RECAPITULATION AND REINFORCEMENT

From Compsci1

RECAPITULATION AND REINFORCEMENT

Lesson 4 has Tables of the most useful Excel spreadsheet commands. You might like to put a marker at the relevant pages (pp. 93 and 94) for easy reference while you follow along in this tutorial. Alternatively, you can use the chart that is included at the end of this text (inside back cover). The following sections give you an opportunity to refresh your memory of the basic spreadsheet skills you learned in Lesson 4.

• Moving from cell to cell in the spreadsheet

In Excel spreadsheet terminology the cell that is selected (surrounded by a heavier border) is called the current (or active) cell.

Take a moment now to reacquaint yourself with the methods for changing the position of the currently active cell. The arrow keys move the current cell to the adjacent cell left, right, above, or below the current cell.

• • Press all four of the arrow keys a few times, and watch how the current cell moves around

The TAB key (forward) and the Shift-TAB command (back) also move the cursor to the adjacent cell, but only in a horizontal (right or left) direction—try these two commands now.The RETURN key (forward) and the Shift-RETURN command (back) also move the cursor to the adjacent cell, but only in a vertical (up or down) direction—try these two commands now Use the scroll bars when you want to move around the spreadsheet without changing the location of the current cell—try this, too

• More cell selection commands

Selecting sets of cells in the spreadsheet You often may want to highlight all the cells in the spreadsheet --in order to change a font, or copy the data to another document, for example. Here's how you do this.

• • Click in the empty box above the Row headers and to the left of the Column headers (Fig. 5.2)

Fig. 5.2 Selecting an entire spreadsheet The entire spreadsheet is now highlighted. However, perhaps you want to select only the cells that you're working in. There are a couple of ways to do this. Click anywhere to de-select the selected cells For example, use the mouse to drag diagonally down from cell A1 to cell N23 That's one way.

• • Click anywhere to de-select the selected cells

Now, click in cell A1, hold down the Shift key, and click in cell N23 The same set of cells is selected. The Shift key is very useful for selecting a range of cells in Excel, or a range of text in Word, or even a range of slides in PowerPoint, which you'll learn about soon enough. Going to a specific cell anywhere in your spreadsheet

If you are working in a large spreadsheet (consisting of thousands of cells) and you know the approximate coordinates of a cell you want to find, it is sometimes quicker to let Excel find the cell for you. The following steps will make the current cell the one that intersects Column AJ and Row 423, a location deep inside the spreadsheet and a long way from the first cell, cell A1.

• • From the Edit menu select Go To..., or press Ctrl-g

Type AJ423 (you can use upper case (AJ) or lower case (aj) for the column coordinate)--and click on OK, then check that cell AJ423 has been selected Check now to see that cell AJ423 is highlighted. Remember that the first (alphabetic) coordinate (AJ) is always the column; the second (numerical) coordinate is always the Row.

• • Press Ctrl-g again, type A1, and click on OK

You are now back at the first cell. You could use the various movement options you read about at the beginning of this Reinforcement section. Some would be considerably slower than others, which is why you should take the time to familiarize yourself with all the different methods for moving around the spreadsheet, especially if you become a regular user of the spreadsheet.