How to use Excel 2007

Written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, Microsoft Office Excel is a spreadsheet application that organises data into columns and rows so actions, such as formulas, calculations and chart creation, can be carried out.

The Layout of the Application

The interface of Excel 2007 is made up of what Microsoft are calling “ribbons” that have replaced the previous version’s (Office 2003) toolbars. Within these ribbons are tabs which are commands grouped categorically.

The first ribbon is called home and this is where the most frequently used icons such as font styles, alignment settings, number format, autosum, filtering, copy, cut and paste are stored. Copies of these most frequently used icons can also be found in other Ribbons to match their category.

The insert ribbon is where you would go to if you wanted to insert something in your spreadsheet i.e pictures, charts, clipart, text boxes, Word art, pivot tables, hyperlinks etc.

The third ribbon is called page layout, and this concentrates on the spreadsheet’s orientation, size, margins and print areas to name a few.

Whilst there are several icons on the home ribbon to do with the formulas (such as autosum), all of the other commands can be found under the formulas ribbon.

The review ribbon is for the proofing stage of any Microsoft Office document because it contains the spelling, research and thesaurus buttons. There is scope here to add comments to the cells if further explanation is required and the facility of sharing and protecting workbooks. Again, like the home, insert and view ribbons the commands found on here can also be found in any other Office 2007 application.

The last ribbon is view ribbon which deals with how the spreadsheet is displayed whilst being worked on. There is also the facility to zoom like in most Microsoft applications, as well as a show/hide function that allows you to view the spreadsheet without gridlines, headings, formula bars and ruler.

The right clicking and short-cut commands have not been disabled, if a user is more comfortable right clicking in the spreadhseet and selecting format cells then they still can.

Excel itself has Microsoft help topics available direct from Microsoft online. To access these topics press the F1 button, click on the “Training” link in the Excel Help box to the right of your screen, choose "Excel" from either the 2007 Office training courses on the Microsoft website, then select your desired tutorial(s) from the next page.

By Kelly Foxhall