Microsoft Excel has been a source of help and confusion all around. For those who have worked with spreadsheets before, changing over to Excel was fairly painless and for the most part was easier than the traditional Microsoft Works spreadsheet. But if you never used a spreadsheet before, things can get somewhat confusing. So in this blog, I will attempt to explain how to work with a spreadsheet in parts.

First things first, those little tiny boxes are called cells. Each cell can hold information such as numbers, headings, sentences, whatever. Many people get confused by the nature of these cells. For instance, if you type something in cell A1 and it looks as though it spreads across B1, then people think that the information is in both cells. This is not the case. The cell is actually just showing up across the other cells so that the user can see all of what’s in the cell. The problem comes when the user types something in cell B1. All of a sudden, it looks like the data in cell A1 gets cut off.

There is an easy way to fix this “problem�. If you double-click on the line in between the A and B in the grey area at the top, the cell will expand to fit your data. If you have a long phrase in that cell, the better way to do this is to highlight the original cell that the data is located in and continue highlighting across a specified number of cells. Then click on the “Merge & Center� icon (or right click in the area and click on “format cells� then click the “alignment� tab and check the “merge cells�).

It’s pretty easy to do and makes things easier to read as well.

Tomorrow: Part 2 - Adding & deleting cells

- Catinreno

-----------------------------------------------------------

Delete is our friend - Basic computer help for the technologically challenged.

Computer Help