A simple start.

As we start the new year. I begin a new challenge in publishing my first blog. I have become a bigger and bigger fan of the spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel in particular) over my working years. Every day I learn something new that can assist me in making my job easier, simpler, more efficient and of course more interesting. I love sharing my new knowledge and skills with whomever will listen and show some interest in the same topics.

As the title of this article states, 'A simple start', this is precisely what I achieve to aim and provide a 'friendly' channel for the Excel novice. This blog has a back to basics agenda which will turn more in depth as our skills develop.

In order to get the most out of the program you will need to become very familiar with the interface. There are few differences between 2007 and 2010.

1. A Simple Start. You ask: "What is Excel?"

Excel is a tool that helps us to understand data better by laying it out in ‘cells’, which combine to form rows and columns.  The diagram below shows what an Excel sheet looks like:-
- The rectangles are cells.
- Each cell has a name according to its location. The name is defined by the   letter at the top of the column (column run vertically - top to bottom) and the number of the row (rows run horizontally - left to right).
- The cell is named at the point where the column and row intersect (meet) - e.g Top left cell would be called A1, the one to the right would be called B1 and the one below A1 would be called A2.

We enter information into each cell and lay it out into a table with column headings and row headings.

In the spreadsheet itself you will only see 30 or so rows and 20 or so columns when you open a new workbook, there are in fact over 1,000,000 rows and over 16,000 columns in Excel 2007. This vast sheet can accommodate a huge amount of data and calculations.
Just click on any cell to start typing numbers or text into it. Then move around the spreadsheet with the arrow keys or by clicking on cells with your mouse pointer.

If you want to highlight the whole of column B you can click on the letter B itself:

Similarly for a row or collection of rows (for more than one row click on a number to the left, hold the mouse and drag up or down):  

Lastly, you can even click on the top left square to highlight the entire sheet:  

This might be useful to clear all the data or format everything the same way.

My next blog will discuss the task bars, scroll bars and how to navigate in Excel.