Excel Notes

Excel is an electronic spreadsheet program that can be used for storing, organizing and manipulating numbers and data. It's an amazingly flexible program to find answers to logic based questions. It is a program that can compile lots of data into graphs and tables.


What is a spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet is a table which displays numbers in rows and columns. Spreadsheets can be used for a variety of purposes (accounting, budgeting, charting/graphing, financial analysis, scientific applications). Spreadsheets can exist in paper format but the electronic spreadsheets are able perform automatic calculations on changing data.

Why use it?
Spreadsheet programs help you manage data in various formats and, as mentioned above, they can increase your productivity when dealing with various types of data. Computerized spreadsheets offer students and teachers with a way to view data in various formats (pie charts, line graphs, bar graphs, and the like). When students and teachers are able to view data in various formats, they are able to make important visual discoveries about their data.

Formula vs. Functions
Ever been guilty of using Excel as a fancy calculator? If so, you’d be just using a formula in Excel - such as =A1+A2 or =452*12.
There are, however, pre-defined formulas in Excel such as IF, SUM, VLOOKUP, INDEX (and about 300 more!) These are referred to as functions. So, you could write a formula containing a function eg. =MAX(A1:B20) or you could just write a simple formula which does not contain a function eg. =A1/A2.

Probably the most popular function in any spreadsheet is the SUM function. The Sum function takes all of the values in each of the specified cells and totals their values.

The IF function will check the logical condition of a statement and return one value if true and a different value if false.  The syntax is IF(logical_test, value_if_true,Value_if_false)

To prepare for your class, review the functions of Excel.