Excel® 2010 For Dummies®, Portable Edition
Table of Contents
Excel® 2010 For Dummies®, Portable Edition
Excel® 2010 For Dummies®, Portable Edition
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Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ
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About the Author
Greg Harvey has authored tons of computer books, the most recent being Excel Workbook For Dummies and Roxio Easy Media Creator 8 For Dummies, and the most popular being Excel 2003 For Dummies and Excel 2003 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies. He started out training business users on how to use IBM personal computers and their attendant computer software in the rough and tumble days of DOS, WordStar, and Lotus 1-2-3 in the mid-80s of the last century. After working for a number of independent training firms, Greg went on to teach semester-long courses in spreadsheet and database management software at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.
His love of teaching has translated into an equal love of writing. For Dummies books are, of course, his all-time favorites to write because they enable him to write to his favorite audience: the beginner. They also enable him to use humor (a key element to success in the training room) and, most delightful of all, to express an opinion or two about the subject matter at hand.
Dedication
An Erucolindo melindonya
Author's Acknowledgments
Let me take this opportunity to thank all the people, both at John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and at Mind over Media, Inc., whose dedication and talent combined to get this book out and into your hands in such great shape.
Publisher’s Acknowledgments
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Introduction
I’m very proud to present you with Excel 2010 For Dummies, Portable Edition, the latest version of everybody’s favorite book on Microsoft Office Excel for readers with no intention whatsoever of becoming spreadsheet gurus.
Excel 2010 For Dummies, Portable Edition, covers all the fundamental techniques you need to know in order to create, edit, format, and print your own spreadsheets. This book concentrates on spreadsheets because spreadsheets are what most regular folks create with Excel.
About This Book
This book isn’t meant to be read cover to cover. Although its chapters are loosely organized in a logical order (progressing as you might when studying Excel in a classroom situation), each topic covered in a chapter is really meant to stand on its own.
Each discussion of a topic briefly addresses the question of what a particular feature is good for before launching into how to use it. In Excel, as with most other sophisticated programs, you usually have more than one way to do a task. For the sake of your sanity, I have purposely limited the choices by usually giving you only the most efficient ways to do a particular task. Later, if you’re so tempted, you can experiment with alternative ways of doing a task. For now, just concentrate on performing the task as I describe.
As much as possible, I’ve tried to make it unnecessary for you to remember anything covered in another section of the book. From time to time, however, you will come across a cross-reference to another section or chapter in the book. For the most part, such cross-references are meant to help you get more complete information on a subject, should you have the time and interest. If you have neither, no problem. Just ignore the cross-references as if they never existed.
How to Use This Book
This book is similar to a reference book. You can start by looking up the topic you need information about (in either the Table of Contents or the index), and then refer directly to the section of interest. I explain most topics conversationally (as though you were sitting in the back of a classroom where you can safely nap). Sometimes, however, my regiment-commander mentality takes over, and I list the steps you need to take to accomplish a particular task in a particular section.
What You Can Safely Ignore
When you come across a section that contains the steps you take to get something done, you can safely ignore all text accompanying the steps (the text that isn’t in bold) if you have neither the time nor the inclination to wade through more material.
Whenever possible, I have also tried to separate background or footnote-type information from the essential facts by exiling this kind of junk to a sidebar (look for blocks of text on a gray background). Often, these sections are flagged with icons that let you know what type of information you will encounter there. You can easily disregard text marked this way. (I’ll scoop you on the icons I use in this book a little later.)
Foolish Assumptions
I’m going to make only one assumption about you (let’s see how close I get): You have access to a PC (at least some of the time) that is running Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP and on which Microsoft Office Excel 2010 is installed. Having said that, I don’t assume that you’ve ever launched Excel 2010, let alone done anything with it.
This book is intended for users of Microsoft Office Excel 2010. If you’re using Excel for Windows version Excel 97 through 2003, the information in this book will only confuse and confound you because only Excel 2007 works similar to the 2010 version that this book describes.
If you’re working with a version of Excel earlier than Excel 2007, please put this book down slowly and pick up a copy of Excel 2003 For Dummies instead.
Conventions Used in This Book
The following information gives you the lowdown on how things look in this book. Publishers call these items the book’s conventions (no campaigning, flag-waving, name-calling, or finger-pointing is involved, however).
Keyboard and mouse
Throughout the book, you’ll find Ribbon command sequences (the name on the tab on the Ribbon and the command button you select) separated by a command arrow, as in:
Home⇒Copy
This shorthand is the Ribbon command that copies whatever cells or graphics are currently selected to the Windows Clipboard. It means that you click the Home tab on the Ribbon (if it isn’t displayed already) and then click the Copy button (that sports the traditional side-by-side page icon).
Some of the Ribbon command sequences involve not only selecting a command button on a tab, but then also selecting an item on a drop-down menu. In this case, the drop-down menu command follows the name of the tab and command button, all separated by command arrows, as in:
Formulas⇒Calculation Options⇒Manual
This shorthand is the Ribbon command sequence that turns on manual recalculation in Excel. It says that you click the Formulas tab (if it isn’t displayed already) and then click the Calculation Options button, followed by the Manual drop-down menu option.
Although you use the mouse and keyboard shortcut keys to move your way in, out, and around the Excel worksheet, you do have to take some time to enter the data so that you can eventually mouse around with it. Therefore, this book occasionally encourages you to type something specific into a specific cell in the worksheet. Of course, you can always choose not to follow the instructions. When I tell you to enter a specific function, the part you should type generally appears in bold type. For example, =SUM(A2:B2) means that you should type exactly what you see: an equal sign, the word SUM, a left parenthesis, the text A2:B2 (complete with a colon between the letter-number combos), and a right parenthesis. You then, of course, have to press Enter to make the entry stick.
Occasionally, I give you a hot key combination that you can press in order to choose a command from the keyboard rather than clicking buttons on the Ribbon with the mouse. Hot key combinations are written like this: Alt+FS or Ctrl+S (both of these hot key combos save workbook changes).
With the Alt key combos, you press the Alt key until the hot key letters appear in little squares all along the Ribbon. At that point, you can release the Alt key and start typing the hot key letters (by the way, you type all lowercase hot key letters — I only put them in caps to make them stand out in the text).
Hot key combos that use the Ctrl key are of an older vintage and work a little bit differently. You have to hold down the Ctrl key while you type the hot key letter (though again, type only lowercase letters unless you see the Shift key in the sequence, as in Ctrl+Shift+C).
Excel 2010 uses only one pull-down menu (File) and one toolbar (the Quick Access toolbar). You open the File pull-down menu by clicking the File tab or pressing Alt+F. The Quick Access toolbar with its four buttons appears to the immediate right of the File tab.
Finally, if you’re really observant, you may notice a discrepancy in how the names of dialog box options (such as headings, option buttons, and check boxes) appear in the text and how they actually appear in Excel on your computer screen. I intentionally use the convention of capitalizing the initial letters of all the main words of a dialog box option to help you differentiate the name of the option from the rest of the text describing its use.
Special icons
The following icons are placed in the margins to point out stuff you may or may not want to read.
This icon alerts you to nerdy discussions that you may well want to skip (or read when no one else is around).
This icon alerts you to shortcuts or other valuable hints related to the topic at hand.
This icon alerts you to information to keep in mind if you want to meet with a modicum of success.
This icon alerts you to information to keep in mind if you want to avert complete disaster.
Where to Go from Here
If you’ve never worked with a computer spreadsheet, I suggest that you first go to Chapter 1 and find out what you’re dealing with. Then, as specific needs arise (such as, “How do I copy a formula?” or “How do I print just a particular section of my worksheet?”), you can go to the Table of Contents or the index to find the appropriate section and go right to that section for answers.
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