9.1 Microsoft Excel Basics

A spreadsheet is a type of software that allows you to calculate mathematical equations and design tables that you can use for financial documents and that performs data analysis and mathematical calculations.
The GUI of Excel is designed for manipulating the cells of the spreadsheet. The GUI also has a ribbon, which is a wide, multitabbed menu that contains features for customizing and formatting tables.
The spreadsheet file is called a workbook and is composed of worksheets. A workbook can contain only one worksheet. However, you cannot have a worksheet without a workbook.
Add new worksheets to a workbook by clicking on the + next to the sheet tabs found along the bottom of the interface.
The Print feature of Excel allows you to print a single worksheet or the whole workbook.

9.2 Text and Numbers in Microsoft Excel

Excel is a powerful tool to manage small to somewhat large sets of data.
Data can be collected in Excel and analyzed to track a business’s sales or costs or a machine’s output, for example.
Both text and numbers can be formatted to match the contents of the data such as formatting a description as text or a cost as accounting.
The Page Layout tab includes commands to help you format the printed page in a professional manner.
The Review tab is especially useful when sharing the spreadsheet for collaboration and ensuring accuracy in spelling and grammar.

Excel uses the formula syntax to add, subtract, multiply, or divide. The formula syntax is comparable to writing out math equations by hand, with numbers and mathematical operators.
The function syntax can perform the same calculations as the formula syntax for addition and multiplication but not for subtraction or division. The function syntax uses function names with cell references or ranges in parentheses to calculate.

Formatting cells using colors, fonts, and borders can make a worksheet more readable and visually appealing. Other commands such as Merge Cells and Wrap Text can be used to adjust the information in the cells to enhance the professional presentation of the spreadsheet.
By hiding columns or rows, you can make a more manageable worksheet or control what other users see and how they interact with it.
Freezing rows or columns keeps the information visible when navigating large spreadsheets.
Using conditional formatting identifies trends in the data or highlights values that are inside or outside a certain range.
There are a variety of templates available within Excel and online for many uses such as invoicing, sales reports, and budgeting.

Sheets serves many of the same purposes as Excel, but some of its tools are limited, compared with Excel. Many of the features are the same as or similar to Excel.
The toolbar on Sheets is called the action bar. It is just one row of commands, unlike the wider Microsoft Office ribbon, with menus that are essentially the same as the tools in Excel, but the action bar also includes a row of buttons for frequently used commands.
The process of creating a worksheet and formatting cells in an existing worksheet in Sheets is similar to that of Excel, with drop-down menus for common commands.
Printing in Sheets is similar to printing in Excel.

The copy-and-paste function in Sheets works the same way as in Excel and allows the user to use the structure of an existing table to create a new one. Users can then manipulate the table by inserting columns or rows.
To create a new table, first create header rows and then format the cells below it based on their contents. Then, as you add text or numbers, Sheets will automatically format them based on the type of data.
Basic graphs require selecting the data for analysis and then inserting a graph. Sheets chooses the type of graph based on the type of data. You can change the graph type using the sidebar.
Sheets has many of the same page layout and review features as Excel, with the major difference being the location of the tools in the interface.

In Sheets, mathematical calculations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division can use formulas, mathematical operators, and/or functions.
The functions in Sheets differ some from Excel. Sheets has a few functions such as MINUS and DIVIDE that are not in Excel.

Sheets has many of the same formatting functionalities as Excel, such as colors, fonts, borders, text wrapping, and merging cells.
The formatting features allow for designing professional column and row headers. Hiding and unhiding columns or rows can simplify a worksheet to make it easier to use.
Conditional formatting works the same as in Excel.
Sheets contains some templates on the Welcome screen, but users of Sheets also share their own. Searching among only those publicly available templates can help you find many additional templates.