Ms Excel Is A Program



2.1. What is Excel

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program that can be used to enter data in tabular form and to perform a large variety of computations on that data. In addition, Excel can be used to create a wide range of graphical charts, and can even act as a simple database program to store, search, and retrieve data.

Note: The instructions and screen shots that follow refer to Excel 2003. If you use a newer version (e.g. Excel 2007) you will find that most of the basic functionality is the same, but the menus and appearances are different. You could use the 'Help' feature to find out how specific commands in the 'new' Excel relate to previous ways of doing them. For example, if you search 'Help' for 'Excel 2003' you will find an interactive 'Excel 2003 to Excel 2007 command reference guide'. You might find that guide helpful if you have any questions with the instructions below.

Microsoft Excel is a helpful and powerful program for data analysis and documentation. It is a spreadsheet program, which contains a number of columns and rows, where each intersection of a column and a row is a “cell.” Each cell contains one point of data or one piece of information. Microsoft Excel, spreadsheet application launched in 1985 by the Microsoft Corporation. Excel is a popular spreadsheet system, which organizes data in columns and rows that can be manipulated through formulas that allow the software to perform mathematical functions on the data. Screenshot of Microsoft Excel. © 2010 Microsoft Corporation.

Best way to store data. Even if you don’t use any of the options or any tool which Excel offers you, it. What makes Excel the best spreadsheet application on the planet is its ability to perform calculations. In Excel, you have a complete list of functions (Top 100) that you can use for the calculations. Basically, an Excel function is a predefined formula that returns a specific result based on the values you specify.

A file in Excel is called a 'Work book', and each workbook can contain several 'Sheets'. A 'sheet' is a table with rows and columns, where the rows are numbered and whose columns are labeled with letters from A to Z, then AA, AB, ... and so on.

Each cell in a table can contain text, numbers, or formulas, as well as more sophisticated types such as currencies, dates, etc. In addition, sheets can contain graphic elements such as charts that can be linked to values in specific cells.

The power of Excel comes from creating formulas that perform calculations on cells containing numbers. Every time a number involved in a formula changes, the resulting value of the formula also changes automatically. To see a simple example, download a sample Excel worksheet by clicking on the Excel icon below (but first read on a little more).

NOTE: If Excel does not automatically start, or you see a lot of strange characters instead, then right-click on the above link and save the document to your desktop. Then double-click on the downloaded icon to make Excel start. Either method will be okay for the remainder of the course.

If everything works, you will see a 'live' spreadsheet in a separate window that looks similar to the above picture.

Ms excel wikipediaMs Excel Is A Program
  • Click on the cell B5 to see that it contains the number 80.
  • Click on the cell D8 to see that it contains a formula (in this case the SUM formula)
  • Change the data in cell B8 to 100 and press return.
    • Did the sum in cell D8 change?
    • Did the sum in cell D9 change?
    • Did the bar chart change?

When you are done, close the window that contains the spreadsheet. If you are asked whether to save your changes, select no. Make sure you know how to return to this document in your web browser.

As a topmost spreadsheet application on this planet, Microsoft Excel has a lot of benefits for anyone who knows how to use it.

And if you are one of those people who we want to learn it and wondering how this can help you in your work, when I have listed the top ten benefits of Microsoft Excel here.

10 Benefits of Microsoft Excel

10 Benefits of Microsoft Excel

  1. Best way to store data
  2. You can perform calculations
  3. All the tools for data analysis
  4. Easy to data visualizations with charts
  5. You can print reports easily
  6. So many free templates to use
  7. You can code to automate
  8. Transform and clean data
  9. Store data with millions of rows
  10. You can work with Excel online + mobile app

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1. Best way to store data

Even if you don’t use any of the options or any tool which Excel offers you, it is the best way to store data. Why I’m saying this because Excel is a kind of application that is used by millions of people.

So, when you store data in Excel and then share it with others,they can access that it easily.

2. You can perform calculations

What makes Excel the best spreadsheet application on theplanet is its ability to perform calculations. In Excel, you have a completelist of functions (Top 100)that you can use for the calculations.

Basically, an Excel function is a predefined formula that returns a specific result based on the values you specify.

But apart from that, you can also create your own formulas by combining two or more functions or just by performing calculations using operators.

Some Formula Examples:

3. All the tools for data analysis

The core motive of having data is to analyze and to getinsights out of it. The good news is Excel has some of the most powerful toolsto analyze data.

Imagine you have data with thousands of rows, you can insert a pivot table out of that data and create a summary table.

Ms Excel Is A Dash Program

Some of the things you can do with pivot tables to analyze data:

Is Ms Excel A Word Processing Program

4. Easy to data visualizations with charts

Ms Excel Is A Program

In Excel, you have all those options to create charts andpresent your data in a visual way.

All those major types of charts that you need to use to present your data are already there and you can insert them with a single click.

If you go to the Insert Tab, in the charts group, you can findall the charts which you can insert.

Not just that, there’s also a button called recommendedcharts that you can use to let Microsoft Excel recommend you the best possiblechart to use for the data you have in your worksheet.

Ms Excel Is A Program

And if you think that you need something other than the default charts you have the option to create advanced charts using some specific methods.

Here we have a list of top 10 ADVANCEDEXCEL CHARTS that you can use in Excel.

And you can also create in-cell charts to make your data easily understandable for anyone.

5. You can print reports easily

Even if you are a person who likes to save trees but therecould be a point where you need to print reports to share with others or presentit to someone.

Well, Excel allows you to print with a lot of customizationwhere you can change the margin, paper size, orientation, etc.

There’s a whole bunch of options that you can use for pagesetup before printing a report.

6. So many free templates to use

One of the most popular things about Excel is you can createdashboards and templates.

There’s a whole bunch of free templates that you can download and use.

Free Excel Templates to Start with

Wiki Excel

7. You can code to automate

Microsoft Office has its own coding language which is calledVBA (visual basic for applications) and it allows you to write code for almostall the activities that you perform manually in Excel.

You can automate all kinds of activities from simple (make atext bold) to complex (insert a pivottable) using a VBA code.

Start Learning VBA

Once you learn the basics of VBA, you can also create a custom function by writing code.

Ms Excel Programming Language

8. Transform and clean data

If you are one of those people who work with data a lot oryou know someone who works, there are a lot of situations where you need todeal with messy data which you need to clean before you use it.

The process of cleaning and transforming data takes a bigchunk of your time and it can be a tedious process.

For this, Microsoft has introduced the power query which is a data transformation and cleaning engine well you can load data from multiple sources, transform it, and then load it back to the worksheet.

Ms Excel Programmer

What makes power query such a powerful tool? Check out this complete POWER QUERY guide tounderstand.

9. Store data with millions of rows

Well, there is no limit to data, but Excel has a limit in terms of rows and columns.

So that’s why Microsoft came up with Power Pivot where youcan store data with millions of rows and then you can perform calculations withinPower Pivot.

See this (Power Pivot – Overview and Learning)

10. You can work with Excel online + mobile app

As most of the companies these days are moving to the cloud and Microsoft Excel has its own web version. It has so many features, like functions, pivot tables, and pivot charts just like the desktop app.

And recently Microsoft has launched its all-in-one office app that you can use to work on spreadsheets mobile as well.

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