Excel: A Quick Start Guide For Beginners - Learn How To Boost Your Productivity Today!

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2 Excel: A Quick Start Guide For Beginners - Learn How To Boost Your Productivity Today!

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4 Copyright All rights reserved. This document is geared towards providing exact and reliable information in regards to the topic and issue covered. The publication is sold with the idea that the publisher is not required to render legal, financial, medical or any professional services. If advice is necessary, legal or professional, a practiced individual in the profession should be ordered. In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved. The information provided herein is stated to be truthful and consistent, in that any liability, in terms of inattention or otherwise, by any usage or abuse of any policies, processes, or directions contained within is the solitary and utter responsibility of the recipient reader. Under no circumstances will any legal responsibility or blame be held against the publisher for any reparation, damages, or monetary loss due to the information herein, either directly or indirectly. The information herein is offered for informational purposes solely, and is universal as so. The presentation of the information is without contract or any type of guarantee assurance. The trademarks that are used are without any consent, and the publication of the trademark is without permission or backing by the trademark owner. All trademarks and brands within the book are for clarifying purposes only and are owned by the owners themselves, not affiliated with this document.

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6 Table Of Contents Introduction Chapter 1 Getting Started With Excel Chapter 2 Keyboard Shortcuts Chapter 3 Math and More Chapter 4 Increasing Productivity within Excel Conclusion

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9 Introduction There is so much talk about how Excel can help with productivity both at work and at home, but many people are asking themselves how it is possible. Most of us know that Excel is a spreadsheet program that was created based on paper spreadsheets that accountants used to use. What many people do not know is that they can use Excel in almost every area of their lives. Not only can you use Excel to improve your business, but you can also use it to reach your goals, track your progress, create a budget or reduce your spending. In order to do all of this, you have to know how to use Excel, but you also have to know how to increase your productivity while you are using Excel. Excel is not going to benefit anyone if it takes all day to fill out a few cells or if the person using Excel does not understand how to use the program. That is why I have created this book. This book is going to walk you through Excel step by step so that you can use it in every area of your life, but also that you can boost your productivity while you are using Excel.

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12 Chapter 1 Getting Started With Excel Excel is a very useful tool that can help you become more productive in your everyday life, at work as well as at home. What was once only used by accountants is now a great program for stay at home moms and business people alike. An Excel worksheet is made up of columns and rows, creating what is known as cells. Data is stored in these cells. The columns are named alphabetically and the rows are named numerically which will help you to navigate the worksheet as well as to create formulas. For example, if you want to add two cells, you will need to know the alphabetical name for the columns as well as the numerical name for the row such as 14. We will get into creating formulas later in this book, but for now it is important for you to understand what the columns and row names are used for. When you are referring to a specific cell such as A13, this is called a cell reference. When you are looking at your spreadsheet, you will see the name box which is located just above column A. The name box will display the cell reference of whichever cell you have selected. When you have a cell selected, you will notice that the row name as well as the column name both change color. For example, if you were to select A13 you would see that the letter A is highlighted and the number 13 is highlighted. Next to the name box you will find the formula bar. At the beginning of the formula bar you will see fx. You will use this when you are creating a formula. This bar will display the contents of the chosen cell or the formula that has been placed in a specific cell. This means that if you were to use the formula =Sum (A1, B1) in cell C1. When you clicked on A1 or B1 you will see whatever number you imputed into that cell. However, when you clicked on cell C1 you would see the formula that you typed into that cell. At the bottom of your Excel spreadsheet, you will see Page 1 and then a +. When you click on the + you will be adding a page to your workbook. Each workbook contains different pages or worksheets. When you are ready to begin working in the cells, you need to know how to navigate from one cell to the next. Of course, you can use your mouse, however, that is going to take a lot of time and is not going to increase productivity at all. You can also use your arrow keys in order to navigate the cells in a spreadsheet. The ENTER key will move your cursor to the cell directly beneath the previous cell you were using and the TAB key will move you directly to the right. If you want to make the cells larger or smaller, you will place your cursor on the line between either the letters and numbers. You will see a line with two arrows coming off creating a sort of +. Hold down the left button on your mouse and adjust the size of the cells. Now you are ready to begin adding data into your spreadsheet. In order to add data into

13 any cell the only thing that you have to do is click on the cell and begin typing. When you click on a cell, you will notice that it becomes highlighted. What you type in the cell will appear in both the cell as well as the formula bar and you can edit the data that you have typed into any cell in the cell or in the formula bar. If you choose to edit within the cell, you will double click the cell that you want to edit. If you choose to edit within the formula bar, simply highlight the cell and move your cursor to the formula bar then edit the information. In order to fill down, or fill cells below a specific cell, you will click on the cell with the information or formula that you want to place in the lower cells. Then press CTRL+D. This will create new formulas for the lower cells so that you do not have to manually enter them. For example, if you want to add all of the A cells as well as the B cells placing the sum in the C cells, but the numerical values of each A cell and B cell will be different meaning the C cell total will be different, you do not have to create a new formula for every C cell, Excel will do it for you. You can also do the same thing with rows, from left to right. Click on the cell that contains the information or formula that you want in the cells the right, highlight the cells that you want the information in and then press CTRL+R. There are many other shortcuts that you can use on your keyboard and we will cover these in a later chapter to ensure you can increase your productivity while you are using Excel. If you need to move the contents of a cell to another cell, you will right click on the cell highlighting it, choose cut, right click on the cell that you want the information in and then click paste. There will be times when you will see an animated border around a cell, you will find that you can do nothing while this boarder is present. In order to get rid of this border, simply press the Escape key. When you need to add a row in Excel, you have to remember that Excel will always add a row just above the row that your cursor is currently on. Therefore, if you need to add a row above 2, your cursor needs to be on the 2 row. Simply click on the number 2 and it will highlight the entire row. In order to add a row, simply press the F4 button. In order to delete a row, click on the row number and press the delete button on your keyboard. If you want to add a column, you need to know that Excel will always add a column to the left of the column that you have clicked on. This means that if you want to add a column between A and B, you need to click on B, highlighting the entire column and then press the F4 button on your keyboard. In order to delete a column, click on the letter of the column, highlighting the entire column and press delete. In order to rename each worksheet, you will right click on the name of the spreadsheet, choose rename and label it as you see fit. In order to name the entire workbook, you will

14 choose file, save as and type in the name of your workbook. There will be times when you want to move your worksheet within your workbook. In order to do this, simply right click on the name of the worksheet, choose move or copy and this will bring up a box which will list all of your worksheets. Here you will choose which worksheet you want this one to go BEFORE. If you want to move a worksheet to a new workbook, you will right click on the name of the worksheet, choose move or copy and then choose BOOK or New Book. This will move the worksheet to a new workbook. In order to move the worksheet to a different workbook that already exists, it is recommended that you use the copy option. You will highlight each column by clicking on the letter at the top of each column, right click, choose copy. Then you will choose where you want to paste this in the existing workbook, right click and choose paste. Many people will choose to use the cut and paste option but if something happens for example the computer decides to update before you can paste the information into the new worksheet, you could lose all of the information. If you want to copy a worksheet into the same workbook, right click on the name of the worksheet, choose move or copy then choose create a copy. You will click the name of the worksheet that you want this copy to appear BEFORE. Finally, the most common error sign that you will see within your cells when using Excel is #### this simply means that the information provided is too large to display in the cell and you should increase the size of the cell.

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17 Chapter 2 Keyboard Shortcuts In order to save the most time when it comes to using Excel and be more productive, you will want to learn the most common keyboard shortcuts. When you look at these shortcuts they will look like this A+B. In order to use these, you need to know how to read a short cut. The first part of the shortcut is usually going to be CTRL. This means that you will press down the control button on your keyboard. The next part of the shortcut is +. In this instance, the + sign stands for and, it is not a key that you will push on the keyboard. The third part can be any other button on your keyboard and you will press it next. You do not have to press both keys at the same time. You can hold down the first button and then press the second button. This will not affect how the shortcut works. It is also important to know that some of these shortcuts are going to refer to what is known as the selected cell. The selected cell is simply the cell which your cursor is in, the cell which is highlighted. In order to select a cell, the only thing that you need to do is to click on it. If you want to select multiple cells, you will select the first cell in the series, hold down the left mouse button and drag your cursor over the cells that you want to highlight. In order to move between cells, you can use the ENTER key which will move your cursor to the cell beneath the one you are currently working in. The TAB key will move you to the cell directly to the right. SHIFT+ENTER is going to finalize the data imputed into each cell and move you to the cell below. SHIFT+TAB is going to finalize the date put into each cell and move you one cell to the right. In order to cancel a cell entry, you will press the ESC button. This will also remove the animated outline of a cell after you have copied the information it contained. CTRL+Z is going to be used to undo whatever your last action was and it can be used multiple times in order to undo multiple actions. Alternatively, you can use ALT+BACKSPACE and it will do the same thing. If you decide that you want to redo an undo, you can press CTRL+Y on your keyboard and if you need to insert a hyperlink, use CTRL+K. In order to edit that data that is in a cell, you can either double click on the cell and begin to edit that data or you can click on the cell and press F2. To fill a column down, press CTRL+D and in order to fill to the right press CTRL+R. If you need to see the formulas that you have typed into the cells, use CTRL+ to toggle between the information that is shown in the cell and the formulas that have been typed into the cell. This can be useful if you want to use a formula that you have already used in a different cell but don t remember it. To open the format cells window, you will press CTRL+1 and if you want to copy

18 something that you have highlighted to a clipboard, you will use CTRL+C. If you need to paste something into you re your Excel spreadsheet from a clipboard, you will use CTRL+V. CTRL+X is used for cutting, CTRL+SPACE will allow you to select an entire column, SHIFT+SPACE is going to allow you to select an entire row, CTRL+A will select every cell on the worksheet, use CTRL+B to make your selection bold and CTRL+I will make your selection italicized. In order to underline the data that you have selected, press CTRL+U, CTRL+SHIFT+: is going to insert the current time as it is shown on your computer, ALT+F1 is going to insert a chart, ALT+0162 is going to insert the sign, ALT+0128 is going to insert the sign, ALT+0163 will insert the sign, ALT+0165 will insert the sign. When you are using the numbers, in as a shortcut, you must use the numbers on the number pad and not the ones above the letters on the keyboard. When you are working in an Excel worksheet, you will find that you need to move around the worksheet. Home will take you to the first cell in the beginning of the row you are working in, CTRL+HOME will move you to the first cell in the worksheet, ALT+PGDN is going to move you to the next screen to the right and ALT+PGUP will move you to the next screen to the left. In order to open the find window when you are working in Excel, use CTRL+F, CTRL+H is going to open the replace window, CTRL+S is going to save the file and this is something you should get into the habit of pushing on a regular basis to ensure you do not lose any work, F12 will open the Save As window which will allow you to save your document and name it, CTRL+P will open the print window, CTRL+F2 is going to allow you to print a preview of your worksheet, CTRL+W is going to allow you to close the workbook that you are currently working in, ALT+F4 can be used for this purpose as well. CTRL+O will allow you to open an already existing workbook while you are using the Excel program and CTRL+N will allow you to open a new file or workbook.

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21 Chapter 3 Math and More Now that you are beginning to understand the basic functions in Excel with are going to save you a large amount of time to begin with, you will want to learn about math in Excel. Basic math in Excel is quite simple. For example, =A1+B1 is going to tell Excel that you want the sum of cells A1 and B1 in that specific cell. You are also not limited to only adding two cells, but can add as many as you need. =A1-B1 is going to tell Excel that you want to subtract the data found in B1 from the data found in A1. This will be typed into the cell that you want the answer in. =A1*B1 is going to tell Excel that you want the data in A1 multiplied by the data in B1. =A1/B1 is going to let Excel know that you want A1 divided by B1 =A1^2 is going to tell Excel that you want the data that is in cell A1 cubed, however you can use any exponent that you wish for example, =A1^3 would let Excel know that you want the data cubed. You can also combine multiple operations as well, for example, =(A1+B1)/C1 will let Excel know that you want to add the data that is in cells A1 and B1 then divide the result with the data in C1. Another example of this could be =4* (A1+B1) +5. Excel will automatically add the data from cells A1 and B1, multiply that total by 4 and then add 5. It is no different than writing a basic math equation except that the equals sign is at the opposite end of the equation. In order for you to use multiple operations within a cell, you have to remember the order of operations because if you do not, you will get the wrong answer. Excel is going to work through the problem following the order of operations and while it is not something that is common to use outside of Excel, it must be used when using Excel. The order of operations is: Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication or Division, followed up by Addition or Subtraction. What this means is that anything inside of the parenthesis is going to be solved first, next, the exponents will be resolved, followed by multiplication or division and finally the addition or subtraction will be resolved. It is also important to understand that Multiplication and Division are done in the same step and Subtraction and Addition are done in the same step as well. This means that if you need them done during a different part of the process, you need to put parenthesis around them so that they follow the order of operations. When you are creating formulas within cells, you might find that you get the error #### this simply means that the number is too large for the cell to hold and you need to adjust either the size of the cell or the size of the font being used.

22 By now, your mind is probably full of ideas about how you can use Excel not just in your business, but in your everyday life. You can create spreadsheets for just about every area of your personal life, all within one workbook and you can create a workbook or several workbooks for your business. A few ways that I use Excel spreadsheets at home are by tracking the amount of money I save per item that I purchase because I use coupons. By using a spreadsheet, I can look up an item, find the retail price, the sale price, what coupon I used, and quickly see how much I paid for the item as well as what my percentage saved was. This allows me to quickly find out what I should be paying for any given product without having to try and remember or shuffle through receipts. I also have a monthly budget within Excel that allows me to see where all of my money is going as well as where my earnings are coming from. I am able to tell what percentage of my income is being paid out per bill and in total. On top of this I have a worksheet which allows me to see how much I have cut back and saved over a year. I use Excel for my business as well. Since I am self-employed, I need to be able to track the number of hours that I am working each day as well as the number of hours that I am working on each project. This simply allows me to see that yes, I am being productive and whether or not a specific project is worth the time that it is taking verses the amount of money that I am earning from it. I am sure that if you sat down and took a look at Excel, you could come up with hundreds of ways to use it in your day to day life. Now that you understand how Excel works, not only can you become more productive while you are using Excel but you can actually use Excel to make you more productive in your life. There are so many different ways for you to use Excel, to increase your productivity, to increase your income and to even help you lose weight! Open up a worksheet and practice some of the shortcuts and tips that you have learned, chances are, you are going to be hooked.

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25 Chapter 4 Increasing Productivity within Excel Of course, as you have probably already noticed, using the information that you have learned so far about the basics of Excel is going to increase your productivity within Excel tremendously however, there are many other ways to increase your productivity within Excel. 1. Change how you navigate within a workbook. I discussed earlier how pressing enter would take you to the cell below the cell that you are working on, or the next cell in the column. What happens if you want to go to the next cell in the row. Of course, you always have the option of pressing the tab key, but this can be difficult to get used to doing and can end up taking up precious moments of your time. Instead, you can change the settings in Excel so that when you press the enter key, you will be taken to the next cell in the row. Simply go to Menu, Tools, Options, Edit, and set the move selection after enter to whichever action that you would like. 2. You can also change the number of Excel worksheets that you begin working with when you open a workbook. The default setting is three, however, most of the time, you are only going to need one or two worksheets. This of course is not going to happen all of the time, for example, my personal finance workbook has five worksheets. However, most of the time, you will find that you have to delete one or two of the worksheets within your workbook. In order to save time doing this, simple let Excel know that you only want to start with one. After all, clicking that +sign is a lot easier and faster than deleting unused worksheets. Simply click on, Menu, Tools, Options, General and change the sheets in workbook setting from 3 to All of us have our own favorite fonts as well, and many times it can take more than a few moments for us to find those fonts. Now, instead of wasting your time changing your font every time you want to create an Excel sheet, simply change the setting in Excel. All you need to do is go to Menu, Options, General, and change the standard font to whatever is your favorite. 4. You can change the color or your bold font as well, but what many people do not know is that they can change the colors that are available to them by creating their own colors. Simply click on the Menu tab, Tools, Options, choose color and begin

26 defining your own colors. 5. The Excel program is fairly intelligent when it comes to how it displays numbers. The program is defaulted to use a period when showing decimal points and a comma when showing thousands. This is of course great if you are doing all of your work in the US and don t have to worry about sharing it with another country, however if that is a factor, no one wants to go through hundreds of cells of data and change something as small as a comma or period. Instead, you can go into the settings in Excel and change the default settings. Simply click on the Menu tab, choose tools, options, international tab and uncheck the use system separators box. Doing this is going to allow you to enter your own separators. 6. There are times when you are going to want to skip cells or in other words, leave data out of specific cells. When this happens, you will find that Excel will alert you to an error. Over and over again. While this can be a great feature that helps to pick up errors when you did not mean to leave a cell empty, it can be quite annoying if you want the cells to remain blank. The good news is that you can turn these alerts off. Simply click Menu, Tools, Options, Error Checking, and then you will uncheck the box for enabling background error checking or you can simply uncheck the rules that you do not want to apply when you are using Excel. 7. While you are using Excel, you may find that you have to type the same word multiple times, however if you use the autocorrect option to your advantage, you can create shortcuts which will allow you to type a few letters and the words you want typed out will be autocorrected saving you typing time. For example, if you have to type Plastic Pretty Ponies, you can use the shortcut PPP which will autocorrect and type out Plastic Pretty Ponies for you. All you have to do is to create an autocorrect rule that tells Excel to replace PPP with Plastic Pretty Ponies. In order to do this you will click the Menu tab, tools, Auto Correct Options, Auto Correct. Excel 2016 as well as all of Microsoft Office is updated with some great features that will help people not only become more productive within the programs but in their life as well.

27 Updates In Excel To Boost Productivity With new options such as one click forecasting, easy sharing features, new reports and data models, it is no wonder that so many people are turning to Excel. These are major enhancements that will not only reduce the amount of time that you are spending in Excel, but will improve the information that you are able to get out of Excel. The new quick analysis tools are easy to access now and all you have to do is to highlight the data that you have imputed, and click on the little box that appears at the bottom right hand corner which contains a lightning bolt. This will give you many options about what you want to do with your data, including, inserting charts, tables, and getting your totals. There are six new charts available that you can show off within your Excel worksheets and all that you have to do in order to access them is to highlight the data and click insert recommended charts. Once you have done this, all you have to do to choose from one of the sample pictures. However, if you do not like these sample pictures, click All Charts, then you will be given a list to choose from. The list will contain several categories, then you can select from one of the pictures that you will be given. One of the best new features is that you are able to share your Excel worksheet with someone which means that the two of you can work on the same Excel worksheet in real time. You can finally collaborate when you are creating worksheets, charts, graphs, tables and more. All you have to do is click the + Share button at the top right hand of your Excel worksheet. There are other features as well, such as smart lookup which allows you to look up information online without having to open your browser, if you use Word a lot, you will know how this works. All you have to do is to highlight a word, click on Smart Look Up and the Insights panel will open which will display the information that it has found for you that relates to the word you highlighted. Finally, there is a tell me what to do feature. This is where you can type in anything that you want to do in Excel and it will take you directly to it. So no longer do you have to spend time searching your notes in order to find the correct key strokes, no longer to do have to search the internet trying to figure out how you can do what you want to do. Instead, simply type it into the tell me what you want me to do bar and let Excel take you there. Of course, the use of all of these features depends on what you are going to be using Excel for and you may find some of them more beneficial than others, but what you will find is that all of them that work for you will make you more productive in Excel.

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30 Conclusion So many people have avoided using Excel because they simply did not know how they could benefit from it. However, now you know that you can use Excel not only in business, but in your personal life as well. By using the tips in this book, I hope that you have been able to increase your productivity while you are using Excel. It is important to remember that there are very few cells that you actually have to enter manually when you are working with Excel and that no matter how big your worksheet is, these tips and tricks are going to help to boost your productivity which will save you time, which will of course save you money. Don t put restrictions on yourself when it comes to using Excel. You don t want to do yourself a disservice by not using Excel with it could be the factor that makes everything finally come together.

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