Excel Beginners

Navigating Excel: Step 1 To Mastering Spreadsheets

Creating, Transforming, and Visualising

The Insert Tab

Tables Tools

Pivot Table

Pivot Tables allow you to quickly summarise and display your data in a way which is completely customised by you. Using a drag-and-drop system you can position your data and add custom values to suit any analysis you plan to do.

Recommended Pivot Tables

Recommended Pivot Tables will have Excel read your data set and suggest potential formats it believes could be interesting to you. Once generated, you have the same control over a Recommended Pivot Table as you do a standard Pivot Table.

Table

Table allows you to insert a blank table into any part of your worksheet. This will give you header ranges, dynamic named ranges, and preset formatting templates for visual presentation.

Illustrations Tools

Pictures

Pictures allows you to insert into Excel a photo you have saved on your local machine or network drives. It can then be resized and moved, cropped, or lightly modified within Excel.

Online Pictures

Online Pictures allows you to search through the Bing search results for images matching your search terms and which are available under the creative commons license.

Shapes

Shapes allows you to insert a variety of standard and non-standard shapes into your workbook. Once inserted they can be resized, rotated, and otherwise modified to suit your needs.

Icons

Icons allows you to insert a wide variety of transparent background images which can be used to accentuate reports.

3D Models

3D Models allows you to import your own custom 3D model or import one from a selection provided by Microsoft. They can be static or moving models and they can be reoriented to suit your needs.

Smart Art

Smart Art allows you to select from a wide range of template shapes and compilations which give greater meaning and enable a more profound interpretation of the data you are presenting.

Screenshot

Screenshot allows you to take a screen capture of any active window or defined range on your desktop and keep a static copy of it within your workbook.

Charts Tools

Recommended Charts

Recommended Charts will look at the format of your data and present suggested chart templates which you may be interested in using. Once you have selected one of the templates you can continue to personalise the resulting chart to your liking.

Column/Bar Charts

Column/Bar Charts will allow you to visualise your data with either vertical or horizontal bars, having your primary labels underneath each bar, and your value labels on the opposite axis

Line/Area Charts

Line/Area Charts will allow you to visualise your data over what is normally a period of time, having your independent variable along your horizontal axis, and your dependent along the vertical axis.

Pie/Doughnut Charts

Pie/Doughnut Charts will allow you to visualise your data as a percentage of a whole, having your data labelled with either a colour legend or with floating labels, and percentage contribution to the larger picture.

Scatter/Bubble Charts

Scatter/Bubble Charts will allow you to visualise your data across a two-axis grid, showing the relationships between two variables. Often used to display relationships or the relative nature of various instances, with labels describing each point if necessary.

Pivot Charts

Pivot Charts function similarly to Pivot Tables in that the data used can be modified and restructured in a Pivot Table format. Pivot Charts can be any type of chart Excel offers, as long as the data is linked to the table structure which was created.

Other Charts

Excel offers other types of charts and graphing visualisations which may be of benefit to you and your workflow. They can all be found in the same section within Excel and should be explored at your convenience.

Text Tools

Text Box tool

Text Box allows you to place a floating box of plain text which you can resize per your needs. It functions with the majority of the formatting options which cells also benefit from, with the exception that it cannot evaluate formulas, or be used with conditional formatting.

Header & Footer tool

Header & Footer allows you to manage a consistent top and bottom text which will appear on each page of a printed/exported to PDF document. It has options for the header and footer fields that range from inserting the date, the location of the file, the file or sheet name, and allows for different header and footer texts if the page is an odd or even number.

Insert Word Art tool

Insert Word Art allows you to insert a text box with a specific style of text unique to Word Art into your document. Once inserted you can change the font size, the colour and fill of the text to suit your needs.

Add a Signature Line tool

Add a Signature Line allows you to insert what looks like an image of a signature line into your document which can be digitally signed from within Excel

Symbols Tools

Equation tools

Equation allows you to insert either a known mathematical equation into a text box, or write your own equation to be inserted into a text box in Excel. Equations can be written in proper form and the text can be formatted like all other text boxes.

Symbol tools

Symbols allows you to insert standard and non-standard symbols into a text string. These can include common symbols like the copyright, trademark, and registered symbols, as well as accents or special characters found in different languages.