Excel Basics

Excel is a very powerful spreadsheet package. Below you will find a few basic details to get you going in Excel. Keep in mind, though, that this is barely scratching the surface of what Excel can do.

When you first open Excel, you will see a blank worksheet. This worksheet is made up of small rectangles, or cells. Each cell has a unique reference or “address”, which consists of a letter (or letters) for its horizontal position and a number for its vertical position. For example, the upper left-hand cell is A1, and the cell in the third row of the third column is C3.

Text Box: NOTE: Labels are often just text that helps you keep track of what you are doing in the worksheet. If your label is a number or begins with an arithmetic operator, you must begin the label with an apostrophe (‘) so that Excel won’t try to read the label as a number or calculation.

There are three basic types of entries that we will be entering into cells:

1) Labels

2) Numeric values

3) Calculations (formulas always start with an equals sign ‘=’.)

The difference between relative and absolute references (from Excel help files)

	A	B
5	100
6	200	=A5
7

When you create a formula, references to cells or ranges are usually based upon their position relative to the cell that contains the formula. In the example at left, cell B6 contains the formula =A5; Microsoft Excel finds the value one cell above and one cell to the left of B6. This is known as a relative reference.

	A	B
5	100
6	200	=A5
7		=A6

When you copy a formula that uses relative references, the references in the pasted formula update and refer to different cells relative to the position of the formula. In the following example, the formula in cell B6 has been copied to cell B7. The formula in cell B7 has changed to =A6, which refers to the cell that is one cell above and to the left of cell B7.

If you don't want references to change when you copy a formula to a different cell, use an absolute reference. For example, if your formula multiplies cell A5 times cell C1 (=A5*C1) and you copy the formula to another cell, both references will change. You can create an absolute reference to cell C1 by placing a dollar sign ($) before the parts of the reference that do not change. To create an absolute reference to cell C1, for example, add dollar signs to the formula as follows, =A5*$C$1.

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