Excel

Excel makes it easy to manage numbers and calculations. You can create formulas that automatically update when you change your data. You can use Excel to organize, calculate and analyze data.

At Carnegie Mellon you may use Excel for science lab experiments, to submit a budget for an undergraduate research proposal, to keep track of your personal spending, or to create useful visuals such as timelines or charts that can be used during presentations.

Spreadsheets are setup with a grid of numbered rows and lettered columns. You locate information on the grid by referring to the cell address.

The address is the intersection of a column and a row. For example, the very first cell in the grid is cell A1 (column A, row 1).  

Spreadsheet applications enable you to:

• Organize lists of data by sorting, filtering and summarizing data.
• Plot data in charts.
• Name ranges of data and use the range names to navigate the spreadsheet and in formulas.
• Use cell references rather than actual values in formulas so your calculations are automatically updated as your data changes.

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:

• Identify the tasks you can perform using a spreadsheet application.