Excel 2013: The Missing Manual

Introduction

Most people don’t need much convincing to use Excel, perhaps the world’s premier spreadsheet software. Its overwhelming popularity, especially in the business world, makes it the obvious choice for millions of number crunchers. But despite its wide use, few people know where to find Excel’s most impressive features or why they’d want to use them in the first place. Excel 2013: The Missing Manual fills that void, explaining everything from basic Excel concepts to the fancy tricks of the trade.

This book teaches you how Excel works, and shows you how to use Excel’s tools to answer real-world questions like “How many workdays are there between today and my vacation?”, “How much money do I need in the bank right now to retire a millionaire?”, and “Statistically speaking, who’s smarter—Democrats or Republicans?” Best of all, you’ll steer clear of obscure options that aren’t worth the trouble to learn, while homing in on the hidden gems that will win you the undying adoration of your coworkers, your family, and your friends—or at least your accountant.

What You Can Do with Excel

Excel and Word are the two powerhouses of the Microsoft Office family. While Word lets you create and edit documents, Excel specializes in letting you create, edit, and analyze data that’s organized into lists or tables. This grid-like arrangement of information is called a spreadsheet. Figure 1 shows an example.

Figure 1. This spreadsheet lists nine students, each of whom has two test scores and an assignment ...