What is Microsoft Excel (MS Excel)?

When I talk to people about the different software I use for data analysis, sometimes they still give me blank looks when I talk about MS Excel. Many tend to forget that not everyone knows what MS Excel is and what it is used for. Microsoft Excel, or Excel for short, is an electronic spreadsheet program typically used to store information. Once you have the information stored, you can use MS Excel to organize and manipulate the data. It’s important to organize your data in a meaningful way so that when you try to manipulate the data to find answers or patterns, you simplify the task.

When you open MS Excel 2013, it looks similar to MS Excel 2007 and 2010. If you have an older version, then Excel looks different, but the concept of a spreadsheet is pretty much the same.

So what am I looking at when I open Excel?

When you open Excel in version 2007 or later, you’ll see a ribbon of commands to help you quickly complete any task you need to do. Below the ribbon, you’ll see a rectangular table, also called a grid, that contains rows and columns. Rows are identified by the numbers in the left hand column on the left hand side of the screen. There are up to 1,048,576 rows in an Excel spreadsheet. Columns are identified at the top of the table by letters beginning A through z and then continuing with two or more letters that can form up to 16,384 columns. Although you have all these rows and columns at your disposal, remember that the quality of your spreadsheet suffers the more information you insert, since you are limited by the power of your computer.

The first cell where you can enter data is identified as A1, which means its address is Column A, Row 1. This is also known as a cell reference.

Notice how the first column A and the first row 1 are also in dark green. This is how you know the cell reference or cell address for each cell.

What kind of information can be put in a cell?

There are different types of data that you can store in a cell, such as numbers, text, links, and formulas. Excel has a whole list of different formulas that you can use to manipulate your data. In MS Excel 2007 and newer versions, you can find the formulas on the ribbon under the Formulas tab. Data manipulation is where the power of Excel lies.

What uses does MS Excel have?

With Excel you can do so many things! Some of the things you can do are the following:

• Basic math calculations like sum, product, minimum, maximum, average.
• Manipulate financial data to calculate profit or loss
• Calculate payment plans for different loan and mortgage rates
• Create a personal/family budget
• Graph data in tables
• Pivot tables and charts to sort and filter data
• Write small applications called macros to automate daily tasks

How can I use MS Excel data for my presentation needs?

I usually use Excel to manipulate data and find patterns. When I’m happy with the information I’ve collected and manipulated, I can usually just copy the information and paste it anywhere I like, such as:

• Other MS Excel workbooks
• ms word file
• Websites – First I save it as an image
• Presentations – PowerPoint easily accepts Excel charts and graphs. Simply copy from Excel and paste directly into presentations. I usually select to paste as an image, but it can also be helpful to leave the table/chart as a working table/chart for easy manipulation within PowerPoint.
• Impression – Printing is an easy way to distribute information from Excel.

As you can see, MS Excel is a powerful tool for storing and manipulating data. It takes practice to get comfortable using it. So get started today and don’t be afraid to make mistakes! It’s easy to erase and start over. The important thing is to start!