A Beginner's Guide to
Microsoft Excel 2007

Microsoft Excel 2007 has several changes that are designed to make it easier for you to use.  There are a few changes that may seem more difficult until you really explore the Excel workbook.  To help you as a beginner or seasoned user of Excel, we are offering a guide to help explain the components of the screen as well as other steps.

Excel Ribbon:

Rather than having a toolbar with drop down menus, you now have what is called the ribbon.  The ribbon has the same options as the toolbar in 2003 or earlier, just displayed in an easier to see manner.  You have several tabs that will display the tools you need in the ribbon.  These tabs are:

1. HOME: The home tab is going to offer paste, font, alignment, number, styles, cells, and editing.  These are the basic needs you have in an excel spreadsheet.
2. INSERT: The Insert tab offers tables, illustrations, charts, links, and text additions.  This is where you will choose to make any chart based on the information typed in the spreadsheet, for example bar graphs, pie graphs, and more can be created in the worksheet or in a separate sheet.
3. PAGE LAYOUT: Page Layout shows themes, page setup, scale to fit, sheet options, and arrange.  The page layout used to be under the file menu.  Now you have a simple click to turn a spreadsheet from portrait to landscape.
4. FORMULAS: Formulas are even better than the earlier versions because it is a step by step view.  You have the function library in which you can find certain default functions and create your own.  You also have defined names, formula auditing, and calculation.  When you select the ‘calculate now’ button you get the average number of rows, and then the sum of the numbers in the rows at the bottom of the screen.
5. DATA: Data offers importing external data, connections, sort and filter, data tools, and outline options.  These options will help you create groups to create the charts you need.
6. REVIEW: The review tab is the simplest of all with the proofing, comments, and changes.  You can now track your changes or make suggestions in Excel for improvement.  This helps you as a professor or manager because you can track the changes you make for others to see.  You can also show where changes need to occur.
7. VIEW: The last section is view with the workbook view options, show or hide, zoom, window display, and macros.  In view you can select to print or not print gridlines.  In earlier versions you had to open page layout or print preview to select for gridlines.
8. HELP: this is the question mark symbol to allow you to ask questions about the Excel programme on or offline.

Microsoft Office Button:

The Microsoft Office Button is the menu. It has everything you need to open a new document, existing document, save in various formats, print, prepare your document, send, and publish the document.

Excel Tutorial:

Now that we have looked at the command tools you have to prepare the Excel spreadsheet, let’s look at some of the basics for creating a spreadsheet.  The first step in creating a spreadsheet is opening the Excel workbook.  When you open the workbook you have a blank spreadsheet with three tabs.  In the spreadsheet you can have more than one worksheet going on in that saved document.  In fact you can have as many as you would like.  We will not get into how to create more sheets in the workbook right now.

How to enter data:

To start entering data, you simply click on the cell you want to enter the information in.  Then you type the data and press the enter key.

Format Cell: Widening the Column

Occasionally, the information you enter into the Excel document is going to be too large for the cell.  For example the column title is deductions.  The cell is only showing ‘deduct’ not the ‘tions’ portion.  To show the entire word place the mouse between the two columns, in this case we will call them A and B. A cross appears with a double headed arrow.  You must double click when the arrow appears.  This will elongate the cell to fit the entire word. 

Note: You must click off the cell you are working in before the double headed arrow will appear.  You can’t be in a data enter mode.  The cell will only fit the largest data in the cell.  You can manually move the cell by clicking and holding the button to drag the cell wider.

Dating the Excel Spreadsheet

Most companies will want a date to be in the workbook.  You can add the data in any cell that you wish.  You can also change how the date appears.  For example you can have the date and time in that cell.  To do this you will click on the cell you wish to have the date in.  Then click on the Formulas tab in the ribbon.  Click on the date function you would like such as ‘date and time’.  Then click on the ‘Today’ function.  Click ‘ok’ in the functions arguments box.  You now have the date you needed in the spreadsheet, along with the time.

Using Formulas

In Excel you have built in formulas that you can use.  The steps for using some of these formulas are quite easy and something a lot of Excel users don’t learn.  Instead Excel users are taught the long way around getting the information they need.  You have a formula tab to select what you need and a calculation tab that will offer you the sum of information you need, as we mentioned in the Ribbon section.  We are going to provide an example in this section to help you get a formula to extend from one row through the entire column.

In the spreadsheet you have two columns.  Column one has either positive or negative numbers.  In column two you need a running balance.  In column one you have three rows to start. The data is 24, -9, and 36.  In the second column row one show 24, however you want row two to have the sum of 24-9.  All you need to do is type in =24-9 and hit enter.  The sum will appear.  However you also want row three, column two to have the sum plus the value in column one, which is 36.  You could enter =15*36 and then enter.  But, there is a simpler method.  When you are in column 2 you can type in the equals sign and then select column 1 row 1.  It will then place the number 24 in the box.  For the next row you need to create a formula.  In column 2 enter an equal sign then select column 2 row 1, next type a plus sign then select column 1 row 2.  Then hit enter.  The formula has now automatically offered the sum of 24-9.
This next step is what you really need to know about the spreadsheet.  You created a formula in column 2 row 2.  Highlight the cell.  Then place your mouse over the bottom right corner.  A cross should appear.  Click and hold the mouse, then drag the mouse.  You will see that as you drag the mouse through the column, a value appears in the cells.  Column 2 row 3 will have the numeral 51.  This is adding the sum of column 2 row 2 to the value in column 1 row 3.  As you make changes to column 1 the values in column 2 will change.  You have successfully given the column the formula you needed for each cell.

Formatting Cell Alignment

In Microsoft Excel 2007 you can change how the data in the cell is shown.  For example, there are defaults that will align text with the left centre of the document and numbers in the right centre of the document.  If you want to change the alignment you have two options.  You can select the alignment tab in the Home section or you can right click on the cell and select sell formatting. 
For the alignment tab there is an arrow at the bottom of the tab.  By selecting this arrow the cell formatting options will appear.  This is the same box you get by right clicking.

Number Formatting:
Another option you might need for Excel is the number format.  You will again need the alignment tab or right click to format.  Under the Home tab is number.  You can select general, number and other options to change the format.

Creating more sheets

You can create more sheets in the workbook.  To start you will have three.  To insert a sheet right click on any of the three sheets.  Then select insert.  The new sheet will be before the sheet you used to insert.  You can move this sheet to the last position.  By selecting move or copy you can select where the placement of the new sheet occurs.