Computers and technology are advancing every day, getting better and better in helping us with our daily activities, whether at work or for some personal matter. Many people are still denying it, but we have to face it. Everything is much easier nowadays: Getting informed, buying, selling, scheduling, working, and many other features that the Internet and technology offer.
One of the most used program packs is Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office Excel, in particular, is frequently used for data organization. You need knowledge of Excel for almost every job you apply to nowadays. It is not that hard once you get into it. With Excel, you can enter and format data, calculate totals, highlight important data, create all sorts of reports and charts, and many other things.
Here, we give you some of the basic and most essential features you need to know about Excel in order to start using it effectively. If you would like to explore Excel capabilities in-depth and need assistance, there are services available to provide one-on-one VBA help.
Formulas
First of all, you need to learn basic formulas. They allow you to perform all sorts of calculations on data in your spreadsheet fairly easily. You can add up, subtract, multiply, divide, and average any numbers from your spreadsheet, just select cells which contain numbers you need.
Cells
The next thing is adding up or removal of a column or row of cells. This feature is very useful, and the most used one probably, because you can always insert an additional column if you need some extra space in between or remove the excess ones. You can also lock or freeze rows and columns, so you won’t easily get lost when you work on a big spreadsheet.
References
Learning the difference between relative and absolute references in Excel formulas and when to use them is a big thing. It is a little bit harder to learn, but once you understand them, you will reach an entirely new level of Excel usage.
Rounding
Another very important thing is to learn how rounding numbers in Excel works. This is very important because if your formulas don’t round calculations to the right number of decimal places, you can end up with a bunch of incorrect numbers and calculations which are useless. Then you need to try and find the differences, which can be a real nightmare. Always check this feature before you begin any new calculations.
Printing
When you are trying to print something from Excel, it is vital to learn how to scale your spreadsheet to fit on one page when you need it to. This is a very common problem, and it is a must to learn how to solve it. Printing it with page numbers is also very important, especially if you are printing something for a meeting where your work is going to be reviewed.
Autofilter
This is a very important feature. It can make your work easier in many ways. Autofilter allows you to select a range of cells and then filter out certain rows based on the criteria you need.
If you want to gain advanced knowledge of the program, you can sign up for an Excel training course and get to know every feature Excel is offering.
There are numerous valuable features, and once you master all of them, you can do any sort of work in a matter of minutes. Excel can do all the work for you and save you a lot of time. Once you have established all of the commands you require, all you need to do is add numbers.
About the Author
Oscar Waterworth is a writer from Sydney, Australia. A father of two and a working man, he somehow manages to find the time to write up an occasional blog post. In his free time, he likes to tinker with new and interesting pieces of tech, play futsal and build stuff with his kids.
Photo credit: The feature image has been done by Rawpixel.
