To create a spreadsheet that can be used to introduce data, you have to use Excel. This is not exactly a tutorial, but I promise I will write a tutorial about Excel in a few days. The types of data you can enter here are: text, numbers, date (calendar), time, formulas, functions. The text is a combination of letters, numbers and spaces. In default configuration, the text is automatically aligned to the left, inside the cell. To enter text in a cell: click the cell you want to enter text, enter the text (as you write, the text appears in the cell), press Enter key (the text will appear in the cell, aligned to left). If you made a mistake and want to correct it, press the Esc key.
The input data can be identified by the heads of columns and rows. The columns appear in the top of the worksheet, under the title. The heads are placed in the left row of the spreadsheet, usually in column A. Usually, the column labels indicate the periods of time as they are: years, months, days. The rows usually show heads representing numbers of the each row. The rows contain various types of data such as product names, employee names or receipts and expenditures of the budget.
When introducing the head of a column, press the Enter key instead of Tab key to move from one cell to another. When you enter text in a row, you can switch from one row to another, by using the arrows. This is available also for a column. The user can also use various comments that can be inserted into a cell in which to be included detailed information about the data in a spreadsheet. If the user wants to add a comment to a cell, he must do as follows: select the cell where you want to insert the comment; open the Insert menu and select Comment or click the New Comment button on the toolbar; enter the comment.
Outside the cell, if it is clicked, in the upper right corner of the cell, you will see a red triangle indicating that the cell is composed of a comment. To read the comments, place the mouse pointer on that red dot in the upper right corner. Excel will display the comment. To edit a comment, select the cell that contains it and then use the Insert, Edit Comments. When the changes are made, click outside the cell to save them. To delete a comment, click the cell, select Edit, then select Clear Comments.
The numbers that the user will enter may contain numeric characters from 0-9 and the following special characters :+,-/.()$%. This means that we can enter commas, decimal points, dollar signs, percentage and brackets, together with the values we enter. To enter a number: click the cell where you want to introduce the number, enter the number (to enter a negative number, place a minus sign in front of it, or write it between parentheses). To enter a fraction, place it before the number 0, for example 0 ½, otherwise Excel will consider the entry as a calendar date.
Press the Enter key, and the number will appear in the cell aligned to right. Also, the user can enter the date and time in different formats. When you enter the date using a format, the Excel format converts a number that indicates the number of days or years elapsed from 1982, for example, to date. To enter the date or time, perform the following steps: click the cell where you want to insert the date or time; write the date or time using the format you wish to display, press the Enter key; if Excel recognizes the entry as a date or a time, it will appear right aligned in the cell, but if Excel does not recognize it, it will be treated as text and will be aligned to the left.
When writing a column of data, you can specify the desired format for the first time. Then when you enter data, Excel will automatically adjust to fit the format. Instead of being written entirely by the hand, each time when you will write the date format, Excel will display it as you selected it at the beginning. To format a column, click on the column header to select it, then open the Format menu and select Cells. There select the desired date format.
The user can copy an existing entry in the neighboring cells, by performing the following steps: click Add, mark the cell whose content you want to copy in other cells too, pull down or right to copy the data in the adjacent cells. A box will appear that will show you exactly what data is copied to other cells. If you copy a number, one month or one that could be interpreted as a series, but do not want to create a series, but only to copy the exact content of that cell, hold down the Ctrl key when dragging until you finish the copying.
The writing of series such as the year is similar to copying cell contents, except you will not keep the Ctrl key pressed any longer. When you draw a series, from the cell of origin, the AutoFill feature works in your place, playing an important role and filling the series for yourself. For example if you write 1 in a cell and then drag the cell, which was previously marked, over the adjacent cells, you will create a series that begins with 1 and continues with 2 and 3 and 4.
Although the AutoFill feature is very suitable for creating a new series of short entries, there may be situations in which the required control of the situation to be higher. In principle, two entries will provide a model for the series for the adjacent cells and Excel will use this to calculate the rest of the series. So, it’s hard to say if your computer is smart enough to know that 2 is after 1, but it will definitely know that 3 is after 2 and after 1, if it sees that on your Excel sheet.
Next I will present how to do this in a more practical way: insert first value in a cell, get to the second cell and insert the second value of the series, select both cells by dragging the mouse over them and Excel will select the cells, completing the series and stopping where you want it to stop. Excel will calculate the series and will fill the selected cells with the corresponding values.
When you enter the first letters of a contact, you should use the AutoComplete function intelligently. The AutoComplete feature may be used only for creating input in columns, not in rows. For example, if we want to introduce the country of origin for some products, and we have to write the country name again and again, the next time when entering the sheet, we must use the AutoComplete feature and enter the name of the country only at the beginning of the sheet. AutoComplete function will fill the rest in the place of the user.
In default configuration, the AutoComplete function is always activated. If during this work, it gets you in the way, it can be disabled using the command Tools, Options. By clicking on Edit and then Enable AutoComplete for Cell Values, you will deactivate the option. To see how the feature works, perform the following steps: write in a cell the name of a country and press the down arrow key to move to the next cell, where you will write another name and so on. To write these names again, enter a new cell, press the first letter of the first country and you will see how Excel remembers that for P, you wrote Poland. The same method is used with the other country names.
To see a list of AutoComplete entries, select a next cell and then go to Pick From List from the shortcut menu. Excel will show the list with the alphabetical entries, automatically created using the words you’ve entered in the column.
