Excel 2016 For Dummies

Greg Harvey

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781119297338
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Desktop Applications
• Index: Computer Science

Let your Excel skills sore to new heights with this bestselling guide

Updated to reflect the latest changes to the Microsoft Office suite, this new edition of Excel For Dummies quickly and painlessly gets you up to speed on mastering the world's most widely used spreadsheet tool. Written by bestselling author Greg Harvey, it has been completely revised and updated to offer you the freshest and most current information to make using the latest version of Excel easy and stress-free.

If the thought of looking at spreadsheet makes your head swell, you've come to the right place. Whether you've used older versions of this popular program or have never gotten a headache from looking at all those grids, this hands-on guide will get you up and running with the latest installment of the software, Microsoft Excel 2016. In no time, you'll begin creating and editing worksheets, formatting cells, entering formulas, creating and editing charts, inserting graphs, designing database forms, and more. Plus, you'll get easy-to-follow guidance on mastering more advanced skills, like adding hyperlinks to worksheets, saving worksheets as web pages, adding worksheet data to an existing web page, and so much more.

• Save spreadsheets in the Cloud to work on them anywhere
• Use Excel 2016 on a desktop, laptop, or tablet
• Share spreadsheets via email, online meetings, and social media sites
• Analyze data with PivotTables

If you're new to Excel and want to spend more time on your actual work than figuring out how to make it work for you, this new edition of Excel 2016 For Dummies sets you up for success.

Part 1

Getting Started with Excel 2016

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 2016.

Get help with the Tell Me feature and the online Excel 2016 Help window.

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

Save your work and recover a lost workbook if disaster strikes.

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

Chapter 1

The Excel 2016 User Experience

IN THIS CHAPTER

Getting familiar with the Excel 2016 program window and Backstage view

Selecting commands from the Ribbon

Customizing the Quick Access toolbar

Starting Excel 2016

Surfing an Excel 2016 worksheet and workbook

Getting things done with “Tell me what you want to do”

Excel 2016, like Excel 2013, 2010, and 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 2016 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 2016 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 2016 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 2016, 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.

FIGURE 1-1: The Excel 2016 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.

When you select the Blank workbook template from the Excel 2016 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 1-2: The Excel 2016 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 2016 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.

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.

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.

Select the Open option to open an Excel workbook you’ve previously worked on 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 toget...