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Let's see, where did we leave off last time? Yes, I was explaining the screen and toolbars in MS Excel and OpenOffice Calc. They are very much alike in many way.
I hope that you all took the hiatus between articles to really explore and move around the Excel and OpenOffice Calc screens. I hope you tried right-clicking as well as left-clicking on every button and toolbar you could see. Always remember, left-clicking selects and right-clicking gives you options.
In MS Excel, when you use the keyboard to move around in the worksheet, you move the location of the active cell. You then begin adding or editing the contents of the active cell.
You can also use the Scroll Bar to move about in your spreadsheet in MS Excel. You can use the Scroll Bar to click or drag to view different parts of a worksheet. If your mouse has a wheel button, you can use it to scroll through the document. Rotate away from you to scroll up; rotate toward you to scroll down.
The difference between using the keyboard and the scroll bars is that when you use the keyboard, you are moving the active cell. Alternatively, using the mouse to scroll up or down in a worksheet only changes the view. You must click the mouse in the worksheet to move the active cell.
To jump directly to a specific cell, click the Name Box on the left side of the formula bar, and type the cell address and press Enter. As soon as you press Enter, the Excel screen displays that cell and makes it the active cell.
Typically, workbooks contain three worksheets, although you can easily add or delete sheets to suit your needs. To move between worksheets in a workbook, you can simply click the tab on the bottom of the worksheet. The tabs are labeled Sheet 1, Sheet 2 and Sheet 3 until you rename them. When you click on the tab of a worksheet it is then opened for you.
The cells in a worksheet can contain five kinds of entries - text, numbers, dates and times, formulas, and comments. To build your worksheet, you first enter numbers and text that describe them and later, you will use formulas to perform calculations.
When you enter text, it always appears in the active cell.
- Click the cell where you want the text to appear. The bold border moves to this cell, showing that it is the active cell.
- Type the text. What you type appears in the active cell and in the formula bar. If you make a mistake while typing, simply press the Backspace and correct it.
- When you have completed the contents of one cell, press Enter.
If the text you entered is longer than the width of the cell, it flows to the right and overlaps any blank cells. Occasionally if something is in the cell to the right, the text appears to be cut off. It really isn't. The text is there and it will appear after you widen the column. We can cover that in the next article.
After you have finished keying in your text, you can complete the cell entry in any of the ways listed below:
- Press Enter to move down one cell.
- Press Tab to move to the right one cell.
- Press an arrow key to move one cell any direction.
- Click any other cell to move directly there.
- Click the check mark on the formula bar.
You type numbers into a cell by using the keys ont he top row of the keyboard or, if Num Lock is turned on by using the keypad to the right side of your keyboard.
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Carol Bratt is the Office Applications Editor at Daves Computer Tips. She has authored several informative Microsoft Office books and writes the monthly Word Bytes Newsletter with more tips and tricks in each issue. Visit Carol's website for more great Microsoft Office tips and tricks! Click here to see her latest books! You can read more about Carol here.