Skills for working with office programs are inculcated in childhood. Many schools began to include this section in their educational programs. When entering a higher education institution, students should already have a simple skill in working with tables and texts in order for the educational process to correspond to the realities of the working environment. Many specialized programs in enterprises have the ability to upload reports to Excel, which you need to be able to quickly process and analyze. The vast majority of enterprises use this program in their daily work, creating reports, storing and analyzing data.
What kind of beast is MS Excel?
For primitive tasks, MS Excel comes down to building tables and analyzing them using simple formulas. Program gurus can create whole templates for calculations, building forecasts, creating their own product using VBA programming. With a strong desire and a sufficient level of ownership, the entire analytical part can be done with its help without buying expensive software. If your knowledge in this program is limited, then start with the basics of Excel. How to create a table in it?
How to get started
If this is your first acquaintance with office programs for you, you need to start by creating a new document. To do this, select the folder where the document will be located, or use the desktop for these purposes.
Choose the second option. We hover over a free area of the desktop and press the right button. In the dialog that appears, select "Create." Next, the next tab becomes available to us, on which we select "Microsoft Excel worksheet." An icon appeared on the desktop, the name of which is registered by default as standard. It can be changed, for example, to "Book 1" or any other option. To do this, while the text in the icon is highlighted in blue, we erase the old inscription and write what we need.
It remains only to move the mouse cursor over the icon "Book 1", left-click quickly two times, and before us is an open blank sheet with which we will work. For the convenience of perceiving information on how to create a table in Excel "- a step-by-step instruction to help you.
How to create your first table
For the first experiments with tables, it is recommended to arm yourself with paper and a pen, to first manually draw the necessary view and figure out how it is more convenient and informative to place the data. This will save you from redoing a ready-made array of entered information due to the fact that it is inconvenient to use. Now create a table in MS Excel
To start filling in empty cells, select the right one with the right mouse button. It will change the color of the frame to green, and the outline will become fatter. You can switch to another cell at any time using a computer mouse or arrows on the keyboard.
First, we recommend starting with filling out the names of rows and columns for easy navigation. For example, we are faced with the task of calculating the costs of organizing a children's holiday in order to choose the most economical option.
How to fill a table heading
We start filling with the header. We retreat one cell and in the next line we write the options from which we will choose. In our case, 4 children's entertainment centers are evaluated - Option 1, Option 2, and so on. The criteria was selected: Pass, Quest, Additional entertainment, Decorations, Menu, Cake and Photographer. The measure is Russian rubles. Using the slider, I had to push the columns apart to fit the name of the entire cap.
Based on the collected information on four points, we set the corresponding values in front of each pair of Option - Indicator. Filled cells will look as shown below.
Getting started with formulas
In order to create a table in Excel as expected, you need to add calculations. The very first formula that every user must master is the summation of values. To do this, in the column "Option 1" we get to the first empty cell after the data entered.
In the "Home" tab in the menu at the top of the space to fill on the right side, look for the icon of the capital letter E. In the figure, it is highlighted in a red rectangle. Click on it with the left mouse button. The result of our actions should be a dashed border according to the values of the column. Pull the selection area at the upper right corner so that it covers the empty “Pass” cell in the “Option 1” column.
To finish the math faster, you need to "stretch the formula" to calculate the totals in the columns "Option 2" - "Option 4". To do this, activate the cell by clicking the mouse button. Put the cursor in the lower right corner of the selected green area. A bold "cross" should appear instead of the cursor. Pull it to the right through all the columns where you need to make a calculation. At this moment, four cells are already highlighted in green. Press the Enter key and get the final cost of the children's holiday in four ways.
We add gloss to the calculation sheet
For a simple home calculation of manipulations of this kind is quite enough. But in order to fulfill instructions from the management, one will have to learn to present the data in a beautiful way. Based on the same example, we will consider a step-by-step instruction on how to create a table with selected borders in Excel.
You must select the entire area that you want to format. To do this, left-click on the first upper cell and, holding it in this position, move the computer mouse so that all the necessary cells in it are selected. In the upper menu we are looking for the designation of "squares" where the font size and style change. Click on the arrow below. We have a list of possible manipulations with the borders of the table. To create a spreadsheet in Excel, as required in most cases, select the "All borders" option.
How to make beautiful table values
To create a table in Excel, as required by business etiquette, you need to work a little with its contents. First, center the horizontal header of the table and make the text in it bold. To do this, select all four cells, as they did before, and click on the icon "G" in the top menu of the table in the area of working with fonts. In the next field, select the central hatching and observe how our table is transformed before our eyes. In the same way, you can highlight the final line with the calculations.
Now let's work on the values. Select all cells where there is data. In the "Number" work area, click the icon with three zeros ("000"). We have hundredths that are easy to remove if you double-click on the icon from the same field.
Using simple manipulations, you can create a table in Excel, as required by the manual.
Tricks MS Excel
In addition to standard tables, the office program has advanced capabilities for analyzing the necessary information. To begin with, you need to create a data table in Excel. The specified tool allows factor analysis in two variables and has a wide scope. It is often used to calculate the monthly loan payment, overpayment percentage and other financial indicators. Its use is justified when it comes to a large data set, where blind copying of formulas will not bring the proper result. Information about the formula is contained in the ribbon "Data" - "Data Analysis" - "Data Table".
Another feature of the program allows you to create a new table on a separate sheet, which briefly summarizes the analysis of data from the original source.
In order to be able to create a pivot table in Excel as a separate analytical tool, you need to select the corresponding Pivot Table icon in the Insert tab. It makes sense to apply this function when there is multiple repetition of one name of an argument for different operators.