Everything you need to know about Microsoft Excel
From its inception, Microsoft has made several products from Windows operating system to office productivity tools to Xbox gaming consoles and beyond. But there is one product that stands above the rest as the most widely used business application and has now become a staple in many enterprises.
Microsoft Excel a spreadsheet program that was originally released in the year 1985 with the sole purpose of helping business to manage their finances. Fast forward to 2019 it has now become a global standard for anything that requires managing business data. According to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Excel is one of the best consumer product they have ever made and is a reflection of what Microsoft is all about.
This blog post covers everything you need to know about Microsoft Excel. Enjoy the read.
What is Microsoft Excel
It’s a spreadsheet program that lets you store your data in tabular format. These tables are collection of cells arranged in rows and column. Consider the below example
What you can do with Excel, pretty much everything.
- Performing mathematical operations with formulas and functions
- Better visualize your data using graphs and charts to find those hidden trends
- Sorting and filtering data to find specific information
- Extract meaningful data using Pivot tables from a large data set.
- Automate your reports using Macro – Think of it as mini RPA bot.
- Create custom applications using Visual Basic programming
Evolution of Spreadsheets
Chances are anyone who has ever worked on a computer may have tried spreadsheets ( MS Excel ) at least once– such is the ubiquity of this application. It has come a long way – way before 14th century when ABACUS was invented.
Excel Version History and related Updates
Over the last 3 decades, Microsoft has released 29 different versions of Excel for 3 different operating systems – Each version has been significantly different when compared with its previous avatar. We have compiled the list for you that describes each of the version with its related update.
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Excel Splash Screens – Swipe Right to Left
- Supported only Macintosh
- First Version to be made available for Windows
- Supported Intel platform
- Included toolbars,
- Drawing capabilities
- Outlining
- Add-in support
- 3D charts
- Auto-fill
- Seven built-in toolbar
- Drag and Drop
- Fill handles to extend a series
- Worksheet Auditior
- Crosstab ReportWizard
- Support for visual basic for applications
- User defined functions(UDF)
- First major 32-bit version of Excel
- Faster and more stable
- New interface for VBA developers, UserForms, Data Validation, and lots more
- Paper clip office assistant
- Natural language labels
- Quick and easy access to commonly used folders, files, and locations
- UI enhancements related to toolbars
- New Collect and Paste feature
- Ability to recover your work
- Featured product activation technology
- Smart Documents and Statistical Functions
- Data Tables, List Management, and SharePoint Integration
- Smart Tags
- XML Format Support
- Many improvements to pivot tables were introduced
- SmartArt set of editable business diagrams were introduced
- Office open XML files were introduced
- Mainly size limitations of previous versions was steeply increased.
- Image editing capabilities
- Improved pivot tables
- Sparklines were introduced
- Multi threading recalculation(MTR)
- New formulas came into action
- Flash fill
- Power view
- Power pivot
- Multi-threading was improved
- Windows App
- 50 new functions were introduced
- Read-Only mode
- Excel forecasting functions
- Power Query integration
- Keyboard access for pivot tables
Beginners Guide - How to use MS-Excel
You perform the work you do in excel in a workbook. Each workbook contains one or more worksheets/spreadsheets and each worksheet consists of individual cells that hold our data.
Here’s everything you need to know before you create your first excel workbook.
1. Open a new Workbook
- When you open excel in your PC, it automatically opens a new blank workbook. Alternatively you click on file and click on new, then select blank workbook option or use (ctrl+N) shortcut using the keyboard
- To open an existing workbook, click on file and then on Open, click on browse and then use file explorer to find the required workbook and click open button.
2. Using the Ribbon
The ribbon is a control panel located on the top. Ribbon consists of all tools you require for your worksheet. Click on each tab to see what all tools and buttons can be useful to you.
3. Managing data in Worksheets
- Each workbook in Excel can contain multiple worksheets, which appear as tabs along the bottom of the screen. You can view or edit a particular sheet by selecting the tab. Usage of multiple worksheets is an easy way of storing large data in a logical manner.
- If right-click on a tab, various options like rename, delete appears. On clicking the + symbol, a new blank worksheet is opened.
4. Time to enter some data
- When you select a cell and start typing, you can insert data into that cell. Data comes in a variety of formats, including numbers, letters, and equations. We can even copy data from other places and paste here.
5. Performing calculations
- We can perform multiple operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division of strings, numbers etc. with operators like +,-,*,/ and many other.
6. Performing calculations
⦁ A function is a predefined formula.
⦁ You can enter your formula in an empty cell as shown above. Start the formula with an = sign. Then, enter the function name and enter the cell names in brackets on which you would like to perform these operations. The formula will be visible in the formula bar inside the ribbon
⦁ For example, to find sum of data in two different cells say A1 and B1, then the formula would be =SUM(A1:B1).
7. Saving and sharing your workbook
- After you’re done with your work, press Ctrl+S to save your workbook.
- Click on share button on the top right of your window to share your excel workbook through one-drive or to send it to your cloud.
Whats possible in Excel and New AI Features
There’s no way for us to compile a list that captures every one of Excel’s possible applications but here are few
1. Macros
- Macros help you to save time on repetitive tasks by recording it,saving and running it when required.
- You can find macros in view tab. To record a macro,click on macros
- And select record macro option.
- Be careful! Whatever you do with the sheet is recorded now.
- To stop recording click on stop recording option which appears on clicking macros button.
2. Pivot Tables
- This excel tool is used for analyzing data without using formulas. It is simple and less time consuming.
- To create a pivot table click on insert tab, click on PivotTable button. A dialog box appears. Check the data ad click OK.
- Drag required number of fields and the desired data will be appeared in the form of pivot table.
3. New AI Features
Say goodbye to data entry
With the arrival of New image recognition functionality, just click a photo using your Excel android app and it automatically coverts the image into a fully editable table.
AI powered Insights using Ideas
Clicking the bolt sign delivers you the hidden trends, patterns and other various outliers in just seconds – Accelerating the decision making process.
New Data types
Now Excel can understand real world concepts like stocks and geography – Converts normal text into layers of interactive information. For Example converting list of countries in a work book to geography , you can pull location specific data and use it in your analysis.
Hope that helped.
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