Excel is an extremely powerful program developed by MicroSoft as a spreadsheet program to assist in "crunching numbers." The features that have been added to Excel over the different years and improvements in the different versions have made it even more robust than just a 'number-cruncher' although it still does that very well. There are several different ways of accomplishing the same result in Excel. We will not explore all of the different ways (as if we could really know all) to accomplish a task. There may be several different ways which are not explored here in these tutorials-ways that are more efficient than the ones presented! Please share your ideas if you know better ways than the 'tricks' we chose to present.

The basic Excel topics may be explored in any format. We suggest that you generally follow the order that the topics are presented in this outline.

Excel Tutorials ( * denotes tutorials with movies there is a different section with more movies)

1. Navigation on sheet

• Arrow keys and Mouse clicks
• Tab key
• CNTL-Home and End and Page Up and Page Down

2. Size adjustments to Rows and Columns

• * Column Width & Row Height
• * Formatting a collection of rows or columns

3. Formatting Cell Contents

• * Text Alignment and Number Alignment
• Setting Toolbars
• Formatting a block of cells
• Indent
• Fonts & Sizes
• Bold, Underline, Italics
• Font Color & Cell Color

4. Numbers and Formatting

• * Display of place value in a cell
• Percentage
• Currency
• Fraction
• Date & Time

5. Arithmetic

• Operations
• Order of Operation
• Formulas
• Sum Function
• * Average Function (Important for inserting other functions!)
• Arithmetic with time

6. Forms

• * Merge Cells
• Background Colors in Cells
• * Borders
• * Vertical Display
• * Text Wrap and Vertical Alignment

7. Useful Organizational Features

• Print Area vs. Work Area
• Hyperlinks
• Inserting and Deleting rows or columns
• * Shifting two columns in a spreadsheet
• Transposing rows and columns
• Sheets in the Book
• Cell Comments
• * Split Screen with “Freeze” section

8. Charts and Graphs

• * Bar Graph
• Line Graph
• Circle Graph

9. Efficiency in building spreadsheets

• * Copy – Fill
• Copy – Copy/Paste
• Copy – Auto Serial
• Copy between two or more spreadsheets
• Toggle view of formulas and functions

10. Drawing in Excel

• Drawing Toolbar and Line Tool
• Arrow Tool
• Insert Clipart/Image File
• Rectangles and Ovals
• AutoShapes
• Arrange order of objects

11. Use of Some Special Functions

• If Function
• Text
• Count
• Random Number
• Math & Trig
• Statistical
• Pivot Table (Needed)

12. Database Features

• * Filters
• * Sorting
• Find
• Mail Merge - Labels

13. Printing in Excel

• Setting Gridlines, Margins, Orientation
• Inserting/Deleting Page breaks
• Print Preview
• * Setting/Removing Print Area
• Printing Column Headings in a Report

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