MS Excel-The Better Half of an MBA

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Table of Contents Introduction................................................................................... 3 Structure of Excel Window ............................................................. 3 Content and Referencing ................................................................ 5 Formatting, Sorting and Filtering .................................................... 9 Charts .......................................................................................... 16 Printing a Worksheet ................................................................... 19 References ................................................................................... 22

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Introduction Every year graduates from diverse backgrounds get into over 4,000 B-schools in India, offering more than 62 different variants of an MBA program. These include engineering, commerce, law, medical, and science as well as arts graduates. Some of them are fresher while others have prior work experience. But, everyone faces issues with Microsoft Excel, which is in reality a life-partner for any MBA graduate. There are even students who complete their MBA without knowing Excel in detail, but then they have to learn it sooner or later in their job, because it is an integral part of your daily work. This Quick-book aims to provide the readers a very basic understanding of this very powerful tool. We have covered very basic features of Excel considering the reader to be a novice beginner.

Structure of Excel Window MS-Excel is a spreadsheet program that consists of a grid made from columns and rows. The intersection of a row and column is a rectangular area called a cell. In this Quick Book we have used the 2007 version for all demonstration purposes. Each worksheet contains over a million rows and over 16,000 columns which are lettered A through Z, AA through AZ, BA through BZ and so on. To reference a cell you put the combination of Column Letter followed by Row number, like A1, A2, BZ1, BZ4 etc. MS Office Button

Quick Access Toolbar

Ribbon

The MS Office Button contains the main file related functions: New, Open, Save, Save As, Print, Close etc. The Quick Access Toolbar contains shortcuts to Save, Undo and Redo. It can be customized to include the shortcuts that you wish, like Quick Print, Print Preview, Undo, Redo etc. Each Ribbon tab displays a set of tools. The above picture shows the Ribbon tools for Home Tab.

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Name Box

Formula Bar

The Name Box and Formula Bar are just under the ribbon. Name box shows the name of the active cell, you can change it as per your choice. The formula Bar displays what is active inside the active cell; it could be data, or a formula. The three most important elements of Excel are the cell, the sheet and the workbook. Cell is the basic block where you enter data. When a new Excel document is opened, we have three worksheets available by default. These sheets can have different settings and formatting. We can add more new sheets or delete and rename the existing sheets, in a file if required, by right-click on the worksheet tab. Cells

Sheet

The workbook is the file containing one or more sheets. It is stored with .xlsx extension after its name. For quick navigation within an Excel spreadsheet, use the chart below. Keystroke

Action

Arrows

Moves the active cell up, down, left, or right one cell

Enter

Moves the active cell down one cell

Tab

Moves the active cell to the right one cell

Page Up

Moves the active cell up one full screen

Page Down

Moves the active cell down one full screen

Home

Moves the active cell to column A of the current row

Ctrl + Home

Moves the active cell to cell A1

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F5 (function key)

Opens the Go To dialog box in which you can enter the cell address of the cell that you want to make active

Content and Referencing Any cell which is not empty contains either some text, numeric content, or a formula. The content will be treated differently in formatting, calculations, sorting, etc.   

Text content should be used for data labels, names or other information. Numeric content for either numeric or financial information. Formula as content. Each formula starts with an = sign. Formulae can be written directly into the cell using arithmetical functions such as: +, -, *, or /. There are also standard built-in formulas available by choosing the Formulas ribbon tab and clicking on Insert Function. Specific formulas are discussed in later modules. Formula Tab

Referencing The reference is both the name and the address of a cell. There are three basic type of referencing:   

Relative (A3). Relative references change as you change the location of the cell containing the reference. Absolute ($A$3). Absolute references will keep the reference to the cell unchanged, even if you change the location of the cell containing the reference. Mixed ($A3 or A$3). Mixed references keep the reference to the column intact (if $ is in front of the letter) or the reference to the row intact (if $ is in front of the number).

References to cells in another sheet can be made by putting the name of sheet followed by an ‘!’ in front of the reference, for example, ’ Sales’!A3, where Sales is the name of other worksheet. Copy and pasting different types of cell references As noted above, there are three basic types of reference: relative, absolute and mixed. When copying and pasting data these reference are treated in different ways. 

Relative references change as you change the location of the cell containing the reference. In the example below, if we copy and paste cell B6 into cell C6 to get the corresponding total for the 2008 budget year Excel automatically updates the formula because it recognizes that the references inside the formula are relative references.

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Relative References



Automatically updated formula

Absolute references keep the reference to the cell unchanged, even if the location of the cell containing the reference is changed. In the example below, the formula with absolute references is copied and pasted in different cell, but it displays the same results.

Formula remains unchanged

Absolute References



Mixed references keep the reference to the column unchanged (if $ is in front of the letter) or the reference to the row unchanged (if $ is in front of the number). As seen in the example below, if cell B6 contained the formula = $B4+$B5+$B6, copying this formula in cell C7, won’t change it. But, if cell B7 is copied to B8, the formula will change to =$B5+$B6+$B7. Similarly, to make the row as absolute reference the formula should be =B$5+B$6+B$7.

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Column Reference Unchanged

Mixed References

Row Reference Changes

Paste Special Paste Special allows us to make changes to data as we are copying and pasting it. The command is in the Home ribbon, or alternatively, right click on the target cell also shows the Paste Special option in the shortcut menu. Copy a Formula. This will copy and paste the underlying formula (updating references where appropriate). Copy Values. Copies and pastes the value, or result of a formula, seen in a cell. Transpose data. In the example below the table is horizontal; however, you may want to change this format. For example, for presentation purposes you may prefer to have a vertical table instead. First select the data and copy. Choose a new cell where you would like the data to be placed and select Transpose under the Paste options.

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Transpose

Copy a format. This option allows us to format one cell and then copy and paste the format, but not the content to other cells. In the example below cell B6 has been formatted, including the font type, size and colour, background colour and borders. To copy this format to cell C6, first select and copy B6. Then select cell C6, choose the Paste Special option and a dialogue box will appear. Select Format and press OK. Note that the cell, we are copying the formatting into, must have content.

Copy the content but not the format. If you want to copy the content of cell B6 to C6 without the fancy formatting, first select B6 and copy. Select cell C6. If you want to copy the original formula (which will be update references appropriately), select Formulas, or to copy the value that you see select Values, and click OK.

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Formatting, Sorting and Filtering You can change the look of a selected cell (or a selected range of cells) by going to Home tab and clicking different formatting options like Font, Alignment, Number and Style. Each of these allows you to make some kind of modification to the cell or cells selected. For example, you can change the font used in the cells, add borders to the cells, and add colour to the cells.

Basic Entries In Excel, any set of characters containing a letter, symbol, number, hyphen (as in a telephone number), or a space is considered text. Text is used to place titles on the worksheet, such as worksheet titles, column titles, and row titles. To enter text in a worksheet, you click the cell in which you want the text place and then type the text you want entered. Dates are treated as separate from text in Excel because Excel includes several special functions and commands to work with dates. To enter a date, separate the parts of the date with a slash or hyphen. For example, the date April 1, 2013 can be entered as either “4/1/2013” or “1-Apr-2013”. You can also enter the date as “April 1, 2013”, in which case Excel might automatically convert the text to “1-Apr-2013”. You can change the format used by Excel to display dates by changing the cell’s format. Values are numbers that represent a quantity of some type: the number of students in a class, exam scores, financial information, etc. Values can be numbers such as 378 and 24.462, or negative numbers such as -324.54. Values can also be expressed as currency ($24.25) or percent (7.5%). As Copyright © 2013 Careers360

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you type information into a cell, Excel determines whether the information you have entered can be treated as a value. If so, Excel will automatically recognize the value type and right-align the value within the cell. Not all numbers are treated as values. For example, any numeric entry with a hyphen will be treated as a text entry.

Text to Columns If you copy data from another program and paste it into Microsoft Excel, Excel may condense several columns of data to a single column. You can use the Text to Columns command on the Data menu to put each record in a separate column. The range that you convert may contain many rows, but you can only convert one column of data at a time. In the example below we have the data in cells B2 to B5 that is in text separated by comma. We need the in different cells.  Select the range B2:B5.  On the Data menu, click Text to Columns.

 

In Step 1 of the Convert Text to Columns Wizard, make sure that the Delimited option is selected, and then click Next. In Step 2 of the Convert Text To Columns Wizard, click to select the Comma check box under Delimiters, and then click Next.

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NOTE: All of the check boxes under Delimiters should be cleared except for the Comma check box. 

In Step 3 of the Convert Text to Columns Wizard, type B1 in the Destination box, and then click Finish.

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This example illustrates data with commas as the delimiter. This is only one of several delimiters that you may see in your data. For example, if you have Names in a column of data, consisting of first and last name in a single cell separated by a Space, the Space character can be used as a delimiter to separate the first and last names into adjacent cells instead of the same cell.

Sorting This tool allows you to sort the results according to the data values. For example, with a listing of test scores, we can sort the student according to the results they received on the first test. Values of the variable “Test #1 Score” are in column B, so this column will be the reference column for the sorting. Select a cell in your data.  Go to the Data ribbon and click on the Sort icon.

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

A dialogue box will appear, prompting you to select the column you would like to sort the data from and the order. Here select: Sort by “Test #1 Score,” in order of Smallest to Largest.



Now Click OK.

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Sorted Data

The Sort function can be applied to any variable (any column). If a variable had no numerical values, but some text values, the sorting could be done in alphabetical order.

Filtering The Filter tool helps us isolate the records with specific characteristics. For example, if we wish to see the student numbers who have scored above 85 in Test#2.  Select any cell that contains data. Then click on the Data ribbon and select Filter





Once Filter is selected, each column will have an arrow button appear. If you click on the arrow button for Test #2 Score a dialogue box will appear. Here you can filter for individual scores or choose Number Filters for more options. Select “Greater Than Or Equal To”

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 

A new dialogue box will appear, and there you can enter that you want to filter scores that are greater or equal to 85. Click on OK.

The class list is now filtered to show only those students who received an A or better on Test #2. To again see all the respondents in the column click on the arrow in cell C1 and select Clear filter from Copyright © 2013 Careers360

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Test #2 Score. To remove all the filters from the worksheet, click on the Filter icon on the Data ribbon.

Charts Charts are an important part to being able to create a visual for spreadsheet data. In order to create a chart within Excel the data that is going to be used for it needs to be entered already into the spreadsheet document. Once the data is entered into Excel it becomes easy to make a variety of charts. Click on the Insert ribbon and you will find different chart options.

Select the data you want to chart, including the column headings. Click on the category of chart and then the specific chart type you would like to use.

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If you choose a simple 2-D Column chart of the data, a rough chart will appear.

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Axis titles Select your chart and click on the Layout sub-ribbon and the Axis Titles button. There choose the primary Horizontal Axis Title, Title below Axis.

Your chart will then have a horizontal axis title, which you can rename.

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Similarly, the vertical axis title can be added by Choosing Primary vertical Axis in the Axis Titles option under the Layout ribbon.

Printing a Worksheet You can use the options in Page Layout Ribbon to control how a worksheet is placed on a page.

You can adjust the size of the margins (the spaces between the page content and the edges of the page), centre the worksheet text between the top and bottom margins (horizontally) or between the right and left margins (vertically), change the page orientation (determines if the page is wider than it is tall or taller than it is wide), and enter a header or footer. You can open the Page Setup dialog box by clicking on Page Layout Ribbon and then selecting Print Titles. By default, Excel places a 1-inch margin about and below the report and a ¾ inch to the left and right. Excel also aligns column A in a worksheet at the left margin and row 1 at the top margin. Depending on how many columns and row there are in the worksheet, you might want to increase or decrease the page margins or centre the worksheet between the left and right margins or between the top and bottom margins. If you are having trouble fitting all your columns on one sheet, adjusting the margins may help. All of this is found under the Margins tab in the Page Setup window.

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If you are struggling to fit all your columns onto one or two pages, you may also find it helpful to change ht orientation of the page from portrait to landscape. Portrait orientation (which is the default) displays the page taller than it is wide. Landscape orientation displays the page wider than it is tall. You can do this on the Page tab in the Page Setup window. The Page tab also contains some other useful formatting features. You can reduce or increase the size of the worksheet on the printed page. The default size is 100%. You can choose to reduce or increase that amount. You can also have Excel automatically reduce the size of the report to fit within a specified number of pages by using the Fit to commands. A third tab available in the Page Setup dialog box is the Header/Footer tab. A header is text printed in the top margin of every worksheet page. Footer is text printed at the bottom of every page. Headers and footers can add important information to your printouts. For example, you can create a header that displays your name and the date the report was created. If the report covers multiple pages, you can use a footer to display the page number and the total number of pages.

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The default action for printing in Excel is to print all parts of the active worksheet that contain text, formulas, or values, and this will not always be what you want. If you want to print only a part of the worksheet, you can define a print area that contains the content you want to print. To define a print area, you must first select the cells you want to print, and then select the Print Area option on the File menu. A print area can include an adjacent range or nonadjacent ranges. You can also hide rows or columns in the worksheet in order to print nonadjacent ranges. You can also repeat information, such as the first row or column, by specifying which cells in the print are should be repeated on each page. This is particularly useful in long tables which extend over many pages. In such cases, you can have the column titles repeated for each page in the printout.

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References  http://www.uvic.ca/hsd/publicadmin/assets/docs/aboutUs/linksofinterest/excel/exc elIndex.pdf, University of Victoria  http://people.usd.edu/~aschwein/Stats/Tutorials/Excel%20Tutorial.pdf, University of South Dakota  http://www.microsoft.com/mac/how-to/excel  http://www.exceltip.com/

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