How to Use Excel

Excel is a spreadsheet application, that has been written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. With this application, one can calculate, make graphs, pivot tables, etc. It also features the macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications, abbreviated as VBA. It is one of the most widely used spreadsheet applications, since the version 5 in 1993. It is a part of Microsoft Office. The current versions of Excel in use are Microsoft Office Excel 2010 for Windows and 2008 for Mac. Since there are so many interesting and helpful features, that come with Excel, do you wonder how to do go about using Excel? Let's find out.

How to Use Microsoft Excel

If you are a little familiar with Excel, you may find this how to use Microsoft Excel tutorial very basic, as it has been designed for beginners. Learning to use Excel will enable you to create professional spreadsheets.

Spreadsheet
This is the first point in how to use MS Excel. Launch Microsoft Excel, with which a workbook with three sheets will open. If you have changed the settings, then only one sheet will open. Now when you look at the left hand bottom corner, you will see Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3. Right click or double click on it and you will be able to change the name of the sheet. Since there are multiple sheets, you will be able to establish relation between the different sheets.

In case you want to add more sheets to the spreadsheet you will have to go to the Insert menu and select worksheet there. With this a worksheet will be inserted before the selected sheet. An alternative to this is to right click on the name of the sheet in the tab at the left hand bottom corner and select insert.

To use the cells, which are the rectangles in the spreadsheet, you can simply click on the sheet and enter the data. To move to the next cell you will have to simply press the enter key or use the mouse and move to the desired cell. If you want to move to the row above the current row, then you will have to hold down the shift key and then press the enter key. For moving to the cell to the right of the current cell, i.e. to the next column, you will have to hit the tab key. Alternatively for all these functions, you can also use the up, down, left, right keys. Locking cells in Excel will ensure that the data from certain cells will not be changed.

Formulas
If you have launched an Excel spreadsheet by now, you must have noticed that the columns in an Excel sheet are labeled with letters, whereas the rows are labeled using numbers. Hence, the top most cell on the left hand side is numbered as A1. To highlight an entire row or column, you will have to click either on the number or letter. Having understood, this we will turn towards, how to use formulas in Microsoft Excel.

Whenever you want to enter a formula for a particular cell, the first thing that goes into the cell is '=', as it is a rule that all formulas must start off with an equal sign. Some of the common formulas are programed in Excel. For example, if you want to take an average, then you will have to type =average, open a circular bracket and then specify the starting cell, followed by a colon and then ending cell, followed by a closing circular bracket. Therefore, the formula will look likes
=average(A1:A9)

Then, you will have to hit enter. Similarly, you can use the keyword 'sum'. To know, which are the list of keywords, you can click on Insert and then on Function. Similarly, if you want data in a certain column to be multiplied by a certain number then you can click in that cell and write in C1 '=B1*10', etc. Instead of typing the formula in all the cells below, you will have to highlight C1 till C10, then click on Edit tab on the tool bar and select Fill and Down. When you are using the formulas, you will have to use them using the basic rules of mathematics, so that you do not have erroneous answers.

Graph
To make graphs in Excel, the first step is to enter the data that you want to make a graph of. Then highlight the data, that you want to graph. However, make sure you do not include the heading titles. After you have selected the data, go to Insert menu and select chart option. An alternative is to click on Chart Wizard button on the standard tool bar.

In the chart wizard, which appears, select the chart type you want. After you have selected chart type, you will have to click and hold the mouse pointer down on the press and hold the button to see, how the data looks like in the chart type you have chosen. In case you did not like the look of the chart, then opt for another chart type. If you like the way the chart looks like, you select finish and you will see the completed chart on the spreadsheet.

Once you know how to use Excel, you will be able to understand the myriad range of possibilities, that exist with Excel. To become proficient at it, you will have to dabble a little in Excel, so that you are able to come up with different possibilities that exist there.