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© Copyright Palle Grønbæk and

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*HW�JRLQJ�ZLWK�([FHOPalle Gronbek, [email protected]

1st edition, 1st printing, jan. 1998

© Copyright 1998 Palle Gronbek and

:]^fFPaT, Ordrupvej 63C, 2920 [email protected] – www.knowware.dk

ISBN 87-90027-78-7Printed in Denmark 1998Published by KnowWareTranslated from the danish by Anthony I.P.Owen

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Is this booklet for you?This booklet is for Excel beginners. Basic topicswill be thoroughly discussed with a focus on fun-damental concepts of spreadsheets in general andof Excel in particular.

If you can relate to one of the following statements,you can benefit from reading this booklet:

� You have no idea what a spreadsheet is, andwhat it is used for.

� You have heard of spreadsheets, but never hadthe chance to work with one.

� You have worked with other spreadsheet pro-grams, but need to learn about the differences inExcel.

� Arithmetic and calculation have never beenyour strong points.

� Maybe you are fascinated by numbers andmathematics.

My goal is that this booklet will quickly help youunderstand the program in a way that you will con-tinue to learn after you have completed the exer-cises. At the same time you will have built up ahousehold budget, something that most of us willfind useful in our daily life.

No matter what you will use Excel for, you willfind that the program is easy to get to grips with,but advanced enough to be able to solve mostproblems involving numbers.

If you feel that Excel is a little bit too difficult atfirst, then remember the wise words: ‘Every begin-ning is fun….’

Technical language – only for nerds?The computer branch uses a lot of technical abbre-viations and terms, which are difficult for a begin-ner:

Pentium 150MHz, 32 Mb RAM, 8 x CD-ROM, 2.1GB hard disk etc. etc.

‘Pentium – is that part of the keyboard? How doesthe computer RAM something? CD-ROM, has thatsomething to do with music…?’

As a new user it is easy to get confused with all thisgobbledegook. To understand the most basic terms,then I suggest you read the KnowWare booklet‘Around the PC’, while terms which are Excel spe-cific will be explained the first time they appear inthe booklet.

For words which are directly Windows95 relevant,see the booklet Exercises for Windows95.

Your backgroundI do not expect you to have any knowledge ofspreadsheets. You should have a basic understand-ing of Windows95 and have followed Exercisesfor Windows95.

Your opinionThe booklet is written for you, so I would reallyappreciate hearing your comments, either by letterto the publisher, or directly to me via e-mail.

The structureThis booklet is built up with a series of practicalexamples. By following it from start to finish youwill learn to use the Excel methodology and in-crease your knowledge in a natural way. The ex-amples use Excel 7, but the differences in Excel 5and Excel 97 are described.

Throughout the booklet some layout rules havebeen used. These make it easier to read and allowyou to practice the most important points quicklyand effectively.

SymbolsIn some places we have used the following symbolsin the left margin to highlight a particular section:

This symbol indicates an important anduseful tip. It will often be especially useful if youfollow the exercises a second time.

This symbol denotes topics important foroptimised use of the program. Important in the waythe program has been built up, and for making themost effective use of it.

Text written in this style describes important differ-ences between version 5, 7 and 97.

Should you need to refer to another subject youwill find a list of contents in the back of the book-let, and an index in the last couple of pages. So,enjoy yourself both with the booklet and withExcel itself!

Excel – the first impression


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Excel – the first impressionIf you have some experience with the program, youcan skip this section, or just browse through it topick up any useful tips you may not already know.

Throughout the booklet I will describe the parts ofthe screen as we meet them, in an attempt to intro-duce them in a relevant way. I will use Microsoftnames so you can search for more help in the pro-gram’s Online Help.

General conceptsThe first time you run Excel, an introduction pro-gram shows the most important functions and prin-ciples in the program on your screen. Exit from thiswindow, you can always return to it later.

Before we begin on a household budget we willfirst try a little sample budget for redecorating myliving room. I suggest that you follow it on yourown computer.

What is a spreadsheet?In principle a spreadsheet is nothing more than alarge sheet of squared paper. So that an individual‘square’ can be used in a calculation together withother ‘squares’, each has to have a way of differen-tiating it, a unique address (it is unique because notwo are the same).

For the program to be able to manage individual‘squares’ in large spreadsheets, it works in threedimensions, with each individual spreadsheet builtup as a table in two dimensions, called a spread-sheet. These two dimensions are called respectivelyrows (horizontal) and columns (vertical). Columnsare always given a letter as a name, and rows arealways given a number. The third dimension iscalled a spreadsheet (also referred to as worksheet).

There can be up to 256 spreadsheets in a file,which in Excel is called a workbook .

At the bottom of each workbook you will find asheet tab for every spreadsheet, or page, in theworkbook. Each time you open a new workbookSheet1 will be selected.

You can move to another worksheet by clicking onthe sheet tab. Try clicking on different tabs, thenreturn to Sheet1 before continuing.

Cells are the individual ‘squares’ in a spreadsheet.

A cell is where a column and a row cross. Thename of a cell comes from the name of the column(letter) together with the name of a row (number).So, the cell where column C and row 5 cross eachother has the address C5.

Inserting text and numbersWhen a new spreadsheet is selected, the cursor willalways be in cell A1 (it is selected).

1. Type Material: and press Enter. Cell A2 willautomatically be selected.

2. Type Brush and press Enter. Cell A3 willautomatically be selected.

3. Type Primer and press Enter.4. In A4 type Paint and press Enter.

When you key in data in this way it is obviouslyuseful that the cursor automatically moves down tothe next cell (which is not always practical, as youwill see later).

If you type a mistake, you can correct it immedi-ately by using the Backspace or Delete keys. Thishas to be done before you press Enter, and the ar-row keys cannot be used. If you notice a mistakeafter pressing Enter, you simply rewrite the correcttext over the incorrect text. The contents of the cellare overwritten when you press Enter. Editing thecontents of a cell will be discussed in more detailthroughout the booklet.

Select cell A4 by pressing the Up arrow key.

Notice that the word Paint is visible both in thecell and on the formula bar (just under thetoolbars). This field shows what you typed, and thecell shows the result of your typing.



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1. Use the arrow keys, or click with the mouse toselect cell B1.

2. Type Net price: and press Enter.3. In B2 type 19 and press Enter.4. In B3 type 98 and press Enter.5. In B4 type 148 and press Enter.

It is important to understand how different entriesare interpreted by Excel.

Data typesExcel differentiates between four data types; text,numbers, dates and formula. When you have typeddata in a cell you can immediately see in the cell it-self how your data has been classified:

If data is aligned to the left, then it is text (text be-ing written from left to right).

If the cell data is right aligned, then Excel has in-terpreted your data to be a number or a formula(numbers are usually written right aligned, so thatdecimal points line up vertically under each other).

If you think you have typed a number, butExcel has displayed it left aligned, then you haveprobably made a mistake. Maybe you have hit acomma instead of a point when you typed the deci-mal.

Do not delete the data you have just typed inSheet1 – we will come back to it later.

1. Click on Sheet2 to start with a clean spread-sheet. We can test the principles for insertingdata mentioned above.

Creating formulasExcel always tries to interpret your data as text,numbers, dates or time. If you mix text and num-bers, your data will be understood as text. If youtype, for example, 125-12, the ‘-’ will be interpre-ted as a hyphen, not a minus sign. When you type a

formula you must always start with an equal sign:=125-12. Try the following example:

1. Type two numbers separated by a minus sign inSheet2, cell A1, for example 120856-2895, andthen press Enter. Even though it is longer thanthe cell, it is obvious that the data flows fromleft to right over the next cell. It has been inter-preted as text, which is correct.

2. Now type in the same data in A2, but this timewith an equal sign in front of it: =120856-2895and press Enter.

You can also begin a formula with a plus orminus sign (‘+’, ‘-’). In every case Excel will addan equal sign in front of the formula. But I wouldstrongly suggest starting formulas with ‘=’. It is agood habit and will help you understand the manybuilt in functions.

OperatorsWhen you type formulas, you can use any of thefollowing operators:

+ add

- subtract

* multiply

/ divide

^ raise in the power of (as in 3^3 = 3*3*3 = 27).

If you want to type a number as text, you must be-gin with an apostrophe (for example ‘125).

Calculation priorityWhen you type a formula containing several num-bers and operators, you should remember that allcalculations are carried out in the following order:

first calculation : ( ) and ^second : * and /and finally : + and -

Type the following formula in cell A3:

= 20 + 20 / 4 and press Enter.The result is 25, as 20 / 4 is calculated first.

Now type the same formula in A4, but this time inbrackets:



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= (20 + 20) / 4 and press Enter.The result is now 10, as the numbers in bracketsare calculated first.

Even though brackets are not necessary for calcu-lations using operators on the same level, like addand subtract, they can often make a formula easierto read. I often use brackets for precisely this rea-son.

Formula barOn the far left this bar refers to the active cell (theselected cell). Next to this is a field for displayingand typing a formula. All entries in cells take placehere.

A cell consists of two ‘levels’. The background,containing the data entered (shown on the formulabar) and the foreground which contains the resultof the entry. It is the foreground which is actuallydisplayed in the cell, and is printed out, while thebackground creates the result. A cell has to be se-lected to see the background in the formula line.

Of course, when you type in text or a number, thereis no difference between what you type and the re-sult – there is only a difference with data which iscalculated (formula).

Select A2 and check the formula on the formulabar. Press the Down arrow and check the formulain A3.

All changes in the content of a cell happenin the background layer – as shown in the formulaline.

You probably noticed that while you were typingdata in the cell, three small buttons appeared on theformula line:

Let us look at the buttons a little closer:

1. Try typing your name in cell A5.Now the formula has apparently disappeared,but you can still undo your typing.

2. Now try pressing Esc and you will see that yourname disappears immediately (the same asclicking on the red cross).

3. Type your own name again, and press Enter(the same as clicking on the green tick). Theformula is replaced by your name.

The third button, ƒx, enables you to insert func-tions, a process described on page 54.

Version 97: The ƒx button has been replaced withan equals sign on the formula bar.

The buttons show that you are editing thecell, and that is useful, but I would never click onthem, instead I strongly advise that you use the Escand Enter keys.

A word processor inserts text and numbers whileyou are writing them. In Excel they are not inserteduntil you actively choose to do so.

Delete the contents of the cells A1 to A5 using theDelete key and click on Sheet1, so we can con-tinue with our sample.

We have been able to buy everything which is nec-essary from a wholesaler. So there is no sales taxincluded in the price. We must work out ourselvesboth this and the total price.

The heading in column B must be altered.

1. Select cell B1, type in Net price and press theright arrow key. The text is inserted and the cur-sor moves in the direction of the arrow to cellC1.

2. Type in Sales tax and press Enter.

We now need to type the formula for calculatingthe sales tax on brushes assuming that the Sales taxis 25%. We could then choose to type =19*25%,which would calculate the sales tax of the net price.Quite honestly, if we did that we could just as eas-ily forget about the computer and take out ourpocket calculator!



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It is in exactly this situation that a spreadsheet canshow its strength…when you type a new net price,the new sales tax and gross price should be calcu-lated automatically.

It is totally wrong to insert variables in aformula in a spreadsheet. If the value changes at alater time (for example, an exchange rate), youwould have to change every cell manually. Insteadit is better to point out the cell containing the ap-propriate value. So all you have to do is edit thatcell every time the value changes, and formulaswill be updated automatically.

This is how it is done:

1. Select C2 and type the following formula:=b2*25%Press Enter and the Up arrow to see both the re-sult and the formula. I was quite clear as to whatI was doing above when I typed a small ‘b’ inreference to cell B2. I want to start a dialog withExcel. When you pressed Enter the ‘b’ waschanged to a large ‘B’ , which is the program’sway of saying ‘cell address understood’. If Idiscover later that there is a mistake in the for-mula, I know for certain that it has nothing todo with the reference to cell address B2.

2. After typing a formula it should be tested. Typea new net price in cell B2 and check that thesales tax in C2 changes. Now type the originalnet price again.

3. For the sake of the exercise you should type theformula for the sales tax for two more materialsin the same way. Type the formula =b3*25% incell C3 and =b4*25% in C4.

As default (standard) only as many decimalsas necessary are shown in each cell. So even if youtype in 24.00, only 24 is shown. Later we will for-mat numbers to two decimal places.

Now we will calculate the gross price. In otherwords what we want to calculate is:

=Net price + Sales tax

1. Start by typing the heading Price: in D1.2. In D2 type the formula = B2 + C2.3. Continue yourself with the formula for calcu-

lating the price for the next two materials.

Your spreadsheet should now look like this:

It is only for the sake of the exercise that we havetyped all the formulas here manually. Normally allyou need to do is type it once, check that it works(type a new net price) and then copy it to all theother cells!

When you have checked that the first formulaworks as it should, why run the risk of typing an er-ror in the following formulas?

EditingChanging the contents of a cellYou have already tried changing the contents of acell. However, there are many ways of doing it:

� Type new data over the old and press Enter. Ifyou mistakenly start typing data in the wrongcell, you can undo your mistake by pressingEsc.

� Press the F2 key (edit) or click directly on theformula bar.

� Double click on a cell to edit directly in it (afunction which I dislike intensely, and whichwe will switch off a little later).

If a long piece of text or formula needs editing Iprefer F2. If it is a short piece of text or formula, Iprefer overwriting the cell.

Try both methods now:

1. Change cell B1 to Net: by using F2 and theBackspace key.

2. Change the net price for Primer to 105 by over-writing B3 and press Enter.

Deleting the contents of a cellYou have deleted the contents of a cell severaltimes by using Delete. This is simple, when you



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know about it. I have seen students try to use theBackspace key many times, and even seen theSpace Bar tried.

Try pressing the Space Bar in cell C2, followed byEnter. The cell is apparently empty, but note the er-ror message in cell D2.

The formula in D2 tries to calculate the sum of thenet price and a space! There is no way we can ex-pect an answer.

If a cell should be emptied, use Delete!

UndoThe formula in cell C2 should be rewritten.If you have just deleted it, then click on theUndo button, or choose the menu Edit|Undo. Youcan also use the Ctrl+Z keys, which function thesame way in most other Windows programs.

I would strongly suggest that you use Ctrl+Z.

You can only undo the last operation. If youhave deleted the contents of a cell, and then for-matted another cell to be in bold type, you can onlyundo the bold type.

If you have used Word, which can undo the last100 operations, you will probably think that Ex-cel’s one operation limit is a serious weakness.That was my opinion at first, but now I think it isactually a strength. Try following my reasoninghere:

1. We want to test a formula for errors, and wewill do this by changing the net price for abrush. Select cell B2.

2. Type a new price, and keep and eye on the salestax and the Price (C2 and D2) when you pressEnter.

3. They changed as they should, and you return tothe original cost by pressing Ctrl+Z.

4. The formulas were calculated so fast that it canbe difficult to check them both simultaneously.

Click Ctrl+Z again (you undo your undo, if youunderstand what I mean). Continue with Undoas often as you want until you are certain thatall cells with formulas dependent on cell B2change correctly.

Undo will switch between the two last ac-tions every time it is used. Pure genius when manyformulas need to be checked.

Column widthA single cell can contain up to 255 characters.However the standard column width allows onlyabout 10 characters to be displayed. When you typelong text strings or numbers, the column width hasto be adjusted.

1. Move to A5, type Filler and press Right arrow.In B5 type 67 and press Enter.

2. In A6 type Edge filler and press Enter. As longas the next cell across is empty, the text will justflow into it, crossing the cell border.

3. Now type 156.25 in B6 and press Enter. Thetext in A6 can no longer be shown in its fulllength.

Only part of the text can be seen. You can ensurethat the entire text remains in the cell by selecting itand reading the actual content on the formula bar.You now need to make the cell wide enough for theentire text to be displayed.

When you change the width, it will apply to the en-tire column. Can you imagine how confusing itwould be to work with a spreadsheet where cell A5was double the width of all the other cells? Cell B5will be under column C, cell C1 under D…chaos!

Excel97 has a function to merge two or more cells(Format|Format Cells, Alignment). If for exampleyou combine cell A7 and B7, cell B7 will no longerexist!



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How to change the column widthPlace the mouse pointer on the line between col-umn A and column B. The mouse pointer changesshape to a split arrow and the column divider cannow be dragged in the direction you want by hold-ing down the left mouse button.

Notice the field over column A. It usually showswhich cell has the focus (is selected).

When adjusting the column width, the field nowshows the column width measurement before yourelease the mouse button. The width is shown asthe typical number of characters which will fit inthe column, and is not an absolute value. The widthof a character depends on the font, its size, andwhich character you type (an ‘i’ fills much lessthan an ‘m’, for instance).

There is an even smarter method of automaticallyaltering the width of a column:

Double click when the arrow changesto a split arrow, and the width of the columnon the left automatically changes (AutoFit).

This is a very useful function. Excel adjusts thecolumn width to show all the text, no matter whereit is placed in the column.

Automatic adjustment can also be used onrows in the same way. In this picture theheight of row 4 will be adjusted when youdouble click.

You may want to ask, ‘couldn’t I just insert the textin column A, leave column B blank and then typethe numbers in column C?

You could, but it would be a big mistake! Blankcolumns or rows divide the data area and makes itdifficult to add colours and borders or use the manyadvanced Excel functions.

It is good practice to enter data in adjoiningcells. Avoid using blank columns and rows whendata are considered belonging together.

Simple number formattingI will be using more material for the imminent re-decorating, which will also give you a chance topractice copying the formulas for sales tax andprices.

1. Type the following data in columns A and B:

Version 7 and 97: Did you notice what happened assoon as you started typing in A10? The momentyou started with an ‘Fi’, the program suggested thesame text as that in A5. It was only a suggestion (itwas marked) and as you continued to type it wasreplaced with your new text. You can also accept asuggestion by pressing Enter or reject it by press-ing Delete. This principle applies within an ad-joining area.

The numbers need to be formatted so they all ap-pear with an equal number of decimal places. In theexample this is two decimals.

1. Select cell B2, and click twice on the In-crease decimal button.Excel starts with the format of the selectednumber, and shows one more decimal each timeyou click the button.

2. Select cell B6 and click once on the De-crease decimal button.Now the number 156.25 is decreased to onedecimal place. Of course, this does not mean



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that the last decimal has disappeared, which youcan check by looking at the formula bar.

3. Click on Decrease decimal again. Now thenumber is shown without any decimals. Clicktwice on Increase decimal, to make it appearwith two decimals again.

You must have noticed that when you pointto a button on the toolbar, a description of its func-tion is shown. Notice at the same time that thestatus bar gives an even more detailed descriptionof the function.

No matter how you decide to format a cell,calculations are performed in the same way. As astandard Excel calculates to 9 decimal places.

All the cells in column B should be formatted toshow two decimals. Before trying to format allcells, be patient while I just quickly introduce theidea of selecting cells.

Move to Sheet2.

Selecting cellsTo format a cell it has to be selected or highlighted.By selecting several cells simultaneously you canformat them in the same way, so they all have thesame appearance. A selected range of cells is indi-cated by the address of the first and the last cell,separated by a colon. Selecting B2:D6 will high-light all the cells in a rectangle with B2 at one cor-ner and D6 at the opposite corner.

The mouse pointer should be a largecross when you begin highlighting.The first highlighted cell will always be white as ithas the ‘focus’. The black frame surrounding theselection will clearly show that it is a part of thehighlighted area.

Try selecting the following area using the mouse.

1. Select B2:D6 (as shown above) by holding theleft mouse button down over cell B2 and drag-ging to cell D6.

2. Before doing anything else, place the mousepointer over cell H10, hold the left mouse but-ton down (the first selection disappears), drag tocell C2 and release the mouse. The areaH10:C2 is now selected.

The first cell selected will always be white or havefocus, no matter which method you use.

It is even easier to select cells using the key-board. Hold Shift down while you expand the se-lected area using the arrow keys. Try this on dif-ferent parts of the spreadsheet.

Remember, selecting is not an action in itself. Youtypically select cells before carrying out an actionon them (for example, to display two decimalplaces, or change text to bold type).

Click on Sheet1 again. We will now format allnumbers in column B to display two decimalplaces.

1. Select cells B2 to B16.2. The cell with the focus (white), in this case B2,

will determine how many decimal places appearin each cell.. Click Increase decimals and De-crease decimals until all cells show two deci-mals.

3. Repeat the same process with cells C2:D4.Click on Increase decimals and Decreasedecimals until all cells display two decimals.

Your model should now look like this:



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Formatting a cell means that all future en-tries in the cell will be shown with two decimalplaces, no matter what numbers you enter. Theformat is only changed by choosing another formatfor the cell.

If you are still unsure about how you select cells,format decimals or enter simple formula then youshould practice a little more now. Delete any extradata you type after practising before moving to thenext section.

Copying cellsWhen a formula is entered and you have checkedthat it works, it should then be copied to the otherrelevant cells.

Relative referencesThe formula we typed into C2 can be understoodas: ‘Take the value in the cell to the left and multi-ply it by 25%’. A cell reference is relative when itrefers to a cell which has a distinct position in rela-tion to the first cell, as here.

When you copy data it is the backgroundyou copy, not the result. When you copy a formulaone cell down, the relative cell references in theformula will also ‘follow’.

There are many ways to copy data. Which methodis best to use is dependant on where the copyshould end. Here I will concentrate on the twomethods I find most useful: One using thekeyboard and the other using the mouse.

Copy using the keyboardTo the right of the Copy and Paste commands onthe Edit menu you can see that the Ctrl+C andCtrl+V keys can also be used. I recommend thismethod when you want to paste the copied datainto cells not directly next to the cells you copiedfrom.

The principle is that the selected area is copied tothe Windows Clipboard, from where it can bepasted to a new cell or area in the spreadsheet (or inany other Windows program, for that matter).

The function is carried out by:

a) selecting the cell with the formula which shouldbe copied.

b) choosing Copyc) selecting the area which should ‘inherit’ the

formulad) and choosing Paste.Try the following example:

1. Use the arrow keys to select C4.2. Press Ctrl+C to copy the data. The dotted frame

around the selected cell indicates that the copyfunction has been initiated.

3. Select cells C5:C16 using Shift+Down arrow,and press Enter. Copy is now finished.

Copying cells


12

If the formula is to be copied to several ar-eas, then paste it by using Ctrl+V, which keeps thecopy function active. This means you can continuepasting it by using Ctrl+V. The copying is termi-nated by pressing Esc.

Press Down arrow to check the sales tax formulasone by one on the formula bar. I have cheated a lit-tle in the next picture and shown all formulas di-rectly in the cells for you to compare with yourown formulas:

Copy using the mouseNow you are going to copy the formula for theprice by using the mouse. I usually recommendusing the keyboard as much as possible, but have toadmit that for this operation the mouse is reallygood – a stroke of genius!

1. Click in cell D4 – this formula should be cop-ied.

2. Point the mouse to the smallblack square at the bottom righthand corner of the cell (thepointer changes to a little black cross) and thendrag the mouse down to cell D16 while holdingdown the left mouse button.

3. The instant you release the mouse button, thecopying is carried out automatically! Voila!

Notice the difference betweenselecting and copying. Whenyou select, all the cells areblack (except the first). Whenyou copy, all the cells arewhite.

Microsoft calls the little blacksquare an ‘Fill handle’because it copies or ‘fills thearea up’ with data dependingon the kind of data the cellcontains.

I will return to the ‘Fillhandle’ function on page 20.

There are buttons for both Copy and Paste on thetoolbar, but force yourself to use the methodsabove, it will pay off later.

Summing dataIt is now time to work out what our decoratingproject will cost in total. We could, of course, addthe individual cells together, but there is a fasterand more flexible method. Excel has many built infunctions, including one for summation of data. Allfunctions are built up in the following way:

=NAME(arguments)

NAME is the function name (what you want Excelto do for you). Arguments can be cells or other cal-culations. In our example the function is calledSUM, and the arguments are the cells which shouldbe added together as follows:

=SUM(B2:B15)

You can type the formula manually, but there is noneed. Microsoft has assumed that you will need tosum data in the majority of spreadsheets and hasdeveloped the following extremely effective andeasy to use function:

1. In A17 type Total: and press Enter.2. Cell B17 must contain the sum of all the

net prices. Click on the AutoSum buttonon the toolbar and wait a second. It is notenough that the formula has been written out foryou, Excel has also understood which cells youwant to add together (not so bad!).

Copying cells


13

The dotted frame surrounding your data showswhich cells the program suggests – because it isonly a suggestion. In the formula the cells areblack, meaning that all you need to do is over-write the references if they are incorrect.

3. Press Enter to accept the formula.4. Copy the sum formula for the sales tax and the

price from cell B17 to cells C17 and D17, withthe following results:

Instead of clicking on the AutoSum button,use the Alt+= keys (you are actually pressingAlt+Shift+0).

AutoSum calculates both horizontally and verti-cally on the same principle. Let us prove this bychanging the formula for calculating the total pricefor each material:

1. Select D2:D16 and press Delete. The cells areempty and the sum formula in D17 displays ‘0’.

2. Select cell D2 and click on AutoSum.3. Press Enter and click on AutoSum from cell

D3.4. Press Enter and repeat the click on AutoSum in

cell D4; but be careful, this time the suggestionis incorrect!

If there are numbers in both the cells aboveand to the left of the selected cell, Excel will sug-gest summing the numbers above. Vertical summa-tion takes priority over horizontal summation.

Even though AutoSum is smart and easy to useyou should still remember the principle of a spread-sheet: When a formula is inserted once, it shouldbe copied to the other relevant cells!

Undo the last formula by using Esc (Delete if youhave entered the formula using Enter) and insteadcopy the formula like this:

1. With D3 selected drag the Fill handle down toD16.If you drag it too far, you can drag the Fill han-dle back into the selected area. As long as thecells are selected you can expand or reduce thecopying.

2. Use an arrow key or click with the mouse in anyother cell to cancel the highlight.

Only version 7 and 97: If you need to see the sumof the numbers without having the result displayedin a cell, all you need to is select the cells and readthe result on the status line:

Click with the right mouse button on thefield in the status line and choose, if need be,another calculation of the selected numbers.

Our model is now ready. Try changing some of thenet prices and see how the calculations reflect thechanged numbers. You can also smarten the modelup a bit by adding a little colour and formatting, butI will tell you how to do this later. Just now it ismore important to repeat and emphasize the princi-ples involved in building up a formula. Yourspreadsheet should be saved so you do not lose itwhen you shut down your computer. You must beable to retrieve it again the next time you decorateyour house.

Copying cells


14

Save a fileThe first time you save a workbook you willbe asked to specify a name. Using the Filemenu, choose the Save or Save As command. Youcan also just click on the Save button on the tool-bar.

In the Save As dialog box you can choose anexisting folder (directory), or create a newone for the examples in this booklet. I would sug-gest the latter. If you feel unsure when workingwith folders and files you can follow the examplehere:

1. In the Save in field, choose C: (the computer’shard disk).

2. Click on the Create New Folder button andcall it Get going with Excel. Press Enter,which creates the folder and displays it in thelarge white field.

3. Double click on your newly created folder toopen it. The folder name should be in the Savein field:

4. Click on the File name field, delete the namesuggested by Excel and type DECORATING.Press Enter (or click OK ). Your spreadsheet isnow saved, and the dialog box disappears fromthe screen.

5. Notice that the file name now appears on the ti-tle bar (all Excel spreadsheet files have an XLS

extension).

For a more detailed explanation of how folders andfiles are managed, I suggest that you read the‘Windows95 Exercises’ booklet from KnowWare,or study Excel’s Help program.

Excel’s Help lets you search for assistance in moreways than Windows own Help program. I willquickly run through them in the next section.

Help


15

HelpWithout any doubt the programs of the futurewill contain larger and better Help programs andcome with thinner printed manuals.You have already seen how the Help function canwork. The small yellow ‘tips’ which appear next tothe buttons on the toolbar and the longer descrip-tion on the status line are both part of the completeHelp program.

The ‘real’ Help program is a kind of shortened usermanual which can be read on screen while you areworking.

If you have a standard installation of the program,the Help program will be available. If it is not, youcan run the installation program again and chooseto add it. To start the Help program, chooseHelp|Microsoft Excel Help or press F1. The Con-tents, Index and Find tabs work identically to theordinary Windows95 help.

In version 97 F1 will start an ‘Office Assistant’which will give you a tip and let you search for asubject.

The ‘Answer Wizard’ tabThe Answer Wizard tab lets you type in a questionusing ordinary language. Try writing in ‘How canI create a graph?’. The answers you get here arenot always as intelligent as your questions!

If you double click on the toolbar Help but-ton you go directly to the Answer Wizarddialog box.

Shift+F1It can be annoying trying to search for a functionwithout knowing what it is called. It is possible tosearch directly from the screen by clicking on theHelp button on the toolbar. The mouse pointerturns into a small arrow with a question mark (oruse Shift+F1). Now try clicking on the Cut buttonon the toolbar. A box appears giving you instanthelp for that function.

When you see the Help for a subject, youwill notice that some words in the help text arehighlighted (usually in green). This is called hy-pertext. Click on this text to get even more help.

TipWizardFinally there is the TipWizard tool, which tries tofollow your working method. If it thinks that youcould have performed a procedure in a better andmore effective way, it will suggest it. Well, that isthe theory…unfortunately the practice does not al-ways live up to expectations!

The TipWizard is represented by a little bulbon the toolbar which turns yellow when ithas a suggestion to make. Click on the button toread the Wizard tip.

The TipWizard pops up on its own toolbar or in itsown window. Close it by clicking again on theTipWizard button. This ‘switches off the light’ inthe bulb, and it is ready to ‘switch on again’ as youcarry on working.

Try keeping an eye on the bulb and clicking on itnext time it lights up yellow.

If you keep the TipWizard open it will continuous-ly display tips as you work.

In version 5 the options for searching for a textstring are not as developed as described here.

Help for dialog boxesIf you want help with a field or button in a dialogbox, then all you need to do is click it with the rightmouse button. You can also click on the smallquestion mark on the dialog box’s title bar, then onthe subject you want help with.

It seems unnecessary that Microsoft has inserted abutton with a question mark, as you can get helpfrom dialog boxes in Windows95 by clicking theright mouse button.

Household budget


16

Household budgetWhen I first installed Excel many years ago I onlyhad a vague idea what I could use it for. I had heardmuch about the program, and I was curious to try it.Well, I thought, it might also help me find out whymy budget never seemed to balance.

It was when I started that I realised that a spread-sheet did not just function like an adding machine.It could also show me the consequences of my in-surance rates increasing by 5% while my salaryonly increased 2% and my eldest son began to go tofencing…all I need do was type in a couple of fig-ures and my increased overdraft was calculated inmoment.

At first I found it frustrating that a task could becarried out in so many different ways. Which wasthe best? Wasn’t it enough for example just to beable to copy in one way?

Why not limit all these methods to one for themouse and one for the keyboard?…But on theother hand, who would go into a clothes shopwhich only stocked black and white sweaters, or arestaurant which only sold meatballs and mushypeas? People are so different that we need choice.So my task here is to guide you so you can choosethe method which is best for you.

I have decided to describe most of the optionsavailable while you are working with a weightytask. So you will not find a section which describescopying, for example, alone. Different techniqueswill be described several times, often in a more andmore detailed fashion, but always in situationswhere they are relevant. This will allow you to re-vise and go deeper into the most important func-tions. It might make it more difficult to look up asingle function, but if you work through this book-let several times I am sure that you will get themost out of this method. Before starting with ourexercise there are a couple of preferences I want tochange.

Permanent preferencesExcel comes with a number of default (standard)preferences. The idea is that you can change themas you work to optimise the program to your needs.

Try this on your own machine:

1. Click on the menu Tools|Options.2. The first tab we want to change the options on,

is the Edit tab:

I would strongly suggest that the following twofields are deselected:

1. Click on the Edit directly in cell and Move se-lection after Enter with the right mousebutton, to read what they mean. Remove thesmall tick in both fields to deselect them (clickon them).

2. Press Enter or click OK to close the dialog box.3. In the DECORATING file, select cell D17, and

press Enter – the cursor remains where it was,which makes it much easier to read and editformulas when they are entered.

4. Double click on the cell. The cells used in theformula are selected. Smart, especially whenyou refer to cells which are not immediatelyvisible.

I would suggest that you work for a whilewith both of these options deselected before youdecide whether to select them again.

Let us look at some other things you can do inTools|Options:

On the View tab you can change the screen picture.Gridlines are the small lines surrounding every cellin the spreadsheet. If you deselect them they willnot be seen on the screen or on a printout.

Later you will see that it is possible to print adocument without the gridlines, even though theyare shown on the screen.

Household budget


17

You should know about two fields on the Generaltab:

1. In the Sheets in New Workbook field youspecify how many spreadsheets new workbookscontains as default. Set the number of sheets tofour. You can always add more later.

2. In the Default File Location field you decidewhere Excel saves and looks for its files. Typein C:\Get going with Excel. When you are fin-ished working through the booklet you canchange it to another folder.

Incidentally, it is strange that you cannot click yourway to the folder. You have to write the exact pathto it yourself.

Press Enter to accept the changes and close thedialog box. Close the DECORATING file. If Excelasks you if you want to save the file, then chooseYes. The program will never close without givingyou the opportunity to save any changes you mayhave made.

The budgetWe are going to create a household budget forcovering income and expenditure. You can chooseto enter your own figures immediately, or begin byfollowing this example using my fictional figuresfor a family living in Denmark with two children,and change them to suit your own situation later.

Start by opening a new workbook (Ctrl+N or theNew Workbook button on the toolbar).

Your new workbook contains four spreadsheets.

In Sheet1 type the following text in columns A andB and adjust the width of column A until the ‘in-dentation’ of the text in column B is suitable:

You can use Excel’s suggestion that the text in B3should be the same as the text in B2. Press Enter toaccept the suggestion and change ‘husband’ to‘wife’.

A1 and A5 should be highlighted using bold type,which we will do simultaneously for both cells:

1. Select A12. Hold Ctrl down while you click on A5.3. Press Ctrl+B (or click on the Bold button).4. Cell B4 should be italic. Press Ctrl+I (or click

on the Italic button).

Several unconnected cells are selected byholding the Ctrl key down while you are selectingthe individual cells. When selecting adjoining cells,hold down the Shift key while pressing the arrowkeys (you can also click on the first cell and thenhold Shift down while you click on the last cell).Practice these important keys before you continue.

Insert rowsWhoops, I forgot to leave room for a heading at thetop of the spreadsheet. The budget should containthe income and expenditure for every month of theyear.

This is easily corrected by inserting a row whererow 1 is at present. We will try it first using themouse:

1. Click on the grey row number 1 on the left side,to select the entire row.

2. While pointing at the selected row, click theright hand mouse button. Choose Insert on theobject menu.

A click on the right mouse button will openthe object menu for the object the mouse ispointing at! You should point at one of the selectedcells before opening the object menu. Try pointingat a cell at random and clicking the right mouse

Household budget


18

button. Close the object menu using Esc. Repeatthe exercise a couple of times so you are sure youhave understood how it works.

We need to insert one more row. This time usingthe keyboard:

1. Select a cell in Row 1.2. Press Ctrl+Plus using the plus sign on the

numerical keyboard. If you have a laptop PC,without a numerical keyboard, you might needto press Ctrl+Shift+Plus. (Note that this optionalso works with some ordinary PC keyboards,and that the Windows Regional settings havean influence on how your keyboard functions.Try yours to see if it works).The following dialog box is displayed, allowingyou to choose what you want to insert:

3. Down arrow to Entire row and press Enter.

There you are! Any problems about positioning themouse exactly are eliminated.

Deleting rowsYou can delete rows in the same way by using ei-ther the mouse (choose Delete on the object menu)or the keyboard by pressing Ctrl+Minus and Downarrow to Entire row .

Insert/delete several rowsDrag the mouse over the rows you want to select,or use the keys like this:

1. First select a cell in every row by holding downShift while pressing the Down arrow.

2. Press Ctrl+Plus or CTRL+Minus and Down ar-row to Entire row and press Enter.Excel inserts or deletes just as many rows asthere were selected cells.

3. Delete or insert cells so your spreadsheet hastwo blank rows at the top (Income should be incell A3).

Inserting and deleting columnsLet us look at editing columns:

If you are using the mouse, all you need to do isclick on the column heading to select it. Other thanthat, everything is the same as when inserting/dele-ting rows.

On the keyboard do the following:

1. Select any cell, for example one in column B.2. Press Ctrl+Plus and Down arrow to Entire

Column.3. Press Enter to close the dialog box and insert a

column. The existing columns move to theright.

Repeat the exercise with more columns using thesame method (select several cells using Shift+Rightarrow), and then delete them again. Keep tryinguntil it becomes second nature.

Font and font sizeA1 is to contain the heading for the entire spread-sheet. Type Household budget 1997 here, andpress Enter. The text should be larger and in adifferent font to the rest of the spreadsheet:

1. Click on the Font field on the toolbar.2. Move down and choose the Times New Roman

font.3. Choose 20 in the Font size field. The size is

given in points, a point being approximately0.35 millimetres. (You could try typing in aformula which calculates the size of letters inmm).

Household budget


19

If you are looking for a specific appearance foryour heading and do not know what the font iscalled, it is better to use the Font dialog box:

1. With the cursor still in cell A1, open the objectmenu using the right mouse button and chooseFormat Cells…

2. Choose the Font tab and click on a name in theFont field. An example showing what the fontlooks like is displayed at the bottom right of thedialog box.

3. Use the arrow keys to move around in the in-stalled fonts. When you find the one you want,choose its size, style and any other effects andpress Enter to confirm your choice (rememberthat Esc will let you cancel it). Choose a fontand size you like for your heading. The nextpicture shows the Preview and Font fields:

A field needs to be selected before you canuse the arrow keys to move around in it. Thereforeyou need to click on the Font field before using thearrow keys to select a font. You can also press theTabulator key until the field has focus.

Choose a size of 12 points for the words Incomeand Expenses in cells A3 and A7.

Continue typing under Expenses inserting the fol-lowing text:

The text in A8, A12 and A16 is formatted to bebold, while the text in B11, B15 and B21 is italic.

Depending on the size of your screen you might notbe able to see the top rows. Use the scroll bar onthe far right, or the Ctrl+Home keys. The latter isrecommended as it selects cell A1 immediately.

Whoops, I forgot a couple of categories, so you willneed to insert a couple of rows:

1. Insert a blank row between Mortgage (B9) andElectricity (B10)and type in Heating (row 10).

2. Between Insurance (B19) and Repairs andMaintenance (B20) there should be a row withthe text Petrol & oil (row 20).

The months should be typed in the empty secondrow:

1. Type January in C2 and press Right arrow.2. In D2 type Febr…hang on a moment! Press

Esc to cancel your typing and read this:

If Excel really is smart, the programmers atMicrosoft must have come up with a smart functionhere. Think how often you have to type everymonth of the year in a new spreadsheet?

Let us look a bit closer at the Fill handle:

Fill (series)


20

Fill (series)You have already tried copying a few times usingthe Fill handle at the bottom right of a cell. Whileyou were dragging the handle, the status linecryptically informed you: ‘Drag outside selectionto extend series or fill, drag inside to clear’.Honestly, who has understood that …!

Once again Microsoft has introduced another nerdterm to the computer branch: ‘Fill’. Even thoughthe text may appear confusing it is actually tellingyou about a simply amazing function.. Try this ex-ample:

1. Select cell C2 (type January and press Enter ifnot already done).

2. Use the mouse to grab onto the Fill handle anddrag it to the right. When you get about halfway through cell D2, a dotted frame appears.

3. Still keeping the left mouse button down keepan eye on the field above column A. It usuallyshows which cell is selected, but now it showsthe word February.

4. Still with the mouse button down keep draggingto the right until you reach December (cell N2).

5. If you drag too far (when you hit the edge of thewindow the screen picture can roll very fast),then just drag back to N2.

If you dragged to far and accidentally relea-sed the mouse button, just grab hold on the Fillhandle again and drag into the selected area todelete the extra text (this is what the words ‘…draginside to clear’ means).

One of the basic principles of Excel is that all triv-ial and repetitious insertions should be performedby the program.

And before you come to the conclusion that this isall the function can do, follow this example:

1. Click on the sheet tab for Sheet3. We can usethis to play with.

2. Type Monday in any cell, press Enter and dragdownwards with the Fill handle…

3. In another cell, type JAN, press Enter and dragthe Fill handle horizontally or vertically (but notdiagonally). Notice that the program continuesto use capital letters.

4. Try typing a list with June and then drag theFill handle. Excel does not mind which monthyou start with.

5. Type 1st quarter in yet another cell and repeatthe procedure. Try dragging further than 4thquarter (if you use the English version ofExcel, it starts again at 1st quarter. If you use itin another language, type it as you usually do,for example ‘1. quarter’).

So how does a function find out when it shouldcopy and when it should make a series like the oneswe have just seen?

Let us try some numbers. Type 1997 in a cell anddrag. What do you end up with?

Now type Year 1997 in another cell and drag.

The function differentiates between numbers andtext. When you mix text and numbers in a cell thewhole entry is taken to be text and the function al-lows the number part to grow.

On the other hand, a ‘pure’ number is simply cop-ied, which is wise…in a moment we will type themortgage payments into the budget. The number isthe same every month, so in this case you need tocopy. It would be a little embarrassing if the func-tion made your mortgage increase by a pound everymonth.

Let us imagine that you want to type a series ofnumbers starting with 12 and growing by 6 everytime (cell). It is done like this:

1. Type 12 in one cell and 18 in the cell under it.2. Select both cells. Now the program knows that

it should start the number series with 12 and in-crease it in steps of 6.

3. Drag the Fill handle as far as you want.

Now try with other number series, like percentagesand dates (dates should be typed using hyphens orslashes, for example 10/08/97).

Fill (series)


21

It will pay you to try the following if youoften need to insert dates. Type a date in a cell,and drag using the Fill handle and the right mousebutton. When you release the mouse button you canuse the object menu to choose how the seriesshould be carried on. If you choose Fill WeekdaysExcel leaves out the weekends (and it alsorecognises leap years…and has no problem withthe year 2000. Someone has obviously used theirgrey matter at Microsoft).

Creating your own listsDo you often need to type the same data, likenames, stock numbers. etc?

Then you can create your own lists, which functionin exactly the same way as Excel’s own built inlists.

1. Type a number of names, or other relevant text.2. Select all the names or text and choose Tools,

Options and the Custom Lists tab.3. Click on the Import button:

You can correct your own lists in the Listentries field.

When you want to use your list, just type one of thenames in a cell and drag using the Fill handle. Thelist starts with the name you wrote and continues inthe correct order.

The lists you create are available in all futureworkbooks.

Fill (series)


22

Numbers and formulas in our budgetClick back to Sheet1 where we will now typenumbers and formulas. Type the numbers withoutthinking about formatting at the moment.

We will start with income:

1. The husband has a monthly net income of 9585kr . Type this amount in cell C4.

2. His wife earns net 10250 kr . Type this amountinto C5.

3. Copy both incomes to the other months usingCtrl+C and Enter.

The formula for Total income should be typed intoC6 and copied. The formula could be given as=C4+C5, but this would not be particularly flexi-ble. If you add further rows with other incomes at alater time, these will not appear in the summation.Instead we use the function =SUM(C4:C5), whichallow us to insert rows between rows four and five,and include them in the formulas. We willdemonstrate that later.

You can use the Autosum button, but try using thefollowing keys instead:

1. Select C6.2. Press Alt+= and the formula is ready:

3. Press Enter and copy the formula to the othermonths.

The mortgage for our fictional family’s apartmentis constant, but the heating and electricity is basedon a shared basis. (This is a Scandinavian system,where the total is taken for the entire building, andshared out among the tenants in direct proportion tothe floor area of their apartments). The mortgage is3875 kr . per month, which you type in Januaryand copy.

The heating bill for the entire building last yearwas 10875 kr. per month, and the family’sapartment has a floor area corresponding to 0.12 ofthe total. So the formula for calculating the total is=10875*0,12.

The final monthly payment for heating is actuallynot finalised yet, and our family would like to beable to see the effect of any changes. And the wayit is divided could also be changed. If we choose totype 10875 and 0.12 in every formula we wouldhave to change every single one if either of the fig-ures changes. At the risk of repetition I will justrepeat a point from earlier in the booklet:

It is totally wrong to insert variables in aformula. They should be put in separate cells. Allformulas which use this variable will get the valuefor this cell. If a variable is changed, just correctthis one cell and the entire spreadsheet will beupdated!

With this in mind we will create an area to use forvariables:

1. Insert five rows above the spreadsheet so thatwe can easily see the variables while we workwith the formulas.

2. Type Total apartment block: in A1.3. Continue typing as follows:

The formula for calculating the amount of heatingused should appear as in the next illustration, butwait just a moment before typing it.

First I want to show you two easier methods forentering formulas. One method using the mouseand one using the keyboard.

Numbers and formulas in our budget


23

Selecting formulasThe more complex formulas become, and the moreof them you enter, the greater the chance becomesof making mistakes when you type them yourself.Use this method instead:

1. With C15 selected type = to anchor the cursorto the cell.

2. Click on C3. A dotted frame surrounds the cell.Notice the text ‘Point’ on the left on the statusline. If you click in the wrong cell just carry onclicking until you hit the correct one.

3. Press *, and then you are ready to click on thenext cell.

4. Click on C2 and press Enter.

You can also select the cells using the arrowkeys, a method which is preferable when they areclose together.

When you have begun to type a formula, thearrow keys can only be used for pointing out cells.This is the reason that entering a formula must al-ways be finished by pressing Enter!

Save the budgetBefore continuing you should save your budget. Incontrast to many other programs Excel does notautomatically save its spreadsheets at fixed inter-vals. (In fact this can be set, but to do it is sotroublesome that it appears the program designershave never intended this function to be used).

Click on the Save button, or use the Ctrl+S keys.Type Household budget and press Enter (the filewill be saved in our standard folder). I would sug-gest that you press Ctrl+S regularly to save the datayou enter. (In the branch it used to be said that:‘Real men never backup their data’ – later it wassaid that ‘Real men cry often’…I know what theymean!).

Absolute cell referencesThe formula for calculating the monthly cost ofheating is ready for copying…or is it?

Try and copy the formula from C15 one cell to theright. There is something wrong here, the result inD15 is zero! Select D15 and see if you can workout yourself what is wrong with the formula beforeyou go on.

The formula you have copied was told to use thecontent of the cell positioned 12 rows above it inthe same column, and multiply it with the cell 13rows above it. When you copied the formula tocolumn D Excel remembered these relativereferences and moved them to column D. Theprogram did not make a mistake, it did exactlywhat it was asked to. Experience has taught methat:

‘the greatest cause of errors is sitting 40cm in frontof the screen …’

So we have to find a way to explain to the programthat the references should be fixed, no matterwhere we copy the formula to.



24

This fixing of a reference to a cell is called an ab-solute reference, and is defined using a $ (dollar)character in front of both the column and row refer-ence, like this:

=$C$3*$C$2

Why a $ character?

Well, I cannot really give you a good reason, butwould guess that it is because it was the Americanswho invented the spreadsheet. No matter, it is stan-dard in all spreadsheet programs.

But this does not mean that you should type a $character in yourself. Use the F4 key instead:

1. Select C15.2. Press F2 to edit the cell, and use the Left arrow

until the cursor is placed by the reference to C3(it does not matter if the cursor is in front, in themiddle or at the end of the reference).

3. Press F4. The reference is now locked to cellC3. Try pressing F4 again. Now only the row islocked, and pressing F4 yet again will lock thecolumn only:

4. A last press will remove the lock from every-thing. Finally press F4 to lock the column androw references.

5. Use the Right arrow to move the cursor to theother side of the multiplication sign. Press F4again. Now C2 is locked. Now press Enter (theresult should be 1350).

6. You can now copy the formula to the heatingfor all the other months (D15:N15).

When you edit a formula using F2, thearrow keys can be used for moving backwards andforwards on the formula line.

Now try changing the result of the monthly heatingbill by typing the overall use of the building in cellC3 to 16000. The moment you press Enter, youhave the new figures for each month. Go back tothe original figure by pressing undo (Ctrl+Z). Tryusing other figures for the apartment’s share to seewhat happens to the total.

The formula for Electricity should be typed in andmade absolute. This time we will do it all in oneprocess:

1. Select C16, type = and click on C4.2. Press F4 and type * .3. Click on C2 and press F4.4. Press Enter (result 399).

We will now copy the formula using the keyboard:

1. Select C16 and press Ctrl+C. Notice the text inthe status line.

2. Use Shift+Right arrow to select the cellsD16:N16 and press Enter.

Calculate the Total house expenses in C17 byusing the sum formula. Remember the Alt+= keys.

For January the formula looks like:

=SUM(C14:C16)

and the result should be: 5624 kr.

Copy the formula to the other months using thekeyboard.

Year totalWe still have to add the monthly figures to get atotal for the year. In O7 type the text Total: , and inO9 use the Alt+= keys to sum the formula. Theresult should be 115020 kr.

All the rows containing data should be summed.Of course you could just copy the sum formula allthe way from O9 to O17, but that will also insertthe formula in cells O12 and O13. Instead use thekeys for copying:

1. Select O9 and press Ctrl+C.2. Select the area O10:O11 and press Ctrl+V. You

should not press Enter, as that would finish thecopying. When using Ctrl+V to paste, the copyfunction is still active. In this way you caninsert the formula everywhere you want it.

3. Move the cursor to O14 and select the areaO14:O17 by using Shift+Down arrow. Sincewe are not going to continue copying after this



25

range, you can press Enter. (If you want to stopcopying without inserting data, press Esc).

Check your formulasType another apartment share in C2. Now all theformulas react to the changed number.

Use undo (Ctrl+Z) to swap between the two lastentries while you check that all the formulas forheating, electricity and Total house expenseschange.

Continue typing the following data. When youcopy the data, try using the keyboard, it will pay offin the long run.

Insurance:

Home:January...............................................1950July.....................................................1950

Accident:December.............................................975

Transport:

Car loan:Each month........................................1950

Car tax:March...................................................995

Insurance (car):January...............................................1215April...................................................1215July.....................................................1215October ..............................................1215

Petrol and oil:Every month ........................................500

Repairs & maintenance:January.................................................800July.......................................................800

Now you have a number of cells with data, andsome without. There is no problem with that, butthe empty cells make it difficult for Excel to workout which cells should be summed when you enterformula for Total insurance, Total transport anda year total.

Select C28, Total transport and press Alt+= orclick on the AutoSum icon. Now the cellsC25:C27 are selected – the empty cell C24 stoppedthe selection, so that Car loan and Car tax werenot included.

Change the formula using this method:

1. You have to select the correct cells yourself.Select cells C23:C27 instead and press Enter(Remember that the Autosum only suggestscells. As long as they are highlighted in blackyou can change the selection. Now you cancopy the formula to the remaining months (toN28).

2. Type the formula for Total insurance (C21)and copy it to the remaining months.

The formula for the calculation of the year’s totalin column O has the same problem – there are anumber of empty cells each month. It seems thatMicrosoft want blank cells to surround an area.

Therefore cells which are part of an area should notbe empty. Instead they should contain a value of ‘0’(zero), as an accountant would expect.

1. Insert a ‘0’ (zero) in every empty cell in the areaC19:N20.

2. Insert a ‘0’ (zero) in every empty cell in the areaC24:N27.

3. Type a sum formula in O19 and copy it toO20:O21 and O23:O28. Remember to copyusing Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V.

Your spreadsheet should now look like this:



26

NavigationWhen you want to move around in a large spread-sheet (Microsoft calls it navigating) it is not so easyto use the mouse and the scroll bars. Think about it.You type data using the keyboard and have tobreak off, move your hand to the mouse, move themouse pointer, click and then go back to thekeyboard. It is much easier to keep your hands onthe keyboard for the entire operation.

If you use the mouse constantly, sooner or later itwill result in problems with your wrist and shoul-der, so stick with the keyboard.

Try the following keys until you feel relaxed usingthem. Write them out on a piece of paper and put itnext to your keyboard in the beginning.

Home

Selects the first cell in the row.

Ctrl+Home

Selects cell A1.

Ctrl+Arrow

Selects the last cell containing data in the directionof the arrow. When the cells are empty the cursor

will move to the last row or column in the directionof the arrow.

Try pressing Ctrl+Right arrow – cursor is now incolumn IV . Press Ctrl+Down arrow – the cursor isnow in the last cell in the spreadsheet (IV16384 =4.194.304 cells !!!).

In version97 there are 65536 rows. There is nochance of running out of space.

F5

Opens a ‘Go to’ dialog box. Type the address of thecell you want to move to in the Reference field(for example CD1250) and press Enter. Press F5again, type D48 and press Enter. Press F5 again.All the cells you have jumped to are displayed inthe Go to area. Try to double click on one of them.These references disappear when you exit theworkbook.

When you keep pressing the F5 key, the programwill keep suggesting that you jump back to whereyou have just jumped from.

Smart detail!

Formatting


27

FormattingNow it is time to smarten up the appearance of ourspreadsheet.

The heading in row 7 should be centered and for-matted in bold:

1. Click on the row number to select the entire rowand choose bold by using Ctrl+B (if you runExcel in an other language, the letter used withCtrl might be different. Use the letter shown onthe button).

2. With the row still selected centre all textby using the Center button (there is nokey for centering data!).

All numbers should bedisplayed with two decimalplaces. You can choosebetween several methodswhen you have to select a lotof data, as here. You can select entire rows, orentire columns, or even the entire spreadsheet(click on the small grey field at the intersection ofthe row numbers and column letters). There is justone problem with formatting the entire sheet.

It can lead to printing problems, and will mostdefinitely slow down the machine…just think howmany cells have to be worked through for no rea-son. So we will format only the cells containingdata using the following method:

1. Select the area C9:O28 (Shift+Arrow keys).2. Click on the Increase decimal keys until all

numbers display two decimals.This will help a little, but it would be even eas-ier if the thousands were also selected by com-mas: 1,000.00 (Note: Many countries use apoint for thousands, and a comma for decimals.The way your spreadsheet displays will dependon the Regional settings in Windows controlpanel).

3. Now click on the Comma style (youreally need to have tried this button tounderstand what it does.).

In version 5 this button is called ‘Decimal separa-tor’ (I don’t think that name is any better).

Now all numbers have thousand separators and aredisplayed to two decimal places. But that is easy

enough for me to say, for you can probably seenothing more than some mystic ‘noughts andcrosses’ (hatches) in your fields: ######.

These characters (called hatches, and meaning‘number’), tell you that the columns are not wideenough to display the numbers.

We have seen earlier that if there is not enoughspace in a cell to display all the text, it is simply cutshort. Luckily Microsoft has chosen a differentprocedure with numbers…if not, can you imaginethe chaos: You type 17,000,000 – but there is notenough space in the cell, so Excel just removes thelast three zeros!

Version 97: When you type or format numbers, theprogram automatically adjusts the width of thecolumn. This only works with cells containing dataother than text (numbers, dates or time).

We need to adjust the column’s width, which wedo in a single process, like this:

1. Select the relevant columns. If you still havecells C9:O28 selected this is very easy: pressCtrl+Space. Otherwise you will have to dragthe mouse over all the column headings (from Cto O).

2. Now double click between two of the selectedcolumns. It does not matter which columns youchoose. All columns width will be individuallyadjusted.

Let the columns remain selected while you try thefollowing:

A double click adjusts every selected columnto their individually required width. If you want allcolumns to have the same width, then drag theright border of one of the selected columns. Whenyou release the mouse, all the other columns in theselection will be given the same width as thecolumn you adjusted.

Now you can see all the numbers. Note that there isa little extra space on the right hand side of thecells. This is a rather special format Microsoft hasdefined. The appearance of the numbers is depend-ant on your Windows set-up. Let us just test that:

Formatting


28

1. Select the cells C9:O28.2. Click on the Currency style button.

Adjust your column width again if necessary. Nowall your numbers will display the currency unitdefined in Control Panel, Regional settings.

Remember that a cell has two layers. We have justformatted the foreground layer, while the back-ground layer, the formula, remain unaffected. Youcan check this by changing a number in one of theformatted cells. Try typing 12000 in cell C9. Assoon as you press Enter the number will bedisplayed in the format you have chosen for thecell. Return to the original number by using Ctrl+Z.

Notice that the zeroes in the ‘empty’ cells areshown as dashes. (This is applied by both currencystyle and comma style).

Excel and WindowsThis booklet is not about Windows…but all pro-grams using Windows are dependant on a its confi-guration, as discussed above when formatting cellsusing the currency style.

Without closing or minimisingExcel click on the Start buttonand choose Settings, Controlpanel. Activate the Regional Settings program.

Version 5 uses Windows 3.1, where Control Panelis found in the System group.

I assume that the value in the Regional Settingstab is English (British), but it could be any one of anumber of languages. This sets a standard for num-bers, currency symbol, time and date. The Numbertab shows the decimal and thousands separator(English speaking countries standard: 1,250.00). Ifyou work on a machine which shows the decimalas a comma, then it is probably set up tocontinental European standard (French, German,Danish, etc. etc.).

The Currency tab shows the currency symbol usedby Excel (and other programs). If you are on thedefault English (British) setting, then the £ signwill be there. Maybe you are sitting in a Britishcompany in Japan, working with Japaneseaccounts, and have defined ¥ as your currencysymbol.

You can set all the individual values in Regionalsettings to your own needs. Check that the cur-rency is what it should be, and at the same timespecify that it should be placed in front of bothnegative and positive amounts:

Click on Apply and OK to close the Regional set-tings program and the Control panel window.Return to the household budget. All the cells for-matted with currency style has been adjusted toyour new settings.

Toggling formatsSelect the area C9:O28 like this:

1. Select cell C9.2. Hold Shift down while you press Ctrl+Down ar-

row. Excel selects to the next blank cell. Keepholding down Shift and continue to press theDown arrow until the selection has reached thelast row of data..

3. Continue holding Shift down and pressCtrl+Right arrow.

Even though selecting using the keyboard demandsquite a few strokes, it is by far the most precisemethod.

Shift between the Comma format and Currencyformat . Notice that the numbers do not actuallychange place. The only difference is the display ofyour currency unit.

You remove a format by choosing another.

Excel and Windows


29

You can choose to delete only some of acell’s many properties. Choose Clear on the Editmenu. If you choose to clear only the Formats, thedata in the cell remains untouched.

There are a multitude of formats to choose be-tween. With the cells C9:O28 still selected, pressCtrl+1 or open the object menu (right mousebutton) and choose Format Cells. Click on theNumber tab. (Ctrl+E is used in some languageversions of the program).

Version 97: The Ctrl+1 keys open the FormatCells dialog box, which is slightly changed in ap-pearance. It allows you, among other things, torotate the contents of a cell in 1 degree increments.

Click on the different options in the Category fieldand keep watching the Example field.

Later on you will define your our own formats.

Version 5 only displays formats as codes (the sameas the formats in the Custom in version 7 and Userdefined in version 97). Code formats are describedon page 39.

More dataWe still have to type the household expenses.

Type the following data under the existing:

This is the time to look at the options for viewingall your data on screen, before typing the numbersand formula for the new items.

Viewing the spreadsheetOur model has now become so large that it is diffi-cult to keep track on the individual data. Using thearrow keys, move to O28 – Total transport (pressF5, type O28 and press Enter). Depending on thesize of your screen and its resolution, you probablycannot see any of the headings. It would be anadvantage to keep the text in columns A and B andalso the months in row 7 fixed on the screen as youscroll through the data. There are several differentways to do precisely that:

ZoomWe will start by testing the entire budget on yourscreen.

1. Press Ctrl+Home to select A1.2. Click on the Zoom button on the toolbar. Try

choosing 50%. Now you can probably see the

entire spreadsheet, but can you read it? Now try75%, I’m sure that is better.

3. Notice that you can click onthe Zoom field, type anumber (you do not need totype %) and press Enter. Try with differentvalues until all the data is visible on screen. Canyou read it?

Let us just try a smart detail:Select some cells, try withA6:E18. Now choose Selectionon the Zoom drop down box. Thislets you quickly zoom in and outon different areas of the spread-sheet. This does not, of course,ensure that some areas are alwaysvisible, which is the function we need to look atnow.

Viewing the spreadsheet


30

Return to 100% zoom before continuing.

Freeze panesFreeze panes gives the option of certain columnsand rows always appearing on the screen. Selectthe first ‘free’ cell. When you choose to Freezepanes all the columns to the left and rows abovewill be ‘frozen’. We want to freeze row 7 andcolumns A and B. With this in mind, select C8 andchoose Window|Freeze panes. A vertical andhorizontal line show where the freezing has takeneffect. Try using the arrow keys to move around inthe spreadsheet. Ctrl+Home usually selects A1, butnow the cursor stops at the first ‘free’ cell. You canstill move into the locked area using either thearrow keys or the mouse.

Switch the function off again using Window|Unfreeze panes.

We do not need to see the total house charges whilewe work with the budget, but we do want as muchspace as possible for displaying data. Follow theexample here:

1. Without freezing the panes, scroll down thespreadsheet until row 7 is the first visible row.

2. Select C8 freeze the panes. Now only row 7 isvisibly locked:

In the Name box just above column A you can seethat the cursor can move up into the top rows usingthe Up arrow, even though they are not visible:

The following data should now be entered, whilethe panes are frozen.

More dataType the following data. Remember to type a zeroin the months not named:

Cell: Text/month: Data:

A29: Household etc.

B30: Telephone:January...................................825April .......................................745July.........................................715October ..................................830

B31: TV-license:January and July ....................859

If you want yet another shortcut for copying thedata below, just type the following numbers andwait copying until you have read next section.

Cell: Text/month: Data:

B32: Food & household:Every month.........................7200

B33: Bank loan:Every month.........................2250

B34: Total Household etc.

Quick copy using the keysYou already know the principles of copying. TheCtrl+C and Ctrl+V keys are effective, and the Fillhandle is smart, but you have to use the mouse.Instead, try this to see how creative the folks atMicrosoft have been:

1. Using Alt+= and Enter insert the formula forTotal Household etc. in cell C34 (result:11.134 kr.).

2. Select from C34 to N34 (December) usingShift+Right arrow.

3. Press Ctrl+R. That is it (‘R’ for ‘Right’).

Version 5: Use Ctrl+J instead (Ctrl+R is used tohide the selected rows).

In the same way you can copy vertically usingCtrl+D (‘D’ for ‘Down’) after selecting. Try itusing the year totals:

1. In O30, Total telephone type a sum formulausing Alt+= and Enter.

2. With the cursor in O30 use Shift+Down arrowto select the area O30:O34.

3. Press Ctrl+D.

Lets continue with the last formula:

Viewing the spreadsheet


31

1. In row 35, Total expenses, all expenses shouldbe added together. The formula for January inC35 looks like this:

Built the formula by pressing = and go to C17using the arrow keys. Type + and select the nextcell etc. Press Enter when the formula is ready.Now try double-clicking on the cell. Are thecorrect cells selected? (result: 23,173 kr.)

2. Copy the cell to the other months and pressHome and Down arrow (selects C36).

3. Type the formula for income – expenses in C36(=C11-C35) and copy it to the other months.The result in C36 should be -3.338 kr.

4. Create a sum formula in cells O34:O36. Thetotal result for the year in O36 should be:10,569.00 kr.

That is a comfortable surplus, even though Januaryand July are in the red.

All the rows containing totals should have the sameappearance as the text in columns A and B.

You can select several unconnected cells orareas by holding down Ctrl while you are selecting.

Follow these instructions exactly as written:

1. Select row 11, hold Ctrl down and select theother rows (17, 21, 28 and 34).

2. Press Ctrl+I or click on the Italic button.3. Adjust the column width as necessary (remem-

ber that you can adjust all columns simulta-neously).

4. Rows 35 and 36 should be in bold. Select themand press Ctrl+B or click on the Bold button. AsA35 is already bold, the first thing happening isthat the bold format is removed from allselected cells. Press Ctrl+B or click the Boldbutton again.

All the new data should be formatted using theCurrency format button, to give the same ap-pearance. Do that now.

SaveIf you have not already done so, save all the chan-ges you have made to our budget by clicking theSave button or pressing Ctrl+S.

SummaryYou have now tried just about all the functionsnecessary for building up a large spreadsheet.

Maybe it is a good idea to stop a moment and re-vise some of the most important functions.

I want to focus on the principles of absolute refer-ences.

Leave the household budget on the screen, andopen the DECORATING.XLS using the Ctrl+O keys orthe Open button.

At the bottom of the Window menu you can nowsee that both files are open. Click on the file youwant to work with, or use Ctrl+Tab, to avoid usingthe menu and mouse.

The supplier we are buying from is a mail ordercompany. Apparently they want to deliver thegoods directly from their warehouse in Sweden.

What we thought was Danish kroner, turns out tobe Swedish kroner, which is cheaper as theSwedish kroner is worth less than the Danish (at

this time). First, calculate the net price of theordered goods in Danish kroner, then the sales taxand finally calculate the gross price. We will bepaying Danish sales tax, but it would be interestingto see what the result would be with another sales.

The exchange rate for the Swedish kroner andDanish sales tax should be placed in its own cell,so it can be changed quickly if necessary. Try itnow:

1. Insert a new row 2 (Ctrl+Plus and Down arrowto Entire Row).

2. Insert a new column C (Ctrl+Plus and Down ar-row to Entire Column).

3. Change the text in B1 to Net price SEK: and inC1 to Net price DKK:

4. Adjust the column width.5. Insert the exchange rate 0.88 in C2 and the

sales tax rate to 25% in D2.

Summary


32

6. Format rows 1 and 2 with bold, and center C2and D2.

The two top rows should now look like this:

You are now ready to build a formula which willcalculate the net price in Danish kroner:

The formula in C3 should multiply the Swedish netprice in B3 with the exchange rate in C2. In C4 thenet price in B4 should be multiplied by theexchange rate in C2 etc. The reference to C2 isused in all column C formulas and should thereforebe absolute.

When the same cell is to be used in severalformulas, the reference to it should be absolute.

Have a go at inserting and copying the formulayourself first. Use the arrow keys to select the dif-ferent cells and for copying.

How did it go?

This is how I would have done it:

1. Select C3 and type =.2. Press Left arrow to select B3.3. Type ‘* ’ and press Up arrow to select C2.4. Press F4 to lock the reference (make it absolu-

te). The formula should now read =B3*$C$2.5. Press Enter and select down to C17 using

Shift+Down arrow.6. Press Ctrl+D to copy the formula.7. Type a new exchange rate in C2 and check us-

ing Ctrl+Z, that all the net prices change.

It is important to understand why we used a combi-nation of relative and an absolute reference here!

The formula for calculating the sales tax should notcontain a value of 25%, but should get a value fromcell D2.

1. Select D3 and press F2 to edit the formula.2. Delete 25%. Try pressing Up arrow – nothing

happens, because you are in the process of edit-ing. Press F2 again.

3. Now you can press Up arrow to select D2. PressF4 to lock (make absolute) the reference (theformula should read =C3*$D$2)

4. Press Enter and select the area D3:D17.5. Press Ctrl+D to copy the formula.6. Type a new sales tax and check that the

dependant cells adjust correctly.7. Copy the sum formula in B18 to C18.

Check the sum formula in E3. It is incorrect at themoment, as it adds together all three cells to the leftof it.

Change the formula so that it only adds C3 and D3together, and then copy it.

With an exchange rate of 0.88 and sales tax at25%, the total price (in cell E18) should be2,592.64 kr.

F2 switches editing on and off: Press F2once to edit the contents of a cell, and F2 againwhen you want to point to a cell reference. PressEnter when you are finished.

Version 97: When editing a formula using F2 theinvolved cells will be shown in a different colour.

Save AsOur new model should be saved, but we want tokeep the original DECORATING as well. Using F12or File|Save As change the name to DECORATING –SWEDISH and close the workbook.

Formatting the household budget


33

Formatting the household budgetOur household budget should be made more at-tractive and easier to read.

The gridlines on the screen seldom look good on aprintout. The effect is much stronger if you justhave lines where you want them to be, to highlightor separate your data.

Rather than defining all frames and colours manu-ally, the program can do it all for you with a builtin automatic function:

AutoFormatOne of the smartest things with Excel is that you donot have to select a consecutive area first. All youhave to do is select just one of the cells in the area.Try it on your own computer:

1. On the Household budget sheet, start bychoosing the Window menu and the Unfreezepanes command. Press Ctrl+Home to see theentire spreadsheet.

2. Save the changes in the file (Ctrl+S or the Savebutton). You can always return to the originalappearance.

3. Select any cell in the household budget, C10will do fine.

4. Choose the Format menu and the AutoFormatcommand. Notice how all connected cells in theentire budget are automatically selected. If youhad left an empty row or column somewherethen Excel would have stopped selecting there.

5. The Down arrow lets you move among the dif-ferent options in the Table format field, and

also displays an example of each of them in thecentre of the dialog box.

6. Choose a format and press Enter.7. Look at the different areas of the spreadsheet

and see how they are formatted.8. Choose the Format menu and the AutoFormat

command again, and choose another format foryour spreadsheet.

9. Repeat point 8 above as often as you want.

AutoFormat is a quick method to format yourspreadsheet, even though you have only a limitedinfluence over what the program actually does. Imainly use the function when I am busy and haveto prepare some data for printing in a hurry.

If you want to make your spreadsheet more per-sonal, using the AutoFormat function is not such agood idea.

You can decide just how much the functionwill change the appearance of your data. Click onthe Options button in the AutoFormat dialog boxand remove the check marks in the fields you donot want changed by the function.

Removing an AutoFormatAn applied AutoFormat can be removed the follo-wing way:

1. Choose Format|AutoFormat and None in theTable format list (at the bottom). As you cansee, all formatting except the number formats isremoved.



34

2. Luckily we were sensible enough to save ourspreadsheet before we played with theAutoFormat function. Close the file and clickNo when you are asked if you want to savechanges, then open it again.

Remember that you can always find the last fouropened files at the bottom of the File menu. It iseasy to open a file using the keyboard:

1. Press Alt+F (the Alt key activates the menu line,while F is the underlined letter in the menuname).

2. Press the number corresponding to the file youwant to open (1 will always be the last savedfile).

Use AutoFormat to quickly format aspreadsheet, which you can ‘personalise’afterwards by using manual formatting.

Manual formattingI do not think that our budget looks particularlygood – the figures are fine, it is just its appearance Iam unhappy with. I must admit that I was not veryconsistent in my formatting. I will do somethingabout this now, using the data to help me find asuitable format for each part of the spreadsheet.

The Total income heading in B11 should actuallyhave been entered A11, and have been in Bold in-stead of in italic:

You have probably already guessed that data can bemoved in many different ways.

I will demonstrate the two most used methods.

Moving data using the mouseIf you work with the computer in the same way asme, you will already have discovered that themouse is not the easiest tool to control. It is verysensitive and needs a good deal of precision to beused efficiently.

It is very important to keep an eye on the mousepointer’s appearance as you move the mouse. Themouse pointer can have three basic differentappearances. You have seen two of them earlier inthe booklet:

Select:The mouse pointer is alarge white cross.

Fill & copy:Demands precision mousework.

Move:Point at the frame of theselected cell or area, and themouse pointer changes appearance to an arrow.

1. In the Household budget, select A13 and moveit to B13 by dragging, using the mouse whenthe mouse pointer is an arrow.

2. Move cell A18 to B18.3. Move cell A22 to B22.4. Move cell A29 to B29.5. Format row 11 to be Bold and not Italic using

Ctrl+I and Ctrl+B.

Moving data using the keyboardIt is not practical to have the Total apartment blockexpenses at the top of the spreadsheet. They shouldnot appear in a place where they tend to dominatethe entire budget. When data is to be movedoutside the viewing area, the keyboard is betterthan the mouse.

1. Select cells A1:C4.2. Cut the selection using Ctrl+X. Notice the text

on the status line.3. Use the Down arrow to select cell A40 and

press Enter.4. Press Ctrl+Home to select cell A15. Select rows 1:5, (which are now empty), and

remove them using Ctrl+Minus.

Now the heading ‘Household budget 1997’ shouldnow be in A1, and the ‘Total apartment block’costs are in the area A35:C38.

What has happened to our formulas for calculatingheating and electricity? They originally took theirinformation from cells C2, C3 and C4.

Select C10, heating for January:



35

Formulas remember which cells they referto, and use them no matter where you move them,whether the references were absolute or relative:

The formatting of our spreadsheet should conformwith its contents:

1. Select rows 12, 16, 23 and 29 (select the firstrow and hold Ctrl down as you click on therest).

2. All cells in this row should be in italic (Ctrl+I).

BordersYou can divide your spreadsheet into appropriateareas by using borders (lines). Borders should onlybe used for cells containing data, not for wholerows or columns. Even though it is easier to selectan entire row or column, it may cause problemswhen you print.

The principle is as follows:

First select the area you want a borderaround, then use the Borders button onthe toolbar. If you just click on the button, theborder style shown will be used. If this is not whatyou want, then you should click on the small arrowon the right part of the button.

The following choices are then given:

Click on the border type youwant to use. The first choice re-moves all borders in the selectedarea, while the last three put aborder around the entire selectedarea.

1. Select cells A6:O62. Choose the pattern which puts a single line at

the top and a double line at the bottom of theselected area (as in the example above).

3. To make further formatting with the same typeof border easier, the button remembers the lastborder type you used. Select A30:O30 and clickon the Borders button.

4. Select B12:O12 and choose the patternwith a thin line above and below (secondfrom right in the center row).

5. Continue adding borders to highlight the part ofthe spreadsheet you want.

That looks better; although the border options werea little limited. You cannot choose a colour for thelines, and there are no thin dotted lines, nor extrathick lines …

Use the toolbar as a shortcut to more subtle options.You have seen earlier how everything to do withformatting cells is contained in the Format Cellsdialog box:

1. Select A2:O2. You will add a coloured line un-der these cells.

2. Open the object menu using the right mousebutton and choose Format Cells or pressCtrl+1.

3. Choose the Border tab.

Your choice has to be made in two steps. First youchoose the appearance of the line (Style), thenwhich part of the cell should have a line around itlike this:

1. Select the third line in the left hand column ofthe Style field.

2. Choose a suitable colour for the line. Note thatall the lines in the Style field now have the cho-sen colour.

3. You now need to decide where the selected linestyle should be inserted. Click on Bottom in theBorder field.

4. Press Enter and press an arrow key to cancel theselection (format options are difficult to seewhen the cells are selected).

Do you think this way ofdoing things is strange? I didat first, but now I have toadmit that I do not think thereis a better way of doing it.While the dialog box is openyou can give lines an individ-ual format. The example on the picture is anattempt to demonstrate what is possible (thoughyou cannot see the colours, which maybe a goodthing!).

The Outline field places a border all theway around the selected area.



36

Remove gridlinesOur household budget has a lot of borders in it, butas long as the gridlines are visible it is hard to see ifthey are going to help produce a clear and under-standable printout.

We will remove the gridlines from the screen:

1. Choose Tools|Options and remove the tick inthe Gridlines checkbox on the View tab.

2. Choose OK or press Enter to close the dialogbox.

Changing and removing a borderIf you want to change a border, all you need to dois put the new style ‘over’ the old.

If you want to remove a border in aselected area completely, theeasiest thing to do is click on theBorder button on the toolbar andchoose the first field.

Shading and colourYou can colour and shade cells. Just aswith borders, you can click on the Colorbutton to use the colour it displays or click on thearrow on the button to choose another colour.

We want to give some areas in our budget anothercolour.

1. Select the area A2:O2.2. Click on the Color button (the standard colour

is grey).3. Press an arrow key to cancel the selection.

Let us try another colour. Try using Undo to selectthe cell again (it actually removes the colourformatting, but as the area was selected before weapplied the colour, it selects the area for us again).As you are going to choose another colour it is notimportant that Undo removes the grey background.

1. Press Ctrl+Z.2. Click on the little arrow on the Color button.

Choose a colour.3. Press an arrow key to cancel the selection.

Continue doing this to test different colours. If youwant to remove the colour completely at somestage, then just choose the large field None.

If you prefer a dark basiccolour, then it is sensible tochoose white text:

1. With the area stillselected press the Font Color button.

2. Use the same method you used for the back-ground colour to change the font colour.

Every time you make a change youwant to keep, press Ctrl+S to save thefile.

You can combine a background colour with a pat-tern to give exactly the effect you want.

I will just introduce you to the principle, so you canplay around with it as much as you want in yourown time:

1. Select an area, choose Format Cells and thePattern tab.

2. Press the Pattern button. Another colour paletteappears. This is starting to get confusing. Thenew colour palette only applies to the patternyou can add over the background colour (thecell colour can have two ‘layers’):

That is to say, you can look through the colouredpattern and see the background colour.

After you have experimented with this function alittle, choose a light background colour with apattern of white dots over it for your cells.

When a printout of a spreadsheet is to becopied, it is best to choose a dotted pattern as abackground colour. Copy machines don not copysolid colours well.



37

Copy formatsThe format of cells B12:O12 should be copied toTotal insurance, Total transport and Totalhousehold etc. This is done as follows:

1. Select the format for copying, B12:O12.2. Choose Format Painter button. The

mouse pointer turns into a little brush.3. Click on B16. Cells B16:O16 ‘inherit’ the for-

matting (number format, lines and colours).There is no need to select all the cells.

The copying stops automatically. When you wantto copy to several areas, as in this example, then dothe following:

1. Hold the area B16:O16 selected and doubleclick on the Format Painter.

2. Click in B23. The function remains active.3. Click in B29. End the copying process by

pressing Esc (or click again on the FormatPainter button).

Save the workbook (Ctrl+S) and continue to formatthe budget as you wish. You may want to changethe text colours for income and expenses…it is upto you.

Printing the budgetThe easiest way to print the budget is topress the Print button. However the standardprintout layout is not especially suited to ourspreadsheet. I will now briefly show you how toadjust a printout. You will find a more detaileddescription of printing on page 42.

I recommend that you use the Print Previewbutton as this function will show you exactlyhow your printer prints.

You can see how many pages will be printed at thebottom of the screen. It would be best to print thebudget in landscape format (horizontal layout).

1. From the Print Preview screen, click on theSetup… button and choose Landscape on thePage tab.

2. You can use the Scaling area to fit your printouton a single page. This is an efficient function asthe printout will be compressed to fit on onepage, even if it otherwise would take manypages! Select Fit to 1 page wide by 1 page tall.

Click OK (Enter) and check, at the bottom of thepage, that the printout now fits on one page.

Click on the Setup… button again and the Adjustto field will show you how much the spreadsheethas been compressed (between 10 and 400percent).

Press Esc to close the Setup… dialog box andclick on Close to return to the working area.

All you need to do now is press the Print button tosee the budget as ‘hardcopy’.

Data layoutCentering headingsThe heading ‘Household budget 1997’ can be cen-tered across the entire spreadsheet in the followingway:

1. Select the heading and the cells it should becentered across (A1:O1).

2. Click on the Center Across Columnsbutton

In version 97 the button is called Merge andCenter.

The heading actually stays in cell A1, but iscentered over all the columns. Select cell A1 to editthe heading.

Vertical layoutYou can create more space in the spreadsheet byincreasing the height of rows.

This is done by dragging the bottom line of the rownumber:

Drag down toincrease the height.Note that the namefield over columnA shows the heightof the row. In factthe only thing you can use this number for is tocompare the height of other rows.



38

1. Drag the height of row 1 to be approximately30.

2. Select the row and choose Format Cells(Ctrl+1).

3. On the Alignment tab, choose Center in theVertical field.

Entire rows or columns can be selected when youwant to format the text to bold, or center it. Whenyou want to add a border to cells in a spreadsheet,you should only select cells containing data aspreviously described. Continue as follows:

1. Change the height of row 6 and row 30 to beapproximately 20. The height of row 31 shouldbe about 25.

2. Select rows 6, 30 and 31 and choose VerticalCentering.

You can select several independent areas byholding Ctrl while clicking on other rows orcolumns.

It is difficult to really assess the layout properlybefore looking at a hard copy of the spreadsheet. Isuggest that you print one page before decidingwhether you are satisfied with the layout or not.

This is what my ‘Household budget’ looks likenow (need a magnifying glass?):

Create your own number formats


39

Create your own number formatsIt can be necessary to create your own number for-mats. Excel understands some currency symbolswhen you type numbers. It will recognise the cur-rency symbol for the language (country) you haveset regional settings to (‘kr.’ for Denmark, ‘DM’for Germany, etc.), plus ‘$’ and ‘£’. If your regio-nal settings language is either English (British) orEnglish (United States) you will only have the ‘$’or ‘£’. All other symbols or characters need to becreated as user defined formats before being accep-ted together with numbers.

Version97: You can type one currency symboldirectly in the Number tab (Currency category)regardless of the Regional settings.

1. Close the Household budget, deciding whetheryou will save your latest changes.

2. Open the DECORATING – SWEDISH file.

We are going to create a format looking like this:

Follow this process:

1. Select B3:B18 (select B3, hold down Shiftwhile pressing Ctrl+Down arrow).

2. Choose Format Cells (Ctrl+1) and the Numbertab.

The number formats are divided into categories.Every category allows you to choose how positiveand negative numbers should appear in the selectedcells, whether or not you want thousand separators,or how many decimal places should be displayedetc. Check the options in the Number, Currencyand Accounting categories.

You will have to create the format shown above:

1. Click on Custom in the Category field on theleft.

2. The format of the cell is now shown as code inthe center of the dialog box:

These codes need a little explanation.

Version 97: The category is now called User de-fined in stead of Custom.

You can change the format code in the Type field(strange name – in version 5 the field is calledFormat codes, a more logical name).

All text which may be shown together with num-bers should be set in quotation marks (“SEK” forexample). You can type exactly the text you want,for example “miles/gallon”, “bananas” or “Transferbalance to account no.”.

The easiest thing to do is select the number formatclosest to what you want, then adjust the code tothe exact format you want. This new format will bepositioned at the bottom of the list of formats andcan be used in all the sheets of the current work-book. Your own formats will appear in the Customcategory.

We want our numbers to be displayed withthousand separators and two decimal places.

Click on the code #,##0.00 which will be displayedin the Type field.

The code should be understood as follows:

� The hatch character (#) specifies that a numberwill only be displayed in the cell if there is adigit in this position.

� A zero specifies that a zero will be shown if youdo not add a digit yourself.

With the format code #,##0.00 your data will looklike this:

Create your own number formats


40

If you type: it is shown as:

1250 .................................................1,250.00.5 ........................................... 0.500 ........................................... 0.00

1. Click in the Type field, insert a space after thecode and type “SEK” . The first quotation marktells the program that the code is stopped andthat text starts. The next quotation mark stopsthe text – Excel can continue to read the code.The code should now look like this:#,##0.00 “SEK”

2. Press Enter to accept the format and close thedialog box.

3. Type a new number in B3 and press Enter. Thenumber will be shown in the format we justdefined (a rather expensive brush!).

4. Undo the new number using Ctrl+Z.

A cell holds its format even though you maydelete or overwrite its contents. If you want to de-lete only the format, choose Edit|Clear|Formats.

For information:Codes are defined in sections separated by asemicolon:

First section..................................Positive numbersSecond section .............................NegativenumbersThird section ................................Zero valuesForth and last section ...................Text display

When data is entered, the program searches for aformat in the codes. When you type a positivevalue the first section of code is used. If the resultof a formula is zero, the third section is used and soon.

If a colour was specified in the Type field code,pressing the Font Color button on the toolbar hasno effect. Negative numbers will always be shownin red when the following code is chosen:

1. Select C3:C18 and press Ctrl+1.2. Select the format shown on the previous picture,

and press Enter.3. Choose another colour than red by using the

Font Color button.4. Just for the test, select B3, type a negative

number and press Enter.5. The price in C3 is shown in red. Colours

specified in the code has a higher priority.6. Undo the entry in B3 (Ctrl+Z).

You can, if you want to, try to interpret thecurrency format used in our household budget (it isnot easy). The little ‘underscore’ (_) which appearsin so many places means that the display of thenext sign is hidden. In other words, there is spacefor it, but it is not actually shown.

It may seem a little strange that Microsoft haschosen so advanced a format for a standard buttonon the toolbar. The same applies to the CommaStyle button.

Try changing the way the zero amounts aredisplayed in our household budget to 0.00(remember that zero values are defined in the thirdsection - you can always search for help for: Crea-ting user defined formats).

Return to Sheet1 in the DECORATING – SWEDISH

file.

Naming cells


41

Naming cellsThe model on Sheet1 in the DECORATING –SWEDISH file is very small and easy to maintain.

This formula, taken from C7, is not particularlydifficult to understand. When you can see bothcells on the screen simultaneously, it is easy tocheck that the formula refers to the correct cells. Inlarge spreadsheet models it is much more difficult.

You should get into the habit of building upspreadsheets so that the formulas are easy to under-stand. Remember it might be several months beforeyou work with it again and by that time you mayhave forgotten what they refer to.

For this purpose the ability to name cells is an in-dispensable utility. Quite simply it allows you togive cells a more meaningful name than the ordi-nary cell references.

In principle all cells in a spreadsheet can be calledsomething other than their cell references. The cellcontaining the exchange rate, C2, would be easierto refer to if it was named Currency like this:

Two cells cannot have the same name, and namescannot contain spaces. If you want to name a cellfor example ‘Danish VAT’, it could be donewithout the space (DanishVAT) or with anunderscore in stead of the space (Danish_VAT).

1. Select C2, and click on the cell reference in thename box over column A. The reference willautomatically be selected. This means that youcan overwrite the original reference with a newname.

2. Type Currency, followed by Enter. You cannow refer to the cell simply by writing = Cur-rency .

You can of course continue to write C2 if youwant. You can see this by selecting a cellcontaining a formula for calculating the net price inDanish kroner, like C3. The formula is unchanged.

Change all formulas in the model so that they referto the cell name Currency instead of the originalcell reference, as here:

1. Select C3 and press F2 to edit the content of thecell.

2. Delete the reference $C$2 and instead type cur-rency and press Enter. Excel will show that thereference is valid by showing ‘currency’ with acapital ‘C’.

3. Copy the formula down to cells C4:C17.4. Select some cells in the area C4:C17 to see that

the reference is correct.

Important: References to cells with namesare automatically absolute. In other words, you donot have to press F4 when you use names.

Other advantages usingnamesAs well as making formulas easier to read, there areother clear advantages in naming cells.

Entering formulaMove down the spreadsheet by pressing Page-Down (PgDn) a couple of times. The cellcontaining the exchange rate is no longer visible.

1. In a cell selected at random, type =Currencyand press Enter. Excel shows the value of C2 –you did not need to remember which cellcontained the Exchange rate!

2. Press the Down arrow and type=250*Currency. Press Enter. Easy andefficient.

Jumping to named cellsThe exchange rate for SEK has changed to 0.92:

1. Click the small arrow in the right side of thename box:

Naming cells


42

2. All the names in this workbook are listed here.In this case it is only Currency. Click on thename and the cell is selected. A fast and flexible‘go to’ function.

3. Type the new rate in: 0.92 and press Enter. Theentire spreadsheet is updated.

It is not a good idea to give all cells in a spread-sheet names; but as you can see, all key cells shouldbe named.

The cell containing the sales tax rate should also benamed.

1. Select D2 and click the name box.2. Type SalesTax and press Enter.3. Change the formula in D3 to =B3*SalesTax

and press Enter.4. Copy the formula to cells D4:D17.

Version97: Column and row headings you want touse throughout the spreadsheet can be defined asLabels. Once defined they will automatically beapplied as you type formula referring to these cells.Label areas are defined in the Insert|Name|Labelscommand. Search for help on ‘Labels and names informulas’ for more information.

Names in the ‘Householdbudget’In the household budget there are three cells whichshould be named. Open or move to the budget andselect C36, Apartment share.

1. Type Share in the name box and press Enter.2. Select C37, type Heating in the name box and

press Enter.3. Select C38, type Electricity in the name box

and press Enter.

All cells referring to these three key figures shouldbe changed so that they refer to names. Instead ofchanging each formula and then copying them, wewill get the program to do the hard work for us:

You should select one cell, it does not matter whichone.

1. We will now apply the names we have created.Choose Insert|Name|Apply.

All the names in the workbook will be shown here.Make sure all three names are selected (click onthem).

If you have selected more than one cell whenyou choose Insert|Name|Apply the cell referenceswill only be changed in the selected cells. But ifyou have only selected one cell, Excel will changethe formulas in every cell in the spreadsheet.

1. Right click the two check boxes, Ignore Rela-tive/Absolute and Use Row and ColumnNames to read what they mean.

2. Click on OK or press Enter to accept the set-tings.

3. Select different cells in rows 10 and 11 to checkthe formulas. C10, for example:

4. We have now heard that the actual heating con-sumption will be higher than expected. By usingthe name box, jump up to the heating cell andchange the number to 11250.

5. Check that the formulas for calculating themonthly heating bill in row 10 changes to1,350.00 kr. Use Ctrl+Z to check the changes.

6. Save the folder using the same name (Ctrl+S).

Printing


43

PrintingMaybe you have already printed the Householdbudget a couple of times. There are however, manyways to customise a printout when large modelsshould be printed out over several pages.

Margins1. With any cell in our household budget

selected, click on the Print Previewbutton.

2. When the changes were made in print setup lasttime (page 37), the spreadsheet was printed onone page in landscape format.

3. Click on the Margins button. All margins canbe changed by dragging them.

4. Drag the left margin as far to the left as pos-sible. The mouse pointer will stop automaticallyat the point where text falls out of the print areadefined by your specific printer.

5. Drag the right margin as far to the right aspossible.

6. Pull the spreadsheet’s top margin a little closerto the header margin.

7. Try dragging some of the column borders (youcannot adjust the column widths automaticallyon the Print Preview screen).

As we specified that the spreadsheet must be prin-ted out on one page, its size will be adjusted eachtime you drag a margin.

Headers and footersWe will adjust the text shown at the top and bot-tom, the header and footer:

1. Click the Setup… button, then theHeader/Footer tab.

2. Click the little arrow to the right of the Footer:field.

Excel is incredibly user friendly almost always –but not here. The options shown on this roll downlist are often totally useless!

Create your own footer instead:

1. Click the arrow again to close the roll down list,and click on the Custom Footer… buttoninstead.

2. The Footer dialog box is divided into threesections. You can insert text on either the left,middle or right third of the footer area.In the middle is a code which inserts the text‘Page’ followed by the page number.

There are other codes available, for ex-ample the standard header code thatinserts the name of the spreadsheet:

The codes are commands to the printer Allprinter codes begin with ‘&’ while the actualcommand is within square brackets.

3. Click the Right Section field and clickthe Date button. This code inserts thecurrent date every time you print the spread-sheet.

4. Drag the mouse over the code &[Date] toselect it and click on the Font button.

5. Choose a font size of 8 points and click OK orpress Enter to close the Font dialog box.

Printing


44

6. Click OK or press Enter to accept the footerand return to the Page Setup dialog box. Thedate and page number is shown in the lowerpart of the dialog box:

The little yellow help label do not appear when youpoint to the buttons in the Page Setup dialog box.Instead you can get help by clicking them with theright mouse button.

The footer still needs some changes:

1. Click on the Custom Footer… button.2. In the middle section you can see how text and

codes can be combined without putting the textin quotes.

3. Click after the code &[Page] and type a space4. Type of, type another space and click the

Total Pages button.

5. Click the Left Section field and type your ini-tials, followed by a space.

6. Click the Time button.7. Select the text and the code, and click on

the Font button. This code ensures that we canalways read which is the most recent printout.The font size should be 6 points. You cannotchoose a size of less than 8 points, but click inthe Size field, delete the 8 and type 6 instead.Press Enter to confirm your choices and closethe dialog box.

8. In the Right section field we want the name ofthe file in stead of the date. Select the date codeand delete it.

9. Press the File name button. This codeensures that we can always see the nameof the file.

10. The file name should be printed in a very smallpoint size. Use the same method as 7 above.Look at the picture on the bottom of the page.

11. Click OK to close the Footer dialog box andOK again to close the Page Setup dialog box.You should now review the page layout on thePrint Preview screen.

You can insert other codes, for example the date, inthe Custom Header… dialog box if you want.

Scaling the printoutIt is not always possible to read the printout of alarge spreadsheet when it has been compressed tojust one page. Let us return to normal size:

1. Remaining in Print Preview click the Setup…button and the Page tab.

2. Specify that the printout should be adjusted to100% in the Adjust to field (click on theAdjust to: field and type 100 and press Enteror use the small arrows).

3. Press Enter and look at the bottom of the screento see how many pages the printout will be.

Manual page breaksWhen a spreadsheet takes up more than one page itis often necessary to decide where the pages shouldbegin and end:

1. While you are in the Print Preview screen,press PageDown (PgDn) and PageUp (PgUp)to leaf among the different pages.

Printing


45

You will see that the Total apartment blockfigures are printed out on their own, while thespreadsheet is divided at September. Exactlywhere, depends on your particular com-puter/printer combination.

2. We want to start a new page after the first halfyear. Press Esc, or click the Close button toreturn to the working screen. Notice that thisnow contains both a vertical and horizontaldotted line. This shows you where the newpages begin.

3. Click in the cell to the right of and below theposition of the new page break (hmm…difficultto explain – but easier to see on screen). Wewant the new page to begin between June andJuly. Select I33 and choose Insert|Page break.

Vertical and horizontal dotted lines indicate pagebreaks. The spreadsheet is now divided into fourpages. Check that the page breaks work properly:

1. Choose Print preview and check the pages oneby one, using PageDown and PageUp.Are the page breaks where they should be?

2. Click the Setup… button and the Sheet tab. Inthe Page order field at the bottom you canchoose which order the pages should be printed.

3. Press Esc twice to return to the working screen.

You can insert as many page breaks as you want,all you need do to insert either a horizontal or avertical page break is select a column or row andthen choose Insert|Page break.

Removing page breaksManual page breaks can be removed by placing thecursor on the right or under the page break which isto be removed.

1. Try removing one of the page breaks. Select anycell in column I , for example I35 (but not I33).The mouse pointer is now touching the verticalpage break.

2. Choose the Insert menu. The command is nowcalled Remove page break. Choose it.

3. The horizontal page break over row 33 is stillthere. Now select any cell in row 33 and chooseInsert|Remove page break.

If you want to remove both page breaks at once,select the cell at the intersection of the horizontaland vertical page breaks (I33).

There are still a couple of things to change beforethe printout is totally satisfactory.

Repeating headingsEarlier you tried to freeze panes so you couldalways see the text in the first column and rowwhile you moved through the spreadsheet. Beaware that the Freeze Pane function only works onthe screen and not on printouts.

The first two columns and two rows should be re-peated on every page of the printout.

This is how you do it:

1. Choose File|Page Setup and the Sheet tab. Thedialog box is the same as that you saw in PrintPreview, Setup… but now you should choosethe fields in the Print titles area (these fieldscannot be chosen from Print Preview).

2. The Rows to Repeat at Top field is notrelevant here as the printout is wide and nothigh. Click in the Columns to Repeat at Leftfield – move the dialog box if necessary so youcan see columns A and B on the workingscreen. Remember that you move the dialog boxby dragging it by the title bar:

3. Drag the mouse over columns A and B, so bothcolumns are selected. It should look like this:

4. Click the Print Preview button on the right sideof the dialog box and look at the pages. The textnext to every category will be included on pagesone and three of the four pages printout.

Version 97: A small button at the right sideof the Print area field and titles gives youmore room to select areas on the spreadsheet (thesize of the dialog box has been reduced). When youhave chosen an area, click again on the little sym-bol on the reduced dialog box.

The heading Household Budget 1997 hasbeen cut right in the middle of the sentence. It isoften best to left justify headings when the printoutruns over several pages. See page three of theprintout:

Printing


46

Excel has done precisely what you asked it to do!You asked for columns A and B to be repeated onall pages of the printout, and as the heading islonger than the two columns, the text has been cut.

Unfortunately the total apartment block chargeshave also been printed on page two, and the text onpage four. This should be corrected.

Print areaYou can limit the area to be printed. The idea with‘key’ cells, like our total apartment block charges,is that it should be easy to change the spreadsheetby changing figures in a single cell, making itquick and easy to do a ‘what if’ analyses. They donot necessarily have to be printed together with thespreadsheet.

1. Select the area A1:O31.2. Press Ctrl+P or choose File|Print. The Print

dialog box is displayed.3. Choose

Selection fromthe Print whatarea:

4. Click the Print Preview button at the bottom ofthe dialog box – the printout is now only twopages.

The choice is only valid as long as the area isselected. Next time you print a spreadsheet withoutselecting anything, the entire sheet will be shownas the print area.

Fixed print areaVersion 5: The following does not apply to version5. See instead what is written in the Customisetoolbar section on page 47

If you want to specify an area as a fixed print area,you do not have to select it and choose Selectionevery time. It can be done as follows:

1. Select the area A1:O31 and choose File|Printarea|Set print area. Press an arrow key to can-cel the selection and click on Print Preview.

2. No matter what you select in the future, thisarea will always be printed when you click thePrint button.

3. Press Esc to close Print Preview.

When another area of the spreadsheet is to beprinted, it is done quite simply, as follows:

1. Select a smaller area, like A2:E6, press Ctrl+Pand choose Selection. Press the Print Previewbutton. The print area previously specified isnow ignored.

2. Press Esc to close Print Preview and press anyarrow key to cancel the selection.

3. Without selecting anything else, press the PrintPreview button. The previously defined printarea will now be active again.

4. Press Esc to close Print preview.

Printing areas (name)When you define print titles and print areas, theyare automatically named.

Named areas are used by Excel as a major part ofthe management of more advanced functions.

If you learn to use names from the very start, manyroutines will be much easier to manage in thefuture. When you need to print different areas it isobviously best to name each area.

Select areas you often print, click in the name boxand type a suitable name (for example, areaA1:E31 could be named First_Quarter – note theunderscore as you cannot have spaces in a name).When you want to print this area, choosing itsname in the name box will select it. Then pressCtrl+P and choose Selection.

Or even better, you can add a button to the toolbarto define a print area as we will try next.

Printing


47

ToolbarsNearly all commands can be placed on a toolbar asa button. There are a number of predefined toolbarsavailable.

1. Choose View|Toolbars. You can see in thedialog box that there are two toolbars visible,Standard and Formatting .

2. Choose the Drawing toolbar and click OK, toreturn to the working screen.

3. The Drawing toolbar appears as a floating tool-bar and can be dragged to wherever you want(just drag the title bar). You can also place it atthe bottom of the screen or together with theother toolbars. In these positions their title barsare hidden. To drag them somewhere else onthe screen, take hold of the toolbar in an areabetween two buttons and drag:

4. A toolbar is closed by clicking on the little crosson its title bar. Close the Drawing toolbar now.

Another, and faster, way to open a toolbar is toright click any toolbar button on the screen. Youcan then select the toolbar you want on the objectmenu.

The object menu also gives you the option ofcustomising the toolbars.

Customising toolbarsTo be really effective the buttons on each toolbarshould reflect your method of working.

When you have worked a while with the program,you will notice that you have not used some of thebuttons on the toolbars. When this is the case,replace them with more relevant buttons. Right

now we need a button to help us define printoutareas. This is how to do it:

1. Right click anywhere on the toolbar and chooseCustomise on the object menu.

Version 97: The Toolbars and Customise op-tions are merged and contain a dialog box withthree tabs. Choose the Commands tab, thenfollow the instructions below.

2. The buttons in the Customise dialog box are di-vided into categories. These correspond to Ex-cel’s menus. Click the different categories andbuttons to read their description at the bottom ofthe dialog box:

3. Go back to the File category and find the buttondescribed as: ‘Sets selected cells as area toprint’.

4. We want to make spacefor this button on theStandard toolbar. This isdone by dragging one ormore unneeded buttonsfrom it. You can alwaysfind a button again underthe category it belongs toin the Customise dialogbox. I suggest that youremove the Spellingbutton. Drag it anywhere off the toolbar andrelease the mouse. (Note that this can only bedone with the Custom dialog box open!).

5. Grab the new button using the mouse and dragit to the position you want it on the toolbar. This

Toolbars


48

button will be used when printing, so why notposition it between Print and Print Preview:

The other buttons on the toolbar move and theprogram makes space for the new button when

you release the mouse button. Change theindividual position of the buttons by draggingthem around.

6. Click on Close, or press Enter to close the Cus-tom dialog box.

The new button should be tested:

1. Select an area, A1:E6, for instance, and clickthe new button, Set Print Area. Click on PrintPreview – Viola…the area is ready for printing!

2. Repeat with other areas and printout the dif-ferent areas. Easy and elegant.

Charts‘A picture says more than a thousand words.’ Awise and well known phrase, highly relevant whennumbers are to be displayed and analysed.

It is very difficult to understand things clearly fromthe spreadsheet data alone, especially in largemodels.

The amount of data in our household budget iscomparatively large, so before we use it, it wouldbe a good idea to ‘play’ a little with charts for asmaller model.

1. Close Household Budget and choose Yes whenasked if you want to save changes.

2. Type the following small model in a new, blankworkbook. It shows a family’s pension plan:

It is important to decide what the chart shouldshow before the it is created. It is possible to distortreality when numbers are presented graphically.

The family wants to see the relationship betweenthe budgeted and actual amounts. The chart shouldbe created to show for example the capital pension

in two columns, side by side, making them easy tocompare.

At the same time, I will create the chart as a sepa-rate spreadsheet within the workbook.

In version 97 there is only one route you can follow– the ChartWizard . You can still read through thesection below and follow on your own screen. Thescreen shots are not identical, but the Wizard isvery easy to understand.

A chart on a new pageFirst, the data to be displayed should be selected.Do not include the Total (B6 and C6) cells, asthese columns would be enormous.

We want to see the details in the spreadsheet.

1. Select a cell at random within the area A1:C4and press Ctrl+*. The text is also to be includedin the chart, and should therefore be included inthe selection.

Quick selection of consecutive cells is bestachieved by using Ctrl+*. Use the asterisk on thenumeric keyboard for selecting cells (to use theasterisk beside the Enter key, the Shift key must bedepressed as well).

Charts


49

The chart is built up as follows:

1. Choose Insert|Chart|As New Sheet.

Version 97: The fourth step of the wizard letsyou choose whether to insert the chart as a newsheet or on the existing sheet.

2. The ChartWizard will now try and help you tomake the right choices. Note that a new tab hasalready appeared, called Chart1.

3. The Wizard’s first step asks you to confirm thearea you have selected. You can select a newarea while the dialog box is open. Move thewizard if it gets in the way of your selection.

Version 97: The first step lets you choose charttype. You choose the data area in Step 2.

4. Click the Next button to go to step 2 of theWizard. To undo a choice, drop back a step bychoosing Back. If you happen to press Enter in-stead of the Next button, the chart will be cre-ated (Enter selects the Finish button). If thisshould happen, then just start again fromSheet1 and create a new chart.

5. The Wizard suggests a column chart as this isthe most frequently used chart.

6. Click the Next button to go to step three of theWizard:

The Wizard suggests format number six withgridlines to help read the size of the columns.Format number three shows the three pensionswith the budgeted and actual amounts on top of

each other (you can see the total pension andalso see how large a share of the total, eachpension type is). Format number five shows thesame, but as a percentage. We accept formatnumber six.

Version 97: The Wizard offers you more choicesthan those named above. Try clicking on each ofthe tabs in step three. Your choice is showninstantly in a small chart example on the right sideof the Wizard. I can recommend that you look atthe Data table tab and the View data table field.

7. Click the Next button to go to step four of theWizard.

8. In step four you will be presented with a smallmodel of the finished chart. This is set up toshow you the finished result. At the same timeyou can change several options.The data is arranged in columns. Choose Rowsinstead, and note how the data changes place sothe budget amounts are now arranged in oneseries, and the actual amounts in another. Thatis not what we want, so click again on columns.

9. Take note of the fields:

They show that the first row and first columnshould be taken as text, which is correct.

10. Click the Next button to go to the last step ofthe Wizard. It is necessary to have a legend tobe able to understand what the chart shows.Type 1996 in the Chart title field and wait afew seconds. The screen blinks and showswhere the title will be inserted on the chart. Youdo not need to type anything in the Axis titlesfields, but you can try if you want.

11. The chart is now finished, so choose Finish orpress Enter.

Charts


50

Excel displays the chart in its standard format. Wewill change the colours in a moment, but let us firstsee if there is a relationship between the data onSheet1 and the columns on Chart1.

Updating a chartThe smallest column is Budgeted for the Statepension where the scale on the Y-axis stops at300,000 kr. Let us change this number to see if thechart is automatically updated.

1. Click the Sheet1 tab. Change the value in B3 to365,000 kr.

2. Click again on Chart1 and see what has hap-pened to the height of the column. Also noticethat the scale on the Y-axis now goes up to400,000 kr.

3. Return to Sheet1 and change the payment in B3back to 156,000 kr. and then click on Chart1.

Adjusting the format in a chartEvery part of a chart can be changed. No matterwhere you click in the chart area, an element willbe selected. Small black ‘handles’ show theselected area. When you position the mouse pointeron one of these it changes to a double arrow whichallow you to change the size of the object.

To change a format, double click the object youwant to change.

1. Double click on one of the blue columns(budgeted).

2. The Format data series dialog box opens.Choose another colour in the Area field. Youcan also add a pattern to the column.

3. Choose OK (Enter) and format the other col-umns to suit yourself.

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Warning: If you double click tooslowly on a column, the program thinksthat you only want to select the one col-umn. When you then choose a differentcolour, only this column will changecolour – very confusing (undo itimmediately).

The appearance of every element in thechart can be changed by a double click, or bemoved by dragging using the mouse. Grab hold ofone of the black ‘handles’ (rectangles) to changethe size of an object

Chart typesHave you noticed the Chart toolbar?It appears automatically when youselect a chart.

1. Click the Chart type button andchoose the three dimensional col-umn chart. All your formatting willbe saved.

2. Try moving between the differentoptions. Our model is best suited tocolumn, line and area charts.

3. When you finish experimenting, return to thethree dimensional column chart.

3-D perspectiveThe columns look like skyscrapers seen from ahelicopter. Maybe we want to fly around the sky-scrapers and see them from another angle:

1. Click on one of the vertical axis. There shouldbe a small black square at the top and bottom ofthe axis.

2. Click on one of the black squares. Now thereshould be black squares at the top and bottom ofevery axis.

3. When the mouse is over any of the blacksquares it will turn into a small, thin cross. Dragthe cross.

Unfortunately I have experienced severaltimes that all my attempts at formatting haveended in an unreadable mess. Luckily the Charttoolbar contains a button called Default chartwhich will reset all formatting. One click on thiswill remove all your direct formatting.

We have now gone through the majority – and themost important – principles in formatting charts. Inthe following section you will create a couple ofother charts without me detailing each steps.

Save chartThe chart is part of the workbook, and will besaved together with it.

1. Press Ctrl+S and save the workbook using thename PENSIONS.XLS. Let the file remain onscreen.

A chart on this sheetA chart can be placed directly on the spreadsheet,which is very sensible when the spreadsheet fills aslittle as our pension model.

1. With the cursor in any cell in the area A1:C4,select all the cells using Ctrl+*.

2. Click the ChartWizard button. The mousepointer changes appearance.

3. Notice the text in the status line. Click or drag aframe under the area you have used for data, thechart will be created within this frame. You canalways move and resize it later.

4. When the mouse is released the guide starts.Follow it step by step to create a column chart.

5. The chart appears in a frame. Drag one of theblack handles to change its size, or in themiddle of the chart to move it around thespreadsheet.

6. When the chart is selected, the text on the statusline says, you should double click the chart tochange colours etc. Try it now. A hatched frameshows that you can now edit the chart.

7. When you have made the changes you want,click on any cell in the spreadsheet to stop edi-ting. The chart is still selected, so click again onany cell, and you are back in the spreadsheet.Notice that the Chart toolbar disappeared.When the chart is selected, the toolbar reap-pears.

Version 97: A single click on the chart allows youto edit its elements.

In actual fact the chart is in a frame, on top of thespreadsheet, and is taken to be an object - a picture.The arrow keys let you move the cursor under the

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chart’s frame. This also means that you can placethe chart over some of the spreadsheet’s data.

Version 97: Notice the guide lets you choose whichsheet in the workbook should contain the chart.

Selecting dataYou will now create a pie chart of the data in col-umn C, but want to use the text from column A.

1. Select cells A1:A4. You would usually lose thisselection as soon as you click in another cell. Toavoid this, proceed as follows:

2. Hold the Ctrl key down while using the mouseto select cells C1:C4.

It is very important that the area selected incolumn A is the same size as that selected incolumn C. In principle you will not be using A1 foranything in the chart, but if you do not select thiscell, the program will not understand how text anddata belong together.

Now we are ready to create the chart:

1. Click the ChartWizard and create a frame forthe chart under the column chart.

2. In step two of the Wizard, choose a 3D-piechart and click on Next.

3. Accept chart number seven on step three andclick on Next.

4. The example shown in step four confirms thatall cells have been correctly understood. C1 hasbecome the chart’s heading. We do not needany further headings, so you can just click onFinish.

5. Adjust the size of the chart’s frame so itmatches the size of the column chart.

Try double clicking on the pie chart to editit. Click once on it - now all three layers areselected. Click again, try the smallest bit, and nowonly it is selected. Drag the piece away from thecenter of the circle (it is called ‘exploding’ thechart).

Printing chartsYou cannot be sure that the two charts can beprinted on the same page before Excel has createdthe printout:

1. Click the Print Preview button. Check thenumber of pages at the bottom of the screen. Ifthe printout takes up more than one page youwill need to go back to the working screen andmake the chart frames smaller or move it.

2. The gridlines are useful on the working screen,but are distracting (to say the least) on aprintout. Click the Setup… button and theSheet tab and deselect printing gridlines.

You can print a chart separately. In this examplewe will use the pie chart:

1. Double click the chart in the working screen.2. Choose Print Preview. Excel has even decided

that a landscape format suits the chart best.Flexible and smart!

3. Click on the Close button to return to thespreadsheet.

4. Close the PENSIONS.XLS workbook and chooseYes when prompted to save changes.

Household BudgetI would very much like to see both the husband’sand wife’s income shown graphically. The onlyproblem I can see is that Row 3 should not be apart of the chart. We could select the data areas in-dividually (holding down Ctrl as we select), but letus try to treat it as one area and see how the Wizardtreat the data:

1. Select the area A2:N5 and choose Insert|Chart|As New Sheet.

2. Follow the Wizard to step four, then stop therefor a moment.

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The program has, cleverly, realised that the firsttwo rows and the first two columns are text!

Finish the Wizard and notice that the Y-axis startsat 9,200 kr.

Now create a chart which compares Total incomeand Total expenditure like this

1. Select A2:N2, hold Ctrl now and continueselecting A6:N6 and A30:N30.

2. Create a column chart on a new sheet and noticethat this time one row and two columns arecorrectly understood to be text.

Remember that each selection must have thesame size…!

Delete a chart on a speadsheet by selecting it andpressing Delete.

Working with worksheet tabsNaming tabsWe now have three sheets with different data. Theyshould have more meaningful names:

1. Double click the tab called Sheet1.

2. The text: Sheet1 is automatically selected. PressF1 (Help) to read which characters you can use.Press Esc, type Household Budget 1997 andpress Enter.

3. Double click on Chart1 and type:Salary-column. Press Enter.

4. Double click on Chart2 and type:Results-column. Press Enter.

Version 97: When you double click on a sheet tabyou can write the name directly on the tab.

The order of the sheets should be changed. Youwill want to work with the budget often, so thatshould be placed first.

1. Grab hold of the Household Budget 1997 taband drag it to the left. A small picture of a pageby the cursor shows you that you hold a

spreadsheet. A small triangle indicates wherethe sheet will be placed when you release themouse.

2. Drag the sheet all the way to the left and releaseit.

Deleting a sheetWe have several unnecessary sheets in the work-book.

1. Select the unused sheets as follows: Click onSheet2 and hold Ctrl down while you continueclicking on Sheet3 and Sheet4 (if you havemore empty sheets, select these in the sameway).

2. Right click on one of the selected tabs to openthe object menu. Choose Delete.

3. A dialog box warns you that the deletion will bepermanent. Click on OK (Enter) to accept.

Chart sheets are deleted in the same way

Inserting a sheetAs noted earlier, a workbook can contain up to 255spreadsheets.

1. Right click on a tab and choose Insert on theobject menu. The General tab in the Insertdialog box lets you choose between inserting aspreadsheet, a chart and other more advanced

Working with worksheet tabs


54

objects. The Spreadsheet solutions tab lets youcreate models based on built in templates. Youcan experiment with these later if you want to –personally I am not especially enthusiastic aboutthem (I am a bit of an old fashioned type; Iknow how things I have created myself work,or, to put it another way; if mistakes are goingto be made, I am quite capable of making themmyself…).

2. Choose Spreadsheet on the General tab andpress Enter. The spreadsheet will be inserted tothe left of the sheet you right clicked.

3. Drag the new sheet to the right until it is the lastin the workbook.

Copying sheetsIf a sheet should be used in another workbook, or ifyou need to create a nearly identical sheet in thesame workbook, you can copy it to a new position.

1. Open the DECORATING - SWEDISH.XLS file. Thespreadsheet is to be copied to HOUSEHOLD

BUDGET.2. Right click the spreadsheet tab and choose

Move or Copy… on the object menu.

3. Specify that the sheet should be copied toHOUSEHOLD BUDGET.XLS in the dialog box.

4. Check the Create a copy field (by clicking onit).

5. Choose (move to end) in the Before sheetfield.

6. Click OK , and the screen will shift toHousehold Budget.

7. The sheet will be called Sheet2(2) becausethere already is a Sheet2 in the workbook.Double click the tab and change the name toDecorating.

8. Go back to the DECORATING – SWEDISH.XLS byclicking on the Window menu, followed thefile’s name.

9. Close DECORATING – SWEDISH.XLS.

Functions


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FunctionsWhen Microsoft originally developed Excel, it isunlikely that anyone expected that spreadsheetswould be used for as many tasks as they are today.That Microsoft wants the program to be used in asmany ways as possible is evident from the manyfunctions it contains.

A function is a built in formula, built up in a veryspecific way:

=Function name(arguments)

You have seen examples of a function, namely thefunction for adding cells together: =SUM(cells).All functions begin by giving the operation theprogram should carry out, while the cells whichshould be operated on are given in brackets (the ar-guments).

These arguments can be an area, single cells oreven another function.

For example, the function =SUM(C3;D5;C8) addthe three given cells. A semicolon separates thearguments and is called a ‘List separator’ (this isdefined in Windows Control Panel/Regionalsettings).

AverageFor example the function:

=AVERAGE(B3;C48;SUM(F4:G12))

calculates the average of the numbers in B3, C48and the sum of the area F4:G12. Pay specialattention to how the included function SUM is‘complete’ – it has its own arguments withinbrackets.

A little exercise:Type a formula to calculate the average income andexpenditure in our Household Budget. In P2 typethe heading Average, and the formula in P4 (typeit directly in the formula line):

=AVERAGE(C4:N4)

Copy the formula so that every item in the budgethas an average calculated for it. Notice that thefunction is identical, except for its name, with the

SUM formula in column O. Format the column ascolumn O (best done by selecting O2:O31,clicking on the Format painter and dragging overcells P2:P31). You may want to create a printerarea covering just these cells (see page 46).

Other functionsAs there is a big difference between what argu-ments different functions need, Microsoft haschosen to build in a guide to help you create func-tions, called the FunctionWizard .

Calculating loansWe are going to create a model to calculate theexact repayment on the bank loan in the HouseholdBudget:

1. Double click the Sheet1 tab, type Bank loanand press Enter.

2. Type the following model in the spreadsheet:

In B4, two decimals are chosen using the In-crease decimal button.

3. In B7, the formula for calculating the monthlyrepayments should be typed in. We do not knowexactly which arguments the formulauses, so click the Function guide button(Shift+F3).

4. All functions are listed by category. The mostused functions are in the Most recently usedcategory. But let us see how many functions areactually available in total. Click the All categoryand scroll through the list in the Functionnames list. They are listed alphabetically.

5. Now click the Financial category and scrolldown the list in the Function names field untilyou find the function PMT . Click on it:

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6. The text in the grey area is supposed to be ahelp! Maybe bankers could understand it, but itwas nonsense to me at the beginning! It wasonly when I realised that a loan paid back withequal periodic payments is called an annuitythat I knew this was the correct function. Thefirst payment is nearly all interest, and verylittle instalment, and the last payment is nearlyall instalment and very little interest – but thetotal monthly payment is the same.

7. Click the Next button. Now we are ready totype the necessary data. Only the fields withbold type text need to be filled in. The Rate isthe interest rate on the loan. nper is the totalnumber of payments to make, while nv is theamount in total you have borrowed:

As shown in the picture above, you should pointto the cells containing the relevant information,and not write the values in the fields. But thereis something wrong here! The Value field in thetop right corner shows the result of thecalculation, but the figure is far too high.

The interest rate is annual. The number of pay-ments is given monthly. As it stands we havetold the program that we will pay 8.5% interestevery month for 48 months – this is a very ex-pensive loan!

8. Change the Rate field to a monthly interest rate:B4/12 (click in the field after B4 and type /12).

9. The result in the Value field should now be mi-nus 2,216.99. Press Finish (Enter).

Version 97: The FunctionWizard looks a littledifferent, but works in the same way. You canchoose a different function on the left side of theformula line, and minimise the dialog box whencells are to be selected.

Note that the cells are formatted with the currencyformat automatically (it is a financial function wehave used). In the picture above I have formattedB3 with a currency format myself.

If you use a function regularly you willremember what arguments it uses. When this is thecase you can just write the formula directly in theformula line – the Wizard is only for use when youneed instruction building the function.

Why are the payments negative?

Some people will say that it is always negativewhen you owe money; but that is not the reason.The function tells you that money is ‘flowingaway’ from you – when the loan is positive, thepayments will always be negative.

But payments should be shown as positive numbers– we know that we have to pay. With B7 selected,click again on the FunctionWizard (Shift+F3).

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1. Type a minus in front of the cell reference innv, and check that the result in the Value cell isnow positive.

2. Press Enter.3. Type 9 as the interest rate in B4 (when the cell

is formatted to a percentage it is enough just totype a number – the cell already includes the %sign).

Version5: You have to type the % sign or type 0.09yourself. When a cell is formatted to percentage, itautomatically multiplies the type number with 100(for example type in 0.15 for 15%).

Continue testing the formula:

1. Type a new loan amount and number of pay-ments and check that the payment amountchanges in every case.

2. Go back to the original amount again beforeproceeding.

The other two fields in the Wizard, fv and type, areoptional, so we can leave them blank.

The option fv means ‘future value’. When we leavethis blank it means that the loan is to be paid backin full in the number of payments we havespecified. If you still owe 10,000 kr after you havemade these payments, then enter 10000 in the fvfield.

The option type decides when in the period thepayment is due, and can contain either 0 or 1.When we leave it blank (0) it means that thepayments are due at the end of the month (normalbanking practice). If you insert a 1 they are due onthe first of the month.

Press the Help button in the FunctionWizard dia-log box for further explanations.

Naming cells in functions.The formula is not very easy to read. It would beeasier if the cells we used had more descriptivenames. The text in column A is good. We can tryand use it to name the cells B3:B5:

1. Select both the text and the cells which shouldbe named, A3:B5.

2. Choose the Insert|Name|Create command.Notice that Excel has understood that the leftcolumn contains names and that these should beused in the right column. However, the develo-pers who wrote the captions in the Createname dialog box were not as smart. It readsCreate names in left column but that isincorrect, we will use the names in the leftcolumn. But the function works correctly, sopress Enter.

3. Select B3 and look at the name box. The cell isnow called Total_loan. Check the names in B4and B5 as well.

4. We will now use the names in the formula.Choose Insert|Name|Apply. The three relevantnames are already selected, so just press OK(Enter) and check the formula in B7:

This makes the formula much easier to understand.

Save the workbook(Ctrl+S).

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LinksOne of the clever things with a spreadsheet is thatyou only need to store important numbers or for-mulas in one place. Other spreadsheets which needa number or formula can get it from there. If theTotal apartment costs in Household Budget hadbeen in another spreadsheet, we would have saidthat we had created a link to the cells.

The principle is very simple. I suggest that we startby practising in a new workbook.

1. Open a new blank workbook by clickingon the New workbook button.

2. In A1 type Sale and in B1 25000.3. Click on Sheet2. You can also press

Ctrl+PageDown to move to the next sheet(Ctrl+PageUp moves to the previous sheet). Incell A1 type Sale from Sheet1: and adjust thewidth of column A.

You are now ready to get the number from Sheet1.

1. The link is to be created in B1 on Sheet2. Startwith the usual equals sign. The cursor is nowanchored to the cell.

2. Click the Sheet1 tab. The tabs and formula lineshow you what is happening:

Both tabs are white, and the formula is referringto Sheet1. At the same time the status lineshows that the program is pointing.

3. Click on B1 and press Enter. Excel jumps backto Sheet2 and the formula is finished.Let us check the link:

4. Go to Sheet1 (Ctrl+PageUp), and change thenumber in B1 to 30000.

5. Back to Sheet2 (Ctrl+PageDown) – the numberin B1 is updated. The link works.

6. Double click the tab for Sheet1.7. Rename the sheet to Sales and press Enter.

8. Return to Sheet2 (Ctrl+PageDown), and look atthe formula in B1:

That is the principle of a link. You can also createlinks between separate workbooks, but that needsmore practice (and a great deal of discipline!).

Close the workbook without saving it.

Household BudgetOn the Household Budget 1997 sheet, row 28, thefamily has budgeted that the bank loan costs them2,250 kr. per month. However the Bank loanspreadsheet we have worked on, shows that themonthly payment is 2,249.16 kr. It is also quiteusual for interest rates to change several times ayear, and the family wants row 28 to show the cor-rect monthly payment every time. We will create alink:

1. In Household Budget 1997 select cell C28 andtype =.

2. Click the Bank loan spreadsheet. Both tabs areselected.

3. Click on B7, the monthly payment.4. In a moment the formula is to be copied to all

the other months. All should refer to B7. PressF4 to make the reference absolute and Enter.The formula now looks like this:

5. Copy the formula to cells D28:N28.6. Click the Bank loan spreadsheet and change

the interest rate to 7,75% and press Enter. Thenew monthly payments should be 2,216.99 kr.

7. Click again on Household Budget 1997 andcheck that row 28 has changed.

On page16 we corrected Excel’s permanentpreferences so that a double click on a cell con-taining a formula selects the cells that are used inthe formula. Try it here in our household budget:Double click on cell C28 (return to the previousselected cell by pressing F5 and Enter).

Sorting & filtering data


59

Sorting & filtering dataI have chosen sorting and filtering to be the lasttwo subjects dealt with in this booklet. This is justa short introduction to both subjects. Filtering canbe used for relatively advanced procedures, whichis not illustrated here.

SortingClose Household Budget and open the fileDECORATING – SWEDISH.XLS. You are going to sortthe list to be in alphabetical order, but the way thespreadsheet is laid out at present is not suitable.

The function expects there to be only one row ofheadings.

First you will have to move the Exchange rate andSales tax cells further down in the spreadsheet:

1. Type Exchange rate: in A21 and Sales tax: inA22.

2. Move the C2 to B21 and D2 to B22.3. Delete row 2 (which is now empty).4. Row 17 is not to be sorted, so that should be on

its own. Insert a new Row 17. The Totalformulas should now be in Row 18.

The spreadsheet is now ready for sorting. All datato be sorted is placed together without blank rowsand columns. First, we will sort the materialsalphabetically by name:

1. Select any material name in column A.2. Click the Sort ascending button. The

function leaves the first row alone –smart!

3. Now sort the materials in descending al-phabetical order.

4. Select any price in column E and sort the dataso that the most expensive things are at the topand the cheapest are at the bottom.

All spreadsheets can be sorted in this way, no mat-ter what data they contain. All you have to do ischeck that the cells are adjoining (next to eachother).

If you want to sort using several conditions, thenuse the Data|Sort function.

FilteringTo search for a particular entry a ‘filter’ is used. Asin sorting, to use this function, the areas must beadjoining.

Let us try using DECORATING – SWEDISH.XLS:

1. Select any cell in the area A1:E16.2. Choose Data|Filter,

AutoFilter. The cells inthe first row are nowgiven a drop down list,from where you canchoose the value youwant.

3. Click the drop down listattached to cell A1 and choose Filling knife .

All the other rows are now hidden and only the rowwhich fulfills your criteria is shown. Note that therow numbers are shown in blue, and the little arrowon the roll down list in A1 is also blue. This showsthat the list has been filtered, and in which columnthe criteria for the filtering has been defined.

The next exercise is not relevant for version 5.

You are to find the three most expensive materials:

1. First, remove the filtering by choosing the rolldown list in row A1 followed by (All) .

2. Click the roll down list in B1 and choose (Top10…).This lets you build your own ‘top ten’ list.

Sorting & filtering data


60

3. In the dialog box, display the Top 3 items andpress Enter:

4. Choose (All) on the roll down list to make allentries visible.

User defined filtersYou want to find all materials costing more than100 kroner. The problem is solved by creating auser defined filter:

1. Click the roll down list in E1 and choose(Custom…).

2. Specify the filter criteria to be larger than (>)100 and press Enter. Eight entries match thecriteria.

3. Change the criteria to be less than 100. Nineentries match the criteria.

4. Create the criteria to display only entries with asales price of between 100 and 150 kroner:

Two entries fulfill the criteria.5. Remove the AutoFilter by selecting Data|Filter,

AutoFilter. All entries are displayed again.

You can set criteria which filters entries after theirnames, or other text. For example, you can find allmaterials starting with ‘P’.

1. Choose Data|Filter, AutoFilter.2. Click the roll down list in A1 and select

(Custom…). Specify that the criteria should be= P* where the asterisk specifies that any andall characters are allowed after the P:

Two entries fulfill the criteria.3. Remove these criteria again by choosing (All) .Up to now you have only filtered, using a singlefield (column). If you want to find the materialsbeginning with any letter after K in the alphabet,and also cost more than 100 kr. This is done byfiltering in both cell A1 and E1 as here:

1. Click the roll down list in A1 and choose(Custom…).

2. Type the criteria >K* (larger than K) and pressEnter.

3. Click the roll down list in E1 and choose(Custom…).

4. Type the criteria >100 (larger than 100) andpress Enter.

Primer, Paint, Small stepladder and Woodtreatment are the entries which fulfill the criteria.

If the you want to find entries which either beginwith a capital letter after K in the alphabet or costmore than 100 kr., you cannot use AutoFilter . Inthis case you will have to use the Advanced filter.However this function is not particularly userfriendly. It is obvious that Microsoft thinks that ad-vanced database tasks should be carried out in adatabase program like Access. Nevertheless youcan go a long way with AutoFilter providing youare careful how you arrange your data.

If you feel you have the courage to explore Excel’sdatabase facilities, then search for AdvancedFilter in the help program.


61

‘Where do you want to go tomorrow?’So now we have reached the end of the book…orhave we!!!

I hope you do not think so. If you are now inspiredto investigate Excel further, to play with theprogram and let your imagination create new andexciting spreadsheet models, then I have achievedwhat I set out to do with this booklet.

It must have been obvious from my commentsthroughout the booklet that I am fascinated byExcel. But you have probably found out yourselfthat it could still be improved in many areas. Andthat is what computers are all about…!

Programs can still only carry out the tasks theyhave been programmed to do. We people makedemands on the way a program works – and peoplemake mistakes, which are then reflected in the pro-gram. The biggest danger with the fantastic devel-opment which is taking place in the computer in-dustry is that we users are becoming so fascinatedwith the technical side that we completely forgetwhat we really need, we become ‘hi-tech-freaks’.

It is you, dear reader, who should decide what yourprograms should be used for and which way theyshould be developed.

Originally computers were difficult to master. Or-dinary users had to learn a mass of codes and wereforced to think like computers…(!)

Then came the graphical interface and the mouse.In one stroke, the computer was easier to use. Themouse was the new wonder tool, and we could allclick and click without thinking about codes.

But it was not long before the worm in the apple(pun intended) became visible, or rather, felt! Themouse showed that it could easily give armproblems, in both the wrist and shoulder.

So where are we now, and how does Excel fit in tothese developments?

I am happy to say that Excel has for the most partbeen designed with the user in mind. Windows95,Word and Excel are excellent examples of how theuser has been able to influence program develop-ment. If you think I have focused (too) much onhow the keyboard can be used – well, you are right.Over the last few years I have learnt how to workfast and effectively without a mouse at the end ofmy arm. Once you have digested this booklet, and

maybe worked through it a couple of times I amsure you will see what I mean.

On the next pages you will find a glossary of themost used keyboard shortcuts. I suggest that youhave the booklet open at these pages while youwork further with this wonderful program.

Have fun …and remember what a wise man oncesaid:

‘Whether you think you can, or whether you thinkyou can’t, you’re probably right!!’

Shortcuts


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Read this while the cat plays with the mouseF1............................. Help

SHIFT+F1................Click the subject you wanthelp with

F2............................. Activate the formula line

F3............................. Displays the Paste Namedialog box, if names aredefined in the workbook

SHIFT+F3................Displays theFunctionWizard

CTRL+F3................. Define Name command

CTRL+SHIFT+F3 .... Create Name command

F4 (on formula line) . Absolute reference ($).

F4 ............................ Repeat last action (Ctrl+Ymay also be used)

CTRL+F4.................Close window

ALT+F4.................... Exit Microsoft Excel

F5............................. Go to command (the Editmenu)

CTRL+F5................. Restore window size

CTRL+F6................. Next window

CTRL+SHIFT+F6 .... Previous window

F7............................. Spell check

F8............................. Extend a selection (EXTdisplayed on status line).

F9............................. Calculates all sheets in allopen workbooks

F10 .......................... Activates the menu line

SHIFT+F10.............. Activates the object menu

CTRL+F10............... Maximise the window

F11 .......................... Creates a standard chart ona new sheet, based on theselected data

F12 .......................... The Save as command

TAB.......................... Move to the next field in adialog box

SHIFT+TAB............. Move to the previous fieldin a dialog box

ALT+↓...................... Opens a roll down list

ESC ......................... Cancel a command andclose the dialog box

CTRL+PGDN .......... Move to the next sheet in aworkbook

CTRL+PGUP...........Move to the previous sheet in aworkbook

CTRL+DEL ..............Delete the text to the end of theline

ENTER ....................End an entry

ALT+ENTER............ Insert a line shift in a cell

HOME......................Move to the first column in a row

CTRL+SHIFT+$ ......Format in currency format withtwo decimals displayed

CTRL+SHIFT+% .....Format percentage format with nodecimals displayed

CTRL+SHIFT+! .......Format with two decimals andthousand separators

CTRL+S...................Save command

CTRL+1 ...................Open the Format Cells dialogbox

CTRL+B...................Bold text on and off

CTRL+I .................... Italic text on and off

CTRL+U...................Underlined text on and off

CTRL+X...................Cuts the selected area

CTRL+C...................Copies the selected area

CTRL+V................... Inserts the contents of theclipboard

CTRL+Z...................Undo the last action

CTRL+D...................Fill downwards

CTRL+R...................Fill to the right

CTRL+Home ...........Move to cell A1

CTRL+Arrow key .....Move to the last cell containingdata in the direction of the arrow

CTRL+PLUS............Open the Insert dialog box

CTRL+Space...........Select the column

SHIFT+ Space.........Select the row

The shortcuts might be a bit different on your machinedepending on your keyboard and regional settings.

There are far more shortcut keys than those I have listedhere. You can find them by searching for shortcut keysin Excel’s help program.

Index


63

Absolute cell references, 23AutoFilter, 59Autoformat, 33AutoSum, 13Borders, 35Calculating loans, 55Calculation order, 5Cells, definition, 4Changing the contents of a cell, 7Charts, 48

3-D perspective, 51adjusting appearance, 50on a new page, 48on this sheet, 51Printing, 52Save, 51Selecting data, 52Types, 51

Column width, 8Columns, definition, 4Copying

Cells, 11Copying using the keyboard,

11Copying using the mouse, 12Formats, 37Relative references, 11Sheets, 54

Create your own numberformats, 39Creating formulas, 5Creating formulas

Brackets, 6Calculation order, 5Formula bar, 6Formulae, principles, 7Operators, 5

Customising ExcelDefault File Locations, 17Options, 16

Data layout, 37Data types, 5Decimals, 9Deleting a sheet, 53Deleting rows, 18Deleting the contents of a cell, 7Editing, 7

Changing the contents of acell, 7

Column width, 8Columns, 18

Deleting rows, 18Deleting the contents of a cell,

7Insert rows, 17Undo, 8

Excel and Windows95, 28File location, 17Fill (series), 20

Creating your own lists, 21Fill handle, 12Filtering, 59

User defined filters, 60Find, 15Font, 18

Font size, 18Format Painter, 37Formatting, 27

Autoformat, 33Borders, 35Centering headings, 37Copy formats, 37Create your own number

formats, 39Data layout, 37Delete formats, 40Format Painter, 37Manual formatting, 34Shading and colour, 36Toggling formats, 28Vertical layout, 37

FormulaAbsolute cell references, 23Check your formulas, 25Linked spreadsheets, 58

Formula bar, 4; 6Formulae, principles, 7Functions, 55

Average, 55FunctionWizard, 55Loan calculations, 55Naming cells in functions., 57

Graphs (charts), 48Headers and footers, 43Help, 15

‘Answer Wizard’ tab, 15TipWizard, 15

Household budget, 16Insert rows, 17Insert sheet, 53Inserting text and numbers, 4

Formula bar, 4

Links, 58Manual formatting, 34Margins, 43Moving around in a spreadsheet,26Moving data using the keyboard,34Moving data using the mouse, 34Naming cells, 41

Apply name, 42Entering formula, 41Jumping to, 41

Naming tabs, 53Navigation, 26New Workbook, 17Operators, 5Options, 16Page breaks, 44Print

Print Preview, 37Print area, 46Print Preview, 37Printing, 43

Headers and footers, 43Manual page breaks, 44Margins, 43Print area, 46Repeating headings, 45Scaling the printout, 44

Relative references, 11Repeating headings, 45Rows, definition, 4Save a file, 14

Save, 14Save as, 14

Selecting, 10Selecting formulas, 23Shading and colour, 36Shortcut keys, summary, 63Simple number formatting

Decimals, 9Sorting, 59Spreadsheets - naming (tabs), 53Summing data, 12

AutoSum, 13Undo, 8Viewing the spreadsheet, 29

Freeze panes, 30Zoom, 29

Workbook, 4


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Get going with Excel................. 2Is this booklet for you?.............. 3Your background....................... 3Your opinion ............................. 3The structure ............................. 3

General concepts ........................ 4What is a spreadsheet? .............. 4Inserting text and numbers ........ 4Data types.................................. 5

Creating formulas ...................... 5

Editing......................................... 7Changing the contents of a cell . 7Deleting the contents of a cell ... 7Undo.......................................... 8Column width............................ 8

Simple number formatting........ 9Selecting cells.......................... 10

Summing data........................... 12

Save a file .................................. 13The ‘Answer Wizard’ tab........ 15Shift+F1 .................................. 15TipWizard ............................... 15Help for dialog boxes.............. 15Permanent preferences ............ 16

The budget ................................ 17Insert rows............................... 17Deleting rows .......................... 18Insert/delete several rows ........ 18Inserting and deleting columns 18Font and font size .................... 18Creating your own lists ........... 21Selecting formulas................... 23Save the budget ....................... 23

Absolute cell references ........... 23Year total................................. 24Check your formulas ............... 25Toggling formats..................... 28

More data ..................................29Zoom........................................29Freeze panes ............................30More data.................................30Quick copy using the keys.......30Save .........................................31Save As....................................32

AutoFormat...............................33Removing an AutoFormat .......33

Manual formatting ...................34Moving data using the mouse..34Moving data using thekeyboard ..................................34

Borders ......................................35Remove gridlines.....................35Changing and removing aborder.......................................36

Shading and colour...................36Copy formats ...........................37

Printing the budget...................37

Data layout ................................37Centering headings ..................37Vertical layout .........................37

Other advantages usingnames ......................................41Entering formula......................41Jumping to named cells ...........41

Names in the ‘Householdbudget’ ....................................42Margins....................................43Headers and footers .................43Scaling the printout..................44Manual page breaks.................44

Repeating headings...................45

Print area .................................. 46Fixed print area ....................... 46Printing areas (name) .............. 46Customising toolbars............... 47

A chart on a new page ............. 48Updating a chart ...................... 50

Adjusting the format in achart........................................ 50Chart types .............................. 513-D perspective ....................... 51Save chart ................................ 51

A chart on this sheet ................ 51Selecting data .......................... 52

Printing charts.......................... 52Household Budget................... 52Naming tabs ............................ 53Deleting a sheet....................... 53Inserting a sheet....................... 53Copying sheets ........................ 54Average ................................... 55Other functions........................ 55

Calculating loans...................... 55Naming cells in functions........ 57Household Budget................... 58

Sorting....................................... 59

Filtering..................................... 59User defined filters.................. 60

ISBN 87-90027-78-7

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