Excel 2013 For Dummies E-Book

Greg Harvey

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 613

Beschreibung

The bestselling Excel book - completely updated for Excel 2013! As the world's leading spreadsheet application, Excel has an enormous user base. The release of Office 2013 brings major changes to Excel, so Excel For Dummies comes to the rescue once more! Featuring the friendly For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. * Walks you through the exciting new features of Excel 2013 * Presents everything you need to know to perform basic Excel 2013 tasks * Covers creating and editing worksheets and charts, formatting cells, entering formulas, inserting graphs, designing database forms, and adding database records * Discusses printing, adding hyperlinks to worksheets, saving worksheets as web pages, adding existing worksheet data to an existing web page, and much more Whether you're new to Excel or are looking to get up and running with the 2013 version, Excel 2013 For Dummies has everything you need to know!

Leseprobe

Excel® 2013 For Dummies®

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2012954759

ISBN 978-1-118-51012-4 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-55000-7 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-62008-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-55012-0 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Author

Greg Harvey has authored tons of computer books, the most recent and most popular being Excel 2010 For Dummies and Excel 2010 All-in-One For Dummies. He started out training business users on how to use IBM personal computers and their attendant computer software in the rough-and-tumble days of DOS, WordStar, and Lotus 1-2-3 in the mid-80s of the last century. After working for a number of independent training firms, Greg went on to teach semester-long courses in spreadsheet and database management software at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

His love of teaching has translated into an equal love of writing. For Dummies books are, of course, his all-time favorites to write because they enable him to write to his favorite audience: the beginner. They also enable him to use humor (a key element to success in the training room) and, most delightful of all, to express an opinion or two about the subject matter at hand.

Greg received his doctorate degree in Humanities in Philosophy and Religion with a concentration in Asian Studies and Comparative Religion last May. Everyone is glad that Greg was finally able to get out of school before he retired.

Dedication

An Erucolindo melindonya

Author’s Acknowledgments

Let me take this opportunity to thank all the people, both at John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and at Mind over Media, whose dedication and talent combined to get this book out and into your hands in such great shape.

At John Wiley & Sons, Inc., I want to thank Andy Cummings and Katie Feltman for their encouragement and help in getting this project underway and their ongoing support every step of the way. These people made sure that the project stayed on course and made it into production so that all the talented folks on the production team could create this great final product.

At Mind over Media, I want to thank Christopher Aiken for his review of the updated manuscript and invaluable input and suggestions on how best to restructure the book to accommodate all the wonderful new features in Excel 2013 and, more importantly, lay out the exciting new “anytime, anywhere” story to Excel users.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax [phone].

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions and Editorial

Senior Project Editor: Nicole Sholly

Senior Acquisitions Editor: Katie Feltman

Copy Editors: Amanda Graham, Jean Nelson

Technical Editor: Russ Mullen

Editorial Manager: Kevin Kirschner

Editorial Assistant: Anne Sullivan

Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case

Cover Photo: © Henrik Jonsson / iStockphoto

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Sheree Montgomery

Layout and Graphics: Melanee Habig

Indexer: BIM Indexing & Proofreading Services

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

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Kathleen Nebenhaus, Vice President and Executive Publisher

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Excel® 2013 For Dummies®

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/excel2013 to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

How to Use This Book

What You Can Safely Ignore

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: Getting Started with Excel 2013

Part II: Editing without Tears

Part III: Getting Organized and Staying That Way

Part IV: Digging Data Analysis

Part V: Life beyond the Spreadsheet

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Conventions Used in This Book

Selecting Ribbon commands

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Getting Started with Excel 2013

Chapter 1: The Excel 2013 User Experience

Excel’s Ribbon User Interface

Going Backstage

Using the Excel Ribbon

Customizing the Quick Access toolbar

Having fun with the Formula bar

What to do in the Worksheet area

Showing off the Status bar

Launching and Quitting Excel

Starting Excel from the Windows 8 Start screen

Starting Excel from the Windows 7 Start menu

Adding an Excel 2013 shortcut to your Windows 7 desktop

Pinning Excel 2013 to your Windows 7 Start menu

Pinning Excel 2013 to the Windows 7 taskbar

Exiting Excel

Help Is on the Way

Chapter 2: Creating a Spreadsheet from Scratch

So What Ya Gonna Put in That New Workbook of Yours?

The ins and outs of data entry

You must remember this . . .

Doing the Data-Entry Thing

It Takes All Types

The telltale signs of text

How Excel evaluates its values

Fabricating those fabulous formulas!

If you want it, just point it out

Altering the natural order of operations

Formula flub-ups

Fixing Those Data Entry Flub-Ups

You really AutoCorrect that for me

Cell editing etiquette

Taking the Drudgery out of Data Entry

I’m just not complete without you

Fill ’er up with AutoFill

Fill it in a flash

Inserting special symbols

Entries all around the block

Data entry express

How to Make Your Formulas Function Even Better

Inserting a function into a formula with the Insert Function button

Editing a function with the Insert Function button

I’d be totally lost without AutoSum

Sums via Quick Analysis Totals

Making Sure That the Data Is Safe and Sound

Changing the default file location

The difference between the XLSX and XLS file format

Saving the Workbook as a PDF File

Document Recovery to the Rescue

Part II: Editing without Tears

Chapter 3: Making It All Look Pretty

Choosing a Select Group of Cells

Point-and-click cell selections

Keyboard cell selections

Using the Format as Table Gallery

Cell Formatting from the Home Tab

Formatting Cells Close to the Source with the Mini-bar

Using the Format Cells Dialog Box

Understanding the number formats

The values behind the formatting

Make it a date!

Ogling some of the other number formats

Calibrating Columns

Rambling rows

Now you see it, now you don’t

Futzing with the Fonts

Altering the Alignment

Intent on indents

From top to bottom

Tampering with how the text wraps

Reorienting cell entries

Shrink to fit

Bring on the borders!

Applying fill colors, patterns, and gradient effects to cells

Doing It in Styles

Creating a new style for the gallery

Copying custom styles from one workbook into another

Fooling Around with the Format Painter

Conditional Formatting

Formatting with scales and markers

Highlighting cells ranges

Formatting via the Quick Analysis tool

Chapter 4: Going Through Changes

Opening Your Workbooks for Editing

Opening files in the Open screen

Operating the Open dialog box

Changing the Recent files settings

Opening multiple workbooks

Find workbook files

Using the Open file options

Much Ado about Undo

Undo is Redo the second time around

What to do when you can’t Undo?

Doing the Old Drag-and-Drop Thing

Copies, drag-and-drop style

Insertions courtesy of drag and drop

Copying Formulas with AutoFill

Relatively speaking

Some things are absolutes!

Cut and Paste, Digital Style

Paste it again, Sam . . .

Keeping pace with Paste Options

Paste it from the Clipboard task pane

So what’s so special about Paste Special?

Let’s Be Clear about Deleting Stuff

Sounding the all clear!

Get these cells outta here!

Staying in Step with Insert

Stamping Out Your Spelling Errors

Eliminating Errors with Text to Speech

Chapter 5: Printing the Masterpiece

Previewing Pages in Page Layout View

Using the Backstage Print Screen

Printing the Current Worksheet

My Page Was Set Up!

Using the buttons in the Page Setup group

Using the buttons in the Scale to Fit group

Using the Print buttons in the Sheet Options group

From Header to Footer

Adding an Auto Header and Footer

Creating a custom header or footer

Solving Page Break Problems

Letting Your Formulas All Hang Out

Part III: Getting Organized and Staying That Way

Chapter 6: Maintaining the Worksheet

Zooming In and Out

Splitting the Worksheet into Windows

Fixed Headings with Freeze Panes

Electronic Sticky Notes

Adding a comment to a cell

Comments in review

Editing comments in a worksheet

Getting your comments in print

The Range Name Game

If I only had a name . . .

Name that formula!

Naming constants

Seek and Ye Shall Find . . .

Replacing Cell Entries

Doing Your Research

Controlling Recalculation

Putting on the Protection

Chapter 7: Maintaining Multiple Worksheets

Juggling Multiple Worksheets

Sliding between the sheets

Editing en masse

Don’t Short-Sheet Me!

A worksheet by any other name . . .

A sheet tab by any other color . . .

Getting your sheets in order

Opening Windows on Your Worksheets

Comparing Worksheets Side by Side

Shifting Sheets to Other Workbooks

Summing Stuff on Different Worksheets

Part IV: Digging Data Analysis

Chapter 8: Doing What-If Analysis

Playing What-If with Data Tables

Creating a one-variable data table

Creating a two-variable data table

Playing What-If with Goal Seeking

Making the Case with Scenario Manager

Setting up the various scenarios

Producing a summary report

Chapter 9: Playing with Pivot Tables

Data Analysis with Pivot Tables

Pivot tables via the Quick Analysis tool

Pivot tables by recommendation

Manually producing pivot tables

Formatting Pivot Tables

Refining the Pivot Table style

Formatting values in the pivot table

Sorting and Filtering Pivot Table Data

Filtering the report

Filtering column and row fields

Filtering with slicers

Filtering with timelines

Sorting the pivot table

Modifying Pivot Tables

Modifying the pivot table fields

Pivoting the table’s fields

Modifying the table’s summary function

Creating Pivot Charts

Moving pivot charts to separate sheets

Filtering pivot charts

Formatting pivot charts

Part V: Life beyond the Spreadsheet

Chapter 10: Charming Charts and Gorgeous Graphics

Making Professional-Looking Charts

Charts thanks to Recommendation

Charts from the Ribbon

Charts via the Quick Analysis tool

Charts on their own chart sheets

Moving and resizing embedded charts

Moving embedded charts to chart sheets

Customizing charts from the Design tab

Customizing chart elements

Editing the generic titles in a chart

Adding Great-Looking Graphics

Sparking up the data with sparklines

Telling all with a text box

Downloading online images

Inserting local images

Editing inserted pictures

Formatting inserted images

Adding preset graphic shapes

Working with WordArt

Make mine SmartArt

Screenshots anyone?

Theme for a day

Controlling How Graphic Objects Overlap

Reordering the layering of graphic objects

Grouping graphic objects

Hiding graphic objects

Printing Just the Charts

Chapter 11: Getting on the Data List

Creating Data Lists

Adding records to data lists

Moving through records in the data form

Finding records with the data form

Sorting Data Lists

Sorting on a single field

Sorting on multiple fields

Filtering Data Lists

Using ready-made number filters

Using ready-made date filters

Using custom filters

Importing External Data

Querying Access database tables

Performing web queries

Chapter 12: Linking, Automating, and Sharing Spreadsheets

Using Apps for Office

Using Excel Add-Ins

Adding Hyperlinks to a Worksheet

Automating Commands with Macros

Recording new macros

Running macros

Assigning macros to the Ribbon and the Quick Access toolbar

Sharing Your Worksheets

Sharing workbooks via OneDrive

E-mailing workbooks

Sharing workbooks with IM

Presenting worksheets online

Editing worksheets online

Reviewing workbooks online

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Chapter 13: Top Ten Beginner Basics

Chapter 14: The Ten Commandments of Excel 2013

Cheat Sheet

End User License Agreement

Introduction

I’m very proud to present you with Excel 2013 For Dummies, the latest version of everybody’s favorite book on Microsoft Office Excel for readers with no intention whatsoever of becoming spreadsheet gurus.

Excel 2013 For Dummies covers all the fundamental techniques you need to know in order to create, edit, format, and print your own worksheets. In addition to showing you around the worksheet, this book also exposes you to the basics of charting, creating data lists, and performing data analysis. Keep in mind, though, that this book just touches on the easiest ways to get a few things done with these features — I don’t attempt to cover charting, data lists, or data analysis in the same definitive way as spreadsheets: This book concentrates on spreadsheets because spreadsheets are what most regular folks create with Excel.

About This Book

This book isn’t meant to be read cover to cover. Although its chapters are loosely organized in a logical order (progressing as you might when studying Excel in a classroom situation), each topic covered in a chapter is really meant to stand on its own.

Each discussion of a topic briefly addresses the question of what a particular feature is good for before launching into how to use it. In Excel, as with most other sophisticated programs, you usually have more than one way to do a task. For the sake of your sanity, I have purposely limited the choices by usually giving you only the most efficient ways to do a particular task. Later, if you’re so tempted, you can experiment with alternative ways of doing a task. For now, just concentrate on performing the task as I describe.

As much as possible, I’ve tried to make it unnecessary for you to remember anything covered in another section of the book. From time to time, however, you will come across a cross-reference to another section or chapter in the book. For the most part, such cross-references are meant to help you get more complete information on a subject, should you have the time and interest. If you have neither, no problem. Just ignore the cross-references as if they never existed.

How to Use This Book

This book is similar to a reference book. You can start by looking up the topic you need information about (in either the Table of Contents or the index) and then refer directly to the section of interest. I explain most topics conversationally (as though you were sitting in the back of a classroom where you can safely nap). Sometimes, however, my regiment-commander mentality takes over, and I list the steps you need to take to accomplish a particular task in a particular section.

What You Can Safely Ignore

When you come across a section that contains the steps you take to get something done, you can safely ignore all text accompanying the steps (the text that isn’t in bold) if you have neither the time nor the inclination to wade through more material.

Whenever possible, I have also tried to separate background or footnote-type information from the essential facts by exiling this kind of junk to a sidebar (look for blocks of text on a gray background). Often, these sections are flagged with icons that let you know what type of information you will encounter there. You can easily disregard text marked this way. (I’ll scoop you on the icons I use in this book a little later.)

Foolish Assumptions

I’m only going to make one foolish assumption about you and that is that you have some need to use Microsoft Excel 2013 in your work or studies. If pushed, I further guess that you aren’t particularly interested in knowing Excel at an expert level but are terribly motivated to find out how to do the stuff you need to get done. If that’s the case, this is definitely the book for you. Fortunately, even if you happen to be one of those newcomers who’s highly motivated to become the company’s resident spreadsheet guru, you’ve still come to the right place.

As far as your hardware and software goes, I’m assuming that you already have Excel 2013 (usually as part of Microsoft Office 2013) installed on your computing device, using a standard home or business installation running under either Windows 7 or 8. I’m not assuming, however, that when you’re using Excel 2013 under Windows 7 or 8 that you’re sitting in front of a large screen monitor and making cell entries and command selections with a physical keyboard or connected mouse. With the introduction of Microsoft’s Surface tablet for Windows 8 and the support for a whole slew of different Windows tablets, you may well be entering data and selecting commands with your finger or stylus using the Windows Touch keyboard and Touch Pointer.

To deal with the differences between using Excel 2013 on a standard desktop or laptop computer with access only to a physical keyboard and mouse and a touchscreen tablet or smartphone environment with access only to the virtual Touch keyboard and Touch Pointer, I’ve outlined the touchscreen equivalents to common commands you find throughout the text such as “click,” “double-click,” “drag,” and so forth in the section entitled, “Selecting Commands by touch” in Chapter 1.

Keep in mind that although most of the figures in this book show Excel 2013 happily running on Windows 7, you will see the occasional figure showing Excel running on Windows 8 in the rare cases (as when opening and saving files) where the operating system you’re using does make a difference.

This book is intended only for users of Microsoft Excel 2013! Because of the diversity of the devices that Excel 2013 runs on and the places where its files can be saved and used, if you’re using Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 for Windows, much of the file-related information in this book may only confuse and confound you. If you’re still using a version prior to Excel 2007, which introduced the Ribbon interface, this edition will be of no use to you because your version of the program works nothing like the 2013 version this book describes.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is organized in six parts with each part containing two or more chapters (to keep the editors happy) that more or less go together (to keep you happy). Each chapter is divided further into loosely related sections that cover the basics of the topic at hand. However, don’t get hung up on following the structure of the book; ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether you find out how to edit the worksheet before you learn how to format it, or whether you figure out printing before you learn editing. The important thing is that you find the information — and understand it when you find it — when you need to perform a particular task.

In case you’re interested, a synopsis of what you find in each part follows.

Part I: Getting Started with Excel 2013

As the name implies, in this part I cover such fundamentals as how to start the program, identify the parts of the screen, enter information in the worksheet, save a document, and so on. If you’re starting with absolutely no background in using spreadsheets, you definitely want to glance at the information in Chapter 1 to discover the secrets of the Ribbon interface before you move on to how to create new worksheets in Chapter 2.

Part II: Editing without Tears

In this part, I show you how to edit spreadsheets to make them look good, including how to make major editing changes without courting disaster. Peruse Chapter 3 when you need information on formatting the data to improve the way it appears in the worksheet. See Chapter 4 for rearranging, deleting, or inserting new information in the worksheet. Read Chapter 5 for the skinny on printing your finished product.

Part III: Getting Organized and Staying That Way

Here I give you all kinds of information on how to stay on top of the data that you’ve entered into your spreadsheets. Chapter 6 is full of good ideas on how to keep track of and organize the data in a single worksheet. Chapter 7 gives you the ins and outs of working with data in different worksheets in the same workbook and gives you information on transferring data between the sheets of different workbooks.

Part IV: Digging Data Analysis

This part consists of two chapters. Chapter 8 introduces performing various types of what-if analysis in Excel, including setting up data tables with one and two inputs, performing goal seeking, and creating different cases with Scenario Manager. Chapter 9 introduces Excel’s vastly improved pivot table and pivot chart capabilities that enable you to summarize and filter vast amounts of data in a worksheet table or data list in a compact tabular or chart format.

Part V: Life beyond the Spreadsheet

In Part V, I explore some of the other aspects of Excel besides the spreadsheet. In Chapter 10, you find out just how ridiculously easy it is to create a chart using the data in a worksheet. In Chapter 11, you discover just how useful Excel’s data list capabilities can be when you have to track and organize a large amount of information. In Chapter 12, you find out about using add-in programs to enhance Excel’s basic features, adding hyperlinks to jump to new places in a worksheet, to new documents, and even to web pages, as well as how to record macros to automate your work.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

As is the tradition in For Dummies books, the last part contains lists of the top ten most useful and useless facts, tips, and suggestions. In this part, you find two chapters. Chapter 13 provides you with the top ten beginner basics you need to know as you start using this program. Chapter 14 gives you the King James Version of the Ten Commandments of Excel 2013. With this chapter under your belt, how canst thou goest astray?

Conventions Used in This Book

The following information gives you the lowdown on how things look in this book. Publishers call these items the book’s conventions (no campaigning, flag-waving, name-calling, or finger-pointing is involved, however).

Selecting Ribbon commands

Throughout the book, you’ll find Ribbon command sequences (the name on the tab on the Ribbon and the command button you select) separated by a command arrow, as in:

HOME⇒Copy

This shorthand is the Ribbon command that copies whatever cells or graphics are currently selected to the Windows Clipboard. It means that you click the Home tab on the Ribbon (if it isn’t displayed already) and then click the Copy button (that sports the traditional side-by-side page icon).

Some of the Ribbon command sequences involve not only selecting a command button on a tab, but then also selecting an item on a drop-down menu. In this case, the drop-down menu command follows the name of the tab and command button, all separated by command arrows, as in:

Formulas⇒Calculation Options⇒Manual

This shorthand is the Ribbon command sequence that turns on manual recalculation in Excel. It says that you click the Formulas tab (if it isn’t displayed already) and then click the Calculation Options button followed by the Manual drop-down menu option.

The book occasionally encourages you to type something specific into a specific cell in the worksheet. When I tell you to enter a specific function, the part you should type generally appears in bold type. For example, =SUM(A2:B2) means that you should type exactly what you see: an equal sign, the word SUM, a left parenthesis, the text A2:B2 (complete with a colon between the letter-number combos), and a right parenthesis. You then, of course, have to press Enter to make the entry stick.

Occasionally, I give you a hot key combination that you can press in order to choose a command from the keyboard rather than clicking buttons on the Ribbon with the mouse. Hot key combinations are written like this: Alt+FS or Ctrl+S (both of these hot key combos save workbook changes).

With the Alt key combos on a physical keyboard, you press the Alt key until the hot key letters appear in little squares all along the Ribbon. At that point, you can release the Alt key and start typing the hot key letters (by the way, you type all lowercase hot key letters — I only put them in caps to make them stand out in the text).

Hot key combos that use the Ctrl key are of an older vintage and work a little bit differently. On physical keyboards you have to hold down the Ctrl key while you type the hot key letter (though again, type only lowercase letters unless you see the Shift key in the sequence, as in Ctrl+Shift+C).

Excel 2013 uses only one pull-down menu (File) and one toolbar (the Quick Access toolbar). You open the File pull-down menu by clicking the File button or pressing Alt+F to access the Excel Backstage view. The Quick Access toolbar with its four buttons appears directly above the File button.

Finally, if you’re really observant, you may notice a discrepancy in how the names of dialog box options (such as headings, option buttons, and check boxes) appear in the text and how they actually appear in Excel on your computer screen. I intentionally use the convention of capitalizing the initial letters of all the main words of a dialog box option to help you differentiate the name of the option from the rest of the text describing its use.

Icons Used in This Book

The following icons are placed in the margins to point out stuff you may or may not want to read.

This icon alerts you to nerdy discussions that you may well want to skip (or read when no one else is around).

This icon denotes a tidbit only for Excel users who are running Excel 2013 on some sort of touchscreen device such as a Windows 8 tablet or smartphone.

This icon alerts you to shortcuts or other valuable hints related to the topic at hand.

This icon alerts you to information to keep in mind if you want to meet with a modicum of success.

This icon alerts you to information to keep in mind if you want to avert complete disaster.

Where to Go from Here

If you’ve never worked with a computer spreadsheet, I suggest that you first go to Chapter 1 and find out what you’re dealing with. Then, as specific needs arise (such as, “How do I copy a formula?” or “How do I print just a particular section of my worksheet?”), you can go to the Table of Contents or the index to find the appropriate section and go right to that section for answers.

Occasionally, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., has updates to its technology books. If this book has technical updates, they will be posted at www.dummies.com/go/excel2013updates.

Part I

Visit www.dummies.com/extras/excel2013 for more great Dummies content online.

In this part…

 Explore the Excel user Ribbon interface.

 Make sense of the most commonly used tabs and command buttons.

 Customize the Quick Access toolbar.

 Start (and stop) Excel 2013.

 Find help through the online Excel 2013 Help window.

 Become familiar with the prominent buttons and boxes for entering spreadsheet data.

 Recover a lost workbook when disaster strikes.

 Visit www.dummies.com for more great Dummies content online.

Chapter 1

The Excel 2013 User Experience

In This Chapter

Getting familiar with the Excel 2013 program window and Backstage view

Selecting commands from the Ribbon

Customizing the Quick Access toolbar

Methods for starting Excel 2013

Surfing an Excel 2013 worksheet and workbook

Getting some help with using this program

Excel 2013, like Excel 2010 and Excel 2007 before it, relies upon a single strip at the top of the worksheet called the Ribbon that puts the bulk of the Excel commands you use at your fingertips at all times.

Add to the Ribbon a File tab and a Quick Access toolbar — along with a few remaining task panes (Clipboard, Clip Art, and Research) — and you end up with the handiest way to crunch your numbers, produce and print polished financial reports, as well as organize and chart your data. In other words, to do all the wonderful things for which you rely on Excel.

Best of all, the Excel 2013 user interface includes all sorts of graphical elements that make working on spreadsheets a lot faster and a great deal easier. Foremost is Live Preview that shows you how your actual worksheet data would appear in a particular font, table formatting, and so on before you actually select it. This Live Preview extends to the new Quick Analysis and Recommended PivotTables and Recommended Charts commands to enable you to preview your data in various formats before you apply them.

Additionally, Excel 2013 supports a Page Layout View that displays rulers and margins along with headers and footers for every worksheet with a Zoom slider at the bottom of the screen that enables you to zoom in and out on the spreadsheet data instantly. Finally, Excel 2013 is full of pop-up galleries that make spreadsheet formatting and charting a real breeze, especially in tandem with Live Preview.

Excel’s Ribbon User Interface

When you launch Excel 2013, the Start screen similar to the one shown in Figure 1-1 opens. Here you can start a new blank workbook by clicking the Blank workbook template, or you can select any of the other templates shown as the basis for your new spreadsheet. If none of the templates shown in the Start screen suits your needs, you can search for templates online. After you’ve worked with Excel for some time, the Start screen also displays a list of recently opened workbooks that you can reopen for further editing or printing.

When you select the Blank workbook template from the Excel 2013 Start screen, the program opens an initial worksheet (named Sheet1) in a new workbook file (named Book1) inside a program window like the one shown in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-1: The Excel 2013 Start screen enables you to open a new blank workbook, a recently opened workbook, or find a template to use as the basis for a new workbook.

Figure 1-2: The Excel 2013 program window that appears immediately after selecting the Blank Workbook template in the opening screen.

The Excel program window containing this worksheet of the workbook contains the following components:

File button that when clicked opens the Backstage view — a menu on the left that contains all the document- and file-related commands, including Info, New, Open (selected by default when you first launch Excel), Save, Save As, Print, Share, Export, and Close. Additionally, at the bottom, there’s an Account option with User and Product information and an Options item that enables you to change many of Excel’s default settings. Note that you can exit the Backstage view and return to the normal worksheet view.

Customizable Quick Access toolbar that contains buttons you can click to perform common tasks, such as saving your work and undoing and redoing edits. This toolbar is preceded by an Excel program button (sporting the Excel 2013 icon) with a drop-down menu of options that enable you to control the size and position of the Excel window and even close (exit) the program.

Ribbon that contains the bulk of the Excel commands arranged into a series of tabs ranging from Home through View.

Formula bar that displays the address of the current cell along with the contents of that cell.

Worksheet area that contains the cells of the worksheet identified by column headings using letters along the top and row headings using numbers along the left edge; tabs for selecting new worksheets; a horizontal scroll bar to move left and right through the sheet; and a vertical scroll bar to move up and down through the sheet.

Status bar that keeps you informed of the program’s current mode and any special keys you engage and enables you to select a new worksheet view and to zoom in and out on the worksheet.

Going Backstage

To the immediate left of the Home tab on the Ribbon right below the Quick Access toolbar, you find the File button.

When you select File, the Backstage view opens. This view contains a menu similar to the one shown in Figure 1-3. When you open the Backstage view with the Info option selected, Excel displays at-a-glance stats about the workbook file you have open and active in the program.

This information panel is divided into two panes. The pane on the left contains large buttons that enable you to modify the workbook’s protection status, check the document before publishing, and manage its versions. The pane on the right contains a list of fields detailing the workbook’s various Document Properties, some of which you can change (such as Title, Tags, Categories, Author, and Last Modified By), and many of which you can’t (such as Size, Last Modified, Created, and so forth).

Below the Info option, you find the commands (New, Open, Save, Save As, Print, Share, Export, and Close) you commonly need for working with Excel workbook files. Near the bottom, the File tab contains an Account option that, when selected, displays an Account panel in the Backstage view. This panel displays user, connection, and Microsoft Office account information. Below the Account menu item, you find options that you can select to change the program’s settings.

Figure 1-3: Open Backstage view to get at-a-glance information about the current file, access all file-related commands, and modify the program options.

Select the Open option to open an Excel workbook you’ve worked on of late for more editing. When you select Open, Excel displays a panel with a list of all the workbook files recently opened in the program. To re-open a particular file for editing, all you do is click its filename in this list.

To close the Backstage view and return to the normal worksheet view, you select the Back button at the very top of the menu or simply press Esc on your keyboard.

Using the Excel Ribbon

The Ribbon (shown in Figure 1-4) groups the most commonly used options needed to perform particular types of Excel tasks.

Figure 1-4: Excel’s Ribbon consists of a series of tabs containing command buttons arranged into different groups.

To do this, the Ribbon uses the following components:

Tabs for each of Excel’s main tasks that bring together and display all the commands commonly needed to perform that core task.

Groups that organize related command buttons into subtasks normally performed as part of the tab’s larger core task.

Command buttons within each group that you select to perform a particular action or to open a gallery from which you can click a particular thumbnail. Note: Many command buttons on certain tabs of the Ribbon are organized into mini-toolbars with related settings.

Dialog Box launcher in the lower-right corner of certain groups that opens a dialog box containing a bunch of additional options you can select.

To display more of the Worksheet area in the program window, collapse the Ribbon so that only its tabs are displayed by simply clicking the Collapse the Ribbon button on the right side above the vertical scroll bar. You can also double-click (or double-tap on a touchscreen) any one of the Ribbon’s tabs, or press Ctrl+F1 on your keyboard. To once again pin the Ribbon in place so that all the command buttons on each of its tabs are always displayed in the program window, double-click (or double-tap) any one of the tabs, or press Ctrl+F1 a second time. You can also do this by selecting the Pin the Ribbon button (whose icon looks just like a pin) that replaces the Unpin the Ribbon button and appears whenever you temporarily activate a tab to use its command buttons.

When you work in Excel with the Ribbon collapsed, the Ribbon expands each time you activate one of its tabs to show its command buttons, but that tab stays open only until you select one of the command buttons or select an element in the worksheet. The moment you select a command button, Excel immediately minimizes the Ribbon again and just displays its tabs. Note that you can also use the Show Tabs and Show Tabs and Commands options on the Ribbon Display Options button’s drop-down menu to switch between collapsing the Ribbon to its tabs and restoring its commands again.

Keeping tabs on the Ribbon

The first time you launch a new workbook in Excel 2013, its Ribbon contains the following tabs from left to right:

Home tab with the command buttons normally used when creating, formatting, and editing a spreadsheet, arranged into the Clipboard, Font, Alignment, Number, Styles, Cells, and Editing groups.

Insert tab with the command buttons normally used when adding particular elements (including graphics, PivotTables, charts, hyperlinks, and headers and footers) to a spreadsheet, arranged into the Tables, Illustrations, Apps, Charts, Reports, Sparklines, Filter, Links, Text, and Symbols groups.

Page Layout tab with the command buttons normally used when preparing a spreadsheet for printing or re-ordering graphics on the sheet, arranged into the Themes, Page Setup, Scale to Fit, Sheet Options, and Arrange groups.

Formulas tab with the command buttons normally used when adding formulas and functions to a spreadsheet or checking a worksheet for formula errors, arranged into the Function Library, Defined Names, Formula Auditing, and Calculation groups. Note: This tab also contains a Solutions group when you activate certain add-in programs, such as Analysis ToolPak and Euro Currency Tools. See Chapter 12 for more on using Excel add-in programs.

Data tab with the command buttons normally used when importing, querying, outlining, and subtotaling the data placed into a worksheet’s data list, arranged into the Get External Data, Connections, Sort & Filter, Data Tools, and Outline groups. Note: This tab also contains an Analysis group when you activate add-ins, such as Analysis ToolPak and Solver. See Chapter 12 for more on Excel add-ins.

Review tab with the command buttons normally used when proofing, protecting, and marking up a spreadsheet for review by others, arranged into the Proofing, Language, Comments, and Changes groups. Note: This tab also contains an Ink group with a sole Start Inking button when you’re running Office 2013 on a device with a touchscreen such as a Tablet PC or a computer equipped with a digital ink tablet.

View tab with the command buttons normally used when changing the display of the Worksheet area and the data it contains, arranged into the Workbook Views, Show, Zoom, Window, and Macros groups.

In addition to these standard seven tabs, Excel has an eighth, optional Developer tab that you can add to the Ribbon if you do a lot of work with macros and XML files. See Chapter 12 for more on the Developer tab. If you are running a version of Excel 2013 with the PowerPivot add-in installed, a PowerPivot tab appears near the end of the Ribbon.

Although these standard tabs are the ones you always see on the Ribbon when it’s displayed in Excel, they aren’t the only things that can appear in this area. Excel can display contextual tools when you’re working with a particular object that you select in the worksheet, such as a graphic image you’ve added or a chart or PivotTable you’ve created. The name of the contextual tool for the selected object appears immediately above the tab or tabs associated with the tools.

For example, Figure 1-5 shows a worksheet after you click the embedded chart to select it. As you can see, doing this adds the contextual tool called Chart Tools to the very end of the Ribbon. The Chart Tools contextual tool has its two tabs: Design (selected) and Format. Note, too, that the command buttons on the Design tab are arranged into the groups Chart Layouts, Chart Styles, Data, Type, and Location.

The moment you deselect the object (usually by clicking somewhere outside the object’s boundaries), the contextual tool for that object and all its tabs immediately disappear from the Ribbon, leaving only the regular tabs — Home, Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, Review, and View — displayed.

Selecting commands with mouse and keyboard

Because Excel 2013 runs on many different types of devices, the most efficient means of selecting Ribbon commands depends not only on the device on which you’re running the program, but also on the way that device is equipped.

Figure 1-5: When you select certain objects in the worksheet, Excel adds contextual tools to the Ribbon with their own tabs, groups, and command buttons.

For example, when I run Excel 2013 on my Windows 8 tablet in its dock equipped with a physical keyboard and with my optical wireless mouse connected, I select commands from the Excel Ribbon more or less the same way I do when running Excel on my Windows desktop computer equipped with a stand-alone physical keyboard and mouse or laptop computer with its built-in physical keyboard and trackpad.

However, when I run Excel 2013 on my Windows 8 tablet without access to the dock with its physical keyboard and mouse, I am limited to selecting Ribbon commands directly on the touchscreen with my finger or stylus.

The most direct method for selecting Ribbon commands equipped with a physical keyboard and mouse is to click the tab that contains the command button you want and then click that button in its group. For example, to insert an online image into your spreadsheet, you click the Insert tab and then click the Illustrations button followed by the Online Pictures button to open the Insert Pictures dialog box.

The easiest method for selecting commands on the Ribbon — if you know your keyboard at all well — is to press the keyboard’s Alt key and then type the letter of the hot key that appears on the tab you want to select. Excel then displays all the command button hot keys next to their buttons, along with the hot keys for the dialog box launchers in any group on that tab. To select a command button or dialog box launcher, simply type its hot key letter.

If you know the old Excel shortcut keys from versions prior to Excel 2007, you can still use them. For example, instead of going through the rigmarole of pressing Alt+HCC to copy a cell selection to the Windows Clipboard and then Alt+HVP to paste it elsewhere in the sheet, you can still press Ctrl+C to copy the selection and then press Ctrl+V when you’re ready to paste it.

Selecting commands by touch

Before trying to select Excel Ribbon commands by touch, however, you definitely want to turn on Touch mode in Excel 2013. When you do this, Excel spreads out the command buttons on the Ribbon tabs by putting more space around them, making it more likely you’ll actually select the command button you’re tapping with your finger (or even a more slender stylus) instead of one right next to it. (This is a particular problem with the command buttons in the Font group on the Home tab that enable you to add different attributes to cell entries such as bold, italic, or underlining: They are so close together when Touch mode is off that they are almost impossible to correctly select by touch.)

What click and drag means on your device

Given all the different choices for selecting stuff in Excel, you need to be aware of a few click-and-drag conventions used throughout this book. When I say click something (a command button, cell, or whatever), this means click the primary mouse button (the left one unless you change it) on a physical mouse or tap with your finger or a stylus on a touchscreen. When I say double-click something, this means click the primary button twice in rapid succession on a physical mouse and double tap the object with your finger or stylus. When I say right-click, this means click with the secondary button (the right-hand button unless you change it) on a physical mouse or tap the object and keep your finger or stylus on the touchscreen until the context menu or pop-up gallery or whatever appears. Finally, when I say drag through a cell selection, with a physical mouse this means click the cell and then hold down the primary mouse button as you swipe and then release the button when the selection is made. On a touchscreen, you tapthe cell to make the selection handles appear (the circles at the upper-left and lower-right corners of the cell) and then use your finger or stylus to drag the selection handle through the cells..

To do this, simply tap the Touch/Mouse Mode button that appears near the end of the Quick Access toolbar sandwiched between the Redo and Customize Quick Access Toolbar buttons. When you tap this button a drop-down menu with two options, Mouse and Touch appears. Tap the Touch option to put your touchscreen tablet or laptop into Touch mode.

Although the Touch/Mouse Mode button is automatically added to the Excel 2013 Quick Access toolbar only when running the program on a tablet or personal computer equipped with a touchscreen, that doesn’t mean you can’t use it to switch between Touch mode (with more space between Ribbon command buttons) and Mouse mode on a standard computer without touchscreen technology. All you have to do is add the Touch/Mouse Mode button to the Quick Access toolbar (see “Customizing the Quick Access toolbar” that follows for details).

Customizing the Quick Access toolbar

When you start using Excel 2013, the Quick Access toolbar contains only the following few buttons:

Save to save any changes made to the current workbook using the same filename, file format, and location

Undo to undo the last editing, formatting, or layout change you made

Redo to reapply the previous editing, formatting, or layout change that you just removed with the Undo button

Touch/Mouse Mode (tablets and computers with touchscreens only) to place more space around Ribbon command buttons to make it easier to select commands with your finger or stylus

The Quick Access toolbar is very customizable because Excel makes it easy to add any Ribbon command to it. Moreover, you’re not restricted to adding buttons for just the commands on the Ribbon; you can add any Excel command you want to the toolbar, even the obscure ones that don’t rate an appearance on any of its tabs.

By default, the Quick Access toolbar appears above the Ribbon tabs immediately to the right of the Excel program button (used to resize the workbook window or quit the program). To display the toolbar beneath the Ribbon immediately above the Formula bar, click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button (the drop-down button to the right of the toolbar with a horizontal bar above a down-pointing triangle) and then click Show Below the Ribbon on its drop-down menu. You will definitely want to make this change if you start adding more than just a few extra buttons to the toolbar. That way, the growing Quick Access toolbar doesn’t start crowding the name of the current workbook that appears to the toolbar’s right.

Adding Customize Quick Access Toolbar’s menu commands

When you click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button, a drop-down menu appears containing the following commands:

New to open a new workbook

Open to display the Open dialog box for opening an existing workbook

Save to save changes to your current workbook

Email to open your mail

Quick Print to send the current worksheet to your default printer

Print Previewand Print to open the Print panel in Backstage view with a preview of the current worksheet in the right pane

Spelling to check the current worksheet for spelling errors

Undo to undo your latest worksheet edit

Redo to reapply the last edit that you removed with Undo

Sort Ascending to sort the current cell selection or column in A to Z alphabetical order, lowest to highest numerical order, or oldest to newest date order

Sort Descending to sort the current cell selection or column in Z to A alphabetical order, highest to lowest numerical order, or newest to oldest date order

Touch /Mouse Mode to switch in and out of Touch mode that adds extra space around the command buttons on the individual Ribbon tabs to make them easier to select on a touchscreen device regardless of whether you tap with your finger or a stylus

When you open this menu, only the Save, Undo, and Redo options are the ones selected (indicated by the check marks); therefore, these buttons are the only buttons to appear on the Quick Access toolbar. To add any of the other commands on this menu to the toolbar, you simply click the option on the drop-down menu. Excel then adds a button for that command to the end of the Quick Access toolbar (and a check mark to its option on the drop-down menu).

To remove a command button that you add to the Quick Access toolbar in this manner, click the option a second time on the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button’s drop-down menu. Excel removes its command button from the toolbar and the check mark from its option on the drop-down menu.

Adding Ribbon commands

To add a Ribbon command to the Quick Access toolbar, open the command button’s shortcut menu (right-click with a mouse or tap and hold on a touchscreen) and then select the Add to Quick Access Toolbar menu item. Excel then immediately adds the selected Ribbon command button to the very end of the Quick Access toolbar, immediately in front of the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button.

If you want to move the command button to a new location on the Quick Access toolbar or group it with other buttons on the toolbar, select the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button followed by the More Commands option near the bottom of its drop-down menu.

Excel then opens the Excel Options dialog box with the Quick Access Toolbar tab selected (similar to the one shown in Figure 1-6). On the right side of the dialog box, Excel shows all the buttons added to the Quick Access toolbar. The order in which they appear from left to right on the toolbar corresponds to the top-down order in the list box.

Figure 1-6: Use the buttons on the Quick Access Toolbar tab of the Excel Options dialog box to customize the appearance of the Quick Access toolbar.

To reposition a particular button on the toolbar, select it in the list box on the right and then select either the Move Up button (the one with the black triangle pointing upward) or the Move Down button (the one with the black triangle pointing downward) until the button is promoted or demoted to the desired position on the toolbar.

You can add a pair of vertical separators to the toolbar to group related buttons. To do this, select the <Separator> option in the list box on the left followed by the Add button twice. Then, select the Move Up or Move Down button to position one of the two separators at the beginning of the group and the other at the end.

To remove a button you’ve added, open the Quick Access toolbar’s shortcut menu (right-click or tap and hold on a touchscreen) and then select the Remove from Quick Access Toolbar option.

Adding non-Ribbon commands to the Quick Access toolbar

You can also use the options on the Quick Access Toolbar tab of the Excel Options dialog box (refer to Figure 1-6) to add a button for any Excel command even if it isn’t one of those displayed on the tabs of the Ribbon:

1. Select the type of command you want to add to the Quick Access toolbar in the Choose Commands From drop-down list box.

The types of commands include the Popular Commands pull-down menu (the default) as well as each of the tabs that appear on the Ribbon. To display only the commands that are not displayed on the Ribbon, select Commands Not in the Ribbon near the top of the drop-down list. To display a complete list of the Excel commands, select All Commands near the top of the drop-down list.

2. Select the command button you want to add to the Quick Access toolbar in the list box on the left.

3. Click the Add button to add the command button to the bottom of the list box on the right.

4. (Optional) To reposition the newly added command button so that it isn’t the last one on the toolbar, click the Move Up button until it’s in the desired position.

5. Click OK to close the Excel Options dialog box.

If you’ve created favorite macros (see Chapter 12) that you routinely use and want to be able to run directly from the Quick Access toolbar, select Macros in the Choose Commands From drop-down list box in the Excel Options dialog box and then click the name of the macro to add followed by the Add button.

Having fun with the Formula bar

The Formula bar displays the cell address (determined by a column letter(s) followed by a row number) and the contents of the current cell. For example, cell A1 is the first cell of each worksheet at the intersection of column A and row 1; cell XFD1048576 is the last cell of each worksheet at the intersection of column XFD and row 1048576. The type of entry you make determines the contents of the current cell: text or numbers, for example, if you enter a heading or particular value, or the details of a formula, if you enter a calculation.

The Formula bar has three sections:

Name box: The left-most section that displays the address of the current cell address.

Formula bar buttons: The second, middle section that appears as a rather nondescript button displaying only an indented circle on the left (used to narrow or widen the Name box) and the Insert Function button (labeled fx) on the right. When you start making or editing a cell entry, Cancel (an X) and Enter (a check mark) buttons appear between them.

Cell contents: The third, right-most white area to the immediate right of the Insert Function button takes up the rest of the bar and expands as necessary to display really long cell entries that won’t fit in the normal area.

The cell contents section of the Formula bar is important because it always shows you the contents of the cell even when the worksheet does not. (When you’re dealing with a formula, Excel displays only the calculated result in the cell in the worksheet and not the formula by which that result is derived.) Additionally, you can edit the contents of the cell in this area at any time. Similarly, when the cell contents area is blank, you know that the cell is empty as well.

 How you assign 26 letters to 16,384 columns

When it comes to labeling the 16,384 columns of an Excel 2013 worksheet, our alphabet with its measly 26 letters is simply not up to the task. To make up the difference, Excel doubles the letters in the cell’s column reference so that column AA follows column Z (after which you find column AB, AC, and so on) and then triples them so that column AAA follows column ZZ (after which you get column AAB, AAC, and the like). At the end of this letter tripling, the 16,384th and last column of the worksheet ends up being XFD so that the last cell in the 1,048,576th row has the cell address XFD1048576!

What to do in the Worksheet area

The Worksheet area is where most of the Excel spreadsheet action takes place because it’s the place that displays the cells in different sections of the current worksheet and it’s right inside the cells that you do all your spreadsheet data entry and formatting, not to mention a great deal of your editing.

To enter or edit data in a cell, that cell must be current. Excel indicates that a cell is current in three ways:

The cell cursor — the dark green border surrounding the cell’s entire perimeter — appears in the cell.

The address of the cell appears in the Name box of the Formula bar.

The cell’s column letter(s) and row number are shaded in the column headings and row headings that appear at the top and left of the Worksheet area, respectively.

Moving around the worksheet

An Excel worksheet contains far too many columns and rows for all a worksheet’s cells to be displayed at one time, regardless of how large your computer’s monitor screen is or how high the screen resolution. (After all, we’re talking 17,179,869,184 cells total!) Therefore, Excel offers many methods for moving the cell cursor around the worksheet to the cell where you want to enter new data or edit existing data:

Click the desired cell — assuming that the cell is displayed within the section of the sheet visible in the Worksheet area — either by clicking it with your mouse or tapping it on your touchscreen.

Click the Name box, then type the address of the desired cell and press the Enter key.

Press F5 to open the Go To dialog box, type the address of the desired cell into its Reference text box, and then click OK.

Use the cursor keys, as shown in Table 1-1 to move the cell cursor to the desired cell.