Excel 2016 Formulas

Chapter 1 The Excel User Interface in a Nutshell

In This Chapter

• The workings of Excel workbooks
• The Excel user interface
• Protection options

In this chapter, you’ll gain a foundational understanding of the various components in the Excel user interface that you’ll encounter as you move through this book. You’ll get a primer on some of the ways you can protect your formulas and data models before distributing your Excel files.

If you’re already familiar with the basic workings of Excel, you can safely skip to the next chapter. If it has been a while since you’ve worked with Excel, it may be worth your time to scan this chapter to set the stage for the subsequent chapters in the book.

The Workings of Workbooks

When you think about the different components of Excel, it helps to consider a hierarchy of objects. Excel objects include the following:

• The Excel application itself
• An Excel workbook
• A worksheet in a workbook
• A range in a worksheet
• A cell in a range

Notice the existence of an object hierarchy: the Excel application contains workbook objects, which contain worksheet objects, which contain range objects, which contain cells. Indeed, Microsoft actually has a name for this inherent hierarchy: the Excel object model.

The core object in the Excel object model is the workbook. Everything that you do in Excel takes place in a workbook.

In Excel 2003 and prior versions, Excel workbook files had the default .xls extension. Excel .xls files are binary files that can be read ...