Basic Excel
Data input, chart creation and simple calculations

1.	Open Microsoft Excel (it’s in Handling Information)
2.	When you have a new book sheet select B2 and type Jan 99
3.	We are going to fill the columns to the right so that they go up in monthly steps. This can be done in two ways.

The easy way – left click and hold the black square in the bottom right-hand corner of B2 and drag it to F2 and drop. As you drag across you will see what Excel is going to put in the cells. It has assumed you are going up in months.

The harder way is to fill the cells using Edit. Highlight the cells B2 to F2 by dragging with your mouse OR using your Shift and cursor keys.
Then Edit  Fill  Series  select Date -- Month  OK
	
4.	Select A3 and type Mars. When you press Enter it will automatically go down to the next cell. Fill in the chocolate information below into your sheet.

 	Jan-99	Feb-99	Mar-99	Apr-99	May-99	
Mars	23	25	26	23	24	
Bounty	26	27	23	28	29	
Twix	19	21	23	27	21	
Drifter	17	18	16	19	20	

5.	We are going to create a selection of charts with this information. Highlight all the information. Click the Chart wizard button. Choose a column OR bar chart. Go through the series of questions and complete your title, x and y axis.

This is just one chart that can be created using the information.

6.	You will have noticed that I have changed the patterns on the chart so that I can print it in black and white.
7.	Now you have a go. Click one of the columns then click again. You should see a box come up. From here you can change the colour and fill pattern of the column. I have also changed the size of the font used by double clicking the writing and making it smaller.
8.	The last thing to do is print your chart. You have two choices;
~ you can have a large chart on its own
~ you can have the table of information and the chart together

If your chart has been selected it will have black squares around it. If you print now you will get a big chart.

If you want the table and chart together you click the page to get rid of the black squares. If you print now you will get table and chart.

You may notice that the table does not have any lines. You have to put these on yourself ~ if you want them! There’s a handy little button that does that.
9.	Now have a go at creating different styles of charts using the information in the table. The more times you do it the easier it becomes.
10.	There is one last thing – You can change your chart to display the information in a different way. This is important as different questions can be asked of different charts.

Go back to your table. Highlight, as you did before, and begin to create a chart. When you click OK there is a page in the wizard (Data range) that asks you if you want the information in rows OR columns. We are going to select columns this time. Now finish the wizard as before and look at the difference in the two charts you have created.

See what I mean!!!

Now for some simply calculations

Sometimes the information you have collected is too detailed and you only need totals or averages. We are going to find the total number of chocolate bars sold each month.

If you look at your table you can work out what you have to do. You need to add the contents of each column. This can, of course, be done in a number of ways.

1.	Select the cell B7. We are going to add B3, B4, B5 and B6 together. We need to tell the computer that we are going to calculate something so we type = in the cell. You will notice that the equals sign also appears in the formula bar. Now type the sum with NO GAPS.

=b3+b4+b5+b6 then press the Enter key. You get the answer 85

2.	Second way ~ Select the cell B7. Type = then click each of the cells you want added in turn with + in between. As you do this they appear in the formula bar. Then press Enter. 
3.	Third way ~ Highlight the information you want to add then click the Autosum button . The sum is done for you.
4.	Fourth way ~ type in a shorten version of the sum. =sum(B3:B6)

I know there are a lot of different ways BUT you choose which ones you can use personally AND in class with the pupils.

5.	Once you have completed one column you can do all the others by selecting B7 and dragging the formula across the bottom of the other columns. As you drag you will see Excel changes the information for the different columns.
6.	Now the last calculation ~ we are going to average the rows. This will tell us the average monthly sales for each chocolate bar. Select G3 and type =average(B3:F3) and press Enter. This works out the average of all the cells between B3 and F3. Once you have entered the formula you can drag and drop it for the other rows.

 	Jan-99	Feb-99	Mar-99	Apr-99	May-99	Average	
Mars	23	25	26	23	24	24.2	
Bounty	26	27	23	28	29	26.6	
Twix	19	21	23	27	21	22.2	
Drifter	17	18	16	19	20	18	
Total	85	91	88	97	94