Computer Knowledge: Microsoft Excel and Its Components for Banking and Other Competitive Exams

Microsoft Excel and Its Components

Microsoft Excel

An electronic spreadsheet is used for analysing, sharing and managing information for accounting purpose performing mathematical calculations, budgeting, building, etc. A spreadsheet is a matrix of rows and columns similar to an accounting ledger. The spreadsheet program also  provides tools for creating graphs, inserting pictures and chart, analysing the data etc.

Basics of Spreadsheet

MS-Excel allows creation of spreadsheets. The basic terms of spreadsheet are:

A spreadsheet is a software tool that lets one enter, calculate, manipulate and analyse set of numbers. The intersection of each row and column is called cell. A cell is an individual container for data. It may hold Microsoft-Excel (MS-Excel), Coral Quattro Pro, Snowball, Lotus-1-2-3, Apple Numbers are some of the spreadsheet software.

To Start MS-Excel

MS-Excel is a full menu-driven software and the commands are available as icons in various tabs and groups. To start MS-Excel software, we need to Click

Start → All Programs → Microsoft Office → Microsoft Office Excel

Important Point to Remember in Microsoft Excel

• Number (Constants)
• Formulas (Mathematical equation)
• Text ( Labels)
  
• An array of cells is called a sheet or worksheet. A worksheet holds information presented in tabular row and column format with text that labels the data. 
• A workbook is a document that contains one or more worksheet.
• A row is given a number that identifies it, starts from 1,2,3,4,5............
• A column is given a letter that identifies it, starts from A......Z, AA............AZ, BA, BB...........BZ.
• A cell pointer is a cell-boundary that specifies which cell is active at that moment.
• A formula is an equation that calculates the value to be displayed. A formula must begin with equal to (=) sign.
• A cell address is used to specified the interesting of row and column of the letter and number on worksheet.

Components of Microsoft Excel

The Office Logo Button: It is at the top left corner contains many commands for the document such as New, Open, Save, Save as, Print and Close.

The Ribbon: It consists of panel of commands which are organised into a set of tabs.

Tabs: It contains the commands such as Home, Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, Review, View etc as well as any additional command that you may need.

Status Bar: It displays information about the currently active worksheet. It includes page number, view shortcuts, zoom slider, etc.,

Formula Bar: It is located beneath the Ribbon. It is used to enter and edit worksheet data. It includes

• Name box: It displays the all reference or column and row location of the active cell.
• Functions: These are predefined formulas that perform calculations by using specific values, called arguments.

Clipboard: A clipboard group contains the cut, copy and paste commands.

Alignment: It is used to change alignment of the text in the cells- vertical, horizontal alignment, indentation, wrap the text, shrink it to fit within the cell and merge multiple cells.

Tables: It is used to define a range of cell as a table for easy filtering and storing and create a pivote table or chart to arrange and summarise the data.

Function Library: It contains a library of functions (Ex:- mathematical, logical, trigonometric etc), such as AND, IF, LOOKUP, AVG, DATE etc.

Formula Addressing: The formula can have relative addressing, absolute addressing and mixed addressing.

• Relative Addressing: It repeat the same formula for many difficult cells, use the copy and paste command.
• Absolute Address: to keep a certain position that is not relative to the new cell location use absolute positioning. 
• Mixed Address: It is used to keep some part relative and some absolute.

The Macros: It is used to define a sequence of actions to perform on a document or multiple documents that can be executed again and again.