Learning to excel using MICROSOFT EXCEL

1. Learning to excel usingMICROSOFT EXCEL By: Lauren Pickle

2. How to get it… • Microsoft excel is one of the programs included in the Microsoft Office Package • Latest edition: Microsoft Excel 2003 • Most computers these days come with MS Office as part of the computer package • But, if you don’t have it or need an upgraded version, you can go to: • http://software.tamu.edu and buy it for $15 or upgrade for only $5. (This offer is for A&M students only and has a one of each product limit.) • Any electronics store that sells software or computer manufacturer website. Retail costs: $100-$300 (depending on home or professional edition).

3. Your Current Excel Usage • None… the battleship board looking screen is just too much for me! • Minimal… maybe to take attendance or record student grades • Experienced… using it for charts, spreadsheets, formula functions, graphs Would you use it more if you had a refresher session on the excel features and applications????

4. Excel Tutorial • Let’s take the next few slides to learn or for some of you review the following applications of Excel: • Basics • spreadsheets • functions • Charts and Graphs

5. Basics • Since Excel is a Microsoft program, most all its toolbars and some applications are identical to MS Word. • So, since we all are pros at Word, just learning the few extra applications Excel has will bring everyone to excelling in excel!

6. Spreadsheetsgetting started • Spreadsheets are composed of rows, columns, and their intersections or cells • Types of data that can be entered into the cells: labels (texts), numbers, or formulas. Okay…now it’s time to refresh on the bells and whistles of spreadsheets.

7. Spreadsheetsfreeze frames • Picture 1 • By using a FREEZE FRAME, we can freeze the row or column of titles as we scroll down the screen... Great for being able to have a students name directly next to a grade instead of trying to guess if you are putting the grade in the right row. • Picture 2 • Click Freeze Panes on the Window menu. • Picture 3 • Freeze column titles by selecting the row below the titles. • Freeze row titles by selecting the column to the right of the titles. • Freeze both column and row titles by selecting the cell that is just below the column titles and to the right of the row titles.

8. SpreadsheetsFill it up • Type less and get more when you are making rows and columns of consecutive, patterns, or identical months, numbers, or labels. • All you have to do is type in the first two cells and drag down or across from thebottom right-hand corner of the cell. **Wonderful to use when students all get the same grade on a assignment and you can just click to fill instead of typing in the same number a hundred times.

9. SpreadsheetsConditional Formatting • Suppose you want to be able to easily see what students are not above a certain letter grade. Conditional Formatting is an easy way to have any condition of data bolded, colored, underlined, etc. • All you have to do is click on Format, then select Conditional Formatting. • The pop-up box will allow you to enter in the cell value and whether it is less than, greater than, or equal to as well as the type of formatting desired.

10. SpreadsheetsQuick check • Do you ever want to check a class test average without adding to the grade book workbook? Here’s how you can simply check the average, min, max, and sum: • Just highlight the cells that you want to check • Right click and select the calculating option • Look at the bottom of the screen for the answer.

11. Formulasauto formulas • Inserting a function is easy! Just go to Insert and click on function. • It will allow you to choose an appropriate function and then give you a box to fill in the numbers

12. List of some of the formulas you can use on excel: Formulasmore auto formulas

13. FormulasManual • If you already know how to type the function, you can skip the “inserting function” and just type the formula directly into the cell. • Just make sure you begin each function with an equal sign and only include cells with numerals in them • When writing a function you can either type or highlight the appropriate cell.

14. Formulastroubleshooting • What are the funny things that appear in a cell sometimes? • #####    The column is not wide enough to display the contents of this cell. Increase column width, shrink the contents to fit the column, or apply a different number format. • #REF!    A cell reference is not valid. Cells may have been deleted or pasted over. • #NAME?    You may have misspelled a function name or used a name that Excel does not recognize. You should know that cells with error values such as #NAME? may display a color triangle. If you click the cell, an error

15. FormulasFormatting • Formatting Numbers using the toolbar • Just highlight cells that you want to apply the format to and click on the appropriate toolbar option.

16. Charts and GraphsInserting • Excel has made charts super-easy for users. All you have to do is highlight a data field and click on the Charts and Graphs Icon. • The wizard allows you to choose a type of graph, labels, and titles. It will generate a beautiful looking chart/ graph and will automatically update anytime you change the data.

17. Charts and Graphstypes • The chart/graph wizard has several different types of charts and graphs to choose from: Pie Bar Stacked Line Scatter Plot

18. Students and Excel • Okay, now that we are a little more familiar with using excel ourselves, let’s take these last few slides to look at how a pre-cal student can use excel to do learn concepts and do assignments.

19. Examples • Using charts, spreadsheets, and PMT functions to determine how much money needs to be deposited, or to figure out an interest rate, etc • Charting and Graphing the progression of a particular stock overtime

20. More Examples • Using a scatter-plot graph to assist in looking at linear regression. • Graphing and using Trig functions • Finding average, maxes, and mins on a graph or table • Comparing multiple data sets in the form of tables, graphs, or charts.