How to start working with Excel (I). We are going to see how you can introduce and modify different types of data available in Excel, and how to manipulate the different movement techniques within a workbook in order to create worsheets. Excel Concepts You might not be clear about Excel basic concepts such as Workbook, Workshet, Cell, Active Cell, Row, Column,... so perhaps it is advisable to review them here . Quick movement within a sheet Only a small part of a sheet is visible in the document window. Your sheet will generally occupy a larger number of cells than those visible in the area of your screen and it can be necessary to move within the document quickly. When there aren't any documents opened, the active keys to move on the sheet are: MOVEMENT One cell down one cell up Right Cell Left Cell Screen down Screen Up Cell A1 First cell cell of active column Last cell of active column First cell active row Last cell active row KEYBOARD ARROW DOWN ARROW UP RIGHT ARROW LEFT ARROW PAGE DOWN PAGE UP CTRL+HOME END+ARROW UP END+ARROW DOWN END+LEFT ARROW or HOME END+RIGHT ARROW Another way of moving quicky on the sheet, once you are sure what cell you want to go to, is using the dialog box Go to shown on the right: Type in the tex box Reference the cell you want to go to. Then click on OK. To have access to the dialog box Go to you can press the key F5, use the keyboard, the key combination Ctrl+G or you can also unfold the menu Edit and select the option Go to... You can always use the mouse, moving with the scrolling bars in order to display the cell you want to go to and click on it. If you want to practice these operations you can do this Exercise of scrolling on a sheet. Quick movement within a book There are several spreasheets within a workbook. By default, three worksheets appear in the screen but that number could be changed. In this section we are going to deal with the different methods of moving in the different sheets of a workbook. We'll begin by using the labels bar. As you can see, in this case we have three spreadsheets and one of them is the active sheet, that is, the sheet on which we are working, Sheet 1. Clicking on any or the tabs you will change sheet. That is to say, if you click on tab Sheet 3, you will go to work on that sheet. If the number of sheets is too high for the labels bar, we will use the buttons on the left of the bar in order to dispaly the sheets: To display from Sheet 1. To display the previous sheet , previous to the one displayed. To display the following sheet , the sheet that follows the one displayed. To display the last sheets. Once the sheet we want to have access to is displayed, just click on the label. When all the sheets in the book fit in the bar, these buttons will not have an effect. You can also use key combinations to scroll within a workbook. These are: MOVEMENT Following Sheet Previous Sheet KEYBOARD CTRL+PAGE UP CTRL+PAGE DOWN If you have any doubts concerning the methods for moving inside a workbook, we would advise you to do the Exercise for scrolling in a book. Introducing data In each of the cells in a sheet, you can introduce, texts, figures or formulas. In all cases the steps to follow will be these: Place the cursor on the cell you want to introduce the data and type the data you wish to introduce. It will show in two places: in the active cell and in the Formula bar, as you can see in the picture below: To introduce the value in the cell, you can use any of the three methods we are going to see now: ENTER: validates the value introduced in the cell and also the active cells becomes the one just below. CURSOR MOVEMENT KEYS: validate the value introduced in the cell and also the active cell will change according to the arrow key you press, that is to say, if you press RIGHT ARROW the active cell will be the one next to the right. TICK SQUARE: this is the button on the formula bar, when you click on it the value introduced in the cell is validated but the active cell remains the same one. If you change your mind when you are about to introduce information and you wish to restor the cell content to its original value, all you have to do is press key Esc of the keyword or to click on the button Cancel on the formula bar. That way the data will not be introduced and the cell will continue to have its original value. If you introduce a formula in a incorrect way, in all probability, a box will be shown giving information above the error you have made. Read it slowly so you can understand and accept or not the correction. It is also possible that the formula will be wrong but you won't be warned. In that case something strange will show in the cell and you will have to check the formulas bar to find the error. How to modify data You can modify the content of a cell as you write in it or later, after the introduction. If you have not validated the data introduction and you make an error, you can correct it using the key Return in the keyboard to delete the character to the left of the cursor, making it return one position. You can't use the key LEFT ARROW because it validates data entry. If you have already validated the entry of data and you wish to modify, you will select the appropiate cell, then you will activate the Formula bar pressing key F2 or you may go directly to the formulas bar and click on the part of the data you wish to modify. The Status Bar will change from Ready to Edit. In the Formula bar the insert point or cursor will appear at the end, then you can modify the information. After you have typed the changes press ENTER or click on the button OK If after you have modified the information, you change your mind and wish to restore the original content and value of the cell, all you have to do is press key Esc of the keyboard or click on the button Cancel on the formulas bar. In that way, data will not be introduced and the cell will show the informationa it had. If you wish to replace the content of a cell, select the cell and type the new value directly on it. Types of Data The different types of data we can have in a spreadsheet are: CONSTANT VALUES, that is to say, data introduce directly in the cell. It can be a figure, a date or a time, or a text. If you wish a more detailed explanation about constant values visit our basic . FORMULAS are sequences formed by: constant values, references to other cells, names, functions or operators. A formula is a basic technique for the analysis of data. You can perform different operations with the data in a spreadsheet, like +, -, /, Sen, Cos, etc... In a formula you can mix constant values, names, references to other cells, operators and functions. Formulas are typed on the formulas bar and must begin always by the sign =. If you would like to find out more about formulas press here Data Errors . When we introduce a formula in a cell, there is a possibility that we make an error. Excel may warn us or not, according to the type of error. When it warns us of an error, the dialoge box shown will look like the one on the right: It suggests a posibility that we can accept clicking on the button OK or reject it using the button NO. We can also detect an error without being warned when in the top left corner of the cell appears a symbol like this . will be displayed and will give us more information about When you click on the symbol a box like this the error. When you click on the box another box will appear that will vary according to the type of error. The most frequent one is this: This box lets us know that the formula is incoherent and offers us different options. It is possible that the error is simply that the cell formula is different from that of the adjacent cells (for example, it is a subtraction and all the others are additions). If you don't know what to do, it is available to you the option Help on this error. But if you just want to check the formula in order to find out if it is necessary to modify it or not, you could use the option Edit in Formula Bar If the formula is correct, you should use the option Ignore Error so that the symbol on the cell corner dissappears. When you introduce the formula it may appear as cell content #TEXT, being TEXT a value that can change according to the type of error. For example: ##### will appear when the colunm width is insufficient or when a date or time is used in negative form. #¡NUM! when you have introduced an incorrect type of argument or operant, like an addition on texts. #¡DIV/0! when a figure is divided by zero #NAME? when Excel does not identify the formula's text. #N/A when a value is not available for a function or formula. #¡REF! when a cell reference is invalid. #¡NUM! when invalid numerical values are typed in a formula or function. #¡VOID! when an intersection of two areas that do not intersect is specified. In all these cases, the cell will also contain the symbol on the left top corner: should be used as we have shown above. . This symbol To practice all that has been explained in this theme you can do the Exercise for the introduction of data.. Exercises theme 2.. Theory evalutation test from theme 2.