Excel 2013 Essential Skills

This course is intended for students who wish to gain the foundational understanding of Microsoft Office Excel 2013 that is necessary to create and work with electronic spreadsheets.

Whether you are completely new to Excel 2013 or upgrading from an older version, this course will empower you with every skill you need to be productive in the workplace.

By the end of the course you’ll be able to create sophisticated worksheets that incorporate all of Excel 2013’s most useful features.

Session 1: Basic Skills

• Start Excel and open a new blank workbook
• Check that your Excel version is up to date
• Change the Office Theme
• Maximize, minimize, re-size, move and close the Excel window
• Download the sample files and open/navigate a workbook
• Save a workbook to a local file
• Understand common file formats
• Pin a workbook and understand file organization
• View, move, add, rename, delete and navigate worksheet tabs
• Use the Versions feature to recover an unsaved Draft file
• Use the Versions feature to recover an earlier version of a workbook
• Use the Ribbon
• Understand Ribbon components
• Customize the Quick Access Toolbar and preview the printout
• Use the Mini Toolbar, Key Tips and keyboard shortcuts
• Understand views
• Hide and Show the Formula Bar and Ribbon
• Use the help system

Session 2: Doing Useful Work with Excel

• Enter text and numbers into a worksheet
• Create a new workbook and view two workbooks at the same time
• Use AutoSum to quickly calculate totals
• Select a range of cells and understand Smart Tags
• Enter data into a range and copy data across a range
• Select adjacent and non-adjacent rows and columns
• Select non-contiguous cell ranges and view summary information
• AutoSelect a range of cells
• Re-size rows and columns
• Use AutoSum to sum a non-contiguous range
• Use AutoSum to quickly calculate averages
• Create your own formulas
• Create functions using Formula AutoComplete
• Use AutoFill for text and numeric series
• Use AutoFill to adjust formulas
• Use AutoFill options
• Speed up your AutoFills and create a custom fill series
• Use automatic Flash Fill to split delimited text
• Use manual Flash Fill to split text
• Use multiple example Flash Fill to concatenate text
• Use Flash Fill to solve common problems
• Use the zoom control
• Print out a worksheet

Session 3: Taking Your Skills to the Next Level

• Insert and delete rows and columns
• Use AutoComplete and fill data from adjacent cells
• Cut, copy and paste using drag and drop
• Use Paste Values and increase/decrease decimal places displayed
• Transpose a range
• Use the Multiple Item Clipboard
• Use Undo and Redo
• Insert, view, print cell comments
• Understand absolute and relative cell references
• Understand mixed cell references
• Create and Use a template
• Add an App to a workbook
• Freeze columns and rows
• Split the window into multiple panes
• Check spelling

Session 4: Making Your Worksheets Look Professional

• Format dates
• Understand date serial numbers
• Format numbers using built-in number formats
• Create custom number formats
• Horizontally align the contents of cells
• Merge cells, wrap text and expand/collapse the formula bar
• Vertically align the contents of cells
• Understand themes
• Use cell styles and change themes
• Add color and gradient effects to cells
• Add borders and lines
• Create your own custom theme and cell styles
• Use a master style book to merge styles
• Use simple conditional formatting
• Manage multiple conditional formats using the Rules Manager
• Bring data alive with visualizations
• Create a formula driven conditional format
• Insert a Sparkline into a range of cells
• Apply a common vertical axis and formatting to a Sparkline group
• Apply a date axis to a Sparkline group and format a single Sparkline
• Use the Format Painter
• Rotate text

Session 5: Charts and Graphics

• Understand chart types, layouts and styles
• Create a simple chart with two clicks
• Move, re-size, copy and delete a chart
• Create a chart using the Recommended Charts feature
• Add and remove chart elements using Quick Layout
• Apply a pre-defined chart style and color set
• Manually format a chart element
• Format 3-D elements and add drop shadows
• Move, re-size, add, position and delete chart elements
• Apply a chart filter
• Change a chart’s source data
• Assign non-contiguous source data to a chart
• Understand Data Series and Categories
• Change source data using the Select Data Source dialog tools
• Chart non-contiguous source data by hiding rows and columns
• Create a chart with numerical axes
• Deal with empty data points
• Add data labels to a chart
• Add data labels from a range
• Highlight specific data points with color and annotations
• Add gridlines and scale axes
• Emphasize data by manipulating pie charts
• Create a chart with two vertical axis
• Create a combination chart containing different chart types
• Add a trend line
• Add a gradient fill to a chart background
• Create your own chart templates

Session 6: Working With Multiple Worksheets and Workbooks

• View the same workbook in different windows
• View two windows side by side and perform synchronous scrolling
• Duplicate worksheets within a workbook
• Move and copy worksheets from one workbook to another
• Hide and unhide a worksheet
• Create cross worksheet formulas
• Understand worksheet groups
• Use find and replace

Session 7: Printing Your Work

• Print Preview and change paper orientation
• Use Page Layout view to adjust margins
• Use Page Setup to set margins more precisely and center the worksheet
• Set paper size and scale
• Insert, delete and preview page breaks
• Adjust page breaks using Page Break Preview
• Add auto-headers and auto-footers and set the starting page number
• Add custom headers and footers
• Specify different headers and footers for the first, odd and even pages
• Print only part of a worksheet
• Add row and column data labels and grid lines to printed output
• Print several selected worksheets and change the page order.
• Suppress error messages in printouts

Session 8: Cloud computing

• Save a workbook to a SkyDrive
• Open a workbook from a SkyDrive
• Understand operating systems
• Understand Office web apps
• Open a workbook using the Excel web app
• Share a link to a workbook
• Edit a workbook simultaneously with other users using the Excel web app