Introduction
If you’re an Excel beginner, this is the perfect place to start.
Microsoft Excel is one of the most used software applications of all time. Hundreds of millions of people around the world use Microsoft Excel. You can use Excel to enter all sorts of data and perform financial, mathematical or statistical calculations.
1. Range: A range in Excel is a collection of two or more cells. This chapter gives an overview of some very important range operations.
2. Formulas and Functions: A formula is an expression which calculates the value of a cell. Functions are predefined formulas and are already available in Excel.
Basics
This section explains the basics of Excel.
1. Ribbon: Excel selects the ribbon’s Home tab when you open it. Learn how to use the ribbon.
2. Workbook: A workbook is another word for your Excel file. When you start Excel, click Blank workbook to create an Excel workbook from scratch.
3. Worksheets: A worksheet is a collection of cells where you keep and manipulate the data. Each Excel workbook can contain multiple worksheets.
4. Format Cells: When we format cells in Excel, we change the appearance of a number without changing the number itself.
5. Find & Select: Learn how to use Excel’s Find, Replace and Go To Special feature.
6. Templates: Instead of creating an Excel workbook from scratch, you can create a workbook based on a template. There are many free templates available, waiting to be used.
7. Data Validation: Use data validation in Excel to make sure that users enter certain values into a cell.
8. Keyboard Shortcuts: Keyboard shortcuts allow you to do things with your keyboard instead of your mouse to increase your speed.
9. Print: This chapter teaches you how to print a worksheet and how to change some important print settings in Excel.
10. Share: Learn how to share Excel data with Word documents and other files.
11. Protect: Encrypt an Excel file with a password so that it requires a password to open it.
Functions
Discover how functions in Excel help you save time. If you are new to functions in Excel, we recommend you to read our introduction to Formulas and Functions first.
1 Count and Sum: The most used functions in Excel are the functions that count and sum. You can count and sum based on one criteria or multiple criteria.
2 Logical: Learn how to use Excel’s logical functions, such as IF, AND, OR and NOT.
3 Cell References: Cell references in Excel are very important. Understand the difference between relative, absolute and mixed reference, and you are on your way to success.
4 Date & Time: To enter a date in Excel, use the “/” or “-” characters. To enter a time, use the “:” (colon). You can also enter a date and a time in one cell.
5 Text: Excel has many functions to offer when it comes to manipulating text strings.
6 Lookup & Reference: Learn all about Excel’s lookup & reference functions, such as VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, MATCH, INDEX and CHOOSE.
7 Financial: This chapter illustrates Excel’s most popular financial functions.
8 Statistical: An overview of some very useful statistical functions in Excel.
9 Round: This chapter illustrates three functions to round numbers in Excel. ROUND, ROUNDUP and ROUNDDOWN.
10 Formula Errors: This chapter teaches you how to deal with some common formula errors in Excel.
11 Array Formulas: This chapter helps you understand array formulas in Excel. Single cell array formulas perform multiple calculations in one cell.