Installing Excel

To either Access Excel on your browser or Download it. Click here

The first step to Accessing Excel on your browser is to sign into your microsoft account. This can be provided by an Institution or Organization, where you can sign in with a work or school email.

If you are interested in Downloading Excel, you can click the link provided, and scroll down to the Download the app section, where it will prompt you with instructions to download the proper installation files.

Excel Basics

Sheets VS Workbooks

Before we start, a quick distinction should be made between Sheets and Workbooks.

In Excel, we work in a Workbook. This is what we assign a name to when creating the file. When we are working within a workbook we are manipulating a Sheet. There can be multiple different sheets in one workbook.

Data Types

There are many different data types in Excel.

Understanding when to use what datatypes is important for ensuring you have Clean Data that is compatible with scripts and can be Transferred Among Softwares.

Having the right data can also keep your spreadsheet Organized

Data Type Appearance Best Purpose
General Hello If you have no specific purpose
Number 6 Running computations and doing math
Currency $ 6.00 Running functions requiring currency remainders
Date 1/1/2026 Working with Time Series Data
Accounting $ 6.00 Running accounting-related math
Time 1/1/2026: 12:00 PM Looking at changes in data over a span of time
Percentage 83% Performing Statistical or Scientific Work
Fraction 6 1/2 Working with data that needs to be semi-precise
Scientific 6.00 E+00 Data with extremely large values, can help save memory
Text Basic Text Logical Operators, classifying data by groups, and organizing columns and rows.

Headers

Spreadsheet headers allow you to Navigate Excel’s Different Tools.

  • Home

    The Home section of the spreadsheet houses most of the Stylistic and Formatting Features for Your Spreadsheet. Some examples are the Text Size, Font, Conditional Formatting, Borders, and Highlighting Within Cells.

  • Insert

    The Insert section is one of the most widely used sections as it allows you to add External Information to your spreadsheet such as Data and Images. This section also allows you to Visualize Data.

  • Share

    The share section allows you to Publish Your Data and create shareable links.

  • Page Layout

    The layout section allows you to modify Large Scale and Aesthetic features in a spreadsheet or in your whole workbook.

  • Formulas

    One of the most important Excel sections. This section allows you to insert Functions, Formulas, and Run Calculations in your workbook.

  • Data

    This section allows you to Manipulate Your Data in significant ways that can help clean up the organization of it. Base Level Analysis can also be done in the data section.

  • Review

    You can review the History and Back end Performance of your workbooks with this.

  • View

    This section allows you to Change how you View the sheet.

  • Automate

    You are able to Import Scripts into your spreadsheet to improve efficiency.

  • Help

    Access Tutorials, and other Resources to improve your Excel skills.

  • Draw

    Create Informal Annotations in your spreadsheet.

Common Excel Tools

Transferring Data Between Cells

Copying information is possible through pressing CTRL+C / CMD+C in one cell, and CTRL+V / CMD+V in your target cell. You can copy and paste information from your current workbook, other workbooks, spreadsheets, and online sources.

The Small Green box in the bottom right corner of the cell you’re working in allows you to quickly copy a value from one cell and paste it to any amount of cells within the same row or column.

This tool is also used to Automate Tedious Processes with functions. This is done when you provide at least 2 data points in adjacent cells as a reference. Excel is able to determine a pattern and fill in blanks.

An example would be if you entered January, and February into two cells. Excel could recognize this pattern and fill in the remaining months in the year.

Add and Remove content

With Excel you can Add or Remove columns and rows with the + and - symbols when you near the edge of a cell.

You can also do so by Right Clicking on a Column or row, which will give you the option to remove or add a row/column.

Cell Formatting

We can format our cells in a variety of ways to best fit our data.

The Wrap Button is located in our home header and looks like a blue snake.

Pressing this button will take any text in your cell and make it fit the cell width.


--------------------------------------------------------
its the differ|ence| betwe|en a cell tha|t is long like this 
--------------|----|------|-------------|---------------                        
and a shorter |    |      |             |
              |    |      |             |
cell like this|    |      |             |
---------------------------------------------------------

We can also Change the Width or Height of columns and rows. This can be done by moving our cursor to the Edge of a Cell until we access the arrow tool. Then, we can click and drag to make our column or row any size we want.

Merge

Right clicking over a series of cells will allow you to Merge the contents of those cells into one much larger cell. This is effective for concatenating information.

Working With Spreadsheet Data

Data Organization

Excel offers a variety of simple tools that allow you to Organize, and Clean data.

  • Ascending and Descending Functions

    Excel’s ascending and descending feature allows you to display your data by Columns Values. It will sort select columns either from Maximum to Minimum values, or from Minimum to Maximum values.

  • Custom Sort

    Custom sort is a powerful tool when working with spreadsheets that allows you to Organize your spreadsheet by Ascending or Descending values and grouping by values Multiple Different Columns. This means you can sort by ascending values in one column while grouping your data by certain values in another column.

  • Pivot Tables

    Pivot tables are an effective way to Filter Large Spreadsheets to select for data of interest. They allow you to create quick tables that show relationships between subsets of your full data.

    Filter

    Within the Data header. The Filter Command allows you to create a Dropdown for selected columns.

    This Dropdown allows you to Select Certain Row Values that you want displayed in your spreadsheet.

  • Data Validation

    Excel’s data validation tools allow you to Predetermine what Data Types are allowed in certain columns. You can use this to organize columns by 1 data type consistently or if you have values that need to have uniform syntax.

    One especially benefical tool is List Validation. This tool allows you to Create a List of Words and Values that are allowed in a column, helping to make tedious data entry faster.

Visualizing Data

Excel offers a wide range of graphs and data visualization mediums to fit your needs.

Visualization Tool Name Common Purpose
Table Visualizing grouped data
Line Graph Depicting relationships between 2 variables
Column Graph Comparing two different variables
Pie Chart Showing variance in a groups responses
Box Plot Comparing statistical factors between variables
Histogram Showing the distribution of values in a spreadsheet
Conditional Formatting Highlighting Differences in Cell Values

Analyzing Data

We have various functions that help us Automate tedious tasks. These are grouped into different types of Formulas.

Formula Type Purpose
Financial Computes values to provide financial information
Logical Computes boolean values for a column of data to group and filter
Text Allows you to maniuplate characters and strings
Date & Time Let’s you pull values from date and time data types
Look up & Reference Provides functions to pull certain cell values and types
Math Let’s you run mathematics operations

Using Functions

when we use functions in a cell, we will use the = sign and then our function.

Let’s make a function that would sum a series of values within a spreadsheet.

First, we will assign our function


=SUM()

Now that our function is assigned we can add the cells we would like to apply our function to.

=SUM(A1:C10)

Our colon symbol represents the values between A1 and C10, this means we want to calculate the sum of all values from A1 through C10.’

Whichever cell we write our function in will hold the result of our function.

Interestingly, we can also use our pattern recognizing tool from earlier to fill in functions within multiple cells. This is most effective when trying to apply a function across columns or rows that are within your selected cell. Let’s look at an example.

Let’s create a function to sum the values of row A from Column 1 through 10

=SUM(A1:A10)

if we add this function to cell A11, we can apply this function to all rows below A11. Applying this function to B11 would sum all the values from B1 through B10, C11 would apply to C1 through C11, and so on so forth.

functions can be used to: Compute Statistical Values such as Means, Medians, and Modes, filter data into groups such as a Yes and No, and compute conversions between Kilometers and Miles, or Kilograms and Pounds.

There are many more functions and operations that you can perform in excel. We recommend that you check out our CSU and Non CSU resources to learn more!

Next Steps

Now that we have introduced some basic components of Excel. We will briefly outline VBA Coding and how we can use this to Write Scripts.

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