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Lab 1: Excel as Calculator. Let’s get started!. Open a new Excel spreadsheet. If necessary, hit to maximize the sheet. You may need to move the top bar of the spreadsheet to see it. (It’s in the upper right hand corner.)
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Let’s get started! • Open a new Excel spreadsheet. • If necessary, hit to maximize the sheet. You may need to move the top bar of the spreadsheet to see it. (It’s in the upper right hand corner.) • Within the spreadsheet, you can move around using arrow keys or the mouse. I recommend using the keyboard as much as possible- if you can do that, you’ll be quicker. • “Home” and “End” also help you jump around. • I recommend keeping track of things you do with lots of labels and even text boxes. Make a text box (under the “Insert” tab) and in it, write a message.
Basic Calculations • To get Excel to do arithmetic, just start by typing an = in the cell, and then type what you want Excel to solve. • Try typing =3+5 in a cell. What do you get? • How about =90/10? • Watch out for order of operations. What’s the difference between =40+30/5 and (40+30)/5?
Exponents • To square a number or raise it to a higher power use the ^ mark (shift-6). • What’s 63? Use Excel to find out. • To get a square root, you can use either =SQRT() or ^ with a fraction. What are two ways to get the square root of 49? Try them!
Relative reference • Say that you have a set of numbers and you want to add 5 to each of them. • For example, enter the numbers 5, 6, 7, and 8 in cells A1-4 of your Excel spreadsheet. • Let’s add 5 to A1-4 in cells B1-4. First, in cell B1, enter =A1+5 . What do you get? • Cut and paste that cell into B2-4. What happens? • What if you wanted to multiply each by 8? • What if you wanted to multiply each by the number below it?
Absolute Reference • Say that you want to multiply a set of numbers by a number that’s in another cell. For example, say that in cells C1-4, we want the product of cells A1-4 and cell A6. (Put 20 in cell A6.) • To multiply cell A1 by A6 in cell C1, you can just put =A1*A6. Put that in. Now try copying that into cell C2. What happens?
Absolute Reference • To “lock in” one of the values, put $’s in the cell reference, so A6 becomes $A$6. • Change cell C1 to be =A1*$A$6. Did the value in C1 change? • Copy that cell into cells C2-C4. Is it working? • Now change cell A6 from 20 to 30. It should update on its own. See why this is convenient?
Formulas vs. Values • Go back and click on cell C1. It should look something like this: • The number you see in the cell, 150, is the “value” in that cell. The “formula” in that cell is above, just past the fx. In this case it’s =A1*$A$6.
Navigation • Ctrl-arrows move you to the end of a row (or column) of information. Put the cursor on cell A1 and push Ctrl-down. You should jump down to cell A4. • Ctrl-x is cut, ctrl-c is copy, and ctrl-v is paste. How do you copy the 7 from cell A3 into cells D8, E8, and F8? • Make a new spreadsheet by clicking on this little icon at the bottom. • To go up and down a sheet, use ctrl-pageup and ctrl-pagedn.
Cell formatting • Go to cell D12 and type in 1/2. What happens? • This is a formatting issue- Excel assumes you’re inputting a date. Be sure your Home tab is highlighted and look for this box. • The drop-down arrow lets you change the formatting of the cell. Experiment with it. • Change a cell’s format BEFORE you enter a value into it!
