Fundamental Computer Skills:

Microsoft Excel 2019 (Basics)

Department of Computing Sciences

Faculty of Science
February 2023

For HOME use ONLY – Regional Settings

This document is based on the Regional Settings using in the Dept CS laboratories on South
Campus. Make sure you have set the Regional Settings on your home computer according to
the details in the A22 Configuring Regional Settings document, under Additional General
Material in the Additional Material block of the Moodle page. If you do not do this, the symbols
and characters used in this document, as well as in your test instructions, will NOT be the same
as the symbols and characters on your device and this will cause confusion.
 Table of Contents
1. Introduction to Microsoft Excel (MS Excel) ........................................................................... 1
A. Exploring the MS Excel Window ...................................................................................... 2
B. Typing in a Workbook ...................................................................................................... 7
C. Save a workbook in MS Excel ....................................................................................... 10
D. Open an existing workbook in MS Excel ....................................................................... 11
E. Using a Template .......................................................................................................... 12
2. Edit and Navigate a Worksheet ............................................................................................ 14
A. Navigation...................................................................................................................... 14
B. Selecting Cells ............................................................................................................... 15
C. Populating the Worksheet.............................................................................................. 18
D. Copy Cell Content with Relative & Absolute Cell Addressing ........................................ 20
3. Working with Cells ................................................................................................................. 28
A. Formatting the Font ....................................................................................................... 28
B. Format Numbers............................................................................................................ 31
C. Calculations ................................................................................................................... 34
D. Sorting Data................................................................................................................... 38
E. Handling Errors.............................................................................................................. 41
4. Working with Worksheets ..................................................................................................... 44
A. Headers & Footers of Worksheets................................................................................. 44
B. Renaming Worksheets .................................................................................................. 46
C. Hiding or Unhiding Worksheets ..................................................................................... 47
D. Arranging Worksheets ................................................................................................... 48
E. Print Settings & Print Preview ........................................................................................ 50
F. Printing .......................................................................................................................... 59
5. Creating Charts ...................................................................................................................... 61
A. Building Charts .............................................................................................................. 62
B. Adding Design Elements to a Chart............................................................................... 65
Projects ........................................................................................................................................... 69
References ...................................................................................................................................... 95
Appendix A: Explanations of Functions Used ............................................................................. 96

i
FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 1

1. Introduction to Microsoft Excel (MS Excel)

Microsoft (MS) Excel is the part of the MS Office suite of software, used when you need to work with
numbers and formulas.
In this lesson you will learn to:
• work with the components of the MS Excel window
• create a new workbook
• enter text
• save a workbook
• open an existing workbook
• base a new workbook on an existing workbook or template

Do you suffer from Mathephobia – an irrational fear of mathematics? No one can get away from doing
some sort of calculation nearly every day – even if it is figuring out whether you have enough money
left for your taxi-fare! You are definitely required to think when you solve numeric problems, but do not
panic – spreadsheets can make your life much easier when you understand them. You can use
spreadsheets to analyse the data you collect for your 3rd or 4th year projects, draw charts to include in
your reports or just to keep track of your income & expenses to figure out if you can afford to buy a new
shirt or not.
A spreadsheet can be seen as a two-dimensional table formed by horizontal rows and columns. You
can think of it as an electronic sheet of paper that allows for easy entering and editing of numeric data
and calculations. For example, the slip you get from the ATM looks like a small spreadsheet – it has
an opening balance of your account, a list of your latest transactions and a closing balance; each line
has a label and an amount that may be data (e.g. amounts withdrawn) or calculations (e.g. closing
balance).
Spreadsheets are used for many purposes such as making a budget, keeping track of your monthly
expenses, keeping inventories or used in sports organisations to keep track of scores. Electronic
spreadsheets are much easier to use than paper-based spreadsheets and a less likely to contain errors
in the calculations.
When you start working with spreadsheets there are a few concepts that you need to understand:
• Workbook
In Microsoft Excel, a workbook is the file in which you work and store your data. Because each
workbook can contain many worksheets, you can organise various kinds of related information
in a single file – different kinds of data, charts created from the data, etc.
• Worksheet
A worksheet consists of cells organised into columns and rows. In MS Excel, each file may
consist of a number of worksheets. Individually, these are called sheets and together they form
a workbook.
• What-if-analysis
Once you have entered formulas in your spreadsheet, you can experiment with different
numbers and quickly see how the result changes, as the recalculations are done automatically.
This allows you to ask What if… ?: What happens if I get a raise? What will my monthly budget
be if I get a new car? What happens to my class mark if I fail the next semester test? Changing
the numbers on the spreadsheet will provide the answers quickly and accurately, so you can
evaluate the results of your changes and make appropriate decisions.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 1

A. Exploring the MS Excel Window

When you start MS Excel, it will give you the choice to start a blank workbook, ready for you to enter
the text, open an existing workbook to continue working with it or start a new workbook based on a
template. Once MS Excel is open, you can work on multiple workbooks at the same time, whether
those are new workbooks or existing workbooks that you open.

For HOME use ONLY

Finding tools on the Tab Ribbons: If you have Windows 11 on your computer, some of the
tools are shown in a different place than indicated in this workbook, which is based on the
Windows 10 set-up in the Dept CS labs. You will need to look for the relevant tool, first on the
same Tab Ribbon of tools and, if it is not there, then on other Tab Ribbons to find it – all the
tools should be there somewhere.
Pinning Icons to your Task Bar: Once you have opened an app that you use often, an icon
will appear on the Task Bar. Right-click on the icon and select Pin to Task Bar in the pop-up
menu. In future, when you switch on your computer, the icon will be on the Task Bar, not
underlined, and you can just click on it to open the app.
The MS Excel Environment
Depending on how and when your computer was setup when you installed Office, the usual options to
launch the Microsoft products are as follows:

1. Double-click the MS Excel icon on the desktop OR

Click the Start button on the Task Bar and click on the MS Excel icon in the Windows start menu
to start MS Excel.
After starting MS Excel, you are given the opportunity to:
a. Open an existing workbook

b. Start a new Blank workbook

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c. Start a workbook based on a template

2. Click Blank workbook and a new, empty workbook will appear.

Tip – Quick Overview of MS Excel

Open MS Excel and on the New menu item, click on the Take a Tour template. A new
spreadsheet opens – make sure that you click on the Start sheet at the bottom to start at the
beginning.

Note that you will not be covering all these skills in this module, only 1, 2, 5 & 9 – so just view it
quickly to get an OVERVIEW of what MS Excel is about.

Screen Elements
Quick Access Toolbar Title Bar Ribbon of Tools
Tabs

Cell Address

Groups
Column Letter Dialog-box Launcher
Formula Bar
Vertical Scroll Bar

Row number Active Cell (Cell

Selector)

Sheet Tab Zoom Control

(Name)

Status Bar

Quick Access Toolbar Quick access to commonly used command tools

Title Bar Contains the file name of the open workbook.
Ribbon All the command tools available to you, in this version of MS Excel, are
collated on various Tab Ribbons, with related tools Grouped in blocks,
with more details available on the Group’s Dialog-box.
Formula Bar Shows the content of the Active Cell – either text, a value or a formula.
If you have a very long formula, you can make this block bigger or smaller
by clicking on the arrow-head on the right OR by drag-and-dropping the
bottom of the box up or down.

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Grid Area The area where the workbook is shown:

• The Columns are identified by letters – e.g. D
• The Rows are identified by numbers – e.g. 9
• The Cell Address is a combination of the column letter and row
number – e.g. D9
• The Active Cell is indicated by green borders (Cell Selector)
around the block – e.g. D9
Note: When you type in a cell, the insertion point shows the same
flashing vertical line (I-bar) you see in MS Word.
Sheet Tab The names of each sheet are at the bottom of the Grid – the default
names are Sheet1, Sheet2, etc. and you should rename them to
something short (preferably without spaces) for easier reference.
Scroll Bars Vertical and Horizontal Scroll Bars to scroll up, down or left and right in
the workbook
Zoom Control Change the view of the workbook content – click on + or move the bar
towards + to Zoom In to make view of the content larger; click on – or
move the bar towards – to Zoom Out to make the view of the content
smaller
Status Bar Information about the current workbook such as Ready, Circular
Reference cell address, etc. – depends what is going on and what you
are doing.

The Ribbons
At the top of the program window, directly below the title bar, is the ribbon.

The ribbon can be hidden or displayed by double-clicking any of the tabs OR, click on the Collapse the
Ribbon icon (to hide the ribbon) which toggles to the Pin the Ribbon icon (to display the ribbon).
The Ribbon consists of several tabs – some of which are very similar to the other MS Office apps like
MS Word, such as File, Home, Insert, Page Layout, Review, View and Help, but some are very
specific to working with spreadsheets, such as Formulas and Data. Even the similarly named tabs
also have different tools, specific to MS Excel. Each tab contains several tools for accessing MS Excel
settings and commands. Depending on the task you are doing within a workbook, additional context-
related tabs may appear, to help you deal with that particular task. Commonly used tabs include:
File A menu of tasks and sub-tasks, to provide options for dealing with the file containing the
workbook – e.g. Save, Print, Close and Share.
Home The default tab shown when you create a new or open an existing workbook, is the Home
tab that gives access to common commands such as changing Fonts and colours, bold
underline and Alignment, Number formatting, Styles, cell-related tasks and Editing.
Insert Tools to help you insert different types of elements into your workbook – e.g. Tables,
Illustrations, Add-ins, Charts (graphs), Sparklines, Text (for Headers & Footers) and
Symbols.
Page Includes line, paragraph and page settings for the organisation of your workbook content
Layout – e.g. Themes, Page Setup (e.g. for margins and page orientation) and Sheet Options.
Formulas The most useful tool on this ribbon is the Show Formulas tool in the Formula Auditing
group – this is a toggle tool to switch to Formula View (to see the different formulas in your
cells) and Image View (to see the results of your calculations).

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You could use the Insert Function tool to use a function in a calculation, but the quickest
way to do this is to click on the fx tool, to the left of the Formula Bar.
Data The main tools you will use on this Ribbon are those relating to Sorting in the Sort &
Filter group.
Review Use the Proofing group tool Spelling to check that you have spelt all the words correctly
in your labels, etc. – remember to set your MS Office Dictionary to English (South
Africa).
View To set particular ways to view your workbook
Help If you cannot remember how to do a task, you could always use the Help tool with a
keyword, to allow MS Excel to provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to
accomplish a particular task. Warning: This takes a lot of time, so if you use this facility
in a test, you may run out of time to finish all the tasks assigned!

Tips – Terms Used (terminology)

Default Refers to a pre-selected option or setting used by a computer program
Tab The word TAB in English can mean a number of different things, depending on the context of use. With
reference to the computer environment, one of the meanings of Tab is a small flap sticking out of a
Ribbon of tools, e.g. the Home tab or Page Layout tab,

OR a dialog-box with more than one group of settings

The Tab key on the keyboard moves your cell selector, one cell to the right.
Dialog-Box A pop-up window within an app, where you can select settings related to the text or object that you are
currently working on
Key When this term is used, it refers to a button on your keyboard (NOT on the screen)
Combination-Key(s): You use two or more keys to achieve a particular task. Combination keys are also called
shortcut keys because it is usually quicker to perform a task this way, rather than selecting options on
the tool ribbons, to do the same thing. When you use a combination of keys, you press one after the
other, holding them all down until the last key is pressed:
i. you hold down the modifier key(s) (e.g. Shift, Ctrl and/or Alt)
ii. then tap the other key, and
iii. then release the modifier key(s).
Combination keys are indicated using the + sign (you do not type the + sign) – e.g. Shift+A will type
the capital letter A; Shift+7 will type the symbol & (the special character above the number 7 key)

 Exercise 1.1: Exploring the MS Excel Tool Tabs

Learn about the different tabs and dialog-boxes in MS Excel 2019.
1. Start a new blank workbook in MS Excel, if you have not done this yet
2. Maximise the window if it not maximised
3. Click on the Home tab ribbon – the tools will be displayed at the top of the MS Excel
screen – note how the Ribbon is divided into groups: Clipboard, Font, Alignment, Number,
Styles, Cells & Editing

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 1

4. Explore the other tabs on the Tool Ribbon and review each group associated with the tab –
e.g. Click the Page Layout tab ribbon and you will notice that the groups of commands
change
5. Click back to the Home tab ribbon
6. Click the Dialog-Box Launcher in the lower-right corner of the Font Group

7. The Font dialog-box will appear, with default Font tab active

8. Scroll through the list of available fonts by dragging the vertical scroll bar up and down to
see the available fonts

9. Click cancel to close the Font dialog-box

10. Keep the blank workbook open as you will be using it again in Exercise 1.2

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 1

The Quick Access Toolbar

The Quick Access Toolbar is located above the ribbon and you can add commands that you access
most often such a Print, Open, and Save. By default, the Save, Undo and Redo commands display
on the Quick Access Toolbar when you launch MS Excel 2019.

 Exercise 1.2: Exploring the Quick Access Toolbar

Learn about the Quick Access Toolbar.
11. Return to the blank workbook you used in Exercise 1.1
12. Click the drop-down arrow on the right side of the Quick Access Toolbar

You will notice that the Save, Undo and Redo commands have a tick next to them on the
list.
To use any of the commands displayed on the Quick Access Toolbar, you just need to click
on the task required.
13. To add the Print Preview and Print tool to the Quick Access Toolbar:
• Click on the drop-down arrow again
• Click on the option required and you should see the Quick Access toolbar with an added
icon:

14. Keep the blank workbook open as you will be using it again in Exercise 1.3

B. Typing in a Workbook
There are different types of items that you may be using in your worksheets:
Numbers
Numbers are values that can be used for mathematical manipulation (added, subtracted, etc.).
Examples of valid numbers:
3.234
-34
0.0075
Note: The decimal comma used in South African mathematics cannot be used in American software –
the Dept CS labs are set up to use the decimal point.
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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 1

For HOME use ONLY – Configuring Regional Settings

If you have not yet followed the instructions in the A22 How2 document in Additional General
Material, DO IT NOW before you forget!

Text
Text is words / letters (alphabetic) or a combination of letters and numbers (alphanumeric) and may
also include symbols. Text is used as labels for descriptions of data, e.g. Name, and the data itself,
e.g. P J Willow. Text cannot be mathematically manipulated (cannot be used in mathematical
calculations). Examples of text cell contents:
Johnson
NAME:
Score 1
Net Income
R34 per kg

Calculations (Expressions / Formulas)

You NEVER do any calculations yourself, so put your calculators away – you always get the system to
perform these calculations for you! Your task is to enter the expressions that will provide the result you
are looking for.
There are a number of rules to think about when you want to calculate
something:
1. The expression must be typed in the cell where the result needs to be
displayed.
2. You need to begin every calculation with the equals to symbol =
3. The principle behind writing expressions is to use the cell addresses containing the values and not
the values themselves, e.g. you want to add the numbers in A1 and B1 and store the answer in C2.
The expression that should be typed in C2 will be: =A1+B1 and not =12+12. The
reason why cell references must be used is that the numbers may and you do
NOT want to have to change all the expressions when you change one number.
If you change the value in cell B2 to 36, the result in cell C2 will automatically change to 48.
4. An expression should only end with a cell address or closing bracket – note that you should only
use round brackets in this course (…) and NOT {…} or […] as these have different uses in MS
Excel.
5. MS Excel uses the mathematical order of precedence to calculate results – Brackets,
Exponentiation (to the power Of), Division & Multiplication (from left) and lastly Addition & Subration
(from left) – you may have learned this order of precedence using the acronym BODMAS or
BEDMAS at school.

Displaying Formula View vs Image View

When workbooks are created, MS Excel opens your workbook in Image View which shows the
results of any calculations you have made. To be able to see the Formula View, to review your
formulas to check cell addresses, etc. , you need to use the toggle-tool Show Formulas in the
Formula Auditing group on the Formulas tab ribbon – click on it once to show the Formula View and
click on it again to return to Image View. A toggle tool means that you click on the same tool to
activate and deactivate it.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 1

 Exercise 1.3: Formula vs Image View

Learn how to display either the results in your window (Image View) or the actual content of the
cells (Formula View).
15. Return to the blank workbook you used in Exercise 1.2
16. To type text in Excel, click on the appropriate cell to make it the active cell,
type the text and then press Enter to move your cell selector to the cell
below. Type the text shown on the right, in column A:
17. Type the values 10 and 4 in cells B1 and B2 respectively
18. In cell B3, type =B1+B2 and press Enter – you should see the result of adding the values
in those two cells together – 14
Note that you should NOT type values into a formula – you always put the values into their
own cells and then you use the cell-addresses for those values, in your formulas.
19. In cells B4 to B6 enter the following formulas, to show the following results respectively –
6, 40 and 2.5:

Note that the mathematical operator for multiply is a * (asterisk) in MS Excel and the
operator for divide is a / (forward slash).
20. What you see now is the Image View – to see the formulas you typed in, click on the Show
Formulas tool in the Formula Auditing block on the Formulas tab ribbon

Image View Formula View

21. Keep the blank workbook open Save the document using the same filename L01Enviro-
studentnumber.xlsx and keep it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 1.4

Tip – Quick Way to Sort out Column Widths

You will notice in the image above, that MS Excel automatically changes the column-widths in
Formula View – this can be annoying as some of the columns may be far too wide and other
columns may not be wide enough to show the whole formula within your cells. To fix this:
• Click on the triangle to the left of A (column label) and above 1 (row label) to select the
whole sheet

• Then point your mouse at the line between the A and B column labels
until it turns into and double-click (keep your mouse steady when
you do this) – ALL the columns will automatically become as wide as
they need to be, to display the longest item within each column – then
click anywhere in the grid, to deselect

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 1

C. Save a workbook in MS Excel

Once you have created a workbook, you may wish to save it for future use. If you do not save a
workbook, the computer will not save it once you close it.
NB: All the exercise files you complete must be saved in the location (drive and folder-structure)
specified in your module’s weekly instructions workbook – e.g. Weekly Guide or Learning Guide.

 Exercise 1.4: Save a Workbook in MS Excel

Learn about saving a new workbook or saving an existing workbook in a different location and/or
with a different file name in MS Excel.
22. Return to the workbook you used in Exercise 1.3
23. Click the File tab on the tools ribbon and then click Save As

This is where you start to specify where you would like to save the workbook
24. Click Browse – the Save As dialog-box appears – change the location to the required
drive and folder structure specified in your weekly instructions workbook

25. The file name for this file is L01Enviro-studentnumber – use your student number
without the s and no space before or after the dash (-) e.g. L01Enviro-227123456, where
you replace 22712346 with YOUR student number
26. Make sure that the Save as type is MS Excel Workbook (*.xlsx) as shown above – when
you save a workbook in MS Excel, the file is automatically given an extension of .xlsx

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 1

Do not change this extension and do not type .xlsx in the File name box.
27. Click Save – the name of this workbook (file) will now appear on the Title Bar
28. Close the workbook by clicking the in the top right-hand side of your screen – this will
close the MS Excel window

D. Open an existing workbook in MS Excel

Saved workbooks can be opened and edited at any time after they have been saved. As you learned
in File Management, the file extension of .xlsx allows the Windows operating system to recognise that
the file was created in MS Excel and can be opened in MS Excel for editing.
When you specify the file name for your workbook, you can use letters, spaces, numbers and certain
special characters and can use up to 255 characters. In general, you should make your names
meaningful so that if you look at a list of files at the end of the year, you can recognise from the name
what the file is about.
However, when doing any tasks for this module, it is important to name the files EXACTLY as
specified AND save them in the location specified in the weekly Guides for the module. Pay
attention to plurals in a filename, as well as spaces and special characters, to be sure you name your
files correctly. Naming a file incorrectly can mean the file will not be marked.

 Exercise 1.5: Open a saved Workbook in MS Excel

Learn about opening a saved workbook.
29. Launch MS Excel (double-click the MS Excel icon on the desktop or Task Bar, or find the
program (app) using the Start menu)
30. A list of previously used workbooks will display on the left-hand side of the screen

Use the scrollbar on the side of the list to see a more extensive list of recently used workbooks
on the right-hand side of the screen.
31. Click Browse and the Open dialog-box appears

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 1

32. Change the location to the drive specified in your Learning Guide and the folder where you
saved the L01Enviro-studentnumber.xlsx file and click on it
33. Click Open – the file will appear in MS Excel
34. Close MS Excel

E. Using a Template

When you start MS Excel, the first window asks you what file you want to work with. You can open an
existing saved workbook or start a new workbook which means that a new file with no text will be
opened.
The “New” option shows a list of new workbook templates. You can choose from numerous templates
in this window. These templates are pre-set workbooks available from the Microsoft cloud environment
and you can search templates using the search box. The available templates will differ depending on
whether you are connected to the internet or not. You have to be connected if you want to search for
online templates.

 Exercise 1.6: Using a Template

Learn about starting a new workbook using a template.
1. Start MS Excel and select to create a New workbook
2. Near the top of the screen is a search box and some suggested searches. You can type a
word or click on one of the suggested searches to help find a suitable template

Take note that below the Search for online templates there are different categories
3. Below the search box, a list of common templates is shown. Use the wheel on your mouse
(or the vertical scroll-bar on the right) to scroll up and down to view the different
commonly used templates

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4. To Search the available templates using a key word:

• Click in the Search for online templates text-box
• Type Invoice
• Click the magnifying glass icon to the right of the templates box
• Double-click on Invoice with sales tax
• Click Create
The invoice will appear on your screen with instructions on how to edit the template for
personal use.
5. Save the workbook with the name L01Templates-studentnumber.xlsx in the required
location (check your module’s weekly Guide)
6. Close the workbook

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 2

2. Edit and Navigate a Worksheet

Once you have created a workbook, you may wish to edit it, fine-tune the wording or re-organise the
cells. MS Excel has tools that make it easy to select and replace cells, copy or move cells and
correct mistakes.
In this lesson you will learn to:
• move around a workbook
• select cells using the mouse and / or the keyboard
• insert, replace and delete text
• headers & footers
• copy and move text
• undo changes
• filling a series of cells
• 3-D referencing

A. Navigation
Navigation refers to moving the cursor (or insertion point) around the workbook so you can place it
where you need to make changes. You can use both the mouse and the keyboard to move through
the cells in a workbook.

Tips: How to use SMark Effectively

• Make sure that you work through the A05 How to use the SMark system workbook in the
Additional Learning Material folder BEFORE you attempt this project.
• Always check SAVING instructions in your Module’s weekly Guides.

 Exercise 2.1: Moving Around a Workbook

Learn how to move around in your workbook with greater efficiency.
1. Download and open the project FCS Excel Lesson 2.1 data file from SMark,
L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx
Save the workbook, using the SAME file name, in the required location
2. Select to show the Animals sheet by clicking on the Sheet tab towards the bottom-left of
your MS Excel window.
3. If your mouse has a wheel, roll forwards or backwards to move up and down in the
workbook
4. Use the vertical scroll bar at the right of the window to move up and down the worksheet
rows:
• Click the up-scroll arrow to scroll up one row at a time
• Click the down-scroll arrow to scroll down one row at a time
• Click the scroll bar above or below the scroll box to move up or down, a screen
at a time
• Drag the scroll box to go to a specific row – as you drag the box, the row number
will be shown as a tool-tip

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 2

5. Use the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the window in the same way, to move to the
left and right of a worksheet, if the whole sheet is not visible in the window:
• Click the left arrow to scroll up one row at a time
• Click the right arrow to scroll right
• Drag the scroll box to go to a specific row – as you drag the box, the row number
will be shown as a tool-tip
6. Use the navigation keys on your keyboard to move the cell selector around in the following
ways:
•  Left arrow to move left one cell
•  Right arrow to move right one cell
•  Up arrow to move up one cell
•  Down arrow to move down one cell
• Home to go to the beginning of a row
• Page Up to move up one screen’s worth of rows
• Page Down to move down one screen’s worth of rows
7. As you have not actually changed anything, no need to save your file at this point, but keep
it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 2.2

Tips: Shortcuts for Moving Around a Workbook

Ctrl+ Move to the left edge of your worksheet, same row
Ctrl+ Move to the right edge of your worksheet, same row
Ctrl+ Move to the top of your worksheet, same column
Ctrl+ Move to the bottom of your worksheet, same column
Ctrl+Home Go to cell A1 of your worksheet
Ctrl+End Go to the most bottom-right cell of your worksheet that has content

B. Selecting Cells

When you are editing a workbook, you can select portions of the workbook to change the selected cell
content for editing or formatting. When you select cells, MS Excel highlights the cells and you can
perform an action on the selected cells. To select cells, you can use the mouse or the keyboard. But
first, you need to know what a Range of cells refers to.
Notes:
 If you incorrectly select a section of cells, click anywhere else in the workbook to deselect and
then try again.
 If you accidentally move the selected cells while trying to select, remember to use your Undo
tool on the Quick Access Toolbar to undo the move.
 If you do anything that you realise is a mistake, even if the mistake was a few tasks ago, you
can use the Undo tool repeatedly until that mistake has been taken away – just remember that
the further back you Undo, the more tasks you will have to do again – you cannot use Redo as
that will redo the mistake as well.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 2

A Range of cells
A rectangular block of 1 or more cells is called a range, indicated by the top, left cell, a colon (:) and
the bottom, right cell. The cells need to be immediately adjacent on one or more of the sides of the
cells – not corner to corner. E.g.: the range A1:B6 – cell A1 is where the range starts and cell B6 is
where the range ends and includes cells A2:A6 and B1:B6. Further examples of ranges:
The ranges illustrated are A1:D1 (multiple columns within a single row),
A3:A6 (multiple rows within a single column) and C3:D6 (multiple
columns and multiple rows). Ranges can be used in calculations, to refer
to a number of adjacent cells.
Mouse pointers
When using the mouse in MS Excel, it is very important to check what the mouse pointer looks like
before clicking or holding down the mouse button, as the different pointers indicate different
functionality.
Pointer Visible when mouse is: Function
Pointed to an area where text can be To place the typing cursor in the text area.
entered, such as the formula bar or the
active cell.
Pointed at the edge of a selected cell or To drag the selected cell or range or graphic
range. item to a different position on the worksheet.
Positioned over the dividing line between To adjust the width of the column to the left
two column labels. of the pointer.
Positioned over the dividing line between To adjust the height of the row above the
two row numbers. pointer.
Positioned over the AutoFill handle of the To copy calculations or fill a range with pre-
selected range or cell. (The small black set information such as month names or a
square in the bottom right corner of the series of values.
selected cell or range.)
Pointed at the ribbon or Quick Access To select commands
toolbar.
Moved over the worksheet cells. To select individual cells or ranges.
Positioned over a row label. To select one or more rows.
Positioned over a column label. To select one or more columns.
Using the mouse to select cells:
To select a single cell – merely click on it to make it the active cell.
The easiest method to select a range of cells:
• Move the mouse-pointer to the top-left cell.
• Hold down the left mouse button and drag over the required cells to highlight them – click-and-
drag.
• Once you have selected the cells needed, release the mouse button. Do NOT release your
mouse button until all the cells are selected.
Reminder: If your selection is incorrect, release the mouse button and click in another cell outside of
the selection to deselect it and re-do the selection.

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Tip – Selecting cells while typing in an Expression

Instead of typing the cells addresses you want to use, and potentially making a typing error,
always just click on the relevant cell or range of cells while you are typing your
expressions.

Using the keyboard to select cells:

When one is busy typing on the keyboard, it is often quicker just to do the selection using the tool that
you are busy with:
• Move (arrow keys) the cell selector to be at the top-left cell.
• Hold down the Shift key on the keyboard and then use the navigation keys such as the arrows
keys, Home, End, Page Up and Page Down to move the highlight to incorporate adjacent cells
(over multiple columns and / or multiple rows). When you keep the Shift key pressed down,
moving the navigation keys will select the cells as you move – the Shift key is a combination
key.
• Once you have selected the cells needed, release the Shift key.
Reminder: If you incorrectly select a range of cells, release the Shift key and press an arrow-key
to deselect and then try again.
You can also select a range of cells by clicking on a corner of the block of cells you want to select
and then use Shift+Click on the opposite corner of the block.

Tips:
• Pay attention to the techniques you learn in Exercise 2.2 – you will use them over and over
again, whenever you work on a MS Excel workbook.
• Some text in the instructions is in italics to make it stand out. Do NOT format any text to
italics unless it is specified in the instructions.

 Exercise 2.2: Selecting Cells

Learn how to Select Cells. Never try and “fix” the selection if you have selected the wrong
cells, click somewhere else in the worksheet to deselect, and then re-select the correct cells.
8. Return to the L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx, saved in Exercise 2.1, and select the
Animals worksheet
9. To select a range using the mouse:
Select the range G11:G15 – note that it does not matter where the active cell is.
• Position the mouse pointer over cell G11
• Click-and-drag down to cell G15 and let go
• Deselect the paragraph by clicking elsewhere on the worksheet
10. To select the same range using they keyboard:
• Move the cell selector to cell G11
• Shift+ down to cell G15
• Deselect the range
11. To use a selection to type a formula:
To calculate the amount before discount for the number of buffalo sold, you need to multiply
the number by the retail price. Very NB to Note: You do not need to know WHAT the values

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are to type in a formula – all you need to know is WHERE the values are or will be located –
i.e. the cell addresses.
• In cell E11, type = – to tell MS Excel that this is a formula that needs to be resolved and
the result displayed
• Click on cell B11 – where the number of buffalo will be
• Type * – the operator for multiply
• Click on cell C2 – where the retail price will be
• Press Enter
Your formula should read =B11*C2 – select cell E11 where the result (currently 0) is and
look in the Formula Bar to see the formula in the cell.
12. Save the document using the same filename L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx and keep it
open as you will be using it again in Exercise 2.3

C. Populating the Worksheet

You must always move the cell selector to the cell that you want to insert cell content.
If there is already content in that cell, and you want to replace all of it, you can just select the cell and
then type – the new content will completely replace the old content.
If there is already content in a cell and you want to add to it, select the cell and then click in the content
in the Formula Bar – an I-bar cursor will appear to show the insertion point, which you can move to
the start, middle or end of the content before inserting whatever is required.
To delete all the content of a cell, select it and then press the Delete key OR right-click on the cell and
click on Delete in the drop-down menu.
To delete only parts of the content of a cell, activate the I-bar cursor and move it to the start of the text
you want to remove and press the Delete key until the content you want to remove is gone OR move
the I-bar insertion point to the end of the content that you want to remove and press the Backspace
key until the content is removed.
Entering Labels, Values & Formulas
Tip – Which key to use to Delete Characters
Delete To remove characters to the RIGHT of the I-bar (cursor / insertion point)
Backspace To remove characters to the LEFT of the I-bar

 Exercise 2.3: Entering Text, Values and Formulas in your Worksheet

You will edit the L02Stock workbook.
Reminder: Some text in the instructions are in italics to make it stand out. Do NOT format any
text to italics unless it is specified in the instructions.
13. Return to the L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 2.2
14. On the Documentation sheet:
• In cell B3, enter today’s date as yyyy/mm/dd – e.g. 2023/03/25 – click
back on the cell and check the type of number shown in the Number
group on the Home tab ribbon, shows Date
• In cell B5, enter your name and surname – if the cell is not wide enough for your name,
drag-and-drop the vertical line between the column labels B & C to make the column
wide enough to show your name
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• In cell C5, enter your student number

The content of this sheet should be the first sheet of all your spreadsheet solutions;
indicating details about the workbook.
15. To enter Headers & Footers in your workbook:
This is also a design issue – the Title of the workbook in the Documentation sheet, should
be placed in the Header of the OTHER sheets in the workbook and in the Footer, you
should put your name, surname and student number. It is not necessary to put these on
the Documentation sheet as the information is already there.
• Click on cell B1, which contains the title and click Copy in the Clipboard group on the
Home tab ribbon
• Activate the Animals worksheet and click on the Page Layout tool in the Worksheet
Views group on the View tab ribbon
• Click in the Header where Add header is shown – you will see that the Header is
divided into 3 areas – the left area is left-aligned, the centre area is centred and the
right area is right-aligned

• With the centre area selected, click the Paste tool in the Clipboard group on the Home
tab ribbon – the title text is now displayed in the Header

• Use your mouse to roll down to the Footer and click in the left area, enter your name,
surname and student number and click anywhere in the main grid

Tip – Getting back to Normal View

It is easier to continue working in your worksheet without the Header and Footer showing, so
return to Normal view in the Worksheet Views group on the View tab ribbon.

 16. Enter cell content that will be same for all customers:
Information that is the same for all the transaction in the Detail area, is entered in the
Common area of the Animals worksheet at the top of the worksheet – the Common area in
this example is in the range A1:D7
• In cells B2:B4: Enter the Costs of breeding each type of animal in cells

• In cells B6:B7: Enter the %s for Markup (0.75) and Discount (0.15) – note that a %
value is the same as the number divided by 100, which is the same as the result of the
divide – e.g. 4% is the same as saying 4/100, which is 0.04

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• In cell C2: Enter the formula to calculate the Retail Price – the Markup % reflects how
much profit one would like to make on a sale, so the Markup amount needs to be added
to the Cost Price, in order to determine the Retail Price – =B2+B2*B6
Do NOT enter anything in cells C3:C4 at this point.
• In cells A11:D11: Enter test data to check formulas that will be entered later:

• Edit the labels in B1 & C1 to add the word Price to each label and change the label
Numbers to Stock Sales – check how to do this in the explanations above this exercise
17. Save the document using the same filename L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx and keep it
open as you will be using it again in Exercise 2.4

D. Copy Cell Content with Relative & Absolute Cell Addressing

In order to explain when and where to use these different types of cell addressing in expressions, the
skills of copying and moving are used. Why? Understanding these concepts will make entering
repeated expressions easier and enable you to make valid adjustments in your worksheet if you realise
you’ve put something in the wrong place.
Copy with Relative Cell Addressing
You might want to use the text or expression in a specific cell in another cell as well. Rather than
retyping it, you can copy that label or expression to the appropriate cell. In most spreadsheets you will
use, you need to perform the same calculation on different sets of data, so you want to copy an
expression to a number of different cells.
Remember that when using copy, the data (label or expression) will appear in both the original and
destination cells.

 Exercise 2.4: Copy with Relative Cell Addresses

Learn about the copy-paste processes, where you have the original (source) cell(s) and they
are repeated in the destination cells.
18. Return to the L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 2.3 and
activate the Animals worksheet
19. Change the view to Formula View (toggle tool on the Formulas tab ribbon) and use the tip
to automatically adjust the column widths
20. To Copy using Relative Cell Addressing:
• Copy (use the tool in the Clipboard group on the Home tab
ribbon) cell E11 and Paste it in cell E12
Notice 3 things:
i) The formula in E12 is similar to the formula in E11, but the cell addresses have
changed. Because you copied the formula down ONE row, 1 was added to the row
number in the cell addresses
ii) You did not change columns, so the column letters have not changed – if you copied
to the right or left, the column letter would also change by 1 per column that the
destination cell is relative to the source cell

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 2

iii) Notice that the active cell or range that is copied is indicated by a broken-line cell
selector instead of a solid line, indicating that the copy is still active
• Select the range E13:E15 and Paste again – in each row the row numbers in the cell
addresses add the same number of rows Relative to the original position; 2 rows away
– add 2; 3 rows away – add 3, etc.
21. Save the workbook as L02Travel-studentnumber.xlsx and keep it open as you will be
using it again in Exercise 2.5
Tip – Rule for Copying:
Relative cell addresses change relative to the original position when an expression is copied. If
you copy up or down, - or + the row number; if you copy left or right, - or + the column letter.
Note: Cell references added for expressions are Relative Cell Addresses by default.

Copy with Absolute Cell Addressing

In the example above, the cell address for the number of Buffalo purchased needs to change, to refer
to the number for each transaction, that is likely to be different for everyone. BUT, the cell address for
the Retail Price of a buffalo, from the Common area where information is the same for all transactions,
should NOT change and should be anchored to C2.
To copy expressions without all the cell references automatically changing, you need to prefix the cell
reference that you do not want to change, with the character – this is called absolute cell addressing.

 Exercise 2.5: Copy with Absolute Cell Addresses

22. Return to the L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 2.3 and
activate the Animals worksheet, in Formula view
23. To use Absolute Cell Addressing in a Formula
Edit the formula in E11, to convert the C2 cell address to an absolute cell address.
• In cell E11: Add the $ character in front of the column letter and row number of the C2
address in the formula by selecting the cell and clicking on the C2 address in the
Formula Bar, then press the F4 key and press Enter

Tip – Function Key F4 on the keyboard

The F4 is a shortcut to adding $ to a cell address. It is another toggle-key, so:
 the 1st time you press it, you get $C$2 (to keep both the row and the column
number/letter anchored)
 the 2nd time you press it you get C$2 (to keep only the row number anchored)
 the 3rd time you press it you get $C2 (to keep only the column letter anchored)
 the 4th time you press it, the cell address returns to a relative address C2
Copy cell E11 to E12:E15 again – notice that the Retail Price cell
 •
address does not change anymore
Remember to use the Undo tool in the Quick Access Toolbar if
your copy does not go according to plan!
24. You need to edit the formula in cell E11, so that you calculate the
amounts for the number of Impala and Elephants as well and add three calculations
together to get the Amt before Discount – see if you can figure it out and remember to click
on the cell references while you are editing your formula, to prevent typing errors.
25. Save the workbook as L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx and keep it open as you will be
using it again in Exercise 2.6

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 2

Using a % in a Calculation & Financial Concepts

A percentage is similar to a decimal number: For example:
5% = 5/100 = 0.05
15% = 15/100 = 0.15
Let us say that your scenario gives a discount of 15%. You need to subtract 15% from your Amount
before Discount (e.g. R100). You cannot say that your Amount Due would be
R100 – 15%
because this actually means 100 – 0.15 or R100 – 15cents! 15% is not the same as 15c, it is actually
R15 in this case, so you are cheating your customers out of R14.75!
When you have a %, you need to multiply it by the original amount to determine the actual amount you
need to add (for profit / mark-up or tax) or subtract (for discount). The process is as follows:
You have:
Original Amount e.g. R100
% e.g. 15% = 0.15
You calculate:
% Amount = Original Amount * %
e.g. 15 = 100 * 0.15
You can never leave it there – do not forget the final step:
Final Amount = Original Amount ± % Amount
e.g. 75 = 100 – 15 (the amount due after discount)
Putting it all together:
Final amount = Original Amount ± (Original Amount * %)
The reason for the ± is that sometimes you will add the %Amount to the Original Amount – e.g. adding
the Profit Amt to the Cost to determine the Retail Price or adding the Tax Amt to the Amt before Tax to
determine the Final Amt Due. Or you may need to subtract the %Amount – e.g. subtracting the
Discount Amt from the Amt before Discount to determine the Final Amt Due. Remember, you always
have to think about what you are doing!
The secret is to ensure that you treat the % and the %Amount as two different things – the % is given
and the %Amount needs to be calculated and either subtracted or added to the Original Amount.
When you are solving a business-related problem, remember that you are the business person, NOT
the customer! As the business person, you are either buying or manufacturing a product that you will
be selling. The Cost of buying or manufacturing the product is the amount it costs YOU, the business
person. You will add the amount you want to make as a Profit to this cost value (also called mark-up),
which will give you the price that you will be selling the product for – the Retail value. Note that your
Retail Price is the same as the Cost Price to your customers! This is why it is important to remember
that you are the business person and not the customer, otherwise you will get very confused between
the cost price and the retail price.
You know your cost price per item and you know the profit or mark-up % that you want to make in your
business. Using your knowledge of how to calculate the final amount using a %, you can now calculate
the retail price:
Retail = Cost + Cost * Mark-up%
OR
Profit Amt = Cost * Mark-up %
Retail = Cost + Mark-up Amt
Note that all your customers will usually pay the same price for your items, so the retail price, even
though it is a calculation, is the same for all and therefore a Common Area type item in your design.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 2

 Exercise 2.6: Using Financial Concepts

26. Return to the L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 2.3 and
activate the Animals worksheet, in Formula view
27. To use a % in a calculation
Calculate the Retail Prices for Buffalo, Impala & Elephants
• In cell C2: Use the formula = Cost + Cost * Mark-up% by replacing the words with cell
addresses (and exclude the spaces)
In another task, you want to Copy the same formula to cells C3:C4 so think about
which cell address should be Relative and which cell address should be Absolute – the
result in C2 should be 1811.25
28. To Fill a Series of Cells:
There is a quicker way to copy the content of a cell to adjacent cells, using the Fill Series
function.
• Click on cell C2 to make it active

• Click-and-drag the little square block in the bottom-right corner of the cell selector,
down to cell C4 – if your formula was set up correctly, the values should be 1748.25
and 9236.5 respectively
29. Return to Formula View and complete the calculations:
Remember to use Absolute cell addressing for information from the Common Area
• In cell F11: Enter the formula to calculate 15% discount on the Amount before Discount
• Edit the formula in F11 to only provide a discount amount if the total number of animals
purchases is more than 10: =IF(B11+C11+D11>$D$7,E11*$B$7,0) – if the total number
of animals purchased is > 10, then calculate the discount amount, but if not, the
discount amount is nothing – zero
• In cell G11: Enter the formula to calculate the final amount due for each transaction –
think about whether you need to add the Discount Amount to the Amount before
Discount or subtract it … should the Amount Due be more or less than the Amount
before Discount?
• Select the cells F11:G11 and fill the series down to cells F15:G15
Check the image below to compare with your workbook in Image View.
30. Save the workbook as L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx and keep it open as you will be
using it again in Exercise 2.7

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 2

Tip – Keyboard Short-cut Keys

You may find it quicker to use MS Excel’s keyboard shortcuts for copy, cut, paste and Undo.
When you use shortcuts, you need not take either hand away from the keyboard.
• To copy – Ctrl+c
• To cut – Ctrl+x
• To paste – Ctrl+v
• To Undo – Ctrl+z
• To Redo – Ctrl+y
You can also right-click on a cell to get a pop-up menu displaying the available commands for
copy, cut or paste OR use the Clipboard tools on the Home tab ribbon.

Move Cell Content

If all goes well when you implement your worksheet design, you will not have to use the Move – BUT
no-one is perfect and it is possible that you may enter the correct expression or label, but in the wrong
cell. If you Copy an expression with relative cell addresses, these will change – so what you really
want to do is Move the expression into the correct cell without changing any of the cell addresses.
Remember that when you Move the text or formula from one cell to another, you will see that the
original cell(s) will be left empty and that the label(s) or expression(s) will only appear in the destination
cell(s).

 Exercise 2.7: Moving Cell Content

Learn about the cut-paste process, which is different to what happens when you copy – more
than not having the original source cell(s) and only having the destination cell(s).
31. Return to the L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 2.6 with the
Animal sheet active in Formula View with column-widths adjusted
32. To Move the content of cell(s):
For the purpose of this exercise, you are going to move the Retail Prices from column C to
Column E.
• Select the cells you want to move – the range C1:C4
• Click the Cut tool in the Clipboard group of the Home tab ribbon
• Move the cell selector to E1

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 2

• Click the Paste tool in the Clipboard group of the Home tab
ribbon
Now you need to pay close attention to what has actually
happened:
 The cell addresses in the formulas you moved, remained
exactly the same as before (see E2:E4), whether relative
or absolute cell addressing was used, BUT…
 The cell addresses in the formulas that used the original
cell addresses of Retail Prices have changed to the
destination cell addresses of the cells you moved (see
E11:E15)
33. Save the workbook as L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx and keep it open as you will be
using it again in Exercise 2.8

Summary of Rules for Copying and Moving in MS Excel

Copy Relative cell addresses change relative to the original position when an expression is copied.
If you copy up or down, - or + the row number; if you copy left or right, - or + the column letter.
For example: =C9*B5
Absolute cell addresses do not change when an expression is copied.
Mixed cell addressing combines absolute and relative principles in the same cell address. If
the $ is in front of the column identifier then the column identifier is absolute (will not change)
and the row number will change relative to the original position and visa versa. For example:
Move The cell references in the destination cell(s) do NOT change when you move, whether there
are $’s (absolute) or not (relative).
Any expressions that reference the original cell address of the moved cell(s) will change to the
new position of the expression, whether the reference is absolute or relative.
Extracting Information using 3-D Referencing
Extracting information means using the result of one cell in another cell, either by itself, or in an
expression. Note that copying is not the same as extracting information from one sheet to another
sheet.
You should NEVER copy and paste the results in a cell, either text, values or the results of calculations.
If you do this and change something in the original, you would then need to go and fix all the places
you had copied the information to – this is NOT good practise and you are bound to forget one place,
which will then give you false results in the end.
When you extract information from another sheet, you also need to include the sheet name followed
by an exclamation mark (!) and then the cell address or range address – e.g. =Animals!A11 will result
in the first transaction’s name; =SUM(Animals!G11:G15) will result in the total Amount Due for all the
transactions. This is called 3D-Referencing.
When you enter a 3-d reference, you need to type the start of the formula (=…) in the appropriate cell,
click on the tab of the worksheet containing the cell(s) you need to reference, select the cell(s) you
need and then complete the formula. This will automatically include the worksheet name in the
reference. Make sure that the name of the sheet is directly in front of the cell address or range.

 Exercise 2.8: Using 3-D Referencing

Learn about extracting information using 3-D Referencing by creating a report summary sheet
for your Stock Sales.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 2

34. Return to the L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 2.7 with the
Animal sheet active
35. To add a 3rd worksheet to your workbook:
• Click on the tool next to the Animals sheet tab at the bottom of your window – make
sure that you have the Animals sheet active first
• Double-click on the name Sheet1 (the name is selected) and type Report
• Click anywhere in the grid to deselect
36. Add the following labels in your report:
• In cell A1: Name
• In cell B1: Discount Amount
• In cell A8: Total Sales
37. To extract information from another sheet using 3-D Referencing
In your summary, you want to have the details of the names of each client and how must
Discount they were each given – information that is on the Animals worksheet.
• In cell A2: Type =
• Click on the Animals sheet tab and select cell A11
• Press Enter
You should see the name Safari Park in cell A2 on the Report worksheet – switch to Formula
View to see the formula details.
• Extract the first transaction’s Discount Amount to cell B2 on the Report worksheet
• Select cells A2:B2 and fill down to row 6 – note that this matches the number of
transactions you have allowed for on the Animals worksheet
38. To use 3-D Referencing in a calculation
You want to know the total amount you have collected for the sales of your wild-stock, but
that information is not on the Report worksheet, so you need to go and fetch it from the
Animals worksheet.
• In cell B8: Type =SUM(
• Click on the Animals sheet tab and select the range of cells under the heading Amt
Due – i.e. G11:G15
• Type the closing bracket ) and press Enter
Note that you include the full range of cells in your summary calculations, whether there
is data in all the rows or not.

39. Save the workbook as L02Stock-studentnumber.xlsx and CLOSE the workbook

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 2

40. Upload your solution to the SMark project FCS Excel Lesson 2.1 and CHECK the
feedback report, to ensure that you completed this set of exercises 100% correctly – if not:
i. Return to the relevant concept explanations to improve your understanding
ii. Check that you have followed the relevant Exercise instruction exactly

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 3

3. Working with Cells

Workbooks can be made more professional or attractive by choosing fonts or formatting attributes that
are appropriate to the purpose of the workbook.
In this lesson you will learn to:
• use formatting tools for labels, values and results of calculations
• organise cells and cell content
• use built-in functions fx

To make your worksheets look professional you need to format headings to stand out from ordinary
text and make the numbers look like the type of number they represent – e.g. % or money (R). This is
mainly accomplished by using tools on the Home tab ribbon.

Column widths need to be wide (or narrow) enough to read the full content of the cells and for long
headings (labels), text can be wrapped in the cell to reduce the width, but still see the full content. Cells
can be merged and borders drawn around cells to make the information easier to read.
In addition, to make your life a lot easier, there are many built-in formulas in MS Excel, called functions
(fx) – you have already used the SUM() and IF() functions in Lesson 2. Learning how to use them will
make your work easier and the workbooks more efficient.

A. Formatting the Font

The term Font refers to the typeface, design and size of each character. Each installation of MS Excel
has a collection of Font types to select from, depending on personal choice, the audience, the type of
workbook being created and publishing regulations. Font Size is measured in points – for example,
this text here is in Arial Font and 12pt Font Size.
You can change the appearance of text. This is called formatting. If you wish to change the format of
text that you have already typed, select the text, then choose the new format. Once you have chosen
the format, deselect the text by clicking elsewhere on the page.
The workbook you will be using for the exercises in this Lesson, is similar to the final workbook you
created in Lesson 2, with some twists. You will learn how to make it look more profession and add
some missing bits.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 3

 Exercise 3.1: Applying Font Formatting

Learn about text formatting e.g. Font types and sizes, Bold, Italics and Underline. You will find
the relevant tools on the Home tab ribbon in the Font group. There are no step by step
instructions for these tasks as you learned how to do them in MS Word.
1. Download and open the project FCS Excel Lesson 3.1 data file from SMark,
L03WildSales-studentnumber.xlsx
Save the workbook, using the SAME file name, in the required location
2. On the Documentation Sheet:
Notice how the headings (labels) of each item are already in bold and so they stand out for
the reader.
• Change the font style and size of the workbook title in B1, to Broadway, 16 pt
• In cell B3: Add the current date (always yyyy/mm/dd format and check that the cell
Number format (in the Number group on the Home tab ribbon, automatically changed
to Date)
• In cell B5: Add your name and surname
• In cell C5: Add your student number
• In cell A11: Add the name of the 3rd sheet added to the workbook in Lesson 2 – Report
– and remove the bold formatting from this cell by clicking on the B toggle-took in the
Font group on the Home tab ribbon.
• In cell B11: Add a broad description of the information on the Report sheet – i.e.
Summary of stock sales
3. On the Animals sheet:
When you see ### in a cell – DO NOT PANIC – all it means is that the column is not wide
enough!
• To get rid of the ###s in column G, point your mouse at the line between the G and H
column labels until the pointer becomes and double-click to allow MS Excel to
automatically widen the column to the maximum content width in the column – the
hashes (#) disappear
• To see all the content of the other cells use the short cut (see Tip at the end of Exercise
1.3 in Lesson 1 – page 12 of .pdf document) to have MS Excel automatically widen all
the other columns
• Bold all the heading (labels)
• To merge cells:
Stock Sales in cell B9, actually refers to the sales numbers for all three types of wildlife
and should be spread across the three columns
o Select cells B9:D9
o Click on the Merge & Centre down-arrow tool in
the Alignment group on the Home tab ribbon
o Click on Merge & Centre in the drop-down menu
– if you do not want to centre with a merge, then
click on Merge Cells, to maintain the first original
cell’s alignment

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• To put a Border around cells:

o With the merged cells B9:D9 still selected, click on the down-
arrow of the Borders tool in the Font group of the Home tab
ribbon
o Click on the quick option using a single line, Outside Borders
from the drop-down menu.
If the type of border you are not looking for is not shown in the
drop-down menu, then click on More Borders… at the end of the
list.
• Add All Borders to the range A10:G15 – the Detail area – and
Thick Outside Borders to the range A1:E7 – the Common area
• To Wrap Text within a single cell:
o Select the Amt before Discount heading (label)
o Click the Wrap Text tool in the Alignment group on
the Home tab ribbon
o Manually change the column wide of column E, by drag-and-dropping the line
between columns E and F column letters, until it is just to the right of the word before
and then double-click on the same line between E & F and then double-click on the
line between rows 10 and 11 on the left, to reset the row height automatically
• To change the Font Colour of items in the cells:
o Select all the headings in rows 9 and 10 (note, this does NOT mean
that you select the whole row – only select B10:G10, then
Ctrl+Click to select the merged cell starting in B9) – you can use
Ctrl+Click to select outside of the specific range or cells originally
selected
o Click on the down-arrow of the Font Colour tool in the Font group
on the Home tab ribbon and select Standard Colour: Dark Blue
• To Shade cells in a worksheet:
NOT the same as changing the Font Colour!
o Select the Common area of the worksheet (A1:E7)
o Click on the Fill Colour tool in the Font group on the Home tab
ribbon and select the Theme colour: Green, Accent 6, Lighter 60%
• Due to the bolding of certain items, your column widths are again not
wide enough to see everything – do the task again, to automatically have MS Excel set
the column-widths appropriately
Check the image below to compare with your document
4. Save the L03WildSales-studentnumber.xlsx and keep it open as you will be using it
again in Exercise 3.2
Tip – Keyboard Shortcuts
For the formatting of selected items, using the Ctrl key as the modifier key, in combination with
other keys to apply particular formatting:
• Ctrl+B for Bold
• Ctrl+I for Italics
• Ctrl+U for Underline
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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 3

B. Format Numbers
You have already learned about making sure that the Date in your Documentation sheets are set to
the default Date number format. Learn more Date number formats and how to make the other numbers
in your worksheet represent the type of number they are.

 Exercise 3.2: Formatting Numbers

5. Return to the L03WildSales-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of
Exercise 3.1 with the Documentation worksheet activated, in Image View
6. To select a non-default number format:
• Select the cell containing the date – i.e. B3
• Click on the down-arrow next to the Number Format tool in the
Number group on the Home tab ribbon and select More Number
Formats…

• Select the dd Month yyyy format and click OK – the date now
shows something similar to the example on the right
Move to the Animals worksheet for the remained of the tasks in this exercise.
7. To align the content of cells:
• Select cell D7
• Click on the Centre-align tool in the Alignment group on the Home tab ribbon
Note that the number format for this number is General – it is useful to remember this, in
case you need to reset a number that have incorrectly formatted.

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8. Centre-align the content of cells B6:B7 and B10:D15 – remember that you can select both
ranges at the same time, by using the Ctrl+Click shortcut
9. To format percentage numbers:
• Change the % value in cell B6 to 75.5% - i.e. 0.755
• Select the cells in the Common area that contain percentage values (B6:B7)
• Click on the % tool in the Number group on the Home tab ribbon
The default formatting when you use this tool, is to provide no decimal places – so the
Markup% has been rounded to 76%
• To increase (or decrease) the number of decimal places in the Image View
o Select the Markup % value – i.e. cell B6
o Click TWICE on the Increase Decimal tool in the Number group on the Home tab
ribbon – the value now shows as 75.50%, which is showing one decimal place too
many
o Click ONCE on the Decrease Decimal tool (to the right of the Increase Decimal tool)
– the value now shows as 75.5%

Tip – Currency vs Accounting Money Formats

In the Number group on the Home tab ribbon, there is a
money formatting tool – Accounting Number Format, with
the default set to English (South Africa) if you have done the
A22 Configure Regional Settings task on your home computer
– not necessary to do this A22 instructions in the Dept CS labs. This is the same
as the option on the drop-down menu if you click the down-arrow next to the
Number Format tool in the same group.
It is VERY IMPORTANT to note that this is NOT the same as the Currency
option on the drop-down menu. Not only do the format look slightly different (not
apparent in the drop-down menu) in Image View, the MS Excel settings checked
by SMark are completely different. Therefore, for the purposes of checking,
make sure that you use the specified format and not the more easily available
tool on the Home tab ribbon.
To format money numbers:
 •
o Click on the first Cost Price in the Common Area – i.e. cell B2
o Click on the down-arrow next to the Number Format tool in the
Number group on the Home tab ribbon and select Currency
from the drop-down menu
10. Save the document using the same filename L03WildSales-studentnumber.xlsx and
keep it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 3.3

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Format Painter
Format Painter is a tool that allows you to copy all formatting from one formatted cell
and apply it to another cell or range of cells – a very handy tool to repeat the application
of the same format-settings to multiple places in your workbook.
You will find the relevant tool in the Clipboard group on the Home tab ribbon.

 Exercise 3.3: Format Painter

Learn about transferring formatting from one area in your workbook to another.
11. Return to the L03WildSales-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 3.2 with
the Animals worksheet activated, in Image View
12. To apply a formatting setting multiple times using the Format Painter tool:
• Select cell B2, that you formatted to Currency in the previous exercise, and double-
click on Format Painter in the Clipboard group on the Home tab
ribbon – your mouse pointer will change to a paint brush
• With the paint brush pointer, click on the cells B3:B4, E2:E4 and E11:G15 – your
formatting has now been copied from one cell to all the others that contain money
numbers; this includes the Currency format AND the Shading
• Click on the Format Painter tool again to switch it off OR press the Esc (escape) key
on your keyboard
13. The Borders have disappeared from the cells that you reformatted – check back in the
previous exercise to fix this problem
14. Columns E and G are no longer wide enough – use the tip to automatically correct all the
columns widths in your worksheet.
Check the images below to compare with your worksheets.
15. Save the document using the same filename L03WildSales-studentnumber.xlsx and
keep it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 3.4
Tip
If you want to copy formatting to only ONE other section of your text, you can (single) click format
painter and it will automatically switch off once you have applied it to the text.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 3

C. Calculations
As explained in Lesson 1, you NEVER do any calculations yourself, so put your calculators away – you
always get the system to perform these calculations for you! Your task is to enter the numeric
expression that will provide the result you are looking for.

Tip – Online tutorial on writing Formulas

Open MS Excel and on the New menu item, click on the Get started with Formulas template.
A new spreadsheet opens – make sure that you click on the Start sheet at the bottom to start at
the beginning.

Note that you will not be covering all these skills in this module, only Basics to MIN & Max, IF
statements, Function Wizard & Formula Errors – all of which are also covered in your module
material.

Formulas using Mathematical Operators

Formulas are the means for performing numeric calculations using the content of cells. The MS Excel
mathematical operators that can be used as part of a formula are:
+ Addition
- Subtraction
* Multiplication
/ Division
^ Exponentiation1
1 Exponentiation: to the power of, e.g. =22 would be written =2^2

Notes:
 Just as we use parentheses (brackets) to show the order in which to calculate figures with paper
and pencil, spreadsheet calculations use them the same way – to change the order of precedence
of the calculation of mathematical operators.
 The order of precedence is not exactly as the BODMAS (or BEDMAS) acronym indicates – e.g.
Divide does not always happen before Multiply or Add before Subtract. Divide & Multiply are on the
same level of precedence and are calculated from left to right in your formula. Add & Subtract work
the same way – the order of precedence is from left to right.
Make sure you understand the rules of precedence.
1st () Parenthesis – () not [] B
2nd ^ Exponentiation (to the power Of) O (E)
3rd */ Division, Multiplication (from left to right) DM
4th +- Addition, Subtraction (from left to right) AS
Do NOT add random, unnecessary brackets in your formulas – think about the order of precedence
and ONLY add them if necessary: e.g.:
 =B2+B2*B3 does NOT need brackets around B2*B3 as the multiply will happen first anyway
 =B2*(1+B3) only needs brackets if the 1+B3 must happen BEFORE the multiply
 =B11*$D$2+C11*$D$3+D11*$D$4 does NOT need brackets if each multiply must happen first and
then those 3 (multiply) results must be added together

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Example: Using the above precedence rules (BODMAS) the order in which the following formula is
calculated is illustrated below, with a step in each line:
=24+(9+3)/2*3^(5-3)-5
=24+ 12 /2*3^ 2 -5
=24+ 12 /2* 9 -5
=24+ 6 * 9 -5
=24+ 54 -5
= 78 -5
=73
You will never be given such a complex calculation in this course, but if you understand the principle
involved, you will not mess up the simpler calculations that you are required to do.
Calculations using Built-In Functions
A Function is a built-in formula that uses specific values provided in a specific order (called parameters
or arguments) to calculate a result. These should be used instead of entering (and remembering) long
or complex formulas yourself. A function enables you to perform complex tasks quickly and reliably,
without having to worry about the details of the formula itself. For example:
 You wish to add the list of numbers in cells A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, C3
 The formula would be =A1+A2+A3+B1+B2+B3+C1+C2+C3
 Imagine you wish to calculate the sum of (add together) about 50 cells. The formula would be very
long and prone to human error in typing.
It would be better to make use of a function, for example:
 Using a list (non-adjacent cells): =SUM(A1,A3,B2,C1,C3)
Note: the parameters in the list are separated by commas, with no spaces between the parameters
 Using a range (adjacent cells):=SUM(A1:C3)
Note: can only be used when the cells form a block of adjacent cells

Tips – Using Functions

• Develop the habit of using ranges rather than typing in every single cell reference, as this
will minimise the chance of making typing errors.
• The SUM function is only used to ADD a number of numbers together and the function
name informs the system that you wish to +, therefore you do not use the + operator within
the list:
 To add the contents of A2 to the contents of A6, the formula is =SUM(A2:A6) and NOT
=SUM(A2+A6) and definitely NOT =SUM(A2,A6) – can you figure out why not?
 To multiply the contents of A2 by A6, the formula is =A2*A6 and NOT =SUM(A2*A6) –
(A2*A6) forms a single entry in the =SUM(list) and is therefore added to nothing.
However, the logic is incorrect and shows a lack of understanding of how functions and
operators work.
• When you need to add 2 values in adjacent cells, it is much quicker to type =A1+A2 than
=SUM(A1:A2) – so just use the mathematical operator to add 2-3 values – when you have
more than this, use the SUM(list) function.

When using a function, you must always state the name of the function you wish to use and then in
brackets, you supply the required parameters (or argument) for that function name. A parameter is a
piece of information, which the function needs in order to calculate what you need.

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Notes:
 When there is more than one required parameter, you must place them in a specific order;
otherwise the function may not provide the expected result.
 ALWAYS start any calculation with =, whether you are using cells & mathematical operators or
only a function – an = in the middle of an expression indicates a LOGICAL operator – e.g. asking
the question: is B2=C2.
When the required parameter is list, this means that you need at least one (usually a range), but could
have any number of parameters. The parameter could be a number, a cell reference, a range of cells,
a formula or a function. The result of the function would only be calculated once the results of the
individual parameters have been calculated using the order of
precedence.
Try the tool on the MS Excel toolbar selecting the All
category – this provides the list of available functions,
describes what they do and assists you with the required
parameters.
If you type =, then the function name followed by an opening
bracket ( in a cell and then click on, the Function
Arguments dialog-box will open with the details of that
function – e.g. type =if( into a cell, click on fx and see what
happens.

 Exercise 3.4: Using Built-In Functions & a Few Other Tools

Learn about some of the other tools available in MS Excel and use some of the basic
Mathematical and Summary Functions available.
16. Return to the L03WildSales-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 3.3 with
the Report worksheet activated, in Formula View
17. To Hide (or UnHide) columns and rows:
Look at the row numbers and column letters on the Report sheet – the row
numbers jump from 8 to 12 (with a double line in between them) and the
column letters jump from C to G (also with the double line in between
them).
• Select the range of columns C:G by clicking on the C column label
(grey area) and dragging the mouse pointer to G before letting go
• Right-click anywhere in the selected columns and then on Unhide in
the drop-down menu – your columns for D, E & F should now be visible
on your worksheet
• Hide the range of columns H:L – your column letters should now jump from G to M
• Unhide the range of rows 9:11 – some additional Report Summary labels will appear
18. Unmerge the randomly merged cells in B19:G22
19. Bold the headings (labels) in cells A1:B1 and A8:A11
20. Format all the money amounts and potential money amounts on the Report sheet in the
same way as the money amounts on the Animals sheet, using the Format Painter – think
carefully about this and read the headings in the Report Summary area – ask yourself,
would the related result in column B be a money amount or a General number?

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Note that because the Format Painter was used in the Animals sheet – all the money-
amount cells there are shaded green and therefore, because you again used the Format
Painter, the money-amount cells on the Report sheet will also be shaded green.
21. Use 3-D referencing and the given functions, to add the summary calculations on the
Report sheet in cells B9:B11 – refer to Appendix A for explanations about the ONLY
functions you may use in this module):
• In cell B9 you want to know how many transactions you have in the Detail area on the
Animals worksheet
There are 2 things to consider here, in terms of what range of cells to count:
 You ALWAYS need to count the cells in a range where original data is, not a range
that contains formulas that have been filled down for a certain number of rows.
 Because some of the numbers may be blank for certain clients, you cannot use the
ranges in column B, C or D
 Therefore, you need to count the cells with Names in the Animals sheet.
The function you would use is COUNTA(list):
o In cell B9, type =COUNTA(
o Click on the Animals sheet tab and select the range A11:A15 (all the rows you
have formulas in)
o Type a closing bracket ) and press Enter
Note how MS Excel has automatically added the sheet name to the range cell
addresses. The result in cell B9 should be 3
• To use the fx tool to insert a calculation using a Function:
You want to calculate the Average Number of Elephants purchased in cell B10.
o Click on cell B10 and type =average( – note that it is not necessary to type the
function name in capital (uppercase) letters – MS Excel will automatically
convert lowercase letters to uppercase when you press Enter
o Click on the fx tool next to the Formula Bar
o With the Function Arguments dialog-box open, click on the Animals sheet tab
and select the range of cells containing the number of elephants purchased –
i.e. D11:D15 – if the dialog-box pops-up on top of the content of the Animals
sheet, drag-and-drop the dialog-box by clicking anywhere (but better to get used
to using the Title Bar of the dialog-box as this is the only place you can move
many other windows) and moving the dialog-box out of the way
o Click on OK and then reduce the number of decimal places shown to 2 places
Using this method, it is not necessary for you to type the closing bracket.
• To use the fx tool to find a Function to use:
You want to know what is the highest single sale you made, by checking the full range of
final Amounts Due on the Animals Sheet
o Select cell B11 and then click on the fx tool
o Change the category to Most Recently Used and look through the list of
functions provided, using the scrollbar on the right
o Select the function you decide to do and provide the necessary range from the
Animals sheet
o Click OK

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 3

If you used the appropriate function, your result should be R65 446.06
Check the image of the Report sheet below to compare with your Report sheet.
22. Save the document using the same filename L03WildSales-studentnumber.xlsx and
keep it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 3.5

D. Sorting Data
When you have a number of instances of similar data – for example: 100 responses to a questionnaire
– it could be useful to sort the data in order to make more sense of it.
Sorting a Block
Before selecting the Sort tool from the Data tab ribbon, you need to highlight the cells you want to sort.
For example, on the Animals worksheet, if you want to sort the Names in ascending order, then you
need to select the entire row for all the rows in your Detail area – i.e. rows 11:15.

WARNING! If you only select the Names range, you could run into trouble as you are likely to then
ONLY sort the names and leave the data relating to the particular names, where they are, instead of
moving each transaction’s information with the related name.
If you select a range of cells, that has data on either side of it, you will probably get the following
warning:

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 3

You should always select the 1st option otherwise the other information, related to each instance of
the data you want to sort, will not accompany it and you will have false information on your worksheet.
It is much better to select the set of entire rows that contain the information you want sorted, that way
you cannot inadvertently mess up your rows of data. To select an entire row, click on the row number
(grey area).
Once you have clicked on the Sort… button, you will get the Sort dialog-box where you can specify
what field(s) you want to Sort by and in which Order – ascending (A to Z) or descending (Z to A). Note
that if the range content is numeric, the Order choices become ascending (smallest to largest) or
descending (largest to smallest).

 Exercise 3.5: Sort Rows in a Worksheet

Learn how to sort your information in a worksheet.
23. Return to the L03WildSales-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 3.4 with
the Animal worksheet activated, in Image View
24. To Sort rows of information using a range of numbers, with a header row:
Sort the Detail area rows by the Amount Due, in ascending order.
• Select rows 10:15

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 3

If you have selected the entire row for the range, the row numbers change colour.
• Click on the Sort tool in the Sort & Filter group on the Data tab ribbon

• Make sure that My data has headers is checked, then use the drop-down Sort by
menu to select the Amt Due field
• There is no need to change he Order field as it is Smallest to Largest, in ascending
order, by default
• Click OK

Note that the order of transactions has changed on your Animals sheet and automatically,
because of the 3-D Referencing, on your Report sheet as well.
25. To Sort rows of information using a range of text, withOUT a header row:
Sort the Detail area rows by the Names, in descending order.
• Select rows 11:15
• Click on the Sort tool in the Sort & Filter group on the Data tab ribbon
• Make sure that My data has headers is UNchecked, then use the drop-down Sort by
menu to select Column A
• Use the drop-down arrow in the Order box to select Z-A to in Descending order
• Click OK

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 3

26. Save the workbook as L03WildSales-studentnumber.xlsx and CLOSE the workbook

27. Upload your solution to the SMark project FCS Excel Lesson 3.1 and CHECK the feedback
report, to ensure that you completed this set of exercises 100% correctly – if not:
i. Return to the relevant concept explanations to improve your understanding
ii. Check that you have followed the relevant Exercise instruction exactly

E. Handling Errors
Part of being computer literate (not passing the course but actually being able to use the computer!) is
that you can fix problems you may have when you are working on the computer. Here are some of the
problems you may encounter in spreadsheets.
Undo Tool
If you enter something into a cell and the result is not what you expected, remember to use the Undo
tool on the Quick Access Toolbar. This will UNDO the last task and return your worksheet to what it
looked like before you did it. The Undo tool also has a down-arrow, which show a list of the
most recent tasks you have done. If you have made a complete mess, you can Undo more than one
task by selecting the task from the list where things started to go wrong.
Circular Reference
When an expression refers back to its own cell, either directly or indirectly, it is called a circular
reference. A small blue diamond appears in the cell(s) with a circular reference. A message appears
in the Status area at the bottom-left of your MS Excel window, telling you exactly which cell the circular
reference may be found.
If your workbook was saved with a circular reference, you will get a warning message when you open
the file:

Make sure that you never leave these in place; you need to check your formulas in the particular cell
address and the formulas in the cells you are referencing to find the own cell reference and then
eliminate it.
########## / Adjusting Column Width
If you type in an expression and the result is a row of hashes – ###### – all this means is that your
column is not wide enough. All you need to do is point your mouse to the right border of the column
label containing the #s so that your mouse pointer changes from the usual arrow to and double-
click (keep your mouse steady when you do this). MS-Excel will automatically make the adjustment
for you.
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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 3

#Value! / #Name?
If you get one of the above messages as a result of an expression, it means that you have referenced
something incorrectly – either referenced a cell that contains alphanumeric characters or spelt a
function name incorrectly.
#Div/0!
When you enter the design of your worksheet (implement) in MS Excel, you need to enter all the labels
and calculations, but you do not necessarily have any data yet. This may cause the above error
message, which means that you are trying to divide a number by zero – something you cannot
mathematically do – e.g. you may have used the AVERAGE(list) function correctly, but the error occurs
because there is no data in the list of cells. Check your expression with test data to see if the result is
what you would expect or if there is genuinely something wrong with your expression.

 Exercise 3.6: Sorting out Errors

Learn about the different tabs and dialog-boxes in MS Excel 2019.
1. Download the project FCS Excel Lesson 3.6 data file from SMark,
L03Errors-studentnumber.xlsx
Save the document, using the SAME file name, in the required location
2. When you open the workbook, you may get the warning message indicating that the
workbook contains at least 1 circular reference – click on OK – you will correct this error in
the tasks below
3. Update the Date and Author in the Documentation sheet (cells B3, B5 and C5) as you
have done before and then move to the Errors worksheet
4. To correct a Circular Reference:
• The message in your Status Bar indicates that the circular
reference is in cell D1
• Click on cell D1 and look at the formula in the Formula Bar – =B1*D1 – this formula is
IN cell D1, so the RESULT of cell D1 cannot be part of the formula
• The formula should probably be B1 multiplied by C1 and not D1 – edit the formula and
press Enter
Note that the Circular References indicator in the Status Bar has disappeared
5. To correct a #DIV/0 error:
• Click on cell D5 and review the formula in the Formula Bar – you are trying to divide
456 by zero and this is not possible
• Change the value in cell C5 to 2 – you have removed the error and now have a result
6. To correct a #NAME? error:
• Review the formula in cell D7 – can you figure out what is missing from the range in the
SUM(list)?
• Fix the range entry in cell D7 – you should have eradicated the error
• Review the formula in cell D8 and correct the typing error
7. To correct a #VALUE! error:

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 3

• Review the formula in cell D10 – the formula looks fine, but MS Excel cannot perform
the calculation
• Look at the content of the cells addresses used in the calculation – do they contain
numbers or text?
• Change the text content of the cell to the number 10 to fix this error
A trick to determine if something that may look like a number, IS actually a number:
widen the column and see if the number is left-aligned or right-aligned – MS Excel
automatically left-aligns text by default and automatically right-aligns numbers by
default. So if your seeming number is left-aligned, MS Excel sees the number as text.
To fix this, change the number format to General and if that does not help, then delete
the cell content, set the number format to General again and re-type the number. This
often happens when students enter the decimal comma instead of the decimal point.
8. Use the shortcut that you learned above, to select the sheet and automatically have MS
Excel sort out the column-width problem for you.
9. Save the workbook as L03Errors-studentnumber.xlsx and CLOSE the workbook
10. Upload your solution to the SMark project FCS Excel Lesson 3.6 and CHECK the feedback
report, to ensure that you completed this set of exercises 100% correctly – if not:
i. Return to the relevant concept explanations to improve your understanding
ii. Check that you have followed the relevant Exercise instruction exactly

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 4

4. Working with Worksheets

Worksheets can be made more usable, useful and professional by choosing appropriate settings, to
make them easier to maintain & use, as well as make them easier to read for your audience.
Worksheet formatting refers to the way a worksheet is laid out on a page. MS Excel offers a variety of
page layout and formatting options that affect how the content appears. You can customize many
settings e.g. the margins, page orientation, paper size, headers, footers and page numbers. When you
use worksheet settings, they are applied to only that sheet in a MS Excel worksheet.
Many of the worksheet formatting settings are on the Layout, Design and Insert tab ribbons.
In this lesson you will learn to:
• work with headers and footers
• renaming worksheets
• arranging worksheets by copying, moving and deleting
• hiding or unhiding worksheets
• set margins
• change page orientation
• change paper size
• insert and delete page breaks
• preview & printing worksheets

Tip – Working with Worksheets

Make sure that your worksheets are named EXACTLY as instructed (watch out for random
spaces before and after) and need to be saved in the EXACT order specified, so that SMark
can find the work that you do on each worksheet.

A. Headers & Footers of Worksheets

A Header appears in the top Margin of a printed worksheet page and a Footer appears in the bottom
margin of a page. The Header and Footer prints on every page used to print an individual worksheet
(or section of a worksheet). Headers and footers often contain titles, page numbers, dates or other
reference information. Headers and footers make your worksheets look more professional, as well as
making it easier to find your place in large worksheets.
The Header & Footer tool is found on the Insert tab ribbon.

When you click on the Header & Footer tool, a contextual Design tab ribbon becomes available.

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There are different types of Headers / Footers:

 text of your choice – you used this in Exercise 2.3
task 15
 a number of different tools in the Header & Footer
Elements group to insert an automated element
 a choice of individual elements or a combination of
elements in the Header & Footer group – e.g. file
path, file name & page number
The default alignment of header and footer content is
dependent on where the content is placed. Both the header
and the footer are divided into 3 areas – left block, centre
block & right block – and the default alignment is left-aligned,
centred & right-aligned respectively. Use the formatting
tools on the Home tab ribbon to format and / or change the
alignment of content.
In this module, we will only handle the text option, aligned in different ways.

 Exercise 4.1: Insert and Delete Headers/Footers

Learn about inserting and deleting text in the headers & footers of a worksheet.
1. Download and open the project FCS Excel Lesson 4.1 data file from SMark,
L04Aphiwe-studentnumber.xlsx
Save the workbook, using the SAME file name, in the required location
2. Complete the Documentation information on Sheet1: yyyy/mm/dd date (B3), your
name and surname (B5) and your student number (C5)
3. To insert Text in a Header:
• Activate the Sheet2 worksheet and click on the Page Layout tool in the Worksheet
Views group on the View tab ribbon
• Click in the Header where Add header is shown

• Select the right area and type your module code (e.g. WRFV101 – no spaces before,
in the middle or after) – notice that module code is automatically right-aligned
• To insert the Title of the workbook in the header of other sheets:
Note that this is a design issue – placing the exact title from the Documentation sheet,
in the Header of all the OTHER sheets and your name & student number in the Footer
– where you put them is usually not specified, which means that you can put it in
wherever you like, but if the task is specific in terms of location, then please follow that
instruction.
 Click on the Sheet1 tab and copy the title from cell B1
 Click on the Sheet2 tab – you should still be able to see the Header blocks at the
top of the sheet; but if not, redo the process to show this area
 Click on the centre-area of the Header and then use the Paste tool in the
Clipboard group on the Home tab ribbon to paste the title in your Header – the title
text is now displayed in the centre of your Header, centred in the centre area

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 Click on the Sheet3 tab and repeat the Paste process, then do the same for
Sheet4 – you can ignore the Sheet5 & Background worksheets for now
4. To move quickly between the Header and the Footer in a worksheet:
• Go to Sheet2 and, if you have deselected the Header, click anywhere in
the Header area
• Click on the Go to Footer tool in the Navigation group on the contextual
Design tab ribbon to quickly move to the Footer of a worksheet
If you are in the Footer and you want to return to the Header, click on the Go to Header
tool in the same group. Alternatively, you can page up and down using a variety of tools,
but the quickest way to move between the Header and Footer areas is to use these
Navigation group tools.
5. To insert Text in a Footer:
In your design solutions, you need to remember to put your name and student number in
the Footer of all the OTHER sheets – this information is already in row 5 of the
Documentation sheet, so it is not necessary to repeat this information in the Header or
Footer of this sheet.
• Click in the left-area of the footer and type your Name, Surname & student number
• Click anywhere in the grid to de-select the Footer
• Repeat this for Sheet3 and Sheet4
6. You need to return to Normal view for each sheet (Workbook Views group on the
View tab ribbon), once you have finished inserting your Headers and Footers, to make
it easier to refer to column and row labels.
7. Save the workbook using the same filename L04Aphiwe-studentnumber.xlsx and
keep it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 4.2

Tip – When working on Design Solutions

You should ALWAYS start with these 4 tasks:
 Complete the Documentation sheet
 Copy and paste (without any formatting) the Title of the workbook from the
Documentation sheet to the Header of ALL other sheets
 Add your name, surname and student number to the Footer of ALL other sheets
 Return all your other sheets to Normal view

B. Renaming Worksheets
In Exercise 2.8, task 35, you renamed a worksheet that had the default name of Sheet1 to Report, by
clicking on the Sheet Name tab and typing Report.

 Exercise 4.2: Naming Worksheets

Learn about renaming worksheets.
1. Return to the L04Aphiwe-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 4.1
2. To Rename worksheets:
All new sheets get the default name of Sheet# - the number (#) will depend on how many
other sheets also have the default name.

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• Double-click on the name Sheet1 (the name is selected) and type Documentation –
note that you do not need to delete the selection first, it automatically gets deleted as
soon as you start typing
• Click anywhere in the grid to deselect the sheet name tab or press Enter
• Rename the other sheets as follows:
 Sheet2 becomes Flowers – as indicated on the Documentation sheet
 Sheet3 becomes Extras
 Sheet4 becomes Report
Ignore Sheet5 & Background worksheets for now.
3. Save the document using the same filename L04Aphiwe-studentnumber.xlsx and keep
it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 4.3

C. Hiding or Unhiding Worksheets

In fairly complex workbooks, you may have fixed data that you do not want the reader to see – you use
3D Referencing to access this data, but you want to Hide it from the reader. If the fixed data needs to
be updated later, you want to be able to Unhide the worksheet, make your changes, then hide it again.

Tip – Accessing either end of a list of Worksheets

If you have a lot of worksheets in one workbook, only some of their names are shown below the
grid – indicated by … at the beginning and / or end of the list.

To see the sheet tabs to the left or right, click on the left or right arrow keys on the left of the list.

 Exercise 4.3: Hide a Worksheet

Learn how to hide & unhide worksheets.
11. Return to the L04Aphiwe-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 4.2
12. To Hide a worksheet:
• Right-click on the Sheet tab name Background
• Click on the Hide option in the pop-up menu
13. To Unhide a worksheet:
• Right-click on ANY other the Sheet tab name
• Click on the Unhide option in the pop-up menu

• In THIS exercise, you want the sheet to remain hidden, so click Cancel – but if you did
want to unhide the sheet, in the Unhide dialog-box, click on the sheet name of the
worksheet that you want to unhide and click OK
14. Save the document using the same filename L04Aphiwe-studentnumber.xlsx and keep
it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 4.4
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D. Arranging Worksheets
When you want to insert a worksheet, always click on the sheet tab that should be before the new
worksheet that you want to insert. But if you forget and add a new sheet in the wrong position, you can
always move it to a new position in the list of sheets at the bottom of the grid. Sometimes, if you need
to create a similar sheet to an existing sheet – e.g. you create a sheet for January, then instead of
creating the other months’ sheets from scratch, you copy the January sheet over and over (11 times)
and then rename edit each copy to indicate the other 11 months of the year. If you have too many
sheets in your workbook, you can always delete it – but note that once it is deleted, you cannot UNDO
that task – it is permanently deleted.

 Exercise 4.4: Arrange Worksheets

Learn how to insert, add, delete, copy or move a worksheet.
15. Return to the L04Aphiwe-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 4.3
16. To Add a worksheet after a specific worksheet:
You have already done this in Exercise 2.8 task 35.
• Click on the sheet tab name, AFTER which, you want the new worksheet to be added –
for this exercise, click on the Report sheet tab
• Click on the tool next to the final sheet tab at the bottom of your window – a new
sheet is added between the Report and Sheet5 worksheets
• Rename this new sheet Added

17. To Insert a worksheet before a specific worksheet:

• Right-click on the Sheet tab name that you want the new worksheet to
be to the left of (before) – Sheet5
• Click on the Insert... option in the pop-up menu

• Select the Worksheet option in the pop-up dialog-box and then click on OK – a new
worksheet appears between the Added and Sheet5 worksheets
• Rename this worksheet Inserted

18. To Move a worksheet:

You want to move Sheet5 to appear on the list BEFORE the Added worksheet – i.e. between
Report and Added

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• Move your mouse-pointer to the sheet tab name you want to move – Sheet5 – hold the
left mouse button down – a move indicator will appear above the top-left corner of the
sheet tab

• Drag the move indicator to the left, until it is between the 2 sheets that you want to
move the sheet to, as shown above, and then release your left-mouse button

Sheet5 is now located between the Report and Added

worksheets
An ALTERNATIVE method is to right-click on the Sheet tab
name that you want to move and indicate on the Move or
Copy dialog-box the name of the sheet the you want the
sheet to be positioned Before.
• Use your method of choice to move the Report sheet
between the Flowers and Extras worksheets

19. To Copy a worksheet:

You want to copy the Flowers sheet to position the copy at the end of the list of worksheets.
• Right-click on the Flowers sheet and select Move or
copy… from the pop-up menu
• Select the (move to end) option in the Move or Copy
dialog-box and click on Create a copy check-box, then click
OK
A copy of the Flowers worksheet, named Flowers (2) is now
positioned at the end of your list of worksheets

20. To delete worksheets:

• To delete a single sheet, right-click on the sheet tab – Sheet5 – and click on Delete
from the pop-up menu – an alternative method is to select the sheet tab of the sheet
you want to delete and use the shortcut combination keys Ctrl+E+L and then click on
the Delete button in the pop-up message window and Cancel if you want to abort the
deletion.
• To delete multiple sheets:
 If the sheets you want to delete are adjacent, click on the first sheet on the list, hold
the Shift modifier key, click on the first and last sheets to select all the sheets on the
list and release the Shift key OR
If the sheets you want to delete are non-adjacent, click on the first sheet that you
want to delete, hold the Ctrl modifier key and click on each of the remaining sheets
you want to delete and release the Ctrl key
Select Added and Inserted worksheets using either method
 Right-click anywhere in the selected names and then click on Delete from the pop-
up menu
Your list of sheets should appear as follows:

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21. Save the worksheet as L04Aphiwe-studentnumber.xlsx and CLOSE the worksheet –

remember that you can use the Save icon from the Quick Access toolbar OR the Save
option in the File tab menu
22. Upload your solution to the SMark project FCS Excel Project 4.1 and CHECK the
feedback report, to ensure that you completed this set of exercises 100% correctly – if not:
i. Return to the relevant concept explanations to improve your understanding
ii. Check that you have followed the relevant Exercise instruction exactly

E. Print Settings & Print Preview

There are many print settings you can use, to create a professional-looking document to present to
your audience. First-impressions count a lot for people to decide to really look at a document and
engage with the content, or dismiss it as nonsense – not necessarily because the document contains
nonsense, but because it looks bad!

Margins
Margins are the blank spaces that edge the top, bottom, and left and right sides of a worksheet. The
margin settings are on the Page Layout tab ribbon in the Page Setup group.

 Exercise 4.5: Page Margins

Learn about using pre-set & customising Margins.
1. Download and open the project FCS Excel Lesson 4.5 data file from
SMark – L04Vehicles-studentnumber.xlsx
Save the workbook, using the SAME file name, in the required
location
2. To change the Margins for printing a worksheet:
• Click on the List sheet tab to activate that worksheet
• Click the Margins option on the Page Layout tab ribbon in the
Page Setup group – a drop-down menu will appear
• At the bottom of the dropdown menu, click Custom Margins…
– the Page Setup dialog-box will appear

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Note: The margin settings for this worksheet, Top & Bottom are set at 0.75” (1.9cm),
Left and Right are set at 0.7” (1.8cm) and the Header & Footer are set at 0.3” (0.8cm).
• Change the Top margin to 1.5” (3.81cm) by clicking the up-arrow until it is
on 1.5” or typing the measurement in the text-box

The top margin has increases substantially from the norm, if you look at the Page
Layout view.
• Click OK
3. Click on both check-boxes to centre this worksheet both ways on the page – a useful
setting, is to centre the worksheet content on a page – Horizontally, Vertically or both
Check what this looks like in the next exercise
4. Save the document using the same filename L04Vehicles-studentnumber.xlsx and keep
it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 4.6

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Print Preview
You can check what your Print settings will look like on the page WITHOUT actually printing the
worksheet – save the trees!

 Exercise 4.6: How to check your Print Settings

Learn about using Print Preview to check what your printed page would look like.
5. Return to the L04Vehicles-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 4.5 and
make sure that the List worksheet is still selected
6. Click on the Print Preview and Print tool in the Quick Access menu, that you added in
Exercise 1.2 task 13 – alternatively, select the Print option on the File tab menu
Back
Button

You can see the horizontal centre-align on page 3 of the Print Preview
7. Click on the Back button to return to your worksheet
8. Save the document using the same filename L04Vehicles-studentnumber.xlsx and keep
it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 4.7

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Page Orientation
Page Orientation refers to the direction in which a worksheet is printed on the paper. It has two types;
Portrait (vertical) and Landscape (horizontal).
The settings for Orientation are on the Page Layout tab ribbon in the Page Setup group.

 Exercise 4.7: Page Orientation

Learn about changing the page orientation of a worksheet.
9. Return to the L04Vehicles-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 4.6 and
make sure that the List worksheet is still selected
10. To change the page Orientation of a worksheet:
The current orientation is Landscape and you need to change this to Portrait.
• Click on the Orientation tool, on the Page Layout tab ribbon in the Page Setup group,
and set the Orientation to Portrait
Check the Print Preview to see how the image of the printed page for the List worksheet
has changed.
11. Save the document using the same filename L04Vehicles-studentnumber.xlsx and keep
it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 4.8

See the images on the next page

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 4

(1) (3)

(2) (4)
This does not look very good yet and you would have to stick printed together with tape to allow the
reader to make sense of them – learn about more settings, to get this worksheet to print better.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 4

Paper Size
The standard paper size in South Africa is A4, which measures 8.27”x11.69”. The
default paper size in your installation of MS Excel is probably Letter 8.5”x11” or
A4 as indicated above. But there are a number of options for Paper Size to use,
depending on what you are trying to achieve.
To see more sizes, click on More Paper Sizes… at the bottom of the dropdown
menu.
An alternative method to change the paper Size is in the Print settings on the File
tab menu – click on the down-arrow to see a similar list of options.

 Exercise 4.8: Paper Size

Learn about changing the paper size, depending on the type of worksheet you are working with.
12. Return to the L04Vehicles-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 4.7 and
make sure that the List worksheet is still selected
13. Check what paper Size this worksheet was set to – Letter – by clicking on the Size down-
arrow in the Page Setup group on the Layout tab ribbon
14. To change the Paper Size:
• Click on the Size down-arrow in the Page Setup group on the Layout tab ribbon
• Click on the usually used size of A4
If you used the setting in the Print list of settings, you will see a slight change in your Print
Preview.
15. Save the document using the same filename L04Vehicles-studentnumber.xlsx and keep
it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 4.9

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 4

Page Breaks
When content fills a page, MS Excel automatically creates a new page – if your content is too wide to
fit on one page, MS Excel will print all the pages with the left content and then the next pages on the
right, etc.

Often these page breaks are in awkward positions. But you can make it better in a number of ways:
 You can insert a page break manually at any point in a worksheet by clicking on
the Insert tab and clicking on the Break tool in the Page Setup group.
 Page Break Preview from the View tab ribbon, as shown above, will show you
what cells will be printed on each page – you can change this by dragging the
broken-lines up / down or left/right. Note that this will also change the size of the
content, as it may need to be made smaller or bigger to fit the way you want it to.
 Scaling using the Page Setup dialog-box by adjusting the zoom to a % of normal size or fitting
the content to a certain number of pages wide and tall – note that you can also use this dialog-
box to set many other settings on the different tabs.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 4

 Exercise 4.9: Insert and Remove Page Breaks

Learn about inserting and deleting manual page breaks in a worksheet.
16. Return to the L04Vehicles-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 4.8 and
make sure that the List worksheet is still selected
17. Portrait orientation is not working out so well, so change the Orientation back to
Landscape – check how the Print Preview has changed to leave ONE column hanging on
extra pages (3 & 4)
18. To Fit content to a certain number of pages:
• Click on the Page Setup dialog-box launcher
• Select to Scale the content to Fit to: 1 page wide and 2 tall

Check the Print Preview – only a couple of rows are printed on page 3 which is a waste
of a whole page
19. To Move a Page Break:
• Activate Page Break View in the Worksheet Views group on the View tab ribbon
• Drag-and-drop the page break at the end of Page 1 down 1 row – note how Page 3 has
disappeared as both page lengths changed
20. Save the worksheet using the same filename L04Vehicles-studentnumber.xlsx and keep
it open as you will be using it again in Exercise 4.10

General Print Settings

The printed pages are not so easy to read without lines to help the reader’s eyes stay on the same row
from left to right (Gridlines) and the 2nd page does not show the headings (Rows to repeat at the top).
You may also NOT require ALL the data to be printed (Set print area) or you may want to add the row
and column headings.

 Exercise 4.10: Experiment with Different Print Settings

Learn the effects of different print settings.
1. Return to the L04Vehicles-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 4.9 and make
sure that the List worksheet is still selected, in Normal view
2. To add a number of different settings using the Page Setup dialog-box:
• On the Page tab, select:
 Landscape Orientation
 Fit to: 1 page wide and 2 pages tall
 Paper size: A4
• On the Sheet tab, select:
 Click on the Rows to repeat at top: up-arrow , then click on the row 1 label (in the
grey area) to select the row of heading labels and click on the down-arrow

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 4

 Click on the Gridlines check-box

 Click on the Row and column headings check-box

• Click on the Print Preview button to check the effects of your selections and view both
pages – note that the headings are repeated

• The row and columns headings are really not needed – deselect this option on the Sheet
tab of the Page Setup dialog box
3. To Set the Print area:
This can be set using the Print Setup dialog box or the Print Area tool in the Page Setup
group on the Page Layout tab ribbon – select to print only the range A2:F30 with heading
labels.
• The headings have already been set as Title rows, so only select the range A2:F30
• Click on Set Print Area in the drop-down menu of the Print Area tool in the Page Setup
group on the Page Layout tab ribbon
• You are not printing all the columns anymore, so you
can re-set the Orientation to Portrait
Check the Print Preview again – your single page
to be printed
4. Save the worksheet as L04Vehicles-
studentnumber.xlsx and CLOSE the worksheet –
remember that you can use the Save icon from the
Quick Access toolbar OR the Save option in the File
tab menu
5. Upload your solution to the SMark project FCS Excel
Project 4.5 and CHECK the feedback report, to ensure
that you completed this set of exercises 100% correctly
– if not:
i. Return to the relevant concept explanations to
improve your understanding
ii. Check that you have followed the relevant Exercise
instruction exactly
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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 4

F. Printing
To help you save your printing quota – DO NOT actually print anything in THIS LESSON, only learn
how to set it up so that you know what to do when you have to print something.

The Print command is located on the File tab

 Exercise 4.11: Print

Learn how to use Print of a Ms Word document. DO NOT actually click on the Print button –
do not waste paper!
1. Return to the L04Vehicles-studentnumber.docx, saved at the end of Exercise 4.10 and
click on the Lists sheet tab
2. Click on the File tab and then select Print in the menu on the left – note that in the Dept CS
labs, the Printer will automatically be set to the available printer in that particular lab where
you are working
3. The Print Preview is shown on the right of the screen – you can page through the
worksheet using the paging arrows on the screen, to check if your document looks OK or
needs to be edited before you actually print it
4. To understand what the different Print Settings are for:
Each setting has a drop-down menu of options – click on the down-arrow in each box and
review the options

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• Print Active Sheets:

 You could select to use Print Active Sheets, the Print
Entire Workbook or Print Selection. In addition, you can
Ignore the Print Area set
 If you have a large number of pages, you could select to only
print certain Pages – e.g. from page 2 to page 6
• You will save a lot of paper when you print on both sides of
the paper. Click the arrow next to Print One Sided or Print on Both Sides – note that
you can select to flip the pages on the long edge (for portrait stapling) or in the short
edge (for landscape stapling)
• Collated or Uncollated is used depending how you want multiple copies of a multi-page
workbook / worksheet to print – do you want all the pages of each set to be printed
sequentially, before starting the next set (Collated) or do you want each page to be
printed for the multiple copies, before printing the next page the required number of times
(Uncollated) sequentially; this depends on what you are going
to do with the multiple copies
• Do you want to Orient the pages Portrait or Landscape –
the default is that the printer will use however you have set up
the pages within your worksheet
• What size paper do you want the printer to use – the default
is the size you have set within your worksheet
• Do you want to change the margins of the page – the default
is how you have set the margins in your worksheet
• Another way to save paper is to use Custom Scaling where
you can either print as you have set the scaling within the
worksheet or fit the worksheet contents in three different ways
5. You do not need to print this document. If this is a document that you want to print, set the
number of copies you want to print and click the Print button.

6. CLOSE the document without saving it and close MS Excel

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 5

5. Creating Charts
In reports (assignments), it is easier for the reader see the point you are trying to make in reference to
data collected, if that data is organised into a picture – i.e. a graphical representation of numeric data
created using the chart tools in MS Excel.
There are many different types of charts – you choose the type of chart to use, depending on the type
of data you have and what point you are trying to make by showing numeric data in chart form.
In this Lesson you will learn to:
• Build charts
• Add design elements to charts
• Modify charts

Only four main types of charts are used in this course – however you can use the skills you learn here,
to build any of the other types of charts in MS Excel or indeed, a combination of chart types in one
image, depending on the data you have collected for reports to submit in other modules or your
workplace.
Type Description Use Data Example
Column Vertical bars, using different Comparison of Categories on
colours for different data sets with values horizontal axis and
short category labels values on vertical axis

Bar Horizontal bars, using different Comparison of Categories on vertical

(similar to colours for different data sets with values axis and values on
column) long category labels horizontal axis

Line A line connecting data points Trends of Time on horizontal

representing values values over axis and values on
time vertical axis

Pie Circular pie, showing slices of the Shows data as Data that adds up to
pie in different colours for different a % portion of 100% of a single
data items the whole category

Doughnut Circular band, showing sections in Shows data as Data that adds up to
(type of different colours for different data a % portion of 100% of a single
Pie) items the whole category

XY Shows relationships using points Correlation Independent variable

Scatter for between two on horizontal axis and
different sets dependent variable on
of values vertical axis

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 5

Scenario Used in the Exercises

You are the Sales Director of a national company, with branches in 6 cities in South Africa. You get
the sales figures from the accounting system the company uses, but you want to use these figures to
illustrate various points for a report that you need to present at the next Board Meeting.
You decide to put the sales figures into a spreadsheet and create various charts to put in your report.

A. Building Charts
Planning your chart, as with any other task, is important:
1. Select the data, with related labels, that you want to illustrate graphically.
2. Identify the type of chart that would be most appropriate to use.
3. Decide what labels you want to use for the title, X-axis, Y-axis and legend*– note that usually,
one only uses a legend if you use more than one set of data
4. Where you will place your chart – same worksheet as the data or in its own separate sheet
5. What chart elements will you include to enhance the readability of the information represented
* A Legend is a key to identify which colour in the chart, represents which category

 Exercise 5.1: Inserting Charts

Learn about the different tabs and dialog-boxes in MS Excel 2019.
1. Download and open the project FCS Excel Lesson 5.1 data file from SMark,
L05Sales-studentnumber.xlsx
Save the workbook, using the SAME file name, in the required location
2. Complete the Documentation sheet (B3, B5 & C5) and then select to the Quarterly sheet
3. Use the SUM() function to provide the totals of the columns in B8:E8 (fill right) and the
totals of the rows in F2:F8 (fill down)
4. Format all the numbers in B2:F8 as Currency, NO decimal places
5. To insert a chart:
Create a chart to compare the sales per quarter for each branch.
• Select A1:E7 – note that you should always include the labels in
the selection, to automatically populate the relevant chart
elements
• Click on the down-arrow next to the Insert Column or Bar
Chart tool in the Charts group on the Insert tab ribbon
Allow your mouse pointer (without clicking) to hover over the
various options provided to see the different types of Column &
Bar charts that are available in this drop-down menu.
• Click on the Clustered Column option in the drop-down menu

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The chart appears somewhere on your Quarterly Worksheet

6. To change the message of a chart:
You realise that what you are comparing is actually the sales per branch for each quarter,
which is not what you were looking for.
• Select the chart and click on the Switch Row/Column tool in the Data
group on the contextual Design tab ribbon

Notice how you can change the message of the chart, using exactly the same data,
merely by switching the row/column arrangement.
7. To change the location of a chart:
MS Excel places new charts within the worksheet containing the data by default.
You do not want the chart to clutter your data, so you want to move the chart to its
own sheet.
• Select the chart and click on the Move Chart Location tool in the Data group on
the contextual Design tab ribbon

• In the Move Chart dialog-box, click on New sheet:, type the name Column in the text-
box and click OK
• Move the Column chart-sheet to after the Quarterly worksheet
8. Using the data on the Quarterly worksheet:
• Create a Line with Markers chart showing the sales of the JHB and PTA over the 4
quarters (A1:E3) – use a similar method to the above, by clicking on the Insert Line or
Area Chart tool in the Charts group on the Insert tab ribbon

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• To move the chart to the cells B10:F22 – so that it does not obscure any data
 Drag-and-drop the image so that the top-left corner of the chart is just inside the top-
left lines of the cell B10
 Drag-and-drop the bottom-right size-handle to just inside the bottom-right lines of
the cell F22

Warning: When you need to re-size a chart and position it within a specific range of
cells, do NOT attempt to place the corners of the chart up against the corners of the
cells – it is too easy to just tip it over the edge into an adjacent cell and SMark will then
mark the position as incorrect.
9. To create a chart using non-adjacent ranges:
Create a doughnut pie chart, in its own sheet named Doughnut, of the total branch sales
for all the branches.
• Select the label range for the branches on the Quarterly worksheet (A1:A7)
• Hold the Ctrl key down while you select the range for branch totals (F1:F7) and then let
go the Ctrl key – note this is how you were taught to select non-adjacent cells in a
previous lesson

• Launch the Insert Chart dialog-box

(arrow in bottom-right corner of the
Charts group on the Insert tab ribbon)
and then click on the All Charts tab in
the dialog-box to show the different
types of charts available
This is an alternative method to select a
chart type to insert in your workbook.
• Click on the Pie option on the left of the
dialog-box, and click on the different pie-
chart options available in the horizontal
list at the top – examples of what each
type of chat will look like are shown
below

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FCS Excel (Basics) Lesson 5

• Once you have clicked on the Doughnut option, click OK to create the chart
• Move the chart to its own chart-sheet named Doughnut and move this sheet between
the Quarterly and Column sheets

10. To create an XY Scatter chart:

You want to show the relationship between the number of staff in each branch and the total
branch sales, where the branch sales are shows as the number of R10 000 (view the
expression in cells C2:C7)
• Select the data with labels – A1:C7 on the Staff sheet
• Insert an XY Scatter chart using your method of choice
• Move the top left corner of the chart, to (just inside) cell F2

11. Save the document using the same filename L05Sales-studentnumber.xlsx and keep it
open as you will be using it again in Exercise 5.2

B. Adding Design Elements to a Chart

The charts have all been created, with automatic labelling of data on the X-axis, Y-axis and Legends,
but none of them have an appropriate title and in some case, it would be more valuable to add some
information about each chart entry, for your audience.

 Exercise 5.2: Editing & Formatting Charts

Learn about enhancing the value of your charts, to make your points clearer.
Note: Always click on the chart to activate the contextual Chart Tools: Design and Format tabs
12. Return to the L05Sales-studentnumber.xlsx, saved at the end of Exercise 5.1
13. To edit the Chart Title:
• Click on the Column chart-sheet tab to see the chart
• Click on the text Chart Title at the top of the chart – it is merely a text-box and you need
to change the text
• Change the text to Comparison of Branch Sales

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14. To add Chart Elements:

• Click on the Add Chart Element tool in the contextual
Design tab ribbon and run your mouse pointer down the
list, to see the options available for each element, as
indicated by the right-pointing arrowhead next to each item
– the greyed-out items are not available for the particular
chart type we have selected – the Column chart
• To add Axis Titles:
 Click on the Primary Horizontal option in the drop-
down menu
 Replace the Axis Title text in the text-box at the bottom
of the chart, with the text Quarter Sales
 Change the Primary Vertical axis title to Sales in Rand
 Format both Axis labels (titles) to italics (they are both already bold – do not remove
this)

• To add Data Labels:

It is useful to the reader to see the exact value used by the graphical representation
 Select the chart and point to the Data Labels option on the Add Chart Element tool
on the Design tab ribbon
 Click on the Outside End option

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• To add Gridlines:
Gridlines make it easier for the reader to map the entry to the Y-axis values – the chart
already has Primary Major Horizontal gridlines – we will add Primary Minor Horizontal
gridlines.
 Select the chart and point to the Gridlines option on the Add Chart Element tool on
the Design tab ribbon
 Click on the Primary Minor Horizontal gridlines option

• To Remove or Position a Legend:

The X-Axis Title is obscured by the Legend – the chart would read more easily if the
Legend was positioned elsewhere. NEVER drag-and-drop the Legend to a new
position; ALWAYS use the Add Chart Element tool to re-position the Legend.
 Select the chart and point to the Legend option on the Add Chart Element tool on
the Design tab ribbon
 Click on the Top legend option

15. Change the Design Style of a chart:

• Click on the Design Style 12 tool in the Chart Styles group on the Design tab ribbon –
tip: click on the more down arrow on the right of the group to see all available styles and
then move your mouse pointer over the styles until you get the tool-tip indicating
Design Style 12

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16. Add a Specific Data Series as Data Labels:

• Select the chart on the Doughnut chart-sheet
• Click on More Data Label Options in the Data Labels drop-
down menu under Add Chart Element – the Format Data
Labels side-panel will appear on the right
• Click on the check-boxes to make sure that the check-boxes
from Value From Cells, Series Name, Value and Percentage are
blank and that only Category Name is checked
• Close the side-panel (X top right)
17. Remove a Chart Element:
As you have added the Category Names to the data items in the chart, the Legend is
superfluous (unnecessary).
• Select the chart on the Doughnut chart-sheet if not still selected from the previous task
• Click on the None option in the Legend drop-down menu under Add Chart Element

18. Save the worksheet as L05Sales-studentnumber.xlsx and CLOSE the worksheet –

remember that you can use the Save icon from the Quick Access toolbar OR the Save
option in the File tab menu
19. Upload your solution to the SMark project FCS Excel Project 5.1 and CHECK the
feedback report, to ensure that you completed this set of exercises 100% correctly – if not:
i. Return to the relevant concept explanations to improve your understanding
ii. Check that you have followed the relevant Exercise instruction exactly

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FCS Excel (Basics) Projects

Projects
Check your module’s weekly Guides to find out which Projects you are required to do AND the file
specifications of workbooks for saving or opening.
Project 1. Formulas
Lessons 1 - 2
1. Open a browser (Chrome or Internet Explorer recommended) and locate the SMARK system
(https://smark.converttocode.com. Login to the system using your mandela.ac.za email
address and the password indicated for in the A05 Additional Learning Material document –
DO NOT change the password.
2. Select to attempt FCS Excel Project 01 Formulas
3. Download the data file from the system and save it in the location specified in the weekly
Guide – only change the filename if you have downloaded more than once; there should
be no version number – e.g. (1) – in the filename; otherwise do not change the filename.
P01Formulas-studentnumber.xlsx
4. Open the file you saved in 3 above, in MS Excel from your S: drive folder (location specified in
the weekly Guide).
5. Complete the Documentation sheet with the date (B3), your name and surname (B5) and your
student number (C5)
6. Use the title on the Documentation sheet as a centred Header on the Sheet1 sheet and put
your name, surname and student number, left-aligned in the Footer
7. For each of the calculations given below – use the cells in Sheet1 to create a formula to
calculate the answer in the relevant cell (use cell reference in the formulas, do not type the
actual numbers).
Formula
No
Cell Calculation
1 B12 Divide 800 by 6, then add 12.
2 B13 Subtract 6 from 54, and divide the answer by 7.
3 B14 Add 7 to the result of 3 multiplied by 54.
4 B15 3 Multiplied by 63.
Raise the result of 12 multiplied by 40 to the power of 3,
5 B16
then divide the result by the result of 6 added to 7.
8. Format the answers in cells B12 to B16 as numbers displaying 2 decimal places
9. Apply bold formatting to the text in cells A11 and B11
10. Rename Sheet1 to Practice. Do not change the order of the sheets.
11. Check your solution against the image in Normal view (i.e. without header and footer),
provided below.
12. Save the final version of your file (in the location specified in your weekly Guide). Before
closing the file in MS Excel, check in File Explorer that your file shows the current date & time
– if not, return to MS Excel and SAVE your final workbook as instructed.
Only when you have checked this date & time and are satisfied that they match your final save
action, CLOSE the file to ensure that you upload the latest edited version.

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13. Return to the SMARK system. Upload the P01Letter-studentnumber.xlsx file from the location
specified in your weekly Guide, for online checking (remove any version number in the filename).
If your upload is not accepted (indicated by a red X) do the following quickly, without wasting too much
time:
i. Is your filename correct and are you sure you edited the exact file you originally downloaded
from SMark?
ii. If so, then refresh your browser (press F5 key or click ) and try again.
iii. If still not working, log right out of SMark, close your browser, activate another browser if you
have one or, if not, restart your browser and try again.
If none of the above solved the problem, you may have to download a new starter file and redo the
tasks.
14. View the feedback report from your submission and check where you may have lost marks –
do NOT assume that you are right and SMark is wrong – try and figure out WHY you lost
marks by checking the following points:
i. The feedback item is numbered the same as the task item in the instructions above, so
that you can check back to the instruction to see what you should have done, if you
get less than full marks per task.
ii. Note that you want 0 for any tasks out of -1! Sometimes there is a -1 for tasks done
incorrectly – e.g. wrong file name.
iii. Check the instruction for that task and look at what you did, to make sure you
ACTUALLY did what was asked – fix it
iv. If you cannot see why, go and review how to do that task in relevant FCS Excel Lesson
workbook and redo each task that needs fixing.
Do NOT waste attempts by submitting the same solution (no changes) and expect a different
result!

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Project 2. Runners
Lessons 1 – 3
1. Open a browser (Chrome or Internet Explorer recommended) and locate the SMARK system
(https://smark.converttocode.com. Login to the system using your mandela.ac.za email
address and the password indicated for in the A05 Additional Learning Material document –
DO NOT change the password.
2. Select to attempt FCS Excel Project 02 Runners
3. Download the data file from the system and save it in the location specified in the weekly
Guide – only change the filename if you have downloaded more than once; there should
be no version number – e.g. (1) – in the filename; otherwise do not change the filename.
P02Runners-studentnumber.xlsx
4. Open the file you saved in 3 above, in MS Excel from your S: drive folder (location specified in
the weekly Guide).
Documentation Sheet & Headers/Footers:
5. Format the Title in B1 as follows:
• Font type Bodoni MT Black size 16pt
• Bold and underline
• Change the font colour to Standard Colour: Green
6. Type the date in B3 and your first-name & surname in cell B5 and your student number in cell
C5. Tip: drag-and-drop the column-widths if necessary (don’t use the alternative tip from Project
8-1 due to the long text in some of the cells in these two columns).
7. Change the Purpose in cell B7 to italics and the labels in cells A3:A9 to bold.
8. Copy the Title from the Documentation sheet to the centre of the Headers of the Athletes and
Report sheets, and put your name, surname and student number in the left Footers of both
those sheets.
Athletes Sheet:
The net amount for each athlete’s the income form their sponsors and income from wining their
events at various meets, less their membership and training fees with the cub coaching staff. The
club gets a percentage (5.3%) of the net amount, but only if the net amount is more than R0.00.
Allow for 7 athletes, even though there is only test data for 4.
9. Hide columns K:R (all the skills covered in Lesson 3!).
10. Format the cells containing labels as follows:
• Bold the text in A1:A2 & A5:H5
• Wrap all long detail headings in C5:D5 and F5:H5
• Update the column-widths of the whole sheet with 2 clicks (see how in the lessons above)
• Align the labels in A5:H5 in the middle of the row
• Shade the labels in A5:H5 using Theme Colour: Green, Accent 6, Lighter 60%
11. Format the cells containing numbers (do not include the labels) as follows – remember that you
need to allow for SEVEN rows of athletes (no more & no less!):
• Centre the numbers under the label Personal Best Times
• Use the Percentage Number format for B1, showing 2 decimal places
• Use the Currency Number format for B2, showing 0 decimal places
• Use the Format Painter to repeat the formatting of B2 in all the detail cells that contain
(or will contain) money amounts

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12. Use the quick access tool to add borders to your sheet (i.e. the weight/width of the line is pre-
set):
• A thick outside border to A1:B2 (the common area)
• Add all borders to the detail area
13. Add the missing calculations:
• G6: The net amount (as explained in the story above, in the exact order of the text, only
using mathematical operators – NO functions)
• H6: The amount owing to the club, depending on whether or not the net amount is >R0.00
(tip: use the IF function with R0 due if the net amount is negative)
=IF(net amount>0,net amount*club %,0)
• Fill down these formulas for the required number of athletes – check your absolute cell
addressing
14. Sort the detail rows in descending order of the Net Amount.
Report Sheet
15. Extract the details for the first row under the labels in A1:B1 – then fill down for ALL the rows
required.
16. Format all the labels to bold.
17. Format all the detail amounts to Currency with 2 decimal places.
18. Adjust the column widths of the sheet to match the column content.
19. Enter the calculations for the summary amounts, using listed functions when available:
• B10: the number of athletes listed (using the athletes’ names)
• B11: the average net amount, to the nearest cent
• B12: the total amount of sponsorship given to all the athletes
• B13: the highest club amount due, in whole Rand only (pay attention to the details in the
Report sheet)
20. Make sure all the summary amounts are formatted appropriately, with or without decimal
places, as indicated by the amounts and fix the column-width of column B if necessary.
21. Check your solution against the images provided below – note:
• <text> indicates that your information will be different in those cells
• Footers not shown but they need to be there
22. Save the final version of your file (in the location specified in your weekly Guide). Before
closing the file in MS Excel, check in File Explorer that your file shows the current date & time
– if not, return to MS Excel and SAVE your final workbook as instructed.
Only when you have checked this date & time and are satisfied that they match your final save
action, CLOSE the file to ensure that you upload the latest edited version.

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23. Return to the SMARK system. Upload the P02Runners-studentnumber.xlsx file from the
location indicated in the weekly Guide, for online checking (remove any version number in
the filename).
If your upload is not accepted (indicated by a red X) do the following quickly, without wasting
too much time:
i. Is your filename correct and are you sure you edited the exact file you originally
downloaded from SMark?
ii. If so, then refresh your browser (press F5 key or click ) and try again.
iii. If still not working, log right out of SMark, close your browser, activate another browser
if you have one or, if not, restart your browser and try again.
If none of the above solved the problem, you may have to download a new starter file and redo
the tasks.
24. View the feedback report from your submission and check where you may have lost marks –
do NOT assume that you are right and SMark is wrong – try and figure out WHY you lost
marks by checking the following points:
i. The feedback item is numbered the same as the task item in the instructions above, so
that you can check back to the instruction to see what you should have done, if you
get less than full marks per task.
ii. Note that you want 0 for any tasks out of -1! Sometimes there is a -1 for tasks done
incorrectly – e.g. wrong file name.
iii. Check the instruction for that task and look at what you did, to make sure you
ACTUALLY did what was asked – fix it
iv. If you cannot see why, go and review how to do that task in relevant FCS Excel Lesson
workbook and redo each task that needs fixing.
Do NOT waste attempts by submitting the same solution (no changes) and expect a different
result!

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Project 4. Tours
Lessons 1-4
Scenario:
You run a small business taking touring groups from Gqeberha around the Eastern and Western Cape,
using a luxury 10-seater mini-bus. You have negotiated a fixed price per person for accommodation
of R360 per night, no matter where you go on the tour. Additional costs of R30 per night for self-
catering places and R95 per night for Bed & Breakfast (B&B). You are trying to promote South Africans
to take your tours, so you give tours with people from South Africa (SA) a 25% discount.
Allow for 10 touring groups.
1. Open a browser (Chrome or Internet Explorer recommended) and locate the SMARK system
(https://smark.converttocode.com. Login to the system using your mandela.ac.za email
address and the password indicated for in the A05 Additional Learning Material document –
DO NOT change the password.
2. Select to attempt FCS Excel Project 04 Tours
3. Download the data file from the system and save it in the location specified in the weekly
Guide – only change the filename if you have downloaded more than once; there should
be no version number – e.g. (1) – in the filename; otherwise do not change the filename.
P04Tours-studentnumber.xlsx
4. Open the file you saved in 3 above, in MS Excel from your S: drive folder (location specified in
the weekly Guide).
Documentation Sheet & Headers/Footers:
5. Type the date in B3 and your first-name & surname in cell B5 and your student number in cell
C5.
6. Think about what the purpose of this workbook could be and enter this (SHORT) in cell B7
7. Format the Title and labels to bold – tip: worksheet NAMES are not labels.
8. Unhide columns H:M.
9. Select columns H:M and auto-set the column-widths for only those columns. This is a checklist
of skills you should have learned in Lesson 4. Check that you have learned how to do all
these tasks.
10. Copy the TEXT (not the formatting – i.e. copy from the Formula Bar and NOT the cell itself) of
the Title from the Documentation sheet to the centre of the Headers of the Summer and
Summer Report sheets, and put your name, surname and student number in the left Footers
of both those sheets.
PTO

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Summer Sheet
11. Format various cells as follows:
• Bold the heading labels only – tips: NO other cells should be bold and include the cells
B2:B3 as they are also labels; remember to select one cell and then hold down the CTRL
key to select all the others you require, then click on bold on the Home tab ribbon.
• Format all the money amounts to Currency, with 2 decimal places – tip: you do not yet
have the calculations in your detail area, but you can still format all the cells that will
contain money – remember that you need to allow for 10 touring groups.
• Format the percentage value to show percentage to 1 decimal place.
• Centre the values under the headings Country, People, Nights and Catering – tip: NOT
the labels and remember to allows for 10 touring groups.
• Wrap the labels in G6:I6
• Select the whole sheet and auto-set the column-widths
Tip – SMark handling of multi-cell formulas
If you have a formula =a*b*c this could also be entered =a*c*b or =b*a*c etc. – i.e. multiple
ways (using cell addresses of course!). In the TEST marking, we have all the variations we
could think of and do a lot of spot-checking to make sure SMark is marking things ok BUT for
weekly pracs we do not have all the variations.
Please make sure that for something like the above, you start with the detail area cells from
left to right and then the common area cells.
12. Enter the calculations required as follows:
• Cell F7: The amount for all the people for all the nights on tour
• Cell G7: Depending on the type of catering required, calculate the amount for catering
• Cell H7: The total amount before discount
• Cell I7: The discount amount, depending on the country of origin
• Cell J7: The total amount (to the nearest R100)
13. Fill the formulas in F7:J7 down for the required number of rows and auto-fit any columns that
may now have ######.
Arrange Workbook Sheets
14. Add a new sheet named Autumn after the Summer sheet.
15. Unhide the sheet named Xmas.
16. Insert a new sheet named Spring before the Xmas sheet.
17. Make a copy of the Summer sheet named Winter between the Autumn and Spring sheets.
18. Remove the test data ONLY from the Winter sheet.
19. Move the Summer Report sheet to between the Summer and Autumn sheets.
CHECK that you have ONLY the following sheets in the EXACT order as shown – delete any
extra sheets that you may have created by accident:

20. Hide the Spring sheet.

PTO

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FCS Excel (Basics) Projects

Finalizing the Workbook:

Tip – Selecting multiple adjacent cells
When you need to fill down a certain number of rows or select a range that you want to be sure
has the right number of cells (rows and columns), drag your mouse pointer down and check the
count of rows and columns selected to the left of the Formula Bar (if a only a few) or the tool-
tip at the bottom corner of your range (if large) until you have the right number of rows and
columns and then let go of your mouse button.
o If you just needed the range for a calculation, then the range should appear in your
calculation in the Formula Bar and you can complete the typing of the calculation.
o If you need to fill down, once you have selected the cells with the formulas in them and
then selected the number of rows that you need to fill down to, then type Ctrl-D to fill
down all the formulas in the top row of the range. (Ctrl-R to fill right)

21. Set up the Printing Instructions as follows (BUT DO NOT PRINT):

• Change the orientation of the Summer sheet to Landscape
• Centre the Summer sheet horizontally and vertically on the page, with a 1” (2.54cm) Top
margin
• Change the paper size for the Summer Report sheet to A5
• On the Winter sheet:
o Fit to 1 page wide and 2 pages tall
o Gridlines on
o Repeat row 6 at the top of each page
o Fill down the formulas to allow for 75 touring groups (see tip above)
o Set the print area to A6:J81
• Remove the set print area from the Summer Report sheet
22. Check your solution against the partial print preview images provided below.
23. Save the final version of your file (in the location specified in the weekly Guide). Before
closing the file in MS Excel, check in File Explorer that your file shows the current date & time
– if not, return to MS Excel and SAVE your final workbook as instructed.
Only when you have checked this date & time and are satisfied that they match your final save
action, CLOSE the file to ensure that you upload the latest edited version.

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24. Return to the SMARK system. Upload the P04Tours-studentnumber.xlsx file from the
location specified in your weekly Guide, for, for online checking (remove any version number
in the filename).
If your upload is not accepted (indicated by a red X) do the following quickly, without wasting
too much time:
i. Is your filename correct and are you sure you edited the exact file you originally
downloaded from SMark?
ii. If so, then refresh your browser (press F5 key or click ) and try again.
iii. If still not working, log right out of SMark, close your browser, activate another browser
if you have one or, if not, restart your browser and try again.
If none of the above solved the problem, you may have to download a new starter file and redo
the tasks.
25. View the feedback report from your submission and check where you may have lost marks –
do NOT assume that you are right and SMark is wrong – try and figure out WHY you lost
marks by checking the following points:
i. The feedback item is numbered the same as the task item in the instructions above, so
that you can check back to the instruction to see what you should have done, if you
get less than full marks per task.
ii. Note that you want 0 for any tasks out of -1! Sometimes there is a -1 for tasks done
incorrectly – e.g. wrong file name.
iii. Check the instruction for that task and look at what you did, to make sure you
ACTUALLY did what was asked – fix it
iv. If you cannot see why, go and review how to do that task in relevant FCS Excel Lesson
workbook and redo each task that needs fixing.
Do NOT waste attempts by submitting the same solution (no changes) and expect a different
result!
Summer sheet

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FCS Excel (Basics) Projects

Winter sheet:

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FCS Excel (Basics) Projects

Project 04b Tours (Bonus)

Lessons 1-4
Scenario:
This exercise completes the Summary Report sheet from Project 04 – as a BONUS project. NOTE
that you do NOT need to complete the SUMMER sheet – you
Allow for 10 touring groups.
1. Open a browser (Chrome or Internet Explorer recommended) and locate the SMARK system
(https://smark.converttocode.com. Login to the system using your mandela.ac.za email
address and the password indicated for in the A05 Additional Learning Material document –
DO NOT change the password.
2. Select to attempt FCS Excel Project 04 Tours
3. Download the data file from the system and save it in the location specified in the weekly
Guide – only change the filename if you have downloaded more than once; there should
be no version number – e.g. (1) – in the filename; otherwise do not change the filename.
P04Tours-studentnumber.xlsx
4. Open the file you saved in 3 above, in MS Excel from your S: drive folder (location specified in
the weekly Guide).
Documentation Sheet & Headers/Footers:
5. Type the date in B3 and your first-name & surname in cell B5 and your student number in cell
C5.
6. Put your name, surname and student number in the left Footer of the Summer Report sheet.
Summer Report Sheet:
7. Bold the labels in A1:A4.
8. Auto-fit column widths of the sheet.
9. Enter the following calculations:
• Cell B1: Calculate the number of touring groups booked for the Summer
• Cell B2: Calculate the average number of people (as a whole number only) booked per
Summer group
• Cell B3: Calculate the total number of Summer groups from South Africa
• Cell B4: Calculate the total amount spent by Summer groups that have 3 or more people
per group
10. Format results in column B as follows:
• Any money amounts to Currency with no decimal places
• Centre align any ordinary numbers
Finalizing the Workbook:
11. Check your solution against the partial print preview image provided below.
12. Save the final version of your file (in the location specified in the weekly Guide). Before
closing the file in MS Excel, check in File Explorer that your file shows the current date & time
– if not, return to MS Excel and SAVE your final workbook as instructed.
Only when you have checked this date & time and are satisfied that they match your final save
action, CLOSE the file to ensure that you upload the latest edited version.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Projects

13. Return to the SMARK system. Upload the P04bTours-studentnumber.xlsx file from the
location specified in your weekly Guide, for, for online checking (remove any version number
in the filename).
If your upload is not accepted (indicated by a red X) do the following quickly, without wasting
too much time:
i. Is your filename correct and are you sure you edited the exact file you originally
downloaded from SMark?
ii. If so, then refresh your browser (press F5 key or click ) and try again.
iii. If still not working, log right out of SMark, close your browser, activate another browser
if you have one or, if not, restart your browser and try again.
If none of the above solved the problem, you may have to download a new starter file and redo
the tasks.
14. View the feedback report from your submission and check where you may have lost marks –
do NOT assume that you are right and SMark is wrong – try and figure out WHY you lost
marks by checking the following points:
i. The feedback item is numbered the same as the task item in the instructions above, so
that you can check back to the instruction to see what you should have done, if you
get less than full marks per task.
ii. Note that you want 0 for any tasks out of -1! Sometimes there is a -1 for tasks done
incorrectly – e.g. wrong file name.
iii. Check the instruction for that task and look at what you did, to make sure you
ACTUALLY did what was asked – fix it
iv. If you cannot see why, go and review how to do that task in relevant FCS Excel Lesson
workbook and redo each task that needs fixing.
Do NOT waste attempts by submitting the same solution (no changes) and expect a different
result!
Summer Report sheet:

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FCS Excel (Basics) Projects

Project 8. Gramps1
Lessons 1-5
NOTE: Good practise for the test!!!
Scenario:
Your grandfather runs a seafood wholesale business called Gramps Fisheries. He needs your help to
keep track of the current specials he is running on sales (per Kg) of mussels and crabs. He buys in
the products at the following cost prices:
• Mussels – R12.40 per Kg
• Crabs – R25.60 per Kg
He sells his seafood at a 75% mark-up. At the moment, he is running a special, giving an 8.5% discount
to those customers who pre-pay straight into his bank account using an Electronic Funds Transfer
(EFT). Customers who pay on Account, Cash or Credit-card do not receive a discount. He also
charges all his customers 15% VAT.
Make provision for 6 customers.
Tasks:
Note: If you skip a critical step (e.g. inserting a column), nothing else you do on that sheet will mark
correctly – pay attention to every detail and read the instructions carefully.
1. Open a browser (Chrome or Internet Explorer recommended) and locate the SMARK system
(https://smark.converttocode.com. Login to the system using your mandela.ac.za email
address and the password indicated for in the A05 Additional Learning Material document – DO
NOT change the password.
2. Select to attempt FCS Excel Project 08 Gramps1 and, if provided, enter the password
provided in your weekly Guide.
3. Download the data file from the system and save it in the location specified in the weekly
Guide – only change the filename if you have downloaded more than once; there should
be no version number – e.g. (1) – in the filename; otherwise do not change the filename.
P08Grampsp1-studentnumber.xlsx
4. Open the file you saved in 3 above, in MS Excel from your S: drive folder (location specified in
the weekly Guide).
1st Sheet:
1. Type the date in B3 and your first-name & surname in cell B5 and your student number in cell
C5. Tip: drag-and-drop the column-widths if necessary (don’t use the alternative tip from Project
8-1 due to the long text in some of the cells in these two columns).
2. Change the name of the sheet to Documentation
3. Rename Sheet2 and Sheet3 to the names provided on this sheet.
2nd Sheet (Sales):
4. Select Page Layout view and type the following:
 The same title that is on the 1st sheet as a centred header
 Your name and student number as a left-aligned footer
Return to Normal view.
5. By mistake, the sheet has been created with only 1 quantity column – insert a column between
columns D & E and label the details as Qty Mussels and Qty Crabs in cells D8 & E8 respectively.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Projects

6. Enter the following data in your worksheet and centre the quantities entered (cells D9:E14 to
allow for 2 more customers to be added):
Retailer Qty Mussels Qty Crabs
Sumfing Fishy 10 0
Salt Fresh 14 24
Seafood Snacks 0 13
7. Before proceeding any further, select the whole sheet and do an automatic column-width
adjustment so that the contents of each column are fully displayed.
8. In cell C2, enter the formula to calculate the retail price of mussels (use absolute addressing
where relevant only) and fill this formula down to cell C3 – DO NOT TYPE IT OR EDIT IT AFTER
THE FILL.
9. Type in the calculations for the following in row 9 – tip: never use actual values in formulas that
you are going to be copying to other rows and always use absolute cell addresses when using
cells in the common area – in this sheet the common area is in the A1:C6 range of cells:
 Amount of sale at retail price
 Discounted value – i.e. amount AFTER discount (discount only given if the condition in
the scenario above is true) – note: this calculation determines the discount amount AND
adjusts the Amount at retail price accordingly.
 The VAT amount – hint: customers do not pay tax on money they are not going to pay.
 The total amount due to the nearest R10 – your grandfather only deals in folding money,
not coins.
10. Check your absolute cell addressing & fill down the formulas in row 9 down to allow space for
the 6 customers required in the scenario.
11. Format all the labels to Bold, the money to Currency (not Accounting) to 2 decimal places and
percentages to show % to 1 decimal place – redo the automatic column-width task.
12. Sort the customers in descending order of Retailer (shop name).
Check your 2nd Sheet (Sales) detail values – they should be as follows:

Save the final version of your file (in the location specified in the weekly Guide). Before
closing the file in MS Excel, check in File Explorer that your file shows the current date & time
– if not, return to MS Excel and SAVE your final workbook as instructed.
Only when you have checked this date & time and are satisfied that they match your final save
action, CLOSE the file to ensure that you upload the latest edited version.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Projects

5. Return to the SMARK system. Upload the P08Gramps1-studentnumber.xlsx file from the
location specified in your weekly Guide, for online checking (remove any version number in
the filename).
If your upload is not accepted (indicated by a red X) do the following quickly, without wasting
too much time:
i. Is your filename correct and are you sure you edited the exact file you originally
downloaded from SMark?
ii. If so, then refresh your browser (press F5 key or click ) and try again.
iii. If still not working, log right out of SMark, close your browser, activate another browser
if you have one or, if not, restart your browser and try again.
If none of the above solved the problem, you may have to download a new starter file and redo
the tasks.
6. View the feedback report from your submission and check where you may have lost marks –
do NOT assume that you are right and SMark is wrong – try and figure out WHY you lost
marks by checking the following points:
i. The feedback item is numbered the same as the task item in the instructions above, so
that you can check back to the instruction to see what you should have done, if you
get less than full marks per task.
ii. Note that you want 0 for any tasks out of -1! Sometimes there is a -1 for tasks done
incorrectly – e.g. wrong file name.
iii. Check the instruction for that task and look at what you did, to make sure you
ACTUALLY did what was asked – fix it
iv. If you cannot see why, go and review how to do that task in relevant FCS Excel Lesson
workbook and redo each task that needs fixing.
Do NOT waste attempts by submitting the same solution (no changes) and expect a different
result!

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FCS Excel (Basics) Projects

Project 9. Gramps2
Lessons 1-5
2nd Part of the same workbook used in Project 08
Scenario:
[Adding to Project 08 Gramps1]
Gramps wants a report that shows the name and discounted value for each customer. He also wants
to know the total sales, the cost of those sales, the profit / loss from the sales, the number of customers,
the number of customers buying crabs (irrespective of whether they also buy mussels or not), the sales
from customers buying 10Kg of mussels or more (irrespective of whether they also buy crab or not),
and the average number of kilograms bought for mussels and crabs (as whole kilograms only).
He also needs a chart to illustrate the sales he has made to the different customers.
Make provision for 6 customers.
Tasks:
Note: If you skip a critical step (e.g. inserting a column), nothing else you do on that sheet will mark
correctly – pay attention to every detail and read the instructions carefully.
1. Open a browser (Chrome or Internet Explorer recommended) and locate the SMARK system
(https://smark.converttocode.com. Login to the system using your mandela.ac.za email
address and the password indicated for in the A05 Additional Learning Material document – DO
NOT change the password.
2. Select to attempt FCS Excel Project 09 Gramps2 and, if provided, enter the password
provided in your weekly Guide.
3. Download the data file from the system and save it in the location specified in the weekly
Guide – only change the filename if you have downloaded more than once; there should
be no version number – e.g. (1) – in the filename; otherwise do not change the filename.
P09Gramps2-studentnumber.xlsx
4. Open the file you saved in 3 above, in MS Excel from your S: drive folder (location specified in
the weekly Guide).
3rd Sheet (Report):
5. Select Page Layout view and type the following:
 The same title that is on the 1st sheet as a centred header
 Your name and student number as a left-aligned footer
Return to Normal view.
6. Before proceeding any further, select all the labels and select Wrap Text so that each label is
fully displayed. Do NOT adjust the column widths.
7. Middle align the labels in cells A1:B1 (i.e. vertically centred).
8. Type the formulas in row 2 to extract the required information from the 2nd sheet and fill down
to allow for 6 customers specified in the scenario – Note: the Names heading refers to the
people not the shop.
9. Apply the fill colour Green, 60% Accent 6 to the range A1:B7.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Projects

10. Type the formulas to calculate the following:

 In cell B9, calculate the grand total amount owing for all customers.
 In cell B10, calculate the total cost amount of all the mussels and crabs sold.
 In cell B11, calculate the amount of profit or loss made from these sales.
 In cell A11, replace the label with a calculation to determine whether or not the amount
in cell B11 is a Profit from Sales or a Loss from Sales as the label (assume that 0 would
be considered a Profit rather than a Loss)
 Adjust the row heights to show the whole label for A11:A14. Tip: use a similar alternative
method to adjusting the column-width.
 In cell B12, calculate how many customers your grandfather has.
 In cell B13, calculate how many customers bought crabs.
 In cell B14, calculate the total sale amount for all the customers who bought 10 or more
kilograms of mussels.
 In cell B15, calculate the average number of whole kilograms of seafood sold – mussels
and crabs.
11. Align all the summary values so that they appear in the middle of the row (i.e. vertically centred).
12. Add borders around cells as follows:
 All the report summary cells – A9:B15 – default border style.
 A Green, Accent 6, Darker 50% thick outside border (default width) around the detail
cells – A1:B7.
13. Format all the remaining labels to Bold and all the money results to Currency (not Accounting)
to 2 decimal places.
14. Hide columns J to M.
15. Check your Report summary values – they should be as follows:

16. Create a pie chart using the cell ranges A2:A7 & B2:B7 as follows:
 Show the discounted value of all sales, with the Names (of the people not the shop) in
the legend
 The chart title should be Discounted Values of Sales
 Use the appropriate tool to move the Legend to the right, without overlapping the chart
 Label each slice as a % of the whole – use the Best Fit style
 Fit the chart into the D1:H11 range of cells exactly. Tip: As long as the corners are within
the top-left and bottom-right cells, you are fine. Do not try and be TOO exact, otherwise
Ms Excel may interpret the range of cells slightly differently.
17. Save the final version of your file (in the location specified in the weekly Guide). Before
closing the file in MS Excel, check in File Explorer that your file shows the current date & time
– if not, return to MS Excel and SAVE your final workbook as instructed.
Only when you have checked this date & time and are satisfied that they match your final save
action, CLOSE the file to ensure that you upload the latest edited version.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Projects

18. Return to the SMARK system. Upload the P09Gramps2-studentnumber.xlsx file from the
location specified in your weekly Guide, for online checking (remove any version number in
the filename).
If your upload is not accepted (indicated by a red X) do the following quickly, without wasting
too much time:
i. Is your filename correct and are you sure you edited the exact file you originally
downloaded from SMark?
ii. If so, then refresh your browser (press F5 key or click ) and try again.
iii. If still not working, log right out of SMark, close your browser, activate another browser
if you have one or, if not, restart your browser and try again.
If none of the above solved the problem, you may have to download a new starter file and redo
the tasks.
19. View the feedback report from your submission and check where you may have lost marks –
do NOT assume that you are right and SMark is wrong – try and figure out WHY you lost
marks by checking the following points:
i. The feedback item is numbered the same as the task item in the instructions above, so
that you can check back to the instruction to see what you should have done, if you
get less than full marks per task.
ii. Note that you want 0 for any tasks out of -1! Sometimes there is a -1 for tasks done
incorrectly – e.g. wrong file name.
iii. Check the instruction for that task and look at what you did, to make sure you
ACTUALLY did what was asked – fix it
iv. If you cannot see why, go and review how to do that task in relevant FCS Excel Lesson
workbook and redo each task that needs fixing.
Do NOT waste attempts by submitting the same solution (no changes) and expect a different
result!

Page 94 of 99
FCS Excel (Basics) References

References
Dept CS (2018) How to Cope with Spreadsheets, 3rd Ed, Department of Computing Sciences, NMU :
Port Elizabeth, RSA.
Parsons, J. & Oja, D. (2015) NMMU Computing Fundamentals, 2nd Ed, Cengage Learning EMEA :
Andover, UK.
Zacker, C. (2016) Microsoft Official Academic Course: Microsoft Word 2016, Wiley : USA.

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FCS Excel (Basics) Appendices

Appendix A: Explanations of Functions Used

Enter the following worksheet extract into a MS Excel worksheet and then work through the examples in the table.

Syntax Purpose Example Result Explanation

SUM(list) Adds a list of numbers together =SUM(A1:C1) 82 Add the numbers in row 1
and returns the result
=SUM(B1,B4,D5) 19 Add a list of numbers in non-adjacent cells

=SUM(A1:B1,C4) 17 The range is one of the parameters in the list

AVERAGE(list) The average of two or more =AVERAGE(A1:C1) 27.333 Determine the average of the numbers in row 1
numbers is the sum of those recur-
numbers divided by the number ring
of numbers, to provide the
number in the middle (mean).
COUNT(list) Counts the number of cells in the =COUNT(A1:D1) 3 Because D1 does not contain a number
list that contain numbers
=COUNT(C1:D3) 2 Because only two of the cells contain numbers
COUNTA(list) Counts the number of cells that =COUNT(A1:D1) 4 Because all 4 cells contain something
contain alphanumeric data (i.e. =COUNTA(C1:D3) 5 Because C3 is empty
anything) in a list
=COUNTA(C1:D3, A1:A4) 6 Note the use of two ranges in one list
MAX(list) Returns the maximum (highest) =MAX(B6,B3,C1,45) 67 The highest number in the list
number of a list of cells
MIN(list) Returns the minimum (lowest) =MIN(A1:D1,B3/11) 3 The lowest number in the list – note the use of a
number of a list of cells formula as one of the parameters in a list
=MIN(B1:B6) 3 The lowest number in a range of cells

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FCS Excel (Basics) Appendices

Syntax Purpose Example Result Explanation

ROUND(value, digits) Returns the rounded result of =ROUND(A6,0) 2 Round a number to nearest whole number
the specified value to the
specified number of digits – note
=ROUND(B3/11,2) 6.09 Round a number to the nearest 2 decimal places.
how positive digits indicate
decimal places and negative
digits indicate place to the left of =ROUND(SUM(A6:D6),0) 24 Round the result of the SUM function to the
the decimal point. nearest whole number.
=ROUND(C6,-1) 20 Round a number to the nearest ten
ROUNDUP(value, digits) Returns the specified value, =ROUNDUP(A6,0) 3 Round a number up to the nearest, whole
rounded up away from zero, to number.
the specified number of digits
=ROUNDUP(-8.9,0) or =ROUNDUP(8.9,0) -9 or 9
ROUNDDOWN(value, digits) Returns the specified value, =ROUNDDOWN(A6,0) 2 Round a number down to the nearest whole
rounded down towards zero, to number.
the specified number of digits Check how ROUNDOWN is different to INT
=ROUNDDOWN(-8.9,0) -8
=ROUNDDOWN(8.9,0) 8
INT(value) Returns the specified value, =INT(A6) 2 An integer is a whole number without decimal
rounded down to the nearest places (fractions of a number).
smaller integer to the number.
=INT(-8.9) / =INT(8.9) -9 / 8
IF(condition, true, false) Checks 2 values and returns one =IF(B4>=C4,B6,C6) 21.5 Compares 2 values using logical operators (=, >,
result if the comparison is true <, >=, <=) and if the comparison is true, returns
and another if the comparison is the true value or false value if the comparison is
=IF(B4<=C4,B6,C6) 21.9
false false
COUNTIF(range, condition) Counts the number of times =COUNTIF(A1:D6,”<10”) 10 Compares each cell in the range matches the
something is true condition and adds 1 to the count if true
SUMIF(check-range, condition, Adds the values in a range, =SUMIF(B1:B4,”>=5”,C1:C4) 36 Compares the cells in the first range to the
sum-range) depending if related values in condition and if true, adds the related value in
another range matches the the second range to a total
condition

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