Microsoft Excel 2013: MOS Foundation

Lesson 3
Create Cells and Ranges

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Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

● Explain a cell and a cell range

● Create data using fill series

● Format cell structure and content

● Interpret a data range using conditional format methods

● Create named ranges, data groups, and sparklines

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Cells and Ranges

Microsoft (MS) Excel has more than 17 billion cells in each worksheet to store data.

● A cell is an intersection of rows and columns.

● A cell range is a selection of multiple cells containing a set of data.

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Create Data using Fill Series

Data entry can be automated by

dragging or using the fill series option.
The different types of series are as
follows:
● Linear Type
● Growth Type
● Date Type
● AutoFill Type

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Business Scenario

New employees have joined Simplilearn. John has a list of their names and
he wants to assign serial numbers against each name in the excel file. He
wants to create this data using Fill Series options offered by Excel 2013.

Demo

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Create Data using AutoFill

The AutoFill function is useful in customizing lists of specific design and it does not appear while copying data from
adjacent cells.

1
2
3
4

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Business Scenario

Last month, five new employees have joined the Accounting department of
Simplilearn. John has the list of their names. He wants to use the AutoFill
option in Excel 2013 to assign serial numbers and department against each
of the names.

Demo

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Customize AutoFill Options

AutoFill functionality enables customization of the lists of data. Using the AutoFill function to create custom lists saves a
lot of time.

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Business Scenario

John is updating data in the sales report. He notices that the S/N column
and the product code column have identical numbers and this could be
confusing. So he decides to change the numbers in the columns to letters.
He needs to customize the auto fill data options to do this.

Demo

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Paste Options

There are several types of paste options available based on the content in use.

● Paste function allows for easy replication of data from all MS office applications, such as Word, PowerPoint, and
Notepad.

● It also allows data to be copied from a source file location to the MS Office Clipboard and then pasting it on a
worksheet.

Various options available

for pasting data

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Paste Special

Paste Special allows you to copy and paste data in the following ways:

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Format Cell Structure
Excel 2013 allows to format a cell structure using the following techniques:

Text Wrapping Wrapping text and allowing scattered data to appear in a single cell

Text Alignment Changing cell text alignment to left, right, center, top, middle, and bottom

Orientation Changing the position of the cell entries and displaying more information on screen

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Business Scenario

John is working on the employee data table. The employee names are too
long to fit within the cell width. John wants to fit the names within the
cells, keeping the cell width same. He also wants to center align all the
entries in the employee name column. Let us see how John formats the
cell structure.

Demo

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Merge and Center
This functionality combines multiple cell content into a single cell as the row height is dynamic by nature.

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Business Scenario

John is creating a table with employee data. The table has 4 columns and
John wants to place the title of the table in the center. He can achieve this
by using the merge and center feature.

Demo

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Format Cell Content
Excel 2013 allows you to change the font size, font style, font color, and font effects.

TIP: The shortcut key to format

cells is ‘CTRL+1’

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Business Scenario

After looking at the employee data table, John’s manager has asked him to
make changes to the title cell so that it looks bigger and bolder than the
rest of the data. John wants to format the cell content to change the
default size of data.

Demo

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Cell Styles

A cell style is defined as a set of formatting characteristics, such as fonts and font sizes, number formats, cell borders,
and cell shading. To prevent anyone from making changes to specific cells, a cell style that locks the cells can be used.

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Business Scenario

John’s manager assigns him a task of preparing a sales report for the
previous quarter. He instructs him to include details like Employee name,
Employee code, Number of products sold, and Region. He also tells him to
apply various cell styles in the report for better presentation.

Demo

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Number Formats

Cells need to be formatted with appropriate number format based on the type of information they need to hold.

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Format Painter

The Format Painter tool quickly copies cell formatting such as text color, background color, and alignment to other cells.
It is specifically used to extend a worksheet to accommodate new data and format the new cells to match the original
data area.

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Business Scenario

John had collated employee test-performance data for the production

department in an excel file. He recently added performance information
for sales team and he wants to format it as per the earlier data using the
format painter option offered by Excel 2013.

Demo

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Data Model with Advanced Conditional Format

Conditional formatting in Excel 2013 allows you to add visual keys to the data that provide the user with
information on how each entry within a data range relates to those around it.

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Data Model with Advanced Conditional Format (Contd.)

If a predefined formatting rule does not suit the requirements, you can define a custom rule based on standard rules
or a formula

TIP: Multiple rules can be applied to cells and ranges

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Sparklines

Sparklines are tiny charts that summarize worksheet data in a single cell to visually represent data trends. A
Sparkline can display a trend based on an adjacent data with a clear and compact graphical representation.

There are three types of Sparklines, which are as follows:

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Business Scenario

The sales manager wants to see the sales trend of each of the employee in
his department. John has the data of 6 employees and the products sold by
them in the last three quarters. For a quick visual representation of the
sales trend of each employee, John wants to use the Sparklines feature in
Excel 2013.

Demo

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Create Named Ranges

Named ranges simplify the process of creating formulas referring to a specific range of data. Formulas using named
ranges are simpler to understand than its standard equivalent.

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Business Scenario

The Manager wants John to work on employee sales data so that it can be
used to perform other operations. John needs to create a named range for
each employee which can be used later.

Demo

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Data Group and Ungroup

Excel 2013 allows you to group specific rows or columns of data within a data range to make working with huge
data easy. By the use of groups, Excel inserts a control, to the left of the row headings or above the column
headings, with which the data group can be contracted and expanded.

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Subtotals

The Subtotal function uses SUM, COUNT, AVERAGE, MAX, MIN, PRODUCT, COUNT NUMBERS, STDDEV, STDDEVP, VAR,
or VARP functions to summarize the data of each subset of cells.

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Quiz 1

State TRUE or FALSE: We can create custom lists using AutoFill options.

a. True
b. False

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Quiz 1

State TRUE or FALSE: We can create custom lists using AutoFill options.

a. True
b. False

Answer: a.

Explanation: We can create custom lists by using AutoFill options.

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Quiz 2

Which of the following options are related to Merge and Center?

a. Merge and Center

b. Merge Across
c. Merge Cells
d. All the above

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Quiz 2

Which of the following options are related to Merge and Center?

a. Merge and Center

b. Merge Across
c. Merge Cells
d. All the above

Answer: d.

Explanation: We can merge cells by using merge and center, merge across and merge cells options

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Quiz 3

State TRUE or FALSE: We can create column charts using Sparklines.

a. True
b. False

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Quiz 3

State TRUE or FALSE: We can create column charts using Sparklines.

a. True
b. False

Answer: a.

Explanation: Sparklines are tiny charts. We can create line, column and win/loss Sparkline in a cell.

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Summary

Here is a quick recap of what was covered in this lesson:

● Fill series allows to customize the pattern or sequence of the data.

● The AutoFill function is used to copy and fill cells with data. It can also be used to
customize lists of a specific design.

● Cell structure is formatted using three techniques – text wrap, text alignment, and
text orientation.

● Merge and Center, Merge Across, and Merge Cells are three ways to merge cells.

● Excel 2013 allows to format cell content by changing the font size, font style, font
color, and font effects.

● Data groups are used to effectively manage large data.

● Subtotals cannot be added to tables; to achieve this, we need to convert the table
to a range of data and add subtotals.
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 Thank You

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