Excel Training

Creating and Opening Workbooks

Excel files are called workbooks. Whenever you start a new project in Excel, you'll need to create a new workbook. There are several ways to start working with a workbook in Excel 2016. You can choose tocreate a new workbook—either with a blank workbook or a predesigned template —or open an existing workbook.

Saving and Sharing Workbooks

Whenever you create a new workbook in Excel, you'll need to know how to save it in order to access and edit it later. As with previous versions of Excel, you can save files locally to your computer. But unlike older versions, Excel 2016 also lets you save a workbook to the cloud using OneDrive. You can also export and share workbooks with others directly from Excel.

 

Cell Basics

Whenever you work with Excel, you'll enter information — or content — into cells. Cells are the basic building blocks of a worksheet. You'll need to learn the basics of cells and cell content to calculate, analyze, and organize data in Excel.

 

 

Formatting Cells

All cell content uses the same formatting by default, which can make it difficult to read a workbook with a lot of information. Basic formatting can customize the look and feel of your workbook, allowing you to draw attention to specific sections and making your content easier to view and understand. You can also apply number formatting to tell Excel exactly what type of data you’re using in the workbook, such as percentages (%), currency ($), and so on.

 

 

Worksheet Basics

Every workbook contains at least one worksheet by default. When working with a large amount of data, you can create multiple worksheets to help organize your workbook and make it easier to find content. You can also group worksheets to quickly add information to multiple worksheets at the same time.

 

 

 

Printing Workbooks

There may be times when you want to print a workbook to view and share your data offline. Once you've chosen your page layout settings, it's easy to preview and print a workbook from Excel using the Print pane.

 

 

 

 

Simple Formulas

One of the most powerful features in Excel is the ability to calculate numerical information using formulas. Just like a calculator, Excel can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. In this lesson, we'll show you how to use cell references to create simple formulas.

Complex Formulas

A simple formula is a mathematical expression with one operator, such as 7+9. A complex formula has more than one mathematical operator, such as 5+2*8. When there is more than one operation in a formula, the order of operations tells Excel which operation to calculate first. In order to use Excel to calculate complex formulas, you will need to understand the order of operations.

 

Freezing Panes and View Options

Whenever you're working with a lot of data, it can be difficult to compare information in your workbook. Fortunately, Excel includes several tools that make it easier to view content from different parts of your workbook at the same time, such as the ability to freeze panes and split your worksheet.

 

 

Sorting Data

As you add more content to a worksheet, organizing this information becomes especially important. You can quickly reorganize a worksheet by sorting your data. For example, you could organize a list of contact information by last name. Content can be sorted alphabetically, numerically, and in many other ways.

 

 

Filtering Data

If your worksheet contains a lot of content, it can be difficult to find information quickly. Filters can be used to narrow down the data in your worksheet, allowing you to view only the information you need.

 

 

 

Charts

It can often be difficult to interpret Excel workbooks that contain a lot of data. Charts allow you to illustrate your workbook data graphically, which makes it easy to visualize comparisons and trends.

 

Track Changes and Comments

Let's say someone asked you to proofread or collaborate on a workbook. If you had a printed copy, you might use a red pen to edit cell data, mark spelling errors, or add comments in the margins. Excel allows you to do all of these things electronically using the Track Changes and Comments features.

Inspecting and Protecting Workbooks

Before sharing a workbook, you'll want to make sure it doesn't include any spelling errors or information you want to keep private. Fortunately, Excel includes several tools to help finalize and protect your workbook, including Spell Check and the Document Inspector.

Conditional Formatting

Let's say you have a worksheet with thousands of rows of data. It would be extremely difficult to see patterns and trends just from examining the raw information. Similar to charts and sparklines, conditional formatting provides another way to visualize data and make worksheets easier to understand.