MICROSOFT

EXCEL

Definition of Microsoft Excel

Software developed and manufactured by
Microsoft Corporation that allows users to
organize, format, and calculate data with formulas
using a spreadsheet system broken up by rows
and columns. Microsoft Excel usually comes
bundled with Microsoft Office and is compatible
with other applications offered in the suite of
products.

Major Uses of Excel

Excel is used widely in any financially-related
activity. The ability to create new spreadsheets
where users can define custom formulas to
calculate anything from a simple quarterly
forecast to a full corporate annual report makes
Excel highly appealing. Excel is also used widely
for common information organization and tracking
like a list of sales leads, project status reports,
contact lists, and invoicing. Finally, Excel is a
useful tool for scientific and statistical analysis
with large data sets. Excel's statistical formulas
and graphing can help researches perform
variance analysis, chi-square testing, and chart
complex data.

How Excel Works

An Excel document is called a Workbook. A
workbook always has at least one Worksheet.
Worksheets are the grid where you can store and
calculate data. You can have many worksheets
stored inside a workbook, each with a unique
worksheet name.
Worksheets are laid out in columns (vertical) and
rows (horizontal). The intersection of any given
row and column is a cell. Cells are really where
you enter any information. A cell will accept a
large amount of text, or you can enter a date,
number, or formula. Each cell can be formatted
individually with distinct border, background color,

Excel Formulas
You can create simple and
complex formulas in Excel to
calculate just about anything.
Inputs to a formula may be other
cells, the results of other formulas,
or just straight-forward math
(5*2+3). Excel includes a formula
library for calculating things like
Net Present Value(NPV), standard
deviation, interest payments over
time, and other common financial
and mathematic formulae. Excel's
formula bar includes a feature to
help you search for a formula you
need, and also helps you select
the appropriate cells in your
workbook to calculate the formula.

IF Function Overview
The basic form or syntax of Excel's IF function is:
=IF(logic test, value if true, value if false)What the
function does is:
Tests to see if a specified condition - the logic test - is
true or false.
If the condition is true, the function will carry out the
action identified in the value if true argument
If the condition is false, it will carry out the action
specified in the value if false argument.
The actions carried out can include executing a formula,
inserting a text statement, or leaving a designated target
cell blank.

VLOOK-UP Function
Excel's VLOOKUP function, which stands for vertical lookup, can
be used to look up specific information located in a table of data
or database.
VLOOKUP normally returns a single field of data as its output.
How it does this is:
You provide a name or Lookup _value that tells VLOOKUP in which
row or record of the data table to look for the desired information
You supply the column number - known as the Col_index_num - of
the data you seek
The function looks for the Lookup _value in the first column of the
data table
VLOOKUP then locates and returns the information you seek from
another field of the same record using the supplied column
number

In the image shown above, VLOOKUP is used to find

the unit price of an item based on its name. The
name becomes the lookup value which VLOOKUP
uses to find the price located in the second column.

PIVOT TABLE

In data processing, a pivot table is a data summarization tool found in data

visualization programs such as spreadsheets or business intelligence software.
Among other functions, a pivot table can automatically sort, count total or give
the average of the data stored in one table or spreadsheet, displaying the
results in a second table showing the summarized data. Pivot tables are also
useful for quickly creating unweighted cross tabulations. The user sets up and
changes the summary's structure by dragging and dropping fields graphically.
This "rotation" or pivoting of the summary table gives the concept its name.

DATA ANALYSIS
If you need to develop complex statistical or
engineering analyses, you can save steps and time by
using the Analysis ToolPak. You provide the data and
parameters for each analysis, and the tool uses the
appropriate statistical or engineering macro functions to
calculate and display the results in an output table. Some
tools generate charts in addition to output tables.
The Analysis ToolPak includes the tools described in the
following sections. To access these tools, click Data
Analysis in the Analysis group on the Data tab. If the
Data Analysis command is not available, you need to
load the Analysis ToolPak add-in program.

EXCEL SOLVER
Solver is part of a suite of commands sometimes called what-if
analysis(what-if analysis: A process of changing the values in cells
to see how those changes affect the outcome of formulas on the
worksheet. For example, varying the interest rate that is used in an
amortization table to determine the amount of the payments.) tools.
With Solver, you can find an optimal (maximum or minimum) value
for a formula(formula: A sequence of values, cell references,
names, functions, or operators in a cell that together produce a new
value. A formula always begins with an equal sign (=).) in one cell
called the objective cell subject to constraints, or limits, on the
values of other formula cells on a worksheet. Solver works with a
group of cells, called decision variables or simply variable cells, that
participate in computing the formulas in the objective and constraint
cells. Solver adjusts the values in the decision variable cells to
satisfy the limits on constraint cells and produce the result you want
for the objective cell.

SUMMARY :
Excel offers many user interface tweaks over the earliest
electronic spreadsheets; however, the essence remains the same as
in the original spreadsheet software, VisiCalc: the program displays
cells organized in rows and columns, and each cell may contain
data or a formula, with relative or absolute references to other cells.
Excel became the first spreadsheet to allow the user to define
the appearance of spreadsheets (fonts, character attributes and cell
appearance). It also introduced intelligent cell re-computation,
where only cells dependent on the cell being modified are updated
(previous spreadsheet programs recomputed everything all the time
or waited for a specific user command). Excel introduced auto-fill,
the ability to drag and expand the selection box to automatically
copy cell or row contents to adjacent cells or rows, adjusting the
copies intelligently by automatically incrementing cell references or
contents. Excel also introduced extensive graphing capabilities.