1. Introduction to Excel
Hi, I'm Jess and I will be your instructor for this Introduction to Excel course. We'll cover the basics of Excel and have you super charging your data analysis before you know it!
2. What is Excel?
You've likely heard of Excel, a popular spreadsheet software by Microsoft that allows us to insert, read, and manipulate data in rows and columns. It's widely used in businesses of all sizes and even for personal tasks like family budgeting.
Excel offers a free, cloud-based version with limited features as part of Microsoft 365, which can suffice for basic tasks. However, for this course, we'll use the paid version with advanced capabilities.
3. Why Excel?
Excel is used for storing, processing, analyzing, and visualizing data. It's designed for both technical and non-technical users with a user-friendly interface, though it may seem daunting at first due to its many features. It's popular for its collaboration tools like shared workbooks, co-authoring, and commenting, which are valuable in business settings. Excel also offers many templates to help you get started.
4. Limitations
An important thing to know about Excel is how much data it can handle.
The two main limitations to be aware of are the available memory and system resources limit that can happen with opening workbooks.
Additionally, a worksheet's total number of rows and columns is limited to just over 1 million rows and 16.5 thousand columns.
5. Excel interface
Many components make up the Excel interface. Throughout this course, you'll become more familiar with these concepts, such as the ribbon, worksheet, and formula bar, in later slides.
6. Key definitions
We'll start with Workbook, an Excel file containing one or more worksheets to help you organize all your data.
7. Key definitions
Next, we'll look at the worksheet, the primary area you'll work in. It can often be referred to as a sheet or spreadsheet. It consists of cells organized into columns and rows.
8. Key definitions
A cell in Excel is a box that is formed at the intersection of a row and column; this is where information is often contained.
9. Key definitions
Cell reference refers to the combination of a column letter and row number that identifies a cell in the worksheet.
10. Key definitions
For example, a cell that appears at the intersection of column C and row 4 is C4.
11. Key definitions
The active cell refers to the cell that is being worked with, this is identified by a rectangular green box.
12. Key definitions
Next is a range, which refers to two or more cells in a worksheet. These do not necessarily have to be adjacent to each other.
13. Key definitions
You may have also come across the term formulas when talking about Excel. These can be mathematical equations, cell references, or even functions placed within a cell. All formulas must start with an equal sign.
14. Key definitions
Finally, it's great knowing about formulas, but what about where you put them? That would be the formula bar on top of the worksheet next to the fx label.
15. Let's practice!
Now that we've got more familiar with the Excel interface and it's key components, let's test your knowledge.