Help! Find Excel answers
By the numbers: Learn how you can make the most out of this organizational program
By Brenda Cohen
There are no accountants in my family. Sure, my mother started her career as a bank teller, my brother works in a financial department, and my dad is a retired airline sales director, but none of our careers revolve around money management.
So why do we all use Excel — a program most people perceive as a complicated accounting device? The reason is, although Excel is used to generate financial forecasts and budgets, it’s actually an easy-to-use, organizational, comparative and even creative tool for anything you want to list or measure in a box.
Brenda: “The organizer”
Like a lot of Excel enthusiasts, I became familiar with the program through a job requirement. However, it didn’t take me long to start using Excel at home. The main reason I use the program is to easily insert information into organized columns and rows.
Most of my Excel tasks focus on lists, addresses and making sense of a lot of information. I use the program to keep track of household items and to plan travel itineraries and party guest lists. My entire wedding was scheduled in Excel, including the menu choices and the honeymoon travel plans.
Tips on organizing in Excel
Large amounts of content. Sometimes there is a need to put a lot of information in one cell (an Excel spreadsheet is divided into rows and columns that intersect to create cells) such as driving directions or details of a tour for your travel itinerary. Excel allows you to force line breaks in a cell so that the information is not buried under the next one.
Here’s how to force a line break:
- Click on a cell and type the first line.
- Press Alt + Enter.
- Type the second line.
- Repeat the second step to enter additional lines as needed.
- Hit Enter when finished.
Adding a table style. Once you have created a list in Excel, you can apply a table style (Autoformat) to make it more presentable. I Autoformat guest lists so they are easier to read.
Here’s how to add a table style:
- Select the rows and columns that you want to Autoformat.
- On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click Format as Table. A variety of colours and styles will appear in a pop-up window.
- Select a style and click on it. Your selected area on your Excel worksheet should now have that style.
Peter: “The budgeter”
My brother Peter is a step closer to being a financially minded person. He and his wife use Excel to do their household budgeting, and Peter even created an amortization table for their home mortgage. He takes the organization skills that I have mastered and combines them with formulas and simple math calculations to keep on top of his household spending.
Tips for simple formulas in Excel
Easy addition. If you have a list of grocery bills and want to quickly total them, you can use AutoSum.
Here’s how to use AutoSum:
- Click a cell below the column of numbers or to the right of the row of numbers.
- Click AutoSum on the Formulas tab > Enter. Your chosen cell should have the total of the amounts listed above or to the left of it.
Commonly used formulas. This list of commonly used formulas from Office Online is an excellent resource for mathematical, statistical, counting and even text formulas.
Dad: “The builder”
For my father, Excel does not have cells; it has square building blocks. He began poking around in Excel after retirement when he started woodworking. He uses the individual squares in a worksheet to help him plan building projects, including layout, lumber shopping and assembly. He uses images, shapes and shading to achieve a working prototype and then plans each step carefully with lumber sizes and price calculations. See snapshots of Project picnic chair.
Tips on images, shapes and colours
Apply colour or a pattern. The canvas seat and headrest shown above are created with the colour and pattern fill tools.
Here’s how to use the colour and pattern fill tools:
- Select the cell(s) to which you want to apply shading.
- To fill them with a solid colour, click the arrow next to Fill Color(the can of paint icon) on the Home tab, Font group. Click the colour that you want from the palette.
- On the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format > Format Cells.
- On the Fill tab, under Background color, click the background colour that you want to use for the pattern.
- Select pattern colour and style from the two drop-down menus to the right.
Add shapes. The arrows shown in the side view are added to the spreadsheet as shapes.
Here’s how to fill cells with a pattern.
- On the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format > Format Cells.
- On the Fill tab, under Background color, click the background colour that you want to use for the pattern.
- Select pattern colour and style from the two drop-down menus to the right.
Additional help and support
As in any Office program, assistance is right at your fingertips by clicking the Help icon at the top of your Excel worksheet. For additional support, the Office online web site has a section dedicated to Excel where you can find useful articles, templates and product information. If you have a specific question, try visiting the Excel Discussion group online where you can read other people’s questions and answers, and submit your own. Alternatively, go to the Excel support web site for further information.
Not sure where to start using Excel? Visit the Microsoft Home Magazine template gallery to find templates that were created with the program. Templates include a weekly meal planner, a running template, a medical family tree chart and many more.
And if you want to start the building blueprints for a new backyard deck, create a payment budget and draw up a guest list for the opening BBQ party of the season, you now know Excel can be your right hand.
Photo: Jacobs Stock Photography/Getty Images
