Office 2021 for Macs For Dummies

Chapter 13

Getting to Know Microsoft Excel

IN THIS CHAPTER

Introducing Excel’s user interface

Working with rows, columns, and cells

Using Excel’s two views

Knowing how to navigate within your worksheets

Microsoft Excel is the spreadsheet app of the Office suite. What is a spreadsheet? Well, here’s a definition from Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary (www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spreadsheet):

… a computer program that allows the entry, calculation, and storage of data in columns and rows.

Visually, a spreadsheet is a grid made up of cells defined by their row and column locations. A cell can contain numbers, text, or formulas that perform calculations. A spreadsheet can have just a handful of cells with data in them or “billions and billions” (shout out to Carl Sagan) of cells.

To be precise, a spreadsheet can have as many as 17,179,869,184 cells — 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns. If you can’t get the job done with more than 17 billion cells, we don’t know what to tell you, friend.

You can use Excel for all kinds of tasks, including creating reports, maintaining a check register, ...