Excel Tutorial to Improve Your EfficiencyIntroductionOur purpose with this Excel tutorial is to illustrate some Excel tips that will dramatically improve your efficiency. We make no attempt to be as encyclopedic as some of the 800-page Excel manualsavailable. We concentrate on common tasks, not every last thing that can be done in Excel. Also, we presume that you have some Excel knowledge. We assume you know about rows and columns, values, labels, and formulas, relative and absolute addresses, and other basic Excel elements. If you know virtually nothing about Excel, you probably ought to work through an “Excel for Dummies” book and then work through this tutorial.The style of this tutorial should be easy to follow. Main topics appear in bold black type. Specificdirection headings are in bright yellow, and these are followed by detailed directions in bright red. Additional comments about the directions appear in blue. A key feature of this tutorial is that wehave embedded numerous sample Excel spreadsheets so that you can try out the directions right away—without switching into Excel. When you double-click on one of these spreadsheets, you launch Excel, and the spreadsheet “comes alive.” The menus and toolbars even change to those for Excel. By clicking outside one of these spreadsheets, you’re back in Word. A few of the topics are best carried out on your own PC (as opposed to your school’s networked PCs), and we haven’t included sample spreadsheets for these. The reason is that they change the way a specific copy of Excel is set up. If you do one of these exercises on your school’s networkedPCs, the chances are that they won’t take effect, at least not permanently, because of the way Excelis set up on the network. These topics are preceded by asterisks. Try them on your own home PC, where you have complete control.Finally, we suggest that you save this file–RIGHT NOW–as MyXLTutorial.doc (or some such name) and work with the copy. That way, if you mess anything up as you try the exercises, you can always go back and retrieve the original file (ExcelTutorial.doc).Have fun!Moving to the top of the sheetOften you want to reorient yourself by going back to the “home” position on the worksheet.To go to the top left of the sheet (cell A1):Press Ctrl-Home (both keys at once).Try it!Great - you're back in a familiar locationSelecting a rangeUsually in Excel, you select a range and then do something to it (such as enter a formula in it, format it, delete its contents, and so on). Therefore, it is extremely important to be able to select a range efficiently. It’s easy if the whole range appears on the screen, but it’s a bit trickier if you can’t see the whole range. In the latter case the effect of dragging (the method most users try) can be frustrating–things scroll by too quickly. Try one of the methods below instead.To select a range:Click on one corner of the range and drag to the opposite corner.Or:Click on one corner, hold down the Shift key, and click on the opposite corner. Try it! Select the range B2:D7.9 2 101 3 88 1 107 5 45 1 15 10 7Selecting more than one rangeSay you want to format more than one range in a certain way (as currency, for example). The quickest way is to select all ranges at once and then format them all at once.To select more than one range:Select the first range, press the Ctrl key, select the second range, press the Ctrl key, select the third range, and so on.For example, to select the ranges B2:D5 and F2:H5, click on B2, hold down the Shift key and clickon D5 (so now the first range is selected), hold down the Ctrl key and click on F2, and finally hold down the Shift key and click on H5. Try it! Select all three numerical ranges shown.10 13 7 91 9 12 75 4 1 16 1215 213 4 10Copying and pastingCopying and pasting (usually formulas) is one of the most frequently done tasks in Excel, and it can be a real time-waster if done inefficiently. Many people do it as follows. They select the rangeto be copied (often in an inefficient manner), then select the Edit/Copy menu item, then select the paste range (again, often inefficiently), and finally select the Edit/Paste menu item. There are muchbetter ways to get the job done!To copy and paste using keyboard shortcuts:Select the copy range (using one of the efficient selection methods described above), press Ctrl-c (for copy), select the paste range (again, efficiently), and press Ctrl-v (for paste).The copy range will still have a dotted line around it. Press the Esc key to get rid of it. Try it! Copy the formula in cell C2 down through cell C8 using Ctrl-c and Ctrl-v.3 3 94 12 32 15 14 23 5To copy and paste using toolbar buttons:Proceed as above, but use the copy and paste toolbar buttons (on the top toolbar) instead of the Ctrl-c and Ctrl-v key combinations.Try it! Copy the formula in C2 down through cell C8 using the Copy and Paste buttons.1 3 34 15 51 43 33 51 5Buttons or key combinations? It’s a matter of personal taste, but either is a lot quicker than menu choices! A frequent task is to enter a formula in one cell and copy it down a row or across a column. There are several very efficient ways to do this.To avoid copying and pasting altogether, use Ctrl-Enter:Starting with the top or left-hand cell, select the range where the results will go. (Use the selection methods described earlier, especially if this range is a long one.) Type in the formula, and press Ctrl-Enter instead of Enter.Try it! Fill up the range C2:C8 with Ctrl-Enter.6 2 129 1 94 9 367 6 422 3 68 5 403 9 27Formula should multiply the value in column A by the corresponding value in column BPressing Ctrl-Enter enters what you typed in all of the selected cells (adjusted for relative addresses), so in general, it can be a real time saver. For example, it could be used to enter the number 10 in a whole range of cells. Just select the range, type 10, and press Ctrl-Enter. Try it! Fill up the range B2:D8 with the value 10 by using Ctrl-Enter.To copy with the drag handle:Enter the formula in the top or left-hand cell of the intended range. Place the cursor on the “drag handle” at the lower right of this cell (the cursor becomes a plus sign), and drag this handle down or across to copy. Try it! Copy the formula in C2 down through C8 with the “drag handle”.10 7 706 94 95 12 88 1010 7Copying and Pasting with the Special/Values optionOften you have a range of cells that