How This Book Is Organized

The overall structure of this book is designed to feed you information as you're ready for it. The book begins by providing a basic explanation of worksheets and instructions on how to move around in Excel and enter commands. Later chapters show you how to enter data, insert formulas and functions, format your worksheets, create charts , and insert clip art. By the time you reach Chapter 10, you should have a completed, printed worksheet. Beyond Chapter 10, you can explore some of Excel's additional features and learn how to customize and automate Excel to work more efficiently .

In addition to progressing from the basics to more advanced techniques, this book is divided into the following five distinct parts to help you easily locate the information you need.

Part 1 Excel Worksheet Orientation Day

Consider this part to be Excel Worksheets 101, the starting point for those who have no experience with Excel worksheets. Here, you learn what a worksheet is, how it functions, and how people use worksheets in home and business applications. You also learn how to move around in Excel, enter commands, and work with Excel workbook files. (A workbook consists of one or more worksheets.)

Part 2 Creating Your First Worksheet

As soon as you understand worksheets and the basics of navigating Excel, you're ready to create your very own worksheet. Here, you learn how to enter labels (text) and values ( numbers ) in the various cells (boxes) that make up a worksheet. You also learn how to control the size of the cells by adjusting the worksheet's row heights and column widths. Finally, you learn how to enter formulas and functions that perform calculations on the numbers you entered.

Part 3 Formatting, Charting, and Printing Your Worksheet

A worksheet can appear very plain at first. In this part, you learn how to give your worksheet a makeover by changing the fonts (typestyles) and adding shading and borders to cells. Here, you also learn how to create charts (graphs), insert clip art images, and print your completed worksheets and charts.

Part 4 Going Beyond the Basics

You've mastered the basics and yearn for more. Welcome to Part 4, where you learn how to manage a database with Excel, customize Excel for the way you work, automate tasks with Excel's macros, take advantage of Excel's Web-based features, and use Excel's speech and handwriting recognition features to streamline your data entry. By the time you finish this part, you can consider yourself an Excel power user !

Part 5 Appendixes

This is the quick reference section. Turn to Part 5 when you need to learn a quick-key combination for entering the most common commands or a definition for a term or concerpt dealing with Excel or its worksheets.