, which you will use to create your
spreadsheet.
First, open Excel as described earlier. Then click on cell B1 and type Quarter 1. Use the
Tab key to move to cell C1 and type Quarter 2. Similarly, tab to cells D1 and E1 and type
Quarter 3 and Quarter 4, respectively. In cell F1, type Total. These will be the column
titles for this spreadsheet.
Now click on cell A2 and type 1996. Similarly, click on cells A3 and A4, and type 1997 and
1998, respectively. In cell A5, type Total. These will be the row titles for this spreadsheet.
Your spreadsheet should now look something like this:
A
1
2
3
4
5

1996
1997
1998
Total

B
Quarter 1

C
Quarter 2

D
Quarter 3

E
Quarter 4

F
Total

Now lets add some data to this spreadsheet. Key in the numbers shown in the revised
spreadsheet below:
A
1
2
3
4
5

1996
1997
1998
Total

B
C
D
E
F
Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4 Total
5750
3000
3100
3250
4100
2960
3150
3300
5900
3150
3100
3300

After keying in numeric data, it is always a good idea to proofread your entries. It is easy to
make a very obvious mistake, like typing 57750 instead of 5750. Obviously, this particular
error would inflate the total sales figures and would be incorrect (and potentially misleading
to the management of Clayton Cones). Be sure you know how to click on any given cell and
edit your entries if needed.
Next, we want to show that our numeric entries are in dollars. Normally, dollar signs are
added only to the top row of numeric data within the spreadsheet, and any total or sub-total
columns or rows. This convention is practiced to avoid needlessly cluttering the spreadsheet
columns so that they are easier to read. To add the dollar signs, use your mouse to select the
range of cells B2 to E2. In the Home tab, click the $ icon (other currencies are available from
the pull-down menu), and set the decimal places to zero, since we are not concerned with
cents in this case.
Your spreadsheet should now look something like this:
A
1
2
3
4
5

1996
1997
1998
Total

B
C
D
E
F
Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4 Total
$5,750
$3,000
$3,100
$3,250
4100
2960
3150
3300
5900
3150
3100
3300

The next step toward completing this spreadsheet is to generate totals for the columns and
rows. We will create a formula to instruct Excel to compute these totals. This spreadsheet is
very small and manual calculation is quite quick and easy, but that is not usually the case.
To generate the total sales made in the first quarter for the past three years, click in cell B5
and type the following: =sum(B2:B4) and then press enter. This is a very specific command
which Excel understands as a computation it is to execute. The column total of $15,750
should appear in this cell.
Now that we have the first total, generating totals for the remaining three quarters is quite
easy. Simply click on cell B5 again, where your first total is located, and move your mouse to
the lower right hand corner of the framed cell. You will notice that the cursor becomes a plus
sign (+). When the solid plus sign appears, click and drag the mouse to the right, until cells
C5 through E5 are highlighted. When you release the mouse button, the other three totals
should appear. For these three quarters, the totals are: $9,110, $9,350, and $9,850. This tool
is called the fill handle, and you will find it quite useful.
Obtaining the totals for the rows is done the same way as it was for the column totals. To
generate the total sales made in 1996, click in cell F2 and type =sum(B2:E2). The row total
of $15,100 should appear in this cell.

Now that we have the first row total, you should be able to generate the remaining totals (in
cells F3, F4, and F5) using the fill handle, as described earlier. You will do the same as
before, but this time you will need to click and drag the mouse down until cells F3 through F5
are highlighted. The totals should be $13,510, $15,450, and $44,060, respectively. Notice
that cell F5 contains the total sales for all three years.
Notice that we did not need to format our Total row or column to add dollar signs. This is
because Excel recognises that we are using dollars as the unit of measurement, from the
formatting you did earlier. As such, the dollar signs are automatically included in the totals.
Now you need to add commas to the numbers located in cells B3 through E3 and B4 through
E4, to be consistent with the other entries. To do this, click in cell B3 and drag the mouse to
cell E4 to highlight all of these cells. Then click the Comma Style icon (,) in the Home tab.
Make sure you use zero decimal places, to be consistent with your earlier work. All the
numbers should now be separated with commas.
To summarise, your final spreadsheet should look like this:

A
1
2
3
4
5

1996
1997
1998
Total

Quarter 1
$5,750
4,100
5,900
$15,750

Quarter 2
$3,000
2,960
3,150
$9,110

Quarter 3
$3,100
3,150
3,100
$9,350

Quarter 4
$3,250
3,300
3,300
$9,850

Total
$15,100
$13,510
$15,450
$44,060

Activity 4 Copying and Pasting Spreadsheets

You may want to create a copy of your spreadsheet to another section of your workbook. To
copy your spreadsheet, highlight the cells you wish to copy by clicking the left mouse button
and dragging across the cells. From the Home tab, select Copy. Click on a cell where you
wish to place your spreadsheet. From Home again, select Paste Special. Paste Special will
give you the option of pasting just the numerical values or the totals formulas as well. This
will be useful if you wish to change some values in the copied spreadsheet. Tick the Paste
Formulas box and press OK. You should now have a copy of the spreadsheet. Since you
have copied the spreadsheets formulas, if you were to change a value in this second
spreadsheet, the totals column will change accordingly.

Activity 5 Computing Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion

It is often more useful to consider the statistical properties of data rather than the spreadsheet
alone, especially when the spreadsheet is large and complex. In this activity, we will use
Excel to calculate measures of central tendency and dispersion such as the mean, median,
mode and variance.
First of all, we need a data set to work with. Create the following spreadsheet in your Excel
workbook (as used in Activity 2).
A
1
2
3
4
5

1996
1997
1998
Total

B
C
D
E
F
Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4 Total
$5,750
$3,000
$3,100
$3,250
$15,100
4,100
2,960
3,150
3,300
$13,510
5,900
3,150
3,100
3,300
$15,450
$15,750
$9,110
$9,350
$9,850
$44,060

There are two ways to compute measures of central tendency with Excel: using the x
function or the Data Analysis tool. Verify that the two methods give the same results by
calculating for Quarter 1:
Mean
Mode
Variance
Standard deviation
Range
How to use these functions?
(1) Using the Data Analysis tool
Step 1: Select Data, Data Analysis and then Descriptive Statistics
Step 2: Enter the range for your data. Be sure to tick the Labels in First Row if the
range you entered includes the column headings.
Step 3: Tick the Summary statistics output option.
(2) Using the x function
Step 1: Click on an empty cell.
Step 2: Click on the fx function button on the Formulas tab.
Step 3: Choose the Statistical category option.
Step 4: Select a measure of central tendency to calculate.

Activity 6 Using Chart Wizard

Graphs and charts display data in an appealing manner, and are of particular use when
presenting large amounts of data to managers. Excels Chart Wizard function enables you to
display a spreadsheet in graphical form. Lets use it to graph our data
From the Insert tab, you are able to choose a type of graph to create, that is, from a column
graph, bar graph, line graph etc. Try creating a column graph of sales revenue over all four
quarters of 1996 like the one below:
1996 sales revenue

Revenue

$8,000
$6,000
$4,000
$2,000
$0
1

2
3
Quarter

Step 1: Select Column graph and select the first 2-D option.
Step 2: Under the Chart Tools, Design tab click Select Data. Enter the range for
your data: B2:E2.
Step 3: Click on the Series tab and give your data the name 1996 sales revenue and
click Next.
Step 4: Give your axes appropriate labels and insert the chart into your Excel
workbook.
Excel automatically creates gaps between the columns. However, our data does not have a
gap from one quarter to another, so these must be removed. To remove the gaps between
columns:
Step 1: Right-click over one of the columns.
Step 2: Select Format Data Series and Series Options.
Step 3: Slide the indicator to the left or type 0 in the Gap Width edit box and click
OK.
You can alter the graph even after it is inserted into the workbook by right clicking on the
component you wish to alter.

Try creating the following graphs:

(a)
Quarterly Revenue 1996-1998
Quarter 4
Quarter 3

1996

Quarter 2

1997

Quarter 1
$0

1998
$5,000

$10,000

$15,000

$20,000

Revenue

(b)

Quarterly Revenue

Revenue

$6,000
$5,000

1996

$4,000

1997

$3,000

1998

$2,000
Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4