What is Microsoft Excel. If you want to learn What is MS Excel then you are in best place. Here you will learn What is Excel used for.


What is Microsoft Excel


What is MS Excel. What is Excel used for: Microsoft Excel is the most widely used spreadsheet software development by Microsoft Corporation. It allows you to store, organize, and analyze different types of data. It is simple to use for common users. It also provides advanced features of statistics, mathematics, and scientific use.




Basics of Microsoft Excel 2016




Worksheet:


                    A worksheet is simply a gird of rows and columns. It is a large table with 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns.
Each column in a worksheet is identified by an alphabet starting with the letter A and each row is identified by a number, starting from 1.


Workbook:


                    A collection of related worksheets, saved in a single file is called a workbook. A workbook typically contains one or more worksheets. Each worksheet in a workbook may include similar or different data.


Cells:


           The references of adjacent cells may be denoted by cell range. It is defined by the cell reference of the first cell followed by colon (:) and then writing the reference of the last cell.



Excel Interface:


                           Open Excel by selecting if from the start menu or by double -    clicking the Excel 2016 desktop icon. The excel start screen will appear when you first launch excel 2016. You can view your recently opened workbooks, may create a new workbook from a template or choose to create a new blank workbook.





Different operations in Microsoft Excel



Resize Columns:


1. Choose a column or a selection of columns.

2. Choose Format > Column Width from the Home menu ( or Row Height).

3. Enter the column width, then click OK. 


Formatting Cells:



Step 1:  Select the cells to be formatted and click on the Format button on Home tab. 

Step 2:  Click on Format Cells.

Step 3:  Select the appropriate option from the Number tab like Date for displaying date, currency format for showing currency, and so on. 

Step 4:  In the Alignment tab, we can change the alignment of the text. Alignment refers to the placement of your text or numbers in a cell. 

Step 5:  You can change the font of the content of the cells by selecting the font size font family and other formats for font specification.

Step 6: The Border tab allows you to draw different types of borders to the selected cells

Step 7: You can apply different colours to the cells using the options available in the Fi tab.



Applying Borders:


                        Let us create the following sheet in Excel.


 Step 1: Open MS Excel and write '1', '2', '3' and '4' in four separate cells as shown. 

Step 2: Select the cells and then click on the Border icon on the Home tab. A list will appear and then click on All Borders. 

We can see that a border has been created on all sides of the data. 



Generating Charts:


                              A chart is data from a worksheet that is represented visually and can be better understood than data that is only seen as numbers. It is also commonly known as a Graph It is used for the representation or comparison of data. We can generate charts of the data entered in a sheet. 

Let us create a chart for the sheet generated in the previous section. 

Step 1: Select the data for which the chart is to be generated. In the sheet below, select cell D11 to cell 114. 

Step 2: From the insert tab, select the Chart icon. Now click on the 2-D clustered Column chart in the list that appears. 

We can see that a chart is created with different colours and legends.

After you have created the chart a new chart tool will appear in the menu. You can use the chart tool to modify the chart's properties as you wish.




Formulas in Excel


                        To perform mathematical computations, an Excel formula is used. It is an expression that calculates a cell's value. 

The equal sign (=) and your calculation are always typed in the cell at the beginning of a formula. The equal sign indicates that you are going to enter a formula in the cell. If you do not enter the equal sign, Excel will treat your entry as text and the calculation will favo Formulas use references of cells for calculations. It means we have to provide the references of the cell on which the formula will be applied. For example, if we want to add two values entered in cells A1 and A2 and want to display the result in cell A3, we will use the following formula: =A1+A2 

When you press enter, cell A3 will show you the result. 




Functions:


                Functions are formulas with a name. Most of the functions are provided by Excel itself. These functions are called built-in functions. They perform calculations on the values, called arguments. All of Excel's functions are located on the ribbon's formulas tab. For example, if we want to perform the calculation in the above example with a function, we have to write in cell A3 as: =sum(A1:A2) 

It will show the same result as was calculated by formula = A1+A2



Some of the most common functions include: 


Textual Features:


LEFT MID RIGHT LOWER UPPER LEN 

Logical:


AND  OR  NOT 

Date and Time:


DATE TIME NOW TODAY 

Maths and trig:


SQRT ABS MOD SIGN

Statistical:


SUM COUNT MAX MIN AVERAGE 



Examples of Simple Built-in Functions:


 • The SUM formula for adding four numbers from cell B2 to B6 will be written as =SUM(B2:B6) 

• AVERAGE It provides the mean average of the values falling within the given range. =AVERAGE(A1:A10) 

• MIN/MAX MIN function returns the lowest value discovered in a group of values. 
MIN(A1:A5) 

• MAX function returns the highest value discovered in a group of values. =MAX(A1:A5)



Introducing the IF Function:


 The IF function is used to test if a certain condition in a worksheet is true or false What does the IF function look like? IF (logical_test, value_if_true, value_if_false) Here is what they mean: 

Logical test: 


what do you want to test for? 


Value if true:


what do you want to do if the answer is VES?

 

Value if_false: 


what do you want to do if the answer is NO? 




Most Used Formulas in Excel:


Let us try some commonly used formulas in Excel. Create the following sheet in Excel. 

1. To calculate the average number of students in a class, we can use the average function. Write the formula = AVERAGE (C7:F7) in cell G7 and press Enter. 

2. To calculate the total number of students, use the sum function. Write = SUM (C7:F7) in cell H7 and press Enter. Drag the fill handle to fill in the values in the cells below. 

3. To find the Max value, write = MAX (C7:F7) in cell 17 and drag the Fill handle to fill the values in the cells below. 

4. To find the minimum value, we can use the MIN function in the same way as we used the functions given previously. 





Mathematical Formulas


 Excel can be used to calculate and analyse numerical information with the help of various mathematical formulas. A formula is an equation that performs a calculation using values in the worksheet. 

Creating a simple formula that adds two numbers:


1. Click the cell where the formula will be defined (e.g. C5) 

2. Type '' to let Excel know the formula is being defined. 

3. Type the first number to be added 
(e.g. 1500)

4. Type '+' to let Excel know that an addition is to be performed.

5. Type the second number to be added (e.g. 200)

6. Press enter on the formula bar to complete the formula.








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