Some people view Microsoft Excel as a miracle while others think it is a difficult application that shouldn’t ever be used unless it is absolutely necessary. Either way, you cannot dispute that Excel is a pretty awesome tool that can make your work so much easier if you know how to work with it the right way. It can make mathematical equations and problems easy to solve with just a click of a button; hence reducing your work by at least half. However, before you get to that point, there are a few basics on how to use Microsoft Excel that you should familiarize yourself with.

Adding Rows and Columns

If you are creating a huge spreadsheet, you may have to increase the number of rows and columns, and you can do this easily especially if you need more than one of either. For example, if you need to add three or more rows, all you need to do is highlight the number of rows that you need, right click and then click on insert. This will give you an equal number of rows as the number you had highlighted and the same goes if you want more rows. This is useful for inserting rows or columns between existing content.

Hiding Rows and Columns

You may want to print a sheet, but it contains extra information that you do not want to include in the printed document. In this case, you do not need to create a new document. Simply hide the rows or columns that you don’t need. This can be done by highlighting the whole row or column that you want to hide, then go to format on the home tab and click on hide/unhide.

Calculations

Excel is great when you have a sheet that needs some calculations to be done since all you need is to insert the formula and everything is done for you. You can also use it to edit documents that you need to add the same figure to. For example you have a column on 3rd grade, and you want to give everyone five points, instead of typing five on each of the columns, you can use the IF statement. For example in the case of the 3rd graders, IF (F2="3rd GRADE","5","0"). This will ensure that all the students on that column get five points. You can also do simple and complex calculations without the use of a calculator.

WrapText Function

If a certain cell has a lot of words, it may end up spilling over to the next cells making the sheet look disorganized. In this case, you can select the cell, right click, format cells and choose alignment, then click on wrap. You can increase the width by dragging the border of the column if you like without having your sheet loo disorganized.

There is a lot to learn when using excel if you take the time to teach yourself and research more on what you can do. Once you have mastered most of the functions on how to use Microsoft Excel, you will find that it is almost impossible not to use it. Microsoft offers many other business tools as well, such as Microsoft Office for creating documents, Microsoft Teams for facilitating real-time communication, Microsoft OneNote for taking, tracking, and organizing meeting notes, and loads more. Archis Tech specializes in Microsoft software, so we can help you get started optimizing business performance with these tools. As soon as you’re ready, give us a call!