- Click on start button at the bottom left of the desktop
- A pull-up menu will appear
- Click on “All Program”. A pull-up menu will appear again.
- More the mouse pointer to Microsoft office. A drop down menu will appear.
- Click on “Microsoft Excel”
- Wait while the Microsoft Excel loads and appear on the desktop.
MICROSOFT EXCEL INTERFACES
The Microsoft Excel interface consists of the following main elements.
- Office Button
- Quick Access Tool bar
- Status Bar
- Ribbon
HOW TO SAVE A WORKSHEET
- Move the mouse pointer to the “office button”
- Click the Microsoft office button
- Move the mouse pointer to “Save As” and click on it.
- A ‘Save As” dialog will appear showing the folder “Save In” and a place you will type in the filename of your choice.
- A dialog box will appear showing different filenames.
- Click on a filename that you want to open
- Then move to the right end of the dialog box and click on “Open” button or
- Double click on a filename. The file will open.
Note: A filename is a name given to a file to enable the users to differentiate one file from another.
HOW TO CREATE A NEW WORKBOOK
- Move the mouse pointer to office button
- Click on Microsoft office button
- A drop-down menu will appear.
- Move the mouse pointer to “New” and click it
- A dialog box will appear
- Click on black workbook
HOW TO ENTER DATA INTO A WORKSHEET
You can enter numbers (with or without fixed decimal points), text, dates, or times in one cell, in several cells at once, or on more than one worksheet. A spreadsheet consists of cells that are organized into columns and rows; a worksheet is always stored in a workbook. A cell is the intersection between a column and a row.
Click on a cell, type numbers or texts and then press ENTER or TAB key. By default, pressing ENTER moves the selection down one cell and pressing TAB moves the selection one cell to the right.
HOW TO FORMAT TEXT
USE HOME RIBBON FONT GROUP
Step 1: Launch Excel. Open the Excel worksheet you want to format
Step 2: Click the “Home” tabs
Step 3: Click inside the cell that you want to format
Step 4: click the font drop-down list box on the home ribbon. Click on the font style you want to use.
Step 5: Click on the font size drop-down list box and click on a larger or smaller font size.
Step 6: Click on the “A” icon to the right of the paint bucket icon to change the text colour.
ADD OR CHANGE BACKGROUND COLOUR OF CELLS
You can highlight data in cell by using Fill colour to add or change the background colour or pattern of cell.
- Select the cell you want to high light
- Click Home – then click next to Fill colour
- Under Theme colours or standard colour, and then in the colours dialog box select the colour you want.
Tip: To apply the most recently selected colour, you can just click Fill colour.
You will also find up to 10 most recently selected custom colours under recent colours.
CHANGE THE FONT, FONT SIZE AND FONT COLOUR
CHANGE THE FONT
- Select two or more cells e.g. B2 to F3
- Choose Home tab
- Click the down arrow next the Font box. A list of font appears. As you scroll down the list of fonts, Excel provides a preview of the font in the cell you selected.
- Find and click Times New Roman in the font box
Note: if Times New Roman is your default font, click another font. Excel change the font in the selected cells.
CHANGE THE FONT SIZE
- Select cell B2
- Choose the Home tab
- Click the down arrow next to the font size box. A list of font sizes appears. As you scroll up or down the list of font sizes. Excel provides a preview of the font size in the cell you selected
- Click 26. Excel changes the font size in cell B2 to 26.
CHANGE THE FONT COLOUR
- Select cells B2 to E3
- Choose the Home tab
- Click the down arrow next to the font colour button
- Click on the colour green. Your font colour changes to green.
Evaluation
- Show how to add background colour to a cell
- How to change the font
- How to change the font size
- Explain how to load Microsoft Excel
- Explain how to save Microsoft Excel workbook.