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Basics of Microsoft Excel



A. Microsoft Excel

Basics of Excel

 





There are 5 important areas in the screen.

1. Quick Access Toolbar: This is a place where all the important tools can be placed. When you start Excel for the very first time, it has only 3 icons (Save, Undo, Redo). But you can add any feature of Excel to to Quick Access Toolbar so that you can easily access it from anywhere (hence the name).


2. Ribbon: Ribbon is like an expanded menu. It depicts all the features of Excel in easy to understand form. Since Excel has 1000s of features, they are grouped in to several ribbons. The most important ribbons are – Home, Insert, Formulas, Page Layout & Data.


3. Formula Bar: This is where any calculations or formulas you write will appear. You will understand the relevance of it once you start building formulas.


4. Spreadsheet Grid: This is where all your numbers, data, charts & drawings will go. Each Excel file can contain several sheets. But the spreadsheet grid shows few rows & columns of active spreadsheet. To see more rows or columns you can use the scroll bars to the left or at bottom. If you want to access other sheets, just click on the sheet name (or use the shortcut CTRL+Page Up or CTRL+Page Down).

5. Status bar: This tells us what is going on with Excel at any time. You can tell if Excel is busy calculating a formula, creating a pivot report or recording a macro by just looking at the status bar. The status bar also shows quick summaries of selected cells (count, sum, average, minimum or maximum values). You can change this by right clicking on it and choosing which summaries to show.


Excel Options 




General:- The most commonly used settings, such as user interface settings, default font for new workbooks, number of sheets in a new workbook, customer name, and Start screen.

Formulas:- All options for controlling calculation, error-checking rules, and formula settings. Note that options for multithreaded calculations are currently considered obscure enough to be on the Advanced tab rather than on the Formulas tab.

Proofing:- Spell-check options and a link to the AutoCorrect dialog.

Save:- The default method for saving, AutoRecovery settings, legacy colours, and web server options.

Language:- Choose the editing language, ToolTip language, and Help language.

Advanced:- All options that Microsoft considers arcane, spread among 13 headings.

Customize Ribbon:- Icons to customize the ribbon.

Quick Access Toolbar:- Icons to customize the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT).

Add-Ins:- A list of available and installed add-ins. New add-ins can be installed from the button at the bottom of this category.

Trust Center:-  Links to the Microsoft Trust Center, with 12 additional categories.


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