Introduction to Excel

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet: a grid of cells where you store data and make the computer do the maths. It's the most widely used data tool in the world, from household budgets to company finances. (Almost everything here also works in Google Sheets and LibreOffice Calc.)

Workbooks, worksheets and cells

• A workbook is the file (.xlsx).
• A workbook contains worksheets (tabs along the bottom).
• A worksheet is a grid of cells: columns are lettered (A, B, C...) and rows are numbered (1, 2, 3...).

Every cell has an address made of its column letter and row number:

Here A2 contains "Coffee", B3 contains 2.25 and C1 contains "Qty".

Ranges

A range is a rectangle of cells, written as the top-left and bottom-right corners joined by a colon:

• B2:B3 is the two prices,
• A1:C3 is the whole table.

Types of data

Excel recognises:

• Text, aligned left by default,
• Numbers, aligned right (including dates and times, which are stored as numbers),
• Formulas, which start with = and calculate a result.

Your first formula

Click a cell and type:

=2+3

Press Enter and the cell shows 5. The formula is still there; you can see it in the formula bar above the grid. Formulas become really useful when they refer to other cells, which is the next lesson.