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Getting started with Microsoft Office Excel: Week 1 - Introduction to Excel

Learn to work with basic spreadsheets, storing both text and numerical data.

To Do

Run Excel, and use the cheat sheet to define the following terms as you work with it:

  • Rows (select an entire row by clicking the identifying number on the left)
  • Columns (select a column by clicking the identifying letter above)
  • Cells
    • Store different types of data in cells (strings, numbers, dates)
    • Find the label with the column letter + row number, for example A1, B22
  • Move along a row using the Tab key
  • Move down in a column using the Enter key

Exercise

You want to create a list of employees in a spreadsheet so you can sort it, filter it, and/or merge the data into a form letter sometime.

  1. Download to your desktop the file “Week 1 Names_draft”, from the the link below
    • Use Save As to save the file at location Desktop, with filename Names
  2. Question:  what value is in cell B7? __________
  3. Left Align the column headers (Select the column labels A - G, click Home/Alignment/Left align button)
  4. In an empty row at the bottom of the spreadsheet, enter your name and address (click in the first open row in the first column and type in each cell.  Click tab to move to the next cell)
  5. Format cells in Zip column to be “Text” so the leading zero can be stored (Home/Cells/Format/Format Cells)
  6. Sort columns by Last Name (Click in the Last name column anywhere and click Home/Editing/Sort & filter/ select Sort A to Z)
  7. Resize columns using auto fit columns (All cells button in upper left/double click the line between the first 2 columns labels)
  8. Manually resize all columns to give the text space before the next column begins (click on the line between the columns and manually drag to the right)
  9. Insert a row above “Mary Jones” and add Ann Jones (Select the row label for the row Mary Jones is in, click Home/Cells/Insert/Insert Sheet Row)
  10. Copy the information from the columns “City”, “State”, “Zip”, and “Position” from Mary Jones’ row to the empty cells in Ann Jones’ row.
  11. Insert a column after the first name and before the city to store street addresses (Select the City column label and click Home/Cells/Insert/Insert Sheet Column)
    • Create a column header called “Address” (click in D1 and type)
    • Enter an address for the rows (at least a couple)
  12. Add a column at the end called “Date Hired” (make sure formatted like other columns)
    • Enter “1/1/2010” date for the first row
    • Auto-fill the same value for all rows (Home/Editing/Fill/Down)
    • Format cells to show the date format as “January 1, 2010” for all (Select “Date Hired” column, click Home/Cells/Format/Format Cells, select category Date, select appropriate Type)
  13. Rename the worksheet “Employees” (right click on sheet tab/rename)

Challenge: email the contact list Excel spreadsheet to yourself or cpl2computers@outlook.com.