Ch.11--"Autofilter and Advanced Filter in Excel"

Chapter 11 of the advanced Excel unit goes over how to use Autofilter and advanced filter. They both can be found in data then filter. When you click on autofilter these little arrows are put in each of the headings and when clicked on you can find all of the data that fits the criteria. Such as if you had a column for cost, you would be able to find data that has a certain cost or the top 10 of the list for cost. Also you are able to sort ascending and descending, which is very helpful. The advanced filter is a way to find data in your list and to copy it to another location. Activity 11.1 talks about it more in depth.

The first project asks you to use both autofilter and advanced filter to find information. It says, using autofilter to find products that cost less than $1.00 and print out that page. Next it says to use an advanced filter to find records with a quantity in stock that is less than 100. In activity 11.1 I was asked to do the same thing except with different numbers. So I followed those same steps and put in <100>$5,000.
The final project asks you just to use advanced filter to find products that are available in a small size. Then it asks you to print it in portrait orientation. Then it also asks you to find large sizes that have a sale price greater than $10.00. So that means that the advanced filter will be filtering on two criteria

Ch.10--"Creating and Editing Lists in Excel"

Chapter 10 involves creating and editing lists. It also shows how to add records to a data list. You can go to data form from under the data tab and typing in new data becomes easier. Editing records is also very simple; you can either use data form or just simply change the cell right on the sheet. You can delete records in a list along with the rest of this. Again you can use data form and delete the information you don’t wish to have. To sort a list go to data and choose sort then sort however you wish.

The first project is very simple. You sort the list by division, then by last name, and then by first name. I did this by going to data then sort. The second project asks you to enter in the data that they show. It says to make it easier you can format the cells as you wish. Then I sorted the data by state then city in order to quickly glance at the subcontractors available in a specific area.

The activity that I had to do was 10.1 and it had a table of information for you to copy in a worksheet in excel. To increase the table’s appearance I applied an autoformat to it and sorted the list in ascending order by Item No. For the cost and selling price columns I formatted them to currency with two decimals.

Ch.9--"Transposing text and modifying charts in Excel"

Excel chapter 9 talks about how to use auto format, conditional format, enhance appearance of charts and transposing text. Auto format is under the format tab and it formats data that you selected and puts it into a table format that enhances the data’s presentation. Conditional format will highlight any number that you say is either between two numbers, greater than a number or less than a number. It is very useful for identifying numbers that are different from the rest. To enhance the appearance of charts you open the chart toolbar and go to format chart area. You can do things like make its’ corners round or create a shadow effect. There may be times when data is entered in the worksheet in columns or rows and then you realize it would be more appealing if you switched them. That’s what transposing is. You highlight your columns or rows then go to Edit then Paste Special and choose transpose.

The first project makes you format a range of cells and change the date format. (Something that I learned in introductory Excel) Then it asks to take range of cells C4:G14 and paste them in the second sheet. To print the worksheet it says to print it in landscape, which is easily done by going to file then page setup.

The second project asks you to format the sales figures with a $ sign and two decimal places. So I highlighted those cells and went to format cells then number then finally currency with two decimal places. In that same format cells box is a heading that says alignment- that is where I found to make the headings to 45 degrees. The book tells you to merge and center, the title and subtitles only, columns A through D. Then finally I transposed the data in A4:D11 by going to edit then paste special.

The third project has you play around with a chart. It tells you to add a data table to it, to resize it and to change the border style of the chart to rounded edges. To add the data table just open the chart toolbar and choose add data table. To resize it drag one of its’ corners and to change the border style go to format chart area in the chart toolbar and choose rounded corners.

The activity that I had to do was to apply an autoformat to the projected sales data and use conditional formatting to highlight the sales figures that exceed $60,000 for any month and any division. Both of these things can be done by highlighting the cells A4-M12 and go to format and choose autoformat – choose one – then go to conditional formatting in the same heading. Put in cell value is greater than 60,000.

Ch.8--"Charts in Excel"

There are so many different kinds of charts because in reality there are many different ways to display data. There is not just one or two ways to illustrate something; there is a bunch of different ways to illustrate something. You would use these charts for finding a relationship between two things, looking at percentages and/or to compare different rates. You would use these options in a job where you have to prepare presentations for your boss or for a statistics class in college. At some point in your life you will probably need to make a chart of some data and Excel helps you get it done – and done fast.

Ch.7--"Worksheets and Workbooks"

When you open Microsoft Excel you have a spreadsheet in front of you and in the lower left-hand corner there are other sheets called worksheets. A workbook is a collection of all those worksheets. To transfer from one worksheet to another all you have to do is click on the worksheet you want to work on. To help identify which worksheet is which you can change its name by double clicking on it and typing what you wish to call it and you can change its color by going into Format then Sheet then Tab Color. You are able to link things from different cells of one worksheet to another. First you have the cell selected enter = then click on the worksheet you wish to link to that spot. Now that worksheet is opened. Finally to link you click the cell in that sheet to your first sheet you just click on it and hit enter. Excel transfers it. You can add cells from different sheets using the same technique except you need an addition sign. Working with different worksheets is made simple in Excel.

Ch.6--"Graphics in Microsoft Excel"

Just like Microsoft Word you can access graphics in Excel from the Insert menu then Picture and you can choose from file or clip art. If you choose from file you can search within your files for a picture. If you click clip art Excel will find graphics that are accessible from the internet. You type what you want in the search bar. To put it into the spreadsheet point your cursor over it and hit the arrow that appears and click insert. People will add graphics into the spreadsheet to change the appearance of the worksheet. These pictures are even sometimes added to illustrate data in the worksheet. An example is that some companies like to put their corporate logo at the top of the sheet to show who they are.

Ch.5--"Excel and its function formula capabilities"

Excel gives an advantage to anyone who wants to use mathematical formulas. It has what it calls function formulas that can determine things like the max, min or average of a list of data. If there is a long list of data Excel is very useful because you don’t need to pull out a calculator and type in all of those numbers. In Excel all you do is click on the box you wish to perform a function on and then go to insert then function. Since there is such a huge library of functions Excel can perform you type in a description of the function you want and it searches in its library. Yet another advantage is it tells you how to enter the data in the formula to get what you want. Finding things like standard deviations, sums and averages can be long and hard work, but with Excel it is made easier and more efficient.

Ch.4--"Microsoft Excel in My Future"

In my future I am looking to be an accountant or a finance guy. Excel will help me enormously when I enter in things like projection sales, revenue and debts. With Excel’s capabilities I will be able to work faster and understand what is going on with these tables easier. My dad is a Vice President of Finance for a company and he says that he uses Excel all of the time. I have seen him, it is crazy how fast he can enter numbers and analyze the tables he creates. Excel’s calculator capabilities are very important when you need a lot of numbers multiplied or added together. I am excited to use the program in the future.

Ch.3--"Microsoft Excel 2008 for the Mac"

This article from http://www.macworld.com/article/131558/2008/01/excel2008.html is an article about the update to Microsoft Excel 2008. This website is about macs and it relates what is new to Microsoft Excel to those macs. Since Excel is macs leading spreadsheet provider they thought it would be useful to sort of list the pros, cons and buying advice of the new Excel, on their website. A new feature is the formula builder and it says that it is more time efficient. It has a formula AutoComplete so you know exactly what the formula is. With the toolbar icons being in color they are easier to read and to find when working on a spreadsheet. They say a disadvantage is that Excel 2008, just like Excel 2004, doesn’t support Services, so more work is required to use text from Excel in other programs. Their buying advice is: If you have used Excel 2004, you have used Excel 2008.

Ch.2--"Formatting Cells in Excel"

A new process that I learned in this chapter is the different kinds of cell formats. There are formats for currency to percentages. It is really cool. What you do is highlight the cell/cells that you wish to change its format and go to the format tab and choose cells. Go to the heading number. Read the descriptions for the format names to determine what kind of format you want for your project. For example if you change the format to currency Excel will automatically put a dollar sign in front of the number and it will place the decimal accordingly and put two zeros behind it, just like currency. It can also do fractions. It will display all the numbers you put into Excel as a fraction. This is important to Excel because it makes it easier and faster for someone to type in currencies, fractions, dates and more. It makes it so the person typing does not have to worry about putting a dollar sign or a decimal place into their numbers. You are able to select any number of cells you want for that format and you can have as many different formats as you want. This is good because Excel will allow you to have different formats for different cells.

Ch.1--"Initial Thoughts on Microsoft Excel"

I am very excited on starting with Microsoft Excel today. It is a program that has so many uses and I wish to know how those uses may help me in the future. I believe that having Microsoft Excel will enhance my ability to type numbers quickly and efficiently. This will be very helpful in college and in my career. My dad has been working with Microsoft Excel for many years and I have seen what he can do with it and I wish that soon I will be showing him some shortcuts and techniques in Excel, even though he has been using it for years.

Ch.8--"What is a Wizard?"

A wizard on any Microsoft program is a step-by-step instructor on how to do something like mail merge or creating a résumé. The instructor tells you what to do through a dialog box that appears when you click on the wizard. You are sometimes able to do these tasks without using the wizard, but there are a lot of downsides. For one, you may not even be doing something like a résumé right, but when you use the wizard you know you are doing it right because of the step-by-step instructions Microsoft Word gives you. Another downside to doing it yourself is that you are probably much slower because some things are very complex for a user to do by themselves. A wizard is very useful because there are not a lot of people fully understand all the tasks that a Microsoft program can do.

Ch.7--"How to format columns into Word"

If you are interested in putting columns into a Word document you must go to Format and then to Columns. From there you can choose anywhere from 2 to 12 columns. Once you have chosen your number of columns you are able to change the width in between two of your columns. This is very helpful because you are able to adjust the columns to what you need for your document. Another option on the Columns menu is for Microsoft Word to make columns from where your insertion point is. The program will make columns of all the words that are under your insertion point. This tool is also very helpful if you only need part of your document in columns.

Ch.6--"Graphics in Microsoft Word"

People would want to use graphics in Microsoft Word because it spices up the document. For something like an invitation it is fun to add graphics to make it look cool and to make people want to go to where the invitation is inviting them to. Graphics in a Word document can also be used to explain or emphasize something. If a company puts a document out that says that everyone needs to be on time in the morning, there may be a picture of a clock to emphasize it. These graphics come from three different places: the internet, my collections on my username and from Microsoft Office’s collections. Since there is three different places that they come from you will be able to get a wide variety of graphics. To put in a graphic you go to insert then picture then clip-art. You search for what you need and you scroll over it to the arrow that will appear. Click the arrow on the picture you want and then you do what you want with it, whether that is to copy it or insert it. Once it is in the document you can format the graphic to what you would like.

Ch.5--"Microsoft Word better than blogger software"

Microsoft Word has many features that the blog software does not. The one that everyone probably uses is the spell check in Microsoft Word. There are a lot of words out there and it is hard to spell them all, but when you type in Microsoft Word it identifies a word if it is spelled wrong or if the sentence is not complete. In blogs people like to be creative with the fonts and font colors and in Microsoft Word you can change those things very easily. There are things in Microsoft Word like a Thesaurus and Bulleted List made easy. Overall Microsoft Word is user friendly for someone who needs to type anything.

Ch.4--"Microsoft Word in the Future"

Right now I use Microsoft Word a lot because of all the schoolwork that I have. In the near future I will still be using it a lot because in college there will be even more work to do on Microsoft Word. I will use it for essays and projects. After college I plan to still use Microsoft Word. I will use it to create my résumé and letters. I wish to be an accountant and that will mean I will have a lot of typing to do and Microsoft Word will help me accomplish my goals at my job. It will help with its easy underlined and bolding words.

Ch.3--"A Newsletter in Microsoft Word"

At www.microsoft.com/mac there is an article on how to lay out a newsletter in publishing view in Microsoft Word. It gives you step-by-step instructions on how to make the newsletter. Step 1 is to set up the master page. The master page contains text and pictures. To maintain a consistent look for all imported pictures you use image drop zone. An image drop zone applies a consistent look to any image that is dropped on to it. Once you finish formatting what you newsletters will look like, you save and as a template so that you can use that same format every time you wish to write a newsletter. Once you have created the template you can start putting what you wish to have on this newsletter.

Ch.2--"Find and Replace it!"

Before this class started I would always use ctrl+f to get to a word that I needed to replace or just delete. Once I read this section I found out that there was a much easier way to accomplish that. It is called find and replace. If you go under the Edit tab you can find the find word command and just below it is the replace command. It also has a shortcut, ctrl+h. What this command will do is you tell it to find a word in the whole document and you tell it to replace it with another word. The program will search the whole document for that word you wish to replace and it replaces it with the word you wish. It is great and important to Microsoft word; this command will help everyone do a lot of work quicker because sometimes you want to replace one word and make it into a different word throughout the whole document.

Ch.1--"Initial Thoughts on Microsoft Office"

My initial thought coming into Microsoft Office at CDC was that I will be able to learn and master the techniques of Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. That opinion still has yet to change. This class will give me advantages when I need to use these programs in college because after I take this class for a whole year I should be a master at these programs. On day one I didn’t think I would learn anything new, but shortly after I started I learned shortcuts from going word to word and going from the top of the page to the bottom of the page really fast. Coming into the class I did not think that Microsoft Word had so many different operations, but after glancing through the whole book I realized I was wrong. Because there is so much typing in this class I will gradually become faster and more efficient. That will be great for my future career in finance.