Opening Excel
 Method 1
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 Method 2
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Before beginning with 1.1 Formatting Numbers, we obviously need to open Excel. There are 2 main methods for opening Excel.
Method 1) Click on the Windows Start button (located in lower-left corner of screen) and select Excel from the pop-up menu.
Method 2) Select the magnifying glass icon next to the Start button and enter “Excel” (both methods shown above). After Excel launches, Excel may appear with a start screen instead of opening directly into a blank worksheet. Your goal is to get to that blank worksheet. A screenshot of the Excel start screen is shown below. The selection you need to choose is “Blank workbook.” Once you see a blank worksheet appear on your screen, you are ready to begin.
Method 1) Click on the Windows Start button (located in lower-left corner of screen) and select Excel from the pop-up menu.
Method 2) Select the magnifying glass icon next to the Start button and enter “Excel” (both methods shown above). After Excel launches, Excel may appear with a start screen instead of opening directly into a blank worksheet. Your goal is to get to that blank worksheet. A screenshot of the Excel start screen is shown below. The selection you need to choose is “Blank workbook.” Once you see a blank worksheet appear on your screen, you are ready to begin.
Excel Start Screen
Formatting Data
Formatting data is the process of changing the appearance of values contained in cells. There are a wide variety of formatting options.
Usually, the goal of formatting a value a certain way is to either make the data more aesthetically pleasing or sometimes to make the data more understandable. Values that you enter into cells are unformatted. They are simply a string of numerals. Your goal, of course is to format the data so it’s easier to read or more consistent in terms of the decimal places shown. An important consideration to remember is that even though you apply formatting to numbers or text, Excel still considers the data as unformatted when it is called upon to process the data. This last statement will make more sense as we venture into more of the course.
Practice Exercise 1: Formatting Numbers
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STEP 1A: Add an additional sheet to your workbook. At the bottom of your cell area are your Sheets created thus far. Press the + symbol to create a new sheet. You will now see 2 sheets, Sheet1 and Sheet2.
STEP 1B: (FIGURE 2) To Rename Sheet1, click on Sheet1, right-button mouse click it, select Rename. |
 FIGURE 1
 FIGURE 2
 FIGURE 3
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STEP 2: (FIGURE 2) Make cell A1 active. Click on cell A3 with mouse or use keys to navigate to it.
Enter into the cell, 12.2% Notice that Excel automatically formatted this cell as a percentage. View the Ribbon, Number Section, window contains “Percentage”. |
 FIGURE 4
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STEP 3: (FIGURE 3) Make cell A2 active.
Enter into the cell, 1000 Observe that the cell A2 has been given “General” format designation |
 FIGURE 3
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STEP 4: (FIGURE 4) Make cell A3 active.
Enter into the cell, 1000 Notice that Excel automatically formatted this cell as a number. View the Ribbon, Number Section, window contains “Number”. |
 FIGURE 4
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STEP 5: (FIGURE 5) Make cell A4 active.
Enter into the cell $1000 Notice that Excel automatically formatted this cell as currency. View the Ribbon, Number Section, window contains “Currency”. |
 FIGURE 5
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STEP 6: (FIGURE 6) Widen column A to a size of 15
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 FIGURE 6
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STEP 7A: (FIGURE 7) Make cell A5 active. Enter $1000 again
STEP 7B: Go to formatting window and change format to “Accounting” (FIGURE 7). Notice how the dollar sign has moved over to the far-left of the column (FIGURE 8). Accounting format ensures that the dollar sign and the decimal points will line-up with numbers similarly formatted. |
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STEP 8: (FIGURE 9) Make cell A5 active. Add Bold and Red Font formatting to cell.
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 FIGURE 9
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STEP 9: (FIGURE 10) On the Ribbon Editing section, select Clear. Select the arrow; on drop down menu, select “Clear Formats”.
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 FIGURE 10
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STEP 10: (FIGURE 11) Observe cell A5.
Besides removing the Bold and Red Font, what else was removed? What does the Number formatting window reflect? (FIGURE 12) We clearly see that when we apply the “Clear” Formats, besides eliminating all signs of an “Accounting” format, that action also changed the number format from Accounting to General, which is the default number format for Excel. |
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STEP 11: (FIGURE 13) Rename Sheet2, “Number Formatting”. To Rename it, click on Sheet2, right-button mouse click it, select Rename.
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 FIGURE 13
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It should be noted that if you were to apply Number formatting to a cell first and you enter 1000 you will not see 1,000 after you press Enter. The Excel default is no thousands separator and 2 decimal places. What you will see in the cell is 1000.00
This is the end of this section. To continue, go to Module 1 Section 1.2 How Excel Processes Large Numbers