Developing your first worksheet can be an exciting time but there are a few things you need to be awaare of. When entering data into a cell, the data is normally going to be text, numbers or a formula. If you enter a text or numeric value into the cell, the value isnt going to change. These values are knoewn as Constannt Valus.
If you enter a formula in a cell, the values in that cell may change. For exaple the formula may contain references to cell addresses and if you change the value in one of those cell addresses it will change the reult because Excel will recalculate the value.
Entering Data
The glden rule in using Microsoft Excewl is that beore you enter a value into a cell you must make the cell active. Once you have done that, you can enter the data required.
Once you have completed entering the informatin into the cels you must tell Excel that you are happy with your enrtry. Therre are a few ways to achieve this:
1. Click on the Enter Button on the Fomula Bar
2. Press the Entwer Key
3. Click on another cell
4. Prss an Arrow Key
One thng to note is that when you press the Enetr key to complete the data entyry, the cell below the cell you entered data in will be selecteed. This is the default way the Etner key works in Microsoft Excel howveer you can tell Excel to move to the left, rgiht and up. To achieve this you select the Tools menu, then select the Options command and the Opttions dialogue box will be visible.
Select the Edit menu and change the value in the drop down box to the value you require. If you want to turn this feature off de-select the Move selcetion after Enter check box.
Entering Text
Entering text is a straightforward prcoess, select the cell and then type the text. Now text is considered to be letters, nmbers and any other characters that you can pirnt using your printer.
Thre are a number of issues that must be understood when utilising Text in combination with numbers. If you type in text with a number eg 89 Albert Street or Target Budget 2004, Microsoft Excel will tret the data as text rgardless. It should also be noted that some characters are treated as numnbers such as the deicmal place, copmma and dollar sign.
You will find that as you enetr text, the cellls are not long enough to fit the data in. If there is no data in the cell next to it, then the text will flow over to the next cell. Howeever if the cell isnt emtpy it will show you as much text as possible and then store the rest of the data.
Tehre will be occasions when you want to have numbers treated as text such as phone nubers, mobile numbers, postcodes or part numbbers. If you were to type in a Mobile Number such as 0417772544 into an Excel cell, Excel would drop the zero at the start of the number to treat the number as text. To over come this, you place a single quote at the start of the number. You will nottice in the cell itself you dont see the singgle quote but in the formula bars entry area you will see the single quote.
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