M/S Excel -2003

How to start Excel2003

 Unit 1. Introduction. Elements of Excel (I).

Excel is a worksheets like programme that allows you to perform operations with figures arranged in a grid. It is very useful, you can do simple additions or complex operations like calculations for a mortage loan. If you have never worked with Excel here you will see in detail what a worksheet is and how to use it.

 Let us now see what the basic elements of Excel2003 are (the screen, the bars, etc), so you can distinguish each of them. You will learn what they are called, where they are and what they are for. You will also learn how to get help, in case, at any given time, you don't know how to proceed. Once you know all this, in the next theme, you will be able to start creating worksheets.

We are going to see the two basic ways of starting Excel2003:

From the button Start usually located at the bottom of the screen, on the left corner. Place the cursor and click on the button Start and the menu will unfold; place the cursor on All programs . The list of all the programs installed in your computer will be displayed. Place the mouse arrow on the folder with the name Microsoft Office and click on   Microsoft Excel. This will start the program

  From the Excel icon on the desk top Start Excel2003 now, so you can put our instructions into practice. We will soon explain to you how to combine two sessions.

To close Excel2003, you can choose any of the following operations:

Click on the button close . It is located on the upper right part of the Excel window.

You can also press the key combination ALT+F4. With this combination you will close whichever window is active at the time.

Click on the menu File and choose option Exit.

The opening screen

When you start, Excel will display an opening screen like the one below. Let us see what its fundamental components are, so you can learn the names of the different elements so it becomes easier for you to understand the course. The screen displayed below (and all the screens in this course) may not exactly coincide with the one that you see in your computer, because, as we shall see later on, every user can choose the elements he/she wants displayed at any given time.

Bars

The title bar

contains the name of the document you are working on at a given time. When we create a new workbook it is asigned provisionally the name Book 1, until we save it and give it the name we desire. At the right hand side of the bar you will find the buttons minimize , restore and close .

The menu bar

contains those Excel operations gathered in dropdown menus. When you click Insert, for instance, you will see the operations related to the different elements that you can insert with Excel. You can do all operations from these menus. But those most frequently done you will do faster from the incons in other bars that we shall see shortly. On the right hand side are the work book buttons to minimize , restore and close . Excel2003 menus bar have got intelligent behaviour. This consists basically in displaying only the most important commands in menus and those you have been using. To find out how you can change this behaviour, click here . Dropdown menus in the bar contain three basic types of elements:

inmediate commands. This are activated inmediately when you click on them. You can identify them because the combination of keys to activate them from the keyboard, or nothing, will appear next to them. For example, in the menu Insert, the command Hyperlink is activated by pressing simultaneously the keys Ctrl and K.

Another dropdown menu. When you are on one of these, a new menu will open with more options next to it so you can choose any of them. Dropdown menus are identified by a little triangle on their right. For example, in the menu Insert, Picture.

Command with a window. When you click, a window or a dialoge box will be displayed that will ask you to fill in some data . It will have the buttons to accept or to cancel. These commands are identified by the dots that follow the comand's name. For example, in the menu Insert, Chart...

All the menus in the menus bar can be activated from the keyboard pressing Alt+underlined letter of the command name. For example Alt+i to dropdown the menu Insert.

The standar toolbar

contains icons to perform in an immediate way some of the operations that are most frequent, like Save , Copy , Cut , etc.

The formatting toolbar

Contains the most common formatting operations, like change to bold, italics, choose type of font, etc.

There are operations that might not be available at a given time. They can be identified by a fainter colour. For example, if nothing has been selected, the icon Cut and the command Cut will appear in a lighter colour.