Week 1

After you complete all the Sections for Week 1,  you will have figured out how to do the basic tasks needed to use Excel, compare your completed documents to the solution keys, send files attached to e-mail, post to the discussion group, and establish a work pattern for the rest of the course.  Therefore, it is important that you follow the instructions carefully and spend the time needed to complete the work. 

Section 1: Submit Syllabus  

Barstow College is the Authorized Test Center in the high desert for Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS) Certification. Read about getting your certification by clicking the MOUS Logo.

 

• Read the and answer the questions in the syllabus as you read. After you complete it, submit it. 

Remember that your username is the first four letters of your last name and the last four digits of  your social security number, such as hend6789 (for Henderson  123-45-6789). Use lowercase letters.

• If you are cannot take exams on campus, at Miramar or at Fort Irwin, you must click this Proctor Form link to complete and submit the Proctor Form now.

Section 2: Print/Read Weekly Instructions 

Print a hard copy of these instructions so that you can read and follow them, or keep this window open by minimizing it while you perform the work required in each section and then restoring the window when you need to read more of these instructions. 

For instructions on how to print the instructions or how to minimize, restore, and open another window, click this How to Read Instructions While Doing Your Work link (the link is also located in the box below the Assignment Summary at the top of the page).

OR

Section 3: Copying Student Files from CD  

You should copy the files from the CD that comes with your book to use for your exercises. In Appendix B at the end of the book,  the section on File Management describes how to copy and work with files. 
 

• If you are not using your own computer, you should copy and save files to a 3.5-inch disk that you insert in Drive A.  Click this Copying Files from the CD to a 3.5-inch Disk in Drive A link for more information (the link is also located in the box below the Assignment Summary at the top of the page).

OR

• If you are using your own personal computer, you can copy the files from the CD to your hard disk instead of Drive A.  You will find it more efficient and quicker to work with files on your hard disk than on a floppy disk in Drive A. Click this  Copying Files  from the CD to Your Hard Disk link for more information (the link is also located in the box below the Assignment Summary at the top of the page).

Section 4: Post a Discussion Comment

Attendance is based on your postings in the class discussion group. Posting comments each week will prevent you from being dropped from the course. Be original! Be friendly. Be considerate!

• Post a comment explaining your reasons for taking this class and what you want to learn. To go to the discussion board, click Discussion Group (the link is also located in the box below the Assignment Summary at the top of the page).

Section 5: Complete Lesson 1

• Lecture & Practice for Lesson 1:

Excel is a spreadsheet program used to record numerical and financial data. For example, you can create financial statements, prepare budgets, manage inventory, and analyze cash flow quickly and easily by using Excel.  It runs in a Windows (95 -Me and NT) environment.  It is called a windows environment because each application (box shown on your screen) is considered a window. 

In addition, you can use Excel as a planning tool to analyze and evaluate information by doing a "what if" situation. A "what if" situation can help you predicate what a change in one value will be if you change another value.  For example, "What if we increase each employee's salary by $100 a month? How much will that decrease our company's profit?  In other words, can we afford to pay our employees more? What if we increase each employee's salary by only $50?" An Excel spreadsheet can do these calculations for you. It is a useful planning tool because the information it provides can help you make better decisions.

In Lesson 1, you will learn how to create, edit, save, print, and enhance an Excel worksheet. If you have never worked with a spreadsheet program before, you must learn some of the basic spreadsheet concepts, such as columns, rows, cells, sheets, workbooks, formulas, and what if analysis.

If you have a problem completing your assignments and want to see if other students have the same problem or a solution to your problem, click the Discussion/Weekly Assignments (the link is located in the box below the Assignment Summary at the top of the page).

Learning the terminology for a specific subject area is important to your understanding of that subject. Below I have summarized some key terms you need to know in order to understand the instructions in your textbook and to learn to use Excel. As you work through the exercises, these terms will be used repeatedly and become meaningful to you. It is important to know the difference between a workbook and worksheet. 

A workbook is the document you create in Excel. Notice that Excel numbers each new workbook in sequence with the current session. Your workbook may not be "Book1."

A sheet is is an individual worksheet inside a workbook, like sheets of paper in a book. The sheets are named Sheet 1, Sheet 2, etc. on tabs located close to the bottom of the Excel window. 

A sheet has gridlines that are vertical and horizontal lines which intersect to form individual cells in the worksheet area of your Excel window.  

A cell is the single box created where each column and row meet.  

A column is the group of cells that run down a page and are identified by letters of the alphabet in the Column header. Therefore, A is the first column in a sheet, B is the second, and so forth. 

A row contains the line of cells that run across a page and are identified by numbers in the Row header. Therefore, 1 is the first row in a sheet, 2 is the second, and so forth.  

Each cell has a cell address (also called the cell reference) identified by the column and row where it is located, such as  such as A1, A2, A3, and so forth.

The active cell contains the insertion point and has a thick, black border around it to indicate where data will be entered. 

The Name box located on the left side of the bar above the Column header shows you the active cell address, such as A1, A2, A3, and so forth.

When the mouse pointer is touching a cell, it changes to a cell pointer that looks like a thick, white plus sign.

• Do the following additional practice after you finish the lesson exercises:

Since data entry in Excel is different from data entry in the word processing environment,  let's do some additional practice to get used to this type of application by doing the following in a blank worksheet: 

1. Notice that the word Ready displays at the left side of the Status bar below the worksheet to indicate that the cell is ready to accept an entry. 
2. Type your initials, and notice that the word Ready in the Status bar changed to the word Enter. Also notice that your initials appear in the Formula bar above the letters in the Column header as you type.
3. With the insertion point (blinking line) after your initials, press the Backspace key on your keyboard to delete your initials that are to the left of the insertion point. If you want to delete a character to the right of the insertion point, press the Delete key on the keyboard.
4. Type I am having fun. Notice that you typed more letters than will fit in the cell, and the letters overlapped the next cell. The spill-over letters did not become part of the cell, they just overlapped it.
5. Press Tab and type Jay Lake in the next cell. It will seem like you are typing over the letters that are overlapping the cell.
6. Position the cell pointer on the cell with the words I am having fun., then click to activate the cell and press the Delete key on your keyboard to delete the text from the cell.
7. Position the cell pointer on the cell with the name Jay Lake, and double-click to activate the Edit mode so that you can make changes to the name without deleting it. Notice that the word Edit appears in the Status bar.
8. Press the left or right arrow key on your keyboard until the insertion point (blinking line) is positioned after the y in Jay, and then type e to change the spelling of the name to Jaye. 
9. Press the Tab key to move to the cell to the right of the name and deactivate the Edit mode. Notice that the word Ready reappears in the Status bar now. To deactivate the Edit mode and move to another cell, you can also click another cell or press Shift+Tab or press the Enter key.
10. Type 2 twenty times (the numbers will overlap into the next cell), and press the Tab key to move to the next cell. Since the entry in the previous cell was too long to fit the column width, the scientific notation 2.22222E+19 (or #####) will display instead of the long number. 
11. Click cell C1 that contains the numbers you typed to make the cell active, and then type your first name. As you type the first letter of your name, the entire scientific notation in the cell is deleted. When a cell with an entry becomes active, and you strike a key on the keyboard, the current entry is replaced with whatever you type. 
12. Click the File menu, and click the Close command. Then at the prompt asking if you want to save the changes, click No to close the worksheet without saving it.
13. Click the New button (first button) on the Standard toolbar to open a new workbook so that you are ready to complete the next exercise in the book.

Learning objectives tell you what you will learn in the lesson. Each heading in a lesson correlates to a learning objective. In Lesson 1, you will learn to do the following: 

Start Excel.           
Navigate in a workbook.
Open an existing workbook.
Edit a worksheet.
Manage files.
Print Excel files.

MOUS Certification (see Appendix E):Ex2002 1-2 Ex2002 1-4 Ex2002 2-1 Ex2002 2-3 Ex2002 3-7  Ex2002 4-2

To see the list of Lesson CD Files for each textbook exercises, click the Lesson CD Files link located  at the beginning of the Weekly instructions.

To help you learn Excel, you will apply its features to real-world situations by pretending that you are a new employee working for an imaginary accounting company. In the Case Study on pages 1-4, the book describes a company named "Klassy Kow, Ice Cream, Inc." for which you will pretend to work as an intern.

• Help Doing Lesson 1 Exercises 1-1 to 1-17 on pages 6-28: 

Before you start Excel, you may want get some general Windows practice or a quick refresher on working in the Windows environment by reviewing Appendix A at the end of your book. You may also find it helpful to look over the other topics in the Appendix section.  

The book assumes that Excel was installed using the "Typical" installation and that it is running with default settings. To use Excel, the first thing you must do is open Excel 2002 on your computer. There are several methods for opening Excel. The method listed on page 7 of your book will work on any computer that has Excel installed correctly. 

TIP:   To open Excel quickly, you can create an Excel shortcut icon for the desktop. To do this, right-click a blank area of the desktop, and point at New on the menu that appears, then click Shortcut from the secondary menu. In the Create Shortcut dialog box, use the Browse button to locate EXCEL.EXE. Look in the folder Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office10. Click the Open button, the Next button, and the Finish button.

On pages 8 and 9 in the book, take some time to go over the Parts of the Excel screen that are described in detail. Notice that items on the menu bar are named to indicate the commands they contain, such as File, Edit, and Insert. The standard toolbar shows icons for the most commonly used commands. To save time pulling down the menus to locate the commands, you can simply click a command, such as save or print.

In Figure 1-2 on page 8, notice that the Standard and Formatting toolbars are side-by-side. The Toolbar Options button are at the end of each toolbar. The button allows you to see additional buttons that are available. Since displaying the Toolbar Options button's two right arrows depends on the number of buttons currently shown on the toolbar, your button may not show the two right arrows. You can move the Formatting toolbar below the Standard toolbar to expand it. This allows you to display more buttons on the toolbar. The steps on page 9 and Figure 1-3 on page 10, describes how to show the buttons on two rows.

TIP:  If you click a button accidentally and a dialog box appears, click the Close or Cancel button to close the box without making any changes. 

In Exercise 1-4 on page 13, you can save time by using lowercase letters because Excel capitalizes cell references after you use them in commands.

In Exercise 1-6 on page 15, be aware that the size of the screen, the data, and its formatting affect how many columns and rows appear at once. In step 3, you can use of the double arrows command at the bottom of the menu to expand the menu, if necessary.

In Exercise 1-8 on page 17, will need to open a file provided with the book. If you have not copied the files needed for Lesson 1 from the Student CD, go back to Section 3 above and do it now. 

If you are using your own computer and created the Excel Class Work folder in My Documents, you can locate the folder quickly by clicking the My Documents button from the Places bar (see Figure 1-10 on page 17) in the Open dialog box that appears after you click the Open button on the Standard toolbar. After you locate the Excel Class Work folder, double-click it to display the file you need to complete the exercise.

If  you copied the lesson's files to a 3.5-inch disk, insert the disk in Drive A and click the down triangle next to the Look in box in the Open dialog box that appears after you click the Open button on the Standard toolbar, and then click 3 1/2" Floppy (A:) to display the file you need to complete the exercise.

The preview of the file shown in Figure 1-10 is turned on in File Properties for Excel and affects all workbooks saved at the workstation. Only the Student Files used in this lesson are shown in the figure. If you are accessing files from the Student Template Disk, all the files used in the book will appear in the dialog box. You might need to scroll to locate the file “JanIceCream.” Remember that the Case Study at the beginning of the book is the basis for all exercises in the text. The worksheet that you open is provided only as an example of what you will be able to accomplish upon completing this course.

If a workbook opens in a 100 percent size, and you cannot see all the columns, you can try a smaller Zoom size. Also note that commas are part of the formatting for all the numbers in this worksheet. Formulas are entered in the worksheet to calculate answers automatically. You will learn more about formulas soon. In Exercise 1-9 on page 19, the tab you click in step 1 is located at the bottom of your screen.

To get comfortable with the Excel spreadsheet, you will spend some time moving around the worksheet screen.  If Cell A1 is not active when the worksheet opens, press Ctrl+Home by holding down the Ctrl key, and while holding it down, tap the Home key one time.  You can see a list of keyboard commands for navigating within a worksheet on page 21, Table 1.5.  If you want to spend more time moving around the worksheet screen, making a cell active, and scrolling, do the following:

1. Position the cell pointer over the current active cell by moving the mouse, and then click the left mouse button to change the active cell. Notice the new cell address in the Name box.
2. Press the Tab key twice on the keyboard to move to the next two cells.
3. Press Shift+Tab by holding down the Shift key, and while holding, pressing the Tab key to move to the previous cell.
4. Press the Enter key on the keyboard to move down a cell.
5. Press Shift+Enter by holding down the Shift key, and while holding, pressing the Enter key to move up a cell.
6. Press the Home key on the keyboard to move to the cell at the beginning of the row.
7. Press Ctrl+Home by holding down the Ctrl key, and while holding, pressing the Home key to move to the first cell in the worksheet.
8. Double-click the Edit menu from the menu bar at the top of the window to drop down a complete list of options . Then click Go To to display the Go To dialog box, type F16 to enter the cell address you want to make active, and click the OK button to move the insertion point to the new cell.

TIP: When you key cell references you do not need to capitalize the column letters. Excel understands lowercase letters and will substitute an uppercase letter for a lowercase one. 

9. With the mouse pointer, point at the horizontal scroll bar (the bar between the left and right pointing triangles located at the bottom of the Excel window), hold down the left mouse button, and while holding, drag the bar to the right as far as it will go. This shifts your view of the cells.
10. Drag the horizontal scroll bar back to the left as far as you can, and click cell A1.

In Exercise 1-10 on page 20, you will key data for the first time.  The automatic calculation feature is a major reason for using Excel. You can test different numbers and see what happens to the results. Automatic Calculation is toggled on or off in the Calculations tab of Tools, Options.

TIP: Become familiar with some of the unique keys on the keyboard, such as the Caps Lock indicator to make all capital letters as you type, and the Num Lock key to turn off and on number typing on the number pad.

In Exercise 1-11 on page 21, you will edit a worksheet.  Editing can be accomplished in a variety of ways.  Using a method that is most comfortable to you is more important than trying to master them all! The focus should always be on the most efficient way. Let's review some basic keyboarding and editing techniques.

Important:  When you make an error in a word as you are keying it, you can press the Backspace key to delete the character to the left of the insertion point. To correct an error that is not at the left of the insertion point, click the incorrect character or press the directional arrow keys to move the insertion point to it, then press the Delete key and type the correct character. To save time, learn the methods used to delete words more quickly. For example in the Edit mode, pressing Ctrl+Delete will delete the entire word after the insertion point. 

In Exercise 1-12 on page 23, after you do step 1 be aware that Excel typically notifies you that a cell referenced in the formula has been deleted. The error message is #REF. Ignore this error for now. After you do step 3, notice that an empty cell does not show the dash that you saw earlier for a zero. A zero and empty are not the same.

In Exercise 1-13 on page 23, remember that the Undo and Redo commands are available in all Office applications.

In Exercise 1-14 on pages 24-25, you learn to save a workbook to keep it for future use. To save and open documents from your disk, you can specify the drive where your disk is located as the default folder.  Once you specify the drive where your disk is located, Excel uses it as the default folder until you exit the Excel program. When you open Excel again, you will have to specify the drive where your disk is located again. You can save your documents to a disk in Drive A or to your own hard drive.  If you save to Drive A, remember to format your diskette. If you are using your own personal computer, you can save your documents on Drive C in the Excel Class Work subfolder that you created in the My Documents  folder in Section 3 above or wherever you would prefer to save them. 

To change the default folder once each time you open Excel, complete the following steps:

1. Click the Open button on the Standard toolbar to display the Open dialog box.
    

2. Click the down-pointing triangle at the ride side of the Look in text box and click 3 1/2 Floppy (A:) to save to Drive A or (C:) to save to Drive C. If you are saving to Drive C, double-click My Documents in the list box, and then double-click Excel Class Work to open the folder as your default folder.
    

3. Click the Cancel button in the lower right corner of the Open dialog box to close it.

To change the default folder permanently, complete the following steps:

1. Click the Tools menu and then click Options to open the Options dialog box. 
    

2. Click the General tab in the Options dialog box.
    

3. Select the current text in the Default file location text box, and then key A:\ or C:\My Documents\Excel Class Work or whatever path is used for the My Documents folder on your computer.

It is important that you understand the difference between the commands Save and Save As. You will frequently be instructed to open a document from the CD files and save it with a new filename. 
Remember that the Save button on the toolbar will not allow you to assign a new filename to a previously saved document. Be aware that the toolbar Save button overwrites the currently saved document with the revised copy in the window of any document saved on your disk. 

TIP: To assign a new file name to a previously saved document and not overwrite the original document, you must use the Save As command from the File menu. When you see the words "Copy of " in a filename, to resave the edited file, you must use a new name. If you do not see "Copy of" in the filename, it is not a read-only file.

Following is a list of symbols that you cannot use as part of a filename:

backslash \                             question mark ?  
forward slash /                      colon :
greater than sign >                 quotation mark "             
less than sign  <                     semicolon ;
pipe symbol  |                        asterisk *

In Exercise 1-16 on pages 27, before printing your worksheet, make sure your printer is on and has paper inserted in it. In step 5, the landscape orientation print setting will print the page with the top of the worksheet across the long side of the paper. Documents, such as letters, use portrait printing where the top of the document prints down from the short side of the paper.

In Exercise 1-17 on page 28, you will close a workbook. Although clicking a  Close button is the easiest way to close a document or exit a program, make sure you close the window you intended to close. Remember that the top Close button closes Excel and the bottom button closes the workbook window.

• Do Using Help and Review the Lesson Summary in the book:

On page 28, it is important that you practice using the Help feature. Software companies are increasingly using their Help programs, instead of paper-based documentation, to train users and assist in answering questions. Make sure you have a blank worksheet open to practice using the Help feature. 

TIP:  When Microsoft Office was first installed on your computer, the typical installation may not have included all components. You may want to run the install feature on your Program CD or disk again, select Custom Installation, and select the components that do not have check marks next to them to install them. 

On page 29, use the Lesson Summary to review the important concepts in the lesson. Then on page 30, the Command Summary at the top of the page lists a variety of ways to accomplish a particular task. You can decide which method you prefer to use for a specific purpose. 

• Do Skills Review Exercises 1-18 to 1-21:

The Skills Review Exercises 1-18 to 1-21 on pages 35-34 provide guided practice for you. Objectives are indicated for each exercise. For example, Exercise 1-18 reviews what you learned in Objectives 1-2. It reviews how to maximize and restore windows. There are no files required and no files saved for this exercise. In Exercise 1-19, you will not turn in your answers to the questions, but you should complete the exercise to make sure you understand the concepts.  In step 2b, a new total is recalculated because the cell has a formula.

TIP: As you progress through the course, you will build on the information you learn in each lesson and will have a harder time understanding new material if you skip assigned exercises now.

 

Section 6: Check Exercises Using PDF Files

If Acrobat Reader is not already installed on your computer, you need to do that before you can see the solutions to the exercises you completed. You need to download, install, and then display the solutions to the exercises solutions in the Acrobat Reader to check your completed exercises. Click this To Download  and Install Acrobat Reader link for instructions on how to download and install Acrobat Reader (the same link is also located at the beginning of  the Weekly instructions).

• Display the exercise solutions:

You will check your exercises to evaluate your understanding of the material that you have studied in Lesson 1 by using Acrobat Reader to view the solutions to the exercises you have completed. Click the link below to display the solutions for the Lesson 1 exercises using Acrobat Reader and compare them to your completed exercises.

Excel, Lesson1.pdf

Make any necessary corrections to fix any problems in your exercises to make sure that you understand how to do each exercise before you continue. A solution typically is the final file that you are told to print in the book. Your printouts may differ from the printouts shown for a variety of reasons. For example, different printers can produce variations in fonts and line spacing.

• Print the solutions (optional):

You may want to print the solutions to make it easier for you to compare them to your completed documents, and in the future, you may find it easier to compare the solutions to your completed documents as you do them. If so, you may want to print the solutions before you begin the exercises and compare them to your worksheets as you work through each lesson.

1. Click the File menu and click Print to print the solutions.
    

2. Click the Close button in the upper, right-hand corner of Acrobat Reader to close it after you have finished using it.

Section 7: Do and E-Mail Exercises 1-22, 1-23, and 1-24

• Do Lesson Applications Exercises 1-22 to 1-24:

Do Lesson Applications Exercises 1-22 to 1-24 on pages 35-36 to review what you learned in Lesson 1. Make sure you edit cells rather than rekeying all the data. Also notice the alignment differences for numbers and text. To reduce your costs by saving paper and ink, you do not have to print all the documents the textbook requires.

• Send an e-mail message to me with your completed Lesson Applications Exercises 1-22 to 1-24 on pages 35-37 attached as described below:

To e-mail your completed exercises to me, you must have an e-mail account. If you do not have an e-mail account or would like to set up a new e-mail account, click this Setting Up a New E-Mail Account link (the link is also located at the beginning of  the Weekly instructions). Click this USING e-mail link for step-by-step instructions on how to use e-mail (the link is also located at the beginning of  the Weekly instructions).  

1. For the Subject line in the message, type exactly as shown below: 
   
           Excel Lesson 01, Your Last Name, First Initial (not these words) 
   
    

2. In the message box, type the following message:

    I am in your class. My name is (and type your first and last name).  
    My e-mail address is (and type your e-mail address).

3. Attach the exercise files from your My Documents folder or wherever you saved them.

Within two days after the due date for mailing the exercises, I will provide you with the solutions for the exercises.

Section 8: Quiz 1  

To get 100 percent on the quizzes, use your book to look up the answers to questions that you don't know. The quizzes are to entice you to study and understand the concepts and terminology in your book. You cannot go back and look at the quizzes online after you take them. Therefore, take note of anything you missed on a quiz, and study that section in your book to prepare for the midterm and final exams. You can print the test results to keep a hard copy.

• Take the Lesson 1 Quiz by clicking the link below:

To take the quiz, you must enter your username and password. Remember that your username is the first four letters of your last name and the last four digits of your social security number, such as hend6789 (for Henderson 123-45-6789). Use lowercase letters. 

Recall from your syllabus that the Lesson quizzes are 20 percent of your grade. You will take the multiple-choice, true/false quiz on-line. The quiz program will generate the results. You may take the quiz only one time.

Tip: Be sure that you do not press the ENTER KEY after entering information from the keyboard! Pressing the Enter key may end the quiz and grade it immediately.

Section 9: Post Lesson 1 Discussions

Attendance is based on your postings in the class discussion group. Posting comments each week will prevent you from being dropped from the course. In order to get full credit for the discussion, you are expected to post at least three discussion comments for each lesson on the discussion board.  Next week you will post a self-evaluation for lesson 1. You can acknowledge another student's comment, but you must add a new idea to the discussion. Be original! Be friendly. Be considerate!

• Post comments for the following two items by clicking this Discussion Group link (the same link is also located at the beginning of  the Weekly instructions) to go to the discussion board:

1. Describe a problem you had or a discovery you made in Lesson 1, and describe the events that led to the problem or discovery. You could also describe or explain something you learned while doing your class work that you think is important or interesting or would help someone else in the class. If you want, you could explain a new solution to a problem that another student presented. When presenting your solution, answer the following questions:

• What things you would do to solve the problem?

• How is the solution satisfactory to you?

2. You can replace or edit cell contents. Discuss when you might use each procedure.