Moving Around the Spreadsheet

You can move around the spreadsheet/cells by clicking your mouse on various cells, or by using the up, down, right and left arrow movement keys on the keyboard.  Or, you can move up and down by using the “elevator” bars on the right and bottom of the spreadsheet.  Go ahead and move around the spreadsheet.  Hold down the down arrow key on the keyboard for a few seconds – then click-on a cell.  Notice how the Name Box always tells you “where you are.”  Now hold down the right arrow key on the keyboard for a few seconds.  Notice how the alphabet changes from single letters (A, B, C,. …. Z) to several letter combinations (AA, AB, AC).  There are hundreds of columns and thousands of rows in a spreadsheet.  Anytime you desire to return to the Home Cell (A1) simply click-in the Name Box and type-in A1.  Then tap the Enter key and you will go to cell A1.  You can go to any cell by this method.   Simply type-in a row and column, tap the Enter key, and you’ll go to that cell.

If you want to go to the last column on the right, hold down the Ctrl key and tap the right arrow key.

If you want to go to the last row at the bottom, hold down the Ctrl key and tap the down arrow key.

Now that you have the “feel” of how to move around the Excel spreadsheet, go to the cells as indicated below and type-in the following:

C1       (Your Name)'s Budget.  It should look similar to the image below.  Do not tap Enter when you finish

Look at cells C1 and D1.  Notice how your entry has spilled over from C1 into D1.  Sometimes this is a problem, and sometimes it is not. 

Tap the Enter key and then click-on cell D1 and type-in the word BONZO and tap the Enter key.  

Notice how BONZO now COVERS the right part of your original entry!!   Move your cursor over cell C1 and click-on it.  Look at the upper part of the spreadsheet,  just above the cells where you typed BONZO.  Your name and the word budget are still there!  Bonzo only COVERED the portion in cell D1. See the image and arrows below.

There are several ways to take care of this.  For the moment move back to cell D1 and click-on cell D1.  Tap the Delete key (above the arrow movement keys on the keyboard).  Notice that Bonzo disappears and your entire entry reappears.  This is one way to expose the entry. We'll look at some others as we go along.

Now we'll continue  entering text and data.  We think that creating a simple personal budget would be a logical way to show you how a spreadsheet “works.”  Move to the following cells and type-in the information indicated. You can click-on each cell and then type-in the entries.

If you happen to make a mistake simply retype the entries.  Later on we'll see how to

edit mistakes.  Any time you want to replace something in a cell you can simply retype and the new entry and it will replace the old one.

          Cell        Type-in

A3       Income

B4       Parents

B5       Job

B6       Investments

B7       Total

A10     Expenses

B11     Food

B12     Beverages

B13     Parties

B14     Miscellaneous

B15     Total

Your spreadsheet should now look similar to the image on the right. 

At this point you probably noticed, the words "Investments" and "Miscellaneous" run over the spaces given in the cells.  Do not be concerned at this point.  We’ll soon fix this. 

Now, type the numbers in the cells indicated:

C4       300

C5       50

C6       150

When you type-in the 150, tap Enter.

Your spreadsheet should look like the image on the right. 

Notice, when you enter text that the words line up on the left side of the cells.  When you enter numbers, they line up on the right side.  This is because we are using the United States (English) version of Excel.  Other international versions will line up logically for their text and monetary forms.

We would like to place an underline at the bottom of the three figures so that we can indicate a total below – in cell C7. Point to cell C7 (with the mouse).   That's where we want the line ‑‑ always move the cursor to the place where you want to insert a line. With the Arrow on cell C7 tap the right mouse button. 

A sub-menu with a caption Format Cells appears.

The RIGHT click will “always bring up” a menu that is “tailored” to the “place” where you click. This will work in any Microsoft Windows product.  You can always tell “where” you click the right mouse button for the cursor arrow will always be in a corner of the menu that appears – exactly where you clicked the right mouse button.. 

Select Format Cells.

When the Format Cells menu screen (below) appears, select the Border Tab.

Look at the Line Style box on the  right side of the menu screen.  There are several types of lines that you can choose. Point to the thick single line in the Style Area (see arrow) and click the left mouse button. A box will go around the line.  Look at the area which says Border. Point to the upper part of the Text box (see arrow) and click the left mouse button. A thick black line will appear at the top of the Text box. 

If the thick line does not show-up at the top of the Text box, click-again at the “top line area in the Text box” and the line will “disappear”. Then click-on the thick, single line in the Line Style box again and repeat the previous instructions.  If, somehow, you make a mistake, simply click “on and off in the Text line boxes.” You will notice that the lines appear and disappear.  This is called a “toggle” in computer “talk.”  So, work at this until you get the line on the top of the cell. We have indicated that we want a single thick underline at the top of the cell C7. Point to OK and click the left mouse button.

When you return to the spreadsheet, click somewhere other than cell C7.   This is called “clicking away.” You should now see a line at the top of cell C7.  Sometimes the box highlighting a cell hides the lines.  If you “messed-up”, try again.

Now type in the numbers in the cells indicated.

C11     30

C12     50

C13     150

C14     70    (After you type 70, tap the Enter key)

Now, underline the top of cell C15 like you did cell C7.

Your spreadsheet should now look like the image on the right.