PCs All-in-One For Dummies®, 5th Edition

Chapter 3. Putting Excel to Work

In This Chapter

• Running Excel

• Presenting the Excel window

• Typing, selecting, and editing cell text

• Handling numbers and dates

• Manipulating rows and columns

• Formatting cells in Excel

• Understanding Excel formulas

• Inserting graphics and charts

• Linking cell values

• Adding headers and footers

• Printing worksheets

Excel is scary.

There, I said it. Most Office 2010 users know that Excel is one doggone powerful and versatile tool, but it has a reputation for being difficult to learn. (Not to mention all those strange, foreign-looking formulas and functions — heck, I can barely remember my long division. And don't even get me started on my kid's math homework.)

In this chapter, however, I can help you with that common Excel-phobia that grips the novice who runs Excel for the first time. I show you the basics of selecting cells and entering cell values, manipulating rows and columns, formatting numbers and dates, and adding graphics. And yes — believe it or not — I get you started on the road to understanding and using formulas to calculate the values you need. After all, that's the real power behind Excel — plugging in values to see what happens.

As Thomas Edison, a personal hero of mine, never said, "After Excel formulas are your friends, the world is your oyster." (Then again, he certainly could have said it, and perhaps no one was around to write it down. Yeah, that's it.)

Running Excel

You can start the number-cruncher that is Excel in any of the following ways:

• Choose Start ...