The Basics

Quick reference

• 00:05 First, let's figure out how to move around in an Excel document.
• 00:08 And what we can expect to see.
• 00:10 We'll start with a blank Excel workbook.
• 00:15 A workbook is made up of one or more worksheets,
• 00:17 which is what we're looking at here.
• 00:19 One worksheet.
• 00:21 The worksheet is an almost endless display of rows and
• 00:25 columns running from left to right and from top to bottom.
• 00:28 Worksheets are sometimes called sheets for short.
• 00:31 And the first sheet is given the default name Sheet 1 by Excel.
• 00:35 The name appears here at the bottom of our screen.
• 00:39 You can move up down left or right on your sheet by using the scroll bars
• 00:44 on the right of your screen or on the bottom of your screen.
• 00:47 You can also use the scroll wheel on your mouse or the arrows on your keyboard.
• 00:53 At the very top of the screen we see the ribbon with green tabs like Home Insert,
• 00:59 Page Layout, and so on.
• 01:00 Each tab that we click on offers a different group of command or
• 01:04 instruction groups.
• 01:06 For example, on the Home tab, we can see the Clipboard group,
• 01:10 where we can cut, copy, or paste text.
• 01:12 There's also a fun group,
• 01:14 where we can customize the appearance of the text in our screen and so on.
• 01:19 You'll notice that each time that you click on a tab,
• 01:22 the menu options will change.
• 01:24 That's just like your other Microsoft Office applications like Word or
• 01:28 PowerPoint.
• 01:29 So we won't spend too much time on this.
• 01:32 What we do want to point out is that there are some menu sets that only
• 01:36 show up when certain types of data are selected.
• 01:39 These are called contextual tabs.
• 01:42 For instance,
• 01:43 if I had an Excel chart within this worksheet, let's place one here.
• 01:47 And the chart is selected.
• 01:49 Then the Chart Tools tabs show up.
• 01:52 This allows me to perform actions that are specific to that type of data.
• 01:57 If I click outside of the chart, the Chart Tools tab goes away.
• 02:01 Let's delete that chart.
• 02:03 Just below our ribbon to the far left is the Name Box.
• 02:08 The Name Box tells us the name of the cell that's currently selected.
• 02:11 The cells are the thousands of little rectangles that make up our sheet.
• 02:16 Each cell has a unique name based on its row and column.
• 02:20 Cells are named using a column first, row next convention.
• 02:24 Our Name Box tells us that right now we're in cell N6.
• 02:29 Column first, row next.
• 02:31 Cells can have one of four things inside them.
• 02:34 They can have numbers.
• 02:36 They can have text.
• 02:38 They can have a formula.
• 02:41 Or they can have nothing.
• 02:44 Just to the right of the Name Box is the Insert Function shortcut.
• 02:48 We'll come back to that later.
• 02:50 To the right of the Insert Function box is the Formula Bar.
• 02:55 The Formula Bar tells you what was typed into the highlighted cell.
• 02:58 For instance, sometimes a cell displays a certain value.
• 03:02 But that value was calculated by Excel based on a formula that you typed in.
• 03:07 Well, the Formula Bar will show you exactly what was typed into that cell.
• 03:11 So let's look at cell A3, which shows the number 3.
• 03:15 But which really was a formula.
• 03:18 Equals 1 plus 2.
• 03:20 The Formula Bar tells us that this was what was typed into that cell.
• 03:23 So we just learned how to navigate around our worksheet.
• 03:27 How to make reference to a cell.
• 03:29 And what we can find on the ribbon.
• 03:32 Let's use this information to get more out of Excel.

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