How to Enter Text and Numbers in a Cell

To make a start, we'll create this really simple spreadsheet:

All we're going to be doing here is entering some text and some numbers. We're not adding anything up yet.

Before you tackle this first exercise, though, you may want to take note of the Undo feature, just in case you make a mistake. The Undo option is the left curved arrow, right at the top of your screen. This one for Excel 2007 users:

And this one for Excel 2010 and Excel 2013 users:

Click the left curved arrow to Undo something, and click the right curved arrow to redo it. The Undo arrow also has a dropdown box. Click the small arrow next to Undo to see the following:

This list is for multiple Undo's. Move your mouse down the list and click to undo several steps at once.

But back to the spreadsheet.

Click inside of the cell A1 on your spreadsheet, and do the following:

• Type the word "Numbers" (with no quotation marks)
• Hit the Enter key on your keyboard
• The active cell will move down one, to cell A2
• Type the number 3, and again hit the Enter key on your keyboard
• The active cell will move down one, to cell A3
• Now put the number 6 into cell A3, and the number 9 in cell A4
• After you have typed the number 9, and hit the Enter key, you should see that cell A5 is now the active cell

You should now have a spreadsheet that looks like ours above.

The text we entered in cell A1 is known as a Heading. It's there just to tell you what the numbers mean. Except our heading doesn't tell us a great deal. Let's change it to something else. Click the link below to learn how to edit text in a cell.

Excel Rows and Columns

Excel Rows and Columns

Spreadsheets are displayed in a grid layout. The letters across the top are Column headings. To highlight an entire Column, click on any of the letters. The image below shows the B Column highlighted:

If you look down the left side of the grid, you'll see numbers, which start at number 1 at the very top and go down to over a million. (The exact number of rows and columns are 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns. You've never going to need this many!) You can click a number to highlight an entire Row. If you look at the image below, you'll see that Row 5 has been highlighted (The image is from Excel 2007. Later are version is the same except less colourful!).

Spreadsheets are all about individual Cells. A Cell is a letter combined with a number. So if you combine the B column with Row 5, you get Cell B5. Combine Column D with Row 5 and you get Cell D5.

To see this for yourself, click inside any of the cells on your spreadsheet. In the Images below, we have clicked inside cell A1 and cell C3.

   

The first picture is Column A, Row 1 (A1), and the second picture is Column C Row 3 (C3). Notice that the cells we clicked on have a black border around them. This tells you the cell is active. The cell that is active will have its Column letter and Row number displayed in the top left, just above the letters A and B in the pictures. When you click into a cell, you can then type text and numbers.

To move around the spreadsheet, and make other cells active, you can either just click inside a Cell, or press the arrow keys on your keyboard. Try it now. Click inside a Cell and notice the Cell reference appear above the letters A and B. Press your arrow keys and notice how the active cells move.

Before going any further, make sure you understand how the spreadsheet grid works. If you are asked to locate Cell H2, you should be able to do so.

We'll now enter some simple data into an active cell.

The First look at Excel

In the first part of our Excel tutorials, we'll explain what you will see when the programme first starts. We're not going to explain what a spreadsheet is and assume that you already know. If you don't, we have an introduction here:

What is a Spreadsheet?

Launch your Excel software. When the programme starts, you'll see something like this in Excel 2007:

Excel Main Screen (Opens in a new window

In newer versions of Excel, you may see a screen like this one first (Excel 2013):

Excel 2013 Main Screen (Opens in a new window)

To create a new spreadsheet in Excel 2013, click one of the templates. For this course, we'll be using the Blank Workbook temple. Click on that option from the list available. You'll be taken to the main spreadsheet area.

If you've ever used a previous version of Excel then you'll notice that the new version looks quite different! Even if you have never used Excel, the software looks quite intimidating. But we'll make a gentle start so that you can get used to the way everything works.

The first thing to notice is the Ribbon running right across the top. The Ribbon is supposed to be more intuitive than drop-down menus. Emphasis is placed on the tools and options appropriate to what you're doing. Here's a closer look at the Ribbon when Excel first starts (it's split in half, here):

Left Side of the Ribbon in Excel 2007

Right Side of the Ribbon in Excel 2007

Left Side of the Ribbon in Excel 2010 and 2013

Right Side of the Ribbon in Excel 2010 and 2013

Notice that in both versions the Home tab is the one that is selected. Other tabs are: Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, Review and View. (In the image above, there's also a Developer tab. If you don't do any programming then you don't have to worry about this tab.)

In the top left of the Ribbon in Excel 2007 there's a big circle. This one:

Click this, and you'll see all the file operations: New, Open, Save, Exit, etc.

To see the same menu in Excel 2010, you have to click on the File tab, which is on the far left. (It looks as though it's already selected, but it's not.):

Excel 2013 also has a File menu like the one above. When you click the File menu in Excel 2013, however, you'll see this instead:

To get back to your spreadsheet in Excel 2013, click the left-pointing arrow in the top left:

We'll go through all these menu options later, along with the various options on the Ribbon tabs. But the best place to start with Excel is getting to grips with all those numbers and letters. These are the Grid Coordinates. We'll do that in the next part.