Excel For Beginners : Excel Yellow Belt – Part 4

Microsoft Excel

Ultimate Guide to Learning Excel for Beginners Part 4 1

Continue learning the important functions of Microsoft Excel and become efficient and quick at your work. 

Just in case you missed, read our Part 3 of this series

Microsoft Excel program is a powerful tool which has established itself in every aspect of  work life. No profession is untouched or unaffected by it, that’s why excel courses plays vital role everywhere. Proficiency in excel spreadsheets is expected and it is a skill that every company looks for in a  resume. 

Important concepts, methods and tricks to handle excel spreadsheets were covered in the previous blogs and videos. Needless to say, the number of functions and formulas are immense and mind boggling! But the beauty of excel courses is that it allows you to create your own formulas and apply it the way you want to ,in the excel spreadsheets! That is why its importance and popularity increases exponentially every day!

In this blog, the following topics will be covered:

  • Change of data type
  • Placement of commas and decimals
  • Converting to decimals and percentages
  • Changing the font, style, colour, appearance, border, etc. of the data area.

How to place commas and decimals?

In case the figures enter in the excel spreadsheets are a big numeric value, placid commas become important to easily read and understand them. Excel allows you to easily do that so you do not have to manually slog over each numeric value in every cell.

  • Select the data cells in which you want to place the commas.
  • The Home Menu shows an icon in the shape of a comma (,).
  • Click on the comma and the system will place the commas at the appropriate places and add decimals as well.
  • To remove the decimal, click on the decimal icon given on Home Menu. 

How to highlight the amount?

In order to show that a numeric value is an amount of money:

  • Select the numeric value/values
  • Click on the dollar sign icon ($) given on the Home Menu. 
  • You can select which currency sign you wish to use from the given options.
  • Click on it. Excel will add the currency sign along with the commas where required and decimal value of upto two digits.
  • To remove the decimal points, click on the Decrease Decimal icon.

How to show percentages?

Excel will see one whole number as a percentage, while calculating percentages. It is important you present the value in the correct decimal value to ensure that the percentages are calculated in the correct manner. 

This means  1 will be shown as 100%, 0.25 will be shown as 25%.

  • To convert whole numbers into decimals, select the data.
  • Click on the increase decimal icon on the Home Menu.
  • With each click, you can increase the numbers after the decimal point.
  • THenclick on the percentage icon (%), given in the Home Menu.
  • Excel will convert the decimal figures into percentages

How to place/change borders?

This helps in highlighting the data that you want to and also makes the spreadsheet visually appealing and easy to understand.

  • Select the data.
  • Click on the Border icon on Home Menu. 
  • A drop down menu will show a range of borders that you can choose from : top line,  bottom line, thick border, etc.
  • You can change the border color by choosing the Change Line option.
  • Similarly, Line Style will allow you to choose from different patterns of lines. 
  • If you want the same border on cells in different places across the spreadsheet, select the cells then the border. 

Tip: Excel will read all the cells selected as one, so you can select each cell individually with the Ctrl Key and have a border placed in each cell. 

How to format a table?

One can individually select options for font, borders, colour, fill in colour, position of data, etc for a table. Another way of swiftly formatting an entire table of data is Format as Table option on the Home Menu.

  • Select the table you require to format.
  • Click on Format as Table option.
  • Excel will show a number of predefined table options
  • Select one and click on it. The selected table and its data will be displayed as per the style selected.

Shortcuts for excel spreadsheets

Shortcuts reduce your working time as well as save you from the hassle of selecting the data or clicking on an option multiple times.

Format Cell dialog box allows you to choose how you wish to present your data, its alignment, font, border, colour, fill in colour, etc.

Short CutFunction
Ctrl + 1To open Format Cell dialog box
EscTo step out of the dialog box

Keep tuned for more videos and blogs to become an Excel Ninja!

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