Entering Data & Your First Formulas
All lessons
- Entering Data & Your First FormulasFree
- Relative, Absolute & Mixed ReferencesFree
- Math & Stats Functions: SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, MEDIAN Pro
- Logical Functions: IF, AND, OR, IFS, IFERROR Pro
- Lookups: VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, XLOOKUP Pro
- Text Functions: LEFT, MID, TRIM, PROPER, TEXT & Joining Pro
- Date Functions: DATE, EDATE, EOMONTH, NETWORKDAYS Pro
- SUMIFS, COUNTIFS & AVERAGEIFS Pro
- Data Cleaning: Split Codes, Fix Case, Convert Text to Numbers Pro
- Final Project: Monthly Sales Report Pro
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Find your way around the Excel window
- Ribbon: the tabs at the top (Home, Insert, Formulas, Data ...). Home holds fonts, number formats and alignment.
- Name Box (left of the formula bar) shows the active cell, e.g.
D2. Type a cell address there and press Enter to jump to it. - Formula bar: shows what is really in the cell. The cell shows 298.80, the bar shows
=B2*C2. - Fill handle: the small square at the bottom right of a selected cell. Drag it down (or press
Ctrl+D) to copy a formula to the rows below.
Format numbers, don't round them by hand
Select the cells and press Ctrl+1 (Mac: Cmd+1) to open Format Cells. Choose Number with 2 decimals and the thousands separator, Currency, or Percentage. Formatting only changes how a value looks. The cell still holds the full value, so totals stay exact.
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