The Beginner's Guide to Excel - Excel Basics Tutorial

Aug 13, 2023

The Beginner's Guide to Excel - Excel Basics Tutorial

Learn the basics of using Microsoft Excel, including the anatomy of a spreadsheet, how to enter data, how to make your data look good so it’s easier to read and use, and more. This tutorial was made using Excel 2016, but is applicable to older versions of Excel and newer versions too.
Consider supporting Technology for Teachers and Students on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/technologyfor… Consider saying “Thanks” by clicking the Thanks button below the video. If you like this video, here’s my entire playlist of Excel tutorials: http://bit.ly/tech4excel

Click below for more information about some of the movies mentioned in this tutorial:
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: http://amzn.to/2xTpck1
Ladyhawke: http://amzn.to/2xOhLsA
Stardust: http://amzn.to/2yjJvs9
Young Sherlock Holmes: http://amzn.to/2xaJJNv

Content

0.039 -> Welcome to this excel basics video tutorial in this tutorial

4.21 -> I'll be showing you most of the basics that you need to know in order to get started using Microsoft excel and

11.41 -> The version of excel that I'm going to be using in this tutorial is excel 2016

16.33 -> [for] Windows having said that if you're using a different version of excel

20.43 -> Maybe an older version or even a newer version or if you use excel on a mac there will be some slight differences

27.539 -> But for the most part I would say 95% of what I show in this tutorial will [be] very applicable to

32.77 -> You and your usage of excel

35.19 -> So I simply [clicked] the icon here to get started using excel and excel now would like me to make a choice

42.25 -> [it] wants to know if I would like to open up an excel template or simply open a blank workbook

47.829 -> [you] can see that there [are] lots of templates to choose from

51.039 -> This is [a] welcome to excel tour and it's a good way to kind of learn some of the basics of excel

55.57 -> But that's why you're watching my video, so I'm going to skip that one there's a cash flow analysis. There's email insights stock symbols

62.859 -> There's a sales invoice. There's a budget in here. Here it is: a family budget

67.68 -> There's all sorts of great excel spreadsheets that you can just open up and start changing the data start using it that way

73.59 -> So I would encourage you [to] browse and explore these

77.229 -> Templates that are [available] to you in addition to the 30 or so templates that you have here there is an option to search

84.04 -> Online templates, so I'm going to do a search for budget and you can see it comes up with even more

89.74 -> Budgets, you're not limited just to the one family budget

92.82 -> there's a whole bunch that you can choose from [over] here on the right there's

96.7 -> categories that you can sift through and you can select the specific kind of budget or

102.85 -> spreadsheet template that you would like to use if you find one that you do want to use you can just click on it and

107.92 -> Click create and it will make a copy of that as a spreadsheet that you can open and use in excel

114.21 -> So please do spend some time exploring

116.85 -> What's available and in many cases much of the work is already done for you? You can simply use somebody else's template and

125.5 -> Adjust it for what you need now templates are very useful but having said that I think in order to really

132.4 -> Learn to use excel fully and properly. It's best to start with a blank workbook

138.319 -> [so] I'm just going to double click [on] [that]

140.48 -> To select a blank workbook and open it up and the first thing we need to do is

145.73 -> Learn about the layout that we have in excel 2016 there are certain terms that you're going to need to know

152.15 -> First of all across the top we have some tabs, okay, we have the home tab

156.92 -> the insert tab page layout and more as you can see each of these tabs is pretty important and

164.51 -> When you click on a particular tab it opens up a ribbon, okay?

169.269 -> This is the Ribbon for the home tab [if] I click the page layout tab I get [the] page layout Ribbon

175.579 -> now each Ribbon is divided up into

178.489 -> Groups so you can see I have a themes group. I have a page setup

183.129 -> Group a scale to fit group and these are all on the page layout Ribbon

187.639 -> And I get to that Ribbon by clicking on the page layout tab

191.419 -> So those are some important terms that you'll need to know tab

196.579 -> Ribbon group and you'll notice in the corner of some of these groups

201.889 -> [there's] what I like to call a launch button, okay?

204.76 -> So the scale to fit group has a little launch button in the corner the sheet options group has a lunch button in the corner

212.689 -> The arrange group doesn't seem to have one now

215.859 -> What are these launch buttons basically you can click on those launch buttons to give you even more [options]?

221.09 -> [so] [what] Microsoft has done here?

223.389 -> is they've tried to fit all [of] the page layout options on this ribbon, but of course there's limited amount of

231.859 -> Geography there's a limited amount of space that they have to work with and so sometimes they can fit everything in that little group

238.699 -> sometimes they can't and if they can't there's a launch button that you can click to get even more so that's

244.939 -> Why some have a launch button some don't [ok]? I think it's important to start with that terminology

250.609 -> [because] I'm going to be using it [throughout] this tutorial [all] right a couple of other

255.859 -> Layout terms that you're going to need to know in the spreadsheet itself. This is the spreadsheet and spreadsheets are made up of

263.51 -> Columns and Rows

265.7 -> [ok] so you can see we have an a column a b column C

269.11 -> Column ETC, and if I browse to the right, okay, you can see that

273.4 -> [there's] even more than that, and if needed it'll just keep going to the right adding more and more columns

279.59 -> Okay

280.09 -> Once it gets to z it goes to a a column a a and so lots and lots of columns in this spreadsheet

286.639 -> Now what about rose? [I] have row number one row number two row number three okay, so

293.06 -> spreadsheets are made up of columns and rows now the

297.11 -> [intersection] of a column and a row is what produces a cell, so this is a cell and

304.31 -> Every cell in excel

306.71 -> Has a name okay this particular cell is named

311.24 -> C2 and you can imagine how I got that name

314.389 -> it's just the intersection of the column and the [row] this particular cell here has a name it's

320.9 -> M9 and this is

324.11 -> [I-16] now that may seem obvious and unimportant

328.639 -> But it's actually [very] exciting and powerful that every cell in excel

334.13 -> Has a name because [it] has a name you can describe it and you can have excel do certain things

340.789 -> With the content in each cell we'll get to that a little bit later all right?

346.539 -> now in addition to Columns rows and cells

350.03 -> There's another part of a spreadsheet that you need to know about and that is a range

355.01 -> Okay

355.639 -> Now a range is a group of cells that are together a range could be this

362.06 -> It could be this it [could] be this it could be any number of things

367.669 -> It's basically a group of cells that are next to each other that are together and guess what?

373.82 -> Ranges can also be named just like cells can so just like this is named

379.61 -> L7 I can also name this

382.16 -> Okay, now the way you name a range is you start in the upper left and you name the cell in the [upper] left?

388.58 -> so this is

390.56 -> L7 and then you say the word through so L7 through and then you say the name of the cell in the lower right n

398.96 -> 12

400.18 -> So L 7 through n. 12 that is the name of this range?

406.73 -> Now in the back of your mind

408.68 -> Just tuck this piece of information the way you would write the name of this range is you would write L

415.49 -> 7 through the symbol for through is a colon and then you would put n 12 so that is

423.44 -> How you would write the name of the range that you see here?

427.82 -> Okay, I'm going to tap escape to get out of that because I don't really want [to] type that in the cell so that was

433.75 -> Some background information that you're going to need in order to really

437.12 -> use excel properly now that we've talked about the layout of the ribbon and the tabs and the groups and things and

443.39 -> also

443.89 -> the spreadsheet itself

445.34 -> With the columns the rows the cells and the ranges and actually I should add a couple more you can see that

451.75 -> This is all on a sheet sheet one and I can add a sheet 2 sheet 3 ETc

457.46 -> each of these sheets added together is what creates a workbook so sheets or worksheets add up to a

465.17 -> Workbook ok so now that we've got all that as a foundation

468.89 -> For our excel use let's now start actually creating and working on an excel spreadsheet

475.13 -> Now to make this a little bit more interesting for you to look at I'm going to zoom in a little bit

479.68 -> So I'm going to use this slider in the lower right corner, [and] I'll just click and drag to zoom in on my spreadsheet

487.37 -> ok so that should be a little bit easier for you to see and now I'm going to click on a one and

492.5 -> Enter some data in this a one cell and just as an example

497.18 -> Let's say I want [to] use excel to create an inventory of my movie collection

502.79 -> [ok] now this could be anything if you're a teacher

505.54 -> Maybe this is the supplies that you

507.92 -> have that you loan out to the students or if you're a secretary at a school let's say you're in charge of keeping track of

514.06 -> The supplies at the school whatever it might be but let's say I want [to] do an inventory of the movies that [I] own

520.1 -> First thing I want to do is maybe put a little title in there

523.36 -> So I'm going to type in a 1 and I'll type movie

526.55 -> inventory and

527.96 -> You'll notice that my text is bigger than the cell itself it goes too far to the right

534.019 -> But you know what don't worry about that just [hit] enter or return on the keyboard

538.67 -> And I've successfully entered my first data into this spreadsheet now

543.37 -> it looks like these words movie inventory are spilling over from A1

548.99 -> Into b 1 but in actuality that's not true

551.92 -> It's an illusion both of these words are stored in A1 if I click on B1

557 -> [I] could type in B1 and hit return or enter and you'll notice that movie inventory is still

563.75 -> stored in A1 [ok] so they don't interact they don't interfere with each other, so

568.61 -> No need to worry if your text is too wide to fit in a 1 but having said that

574.25 -> Sometimes making your spreadsheet. Look nice actually helps you use it better. So let's talk about how I could maybe fix this

581.35 -> It's not really a problem, but how could I fix it if I want to make it look a little nicer?

585.709 -> Well what I can do

586.81 -> I can stretch out any column or even any row if I want to by just putting my mouse

593.69 -> Between any two Column letters, so this is Column a Column b

598.72 -> Put my mouse between the two right on the line or very close to it and you'll notice that my mouse cursor

605.48 -> Changed into a double sided arrow, that's a good sign

608.35 -> So now I can click and drag to stretch that out to make it wider now

613.39 -> You may have noticed when I entered movie inventory into that cell and I hit enter or return it

619.79 -> Automatically moved me down in excel when you tap [enter] or return

624.37 -> You move down the spreadsheet if you want to move up the spreadsheet

628.69 -> You can hold shift and hit enter or return and it will move up, [okay]?

633.37 -> So shift enter or shift return moves up enter or return moves down now

639.07 -> What if you want to move to the right maybe I want to type something in B1? What I would do is

644.29 -> I would tap tab tab moves you to the right so I could enter more text there

649.12 -> And then tap tab and enter more text there and just keep tabbing over what if you want to move left?

653.839 -> [I] bet you can guess what it is

655.51 -> you would hold shift and tap tab so shift is basically used to do the opposite of

662.81 -> Whatever it would be otherwise, so enter return is normally down

667.45 -> Shift-enter return is up tab is to the right shift tab is to the left

672.86 -> Another way you can navigate throughout the spreadsheet is by using the arrows on your keyboard [if] you find the [up/down] [left/right]

680.18 -> Arrows you can just use those to move up down left or right?

683.3 -> It's a little bit more awkward than using enter or shift enter

686.54 -> But that's another option and of course you can also use your mouse to click on where you want to go?

691.99 -> But I'll tell you if you can learn to [use] excel simply with the keyboard without using your mouse very much

697.76 -> It's really going to go a lot better for you. So [I've] got my title in there now

702.16 -> I'm going to click on a two and I'm going [to] type in the word title. That's where I'll put the movie title now

709.45 -> I'll tap tab to move over to the right and I'll put in date purchased

714.44 -> Tab again

715.76 -> rating Tab again

718.01 -> value Tab again

720.35 -> Genre and

721.91 -> Tab again

723.29 -> Location and that will store quite a bit of information for me about my movie

727.88 -> Inventory [all] right with that last one when I hit enter it moved me down, and it moved to the left

734.18 -> Expecting me to put in the first record is what they call it and the first record would be the first movie

740.81 -> So let's say I put in Star [wars] again

743.86 -> I could tap tab to move over to the right [I] could say okay. I purchased it 2007. It's rated PG

750.53 -> It's worth maybe $5 and it's science fiction and it's located in the [living] room

757.82 -> Okay

758.48 -> So that's an example of data Entry

760.94 -> How you can enter [data] into a spreadsheet by [clicking] on a cell or somehow getting on a cell?

767.81 -> Typing and then hitting either tab to move to the right or enter to move down now as another example

773.96 -> I'm going to type in another record, and I'll put in some other information here and at this point

781.4 -> Let's say I notice a misspelled word, and I would like to fix that okay

786.76 -> You'll notice that I misspelled empire if I click on cell a4 to try to fix that misspelling watch

793.87 -> What will happen as soon as I type it erases? What was there? Okay? The reason why is because?

800.32 -> When I clicked on that cell when you click on a cell anything that you type replaces?

807.16 -> What is there already it deletes? What's there and then replaces it with whatever you type. So there's a distinction

813.61 -> I need to tell you about there's a difference between being on a cell and being in a cell

819.38 -> To get in a cell you have to double click on it

822.74 -> [ok] notice what [happens] when I double clicked on [that] cell. It actually jumped me inside the cell and now I have a cursor

830.35 -> That's flashing and I can click or I can use the arrow keys to move that cursor

834.92 -> where I want it to be so there is a big difference between being on a cell and

840.32 -> Being in a cell in this case, I don't want to be on the cell

843.49 -> I don't want to replace all of the text in this cell. I want to click twice quickly now

848.44 -> I've jumped inside it and I have this cursor

850.36 -> And I can move it where I want it to be fix the misspelling hit return again that may seem like a very

856.61 -> small insignificant thing

858.5 -> But excel is all about details and all of these little details will really enhance your use of excel

865.93 -> So please stick with me and pay [attention] to these details

868.61 -> And I promise your use of excel will be much more satisfying and effective now

874.84 -> Give me a few minutes to put in a few more records, and then I'll resume the tutorial

880.13 -> Ok so I've finished putting in some movies [here]

882.64 -> And some records is what they're called each of these rows contains a record and to help you see this a little bit better

890.11 -> I'm going to zoom back out a little bit so you can see I've [put] in quite a few movies here now

895.69 -> what we need to do next is

897.83 -> Dress this up a little bit make it look a little better it

901.06 -> Just doesn't look quite right to our eye at this point

904.58 -> So what are some things that we can do to make this look nicer?

907.52 -> First of all here at the top my title basically of this spreadsheet

912.47 -> It's kind of off to the side, and it doesn't have anything that makes it stand out and look different

918.26 -> so I'm going to click [on] it on the cell and

921.53 -> I'm going to click up [here] at the top on the home tab in the home Ribbon

925.72 -> I can click on bold to give it a bold look so that will help it stand out

931.82 -> Notice that I can also use the paint bucket tool to paint the background of that cell

937.03 -> I may or may [not] want to do that in this case

939.94 -> I don't necessarily want that so I'm going to click the arrow next to it and I'm going to go to no fill I

945.2 -> Could also change the color of the text itself

948.05 -> Okay, so that is also an option. I'm going [to] go back to black in this case in addition. I could italicize or underline

956.36 -> Those are all good options to have but that will help the text stand out a little bit

962.15 -> Another thing I can do is click on cell A1 and drag

966.13 -> I'm still holding the mouse click, and I'm going [to] drag until I've covered all of the

972.38 -> Content of my spreadsheet so the content of this spreadsheet ends at Column F

978.58 -> I don't have anything beyond that so I just clicked and dragged to get all the way across

982.7 -> Now watch what I can do on the home tab home Ribbon

986.27 -> There's a button here [in] the alignment [group] called merge and center and if I click on that

991.46 -> See what it did it merged all of those cells together

994.73 -> So this is now one big cell and it [centered] it, okay?

1000.09 -> so merchant Center is very helpful to do what I [just] did to basically break [down] the walls between

1005.65 -> These cells and make it one big cell and then to center it that looks a lot better the other thing like I said before

1012.7 -> The text not quite fitting in the cell kind of bothers me

1016.81 -> So I could go up here to the top like I showed earlier and click and drag to make sure everything fits

1021.88 -> But I want you to see a shortcut

1024.07 -> there's a shortcut to doing this all you have to do is go up here at the top and

1028.42 -> Just go between any two [of] the column letters and double click and if you do that look what happens it

1035.47 -> automatically will perfectly sized the column so that all of [the] text will fit I could do that also for date purchased and

1043.54 -> For rating now notice in that case the rating Column actually got narrower

1048.79 -> It's because it doesn't need to be longer than what it is now, [okay]?

1052.47 -> So I can do that with value and so forth now. Let me show you yet another trick

1056.85 -> That's a little bit of a time-saver instead of [double-clicking] between every single Column one [it]

1061.88 -> time look what I can do click and drag on the Column letters all the way across to the

1067.68 -> End of my data and then double click between any two of these it doesn't matter which

1073.83 -> [double-Click] and notice now it automatically resized every column every

1079.5 -> Column that I had [selected] was affected by that double click and now is

1084.09 -> Perfectly sized to [fit] the content that's in those cells, and if I browse back to the left using this slider

1090.48 -> You can see everything is perfectly sized so I used a phrase there

1095.18 -> I said everything that was selected every column that was selected was affected by what I did [in] excel

1102.05 -> That's a nice phrase to maybe think about select to [affect] if you want to affect it. You must select it first

1108.99 -> One more little Shortcut little trick when you click and drag on those column headings

1114.66 -> Yes, the fastest way to resize is to then double click between any two Column letters

1119.55 -> But you could alternatively just click and drag and watch what [happens]. I'm going to resize this

1125.76 -> Column let go and look every single Column was affected because I had selected each they're all

1132.57 -> affected by that

1133.4 -> And they're all exactly the same width so hopefully those little tricks will help you to be able to

1141.21 -> Resize your columns the way that makes the most sense for you and the idea is to make your data

1147.09 -> Look nice because when it looks good

1149.27 -> it's often easier to

1151.2 -> Read easier to understand and comprehend ok now there are good reasons sometimes to keep columns narrow even if all the text doesn't fit

1158.42 -> So you don't have to always make [sure] everything is always visible

1162 -> But I want you to be able to do that when you need to [ok] next up

1166.31 -> I guess I do want to click here on movie

1168.84 -> Inventory and Underline it to set that apart as the title and then down here

1173.12 -> I would like to make all of these column names different

1176.9 -> So I'll highlight them and I'll go up and make them bold and let's say italicized now the way

1183.05 -> I did that so fast you may not have noticed I simply clicked on the row number

1188.06 -> And it highlighted the entire row all the way to the right and so that's selected it and to effect it

1194.72 -> I just chose bold and

1197.16 -> Italicize and it affected everything that's selected so at this point

1201.56 -> I hope that you are familiar now with the different names of the layout in excel

1207.33 -> We know what to call the different things like the tabs the groups the ribbons things like that we also know about

1214.26 -> Columns Rows cells and ranges sheets and Workbooks

1218.84 -> and we know how to enter data and then how to

1222.12 -> Select it to affect it and to change how it looks on the screen

1226.34 -> And we also know how to adjust the column widths and I didn't show this explicitly so let me just quickly do that

1233.91 -> Notice that you can affect the rows as well

1237.51 -> So I can make rows

1238.8 -> Taller than they would have otherwise been I can double click between them to perfectly

1243.39 -> Resize I can affect more than one at a time by selecting more than one row so all of those same techniques that I showed

1249.87 -> About the Columns can also be used with the rows so all of this in my opinion gives you a good foundation

1256.68 -> It helps you understand the basics of using excel in a future video

1261.23 -> I'll show you some

1262.29 -> Intermediate excel tips and tricks' ways that you can save time and effort as you're building your spreadsheets

1268.88 -> [we'll] also get into formulas and functions

1271.47 -> And that's really where much of the power of excel is found and I'll also throw in a couple of advanced

1277.86 -> Excel tips and tricks, so please watch for that future video. Thanks for watching this excel basics video

1283.85 -> I hope you enjoyed it and [please] consider subscribing to my Youtube channel for more videos about

1289.08 -> Technology for teachers and students and watch for a new video at least every Monday also

1294.71 -> I hope that you'll follow me on Twitter Facebook Tumblr and other social Media

1299.96 -> So I hope that you'll follow me on these social media platforms and that we can keep learning together

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwbho0CgEAE