Summary

This hour introduced Excel and covered elements on Excel's application screen. It also explained the concept of workbooks and worksheets. The workbook files contain your worksheets, and your worksheets hold data, such as numbers and labels. As you see throughout this part of the book, Excel supports a tremendous number of formatting options so that you can turn your numeric data into eye-catching, appealing output.

Although Excel works best with numeric data, Excel works with text (called labels) such as names , addresses, titles, dates, and time values. The true power of Excel shows itself in its manipulation of numeric data. Excel works with formulas that you enter as well as several internal functions that perform calculations. In the next hour's lesson, you will learn more about how to specify formulas to produce accurate results.