Office 2008 for Mac All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter III.2. Operating Inside the Workbook

In This Chapter

• Selecting, editing, naming, and clearing cells

• Dragging text, numbers, or dates

• Entering things in general

• Using cell formulas

• Copying relatively and absolutely

All kinds of cells exist these days. For instance, fuel cells and stem cells have been in the news lately. As the name implies, a cell is a small part of a larger whole. We work with Excel cells, which are small rectangles that are arranged in rows and columns on a worksheet.

This chapter focuses on the things you can do in cells rows and columns. Excel conforms to standard behaviors that you're probably already used to in other applications. Even if you've spent most of your computing life using e-mail and now have to do some calculating, it's a fairly easy task to get Excel to carry out your wishes.

Interacting with Excel

Excel constantly gives you feedback as you work. You can follow the discussion in this section by simply opening Excel. Click Excel's Dock icon to see a workbook that's open to our starting point: a blank standard worksheet.

Selecting, editing, and naming cells

Here are some basics on the most common things you're apt to do with cells:

• Selecting cells: Click a cell to select it. Excel indicates the selected cell in three ways:

  • Darkened row number and column heading: When you open a new, blank workbook, Excel selects the cell in the upper-left corner of the worksheet, which is the intersection of column A and row 1. For convenience, we refer to that intersection ...