Welcome to Excelling with Excel

Entering Data into Excel
(there is a practice exercise at the end of this page)

When you work with Excel, you usually work with text and data (numbers). You also work with column labels - these are the same as column headings. Some examples of column headings could be the months of the year. Example: A1- type January, that is a column heading or label.

To enter data:

• click on a cell and type - what you type will either be data or text
• try it: click in cell C1 and type your name, tab and type 5000
• look at what you have typed: data (numbers) go to the right of the cell and text is at the left

Looking at some of the icons in working with the data

If you work with Word, you know B in the icon or formatting toolbar, stands for bold, I for italic and the area that has the lines is for left align, center or right align. NOTE: you will find you use the align tools quite abit with Excel. BUT, avoid centering data (numbers).

Take the time to explore what some of the icons do. If you hold the mouse pointer under each icon, a dialog box will appear telling you what the icon does. The following diagram may help.

For practice - you do not need to email me this.

Type this data into cells A3:F3. The colon stands for a range meaning you would type data in cells A3 through F3. You will begin with cell A3 and end with cell F3.

• name tab, 4000 tab, 5000 tab, 6000 tab, 7000 tab, 8000
• now in cell A1 type the word PRACTICE and format it Bold, Blue and change the size from 9 to 12
• and, finally, select the cells A1 through F1 by clicking in cell A1, hold the click and drag through cell F1.
• you will see that the cells are highlighted - NOW, click on the merge and center icon.
• you have just done a small exercise in formatting

And now, you will move into adding with Excel