The Interface & Workbooks

Before you can work fast in Excel, you need to know where things are. The Excel window has a lot of buttons, but you only need a handful of areas to get started, and they are the same in every modern version.

In this lesson you will learn the parts of the Excel window, the difference between a workbook and a worksheet, how to move around a large sheet, and how to save your work in the right file type.

The parts of the Excel window

Open Excel and choose Blank workbook. From top to bottom you will see:

The ribbon is divided into tabs (Home, Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, Review, View). Each tab has groups of related buttons. For example, the Home tab has a Font group, an Alignment group and a Number group. Some groups have a tiny arrow in the bottom-right corner, called the dialog box launcher, which opens a window with more options.

The File tab is different: it opens a full-screen menu for New, Open, Save As, Print, Share and Options. Press Esc or the back arrow to return to your sheet.

The formula bar shows the truth

Type =45*12 in cell A1 and press Enter. The cell shows 540, but click it again and the formula bar shows =45*12. The cell displays a result; the formula bar shows the content. Whenever a number looks wrong, click the cell and read the formula bar first.

=45*12

540

Workbooks and worksheets

An Excel file is called a workbook. A workbook contains one or more worksheets (usually just called sheets). Think of the workbook as a register and the sheets as its pages.

A shop could keep one workbook called Shop-2026.xlsx with one sheet per month:

• Click the + next to the sheet tabs to add a sheet (or press Shift+F11).
• Double-click a tab to rename it, for example Oct or Nov.
• Right-click a tab for more choices: Delete, Move or Copy, Tab Color, Hide.
• Drag a tab left or right to change the order.

A formula can read a cell on another sheet. Write the sheet name, an exclamation mark, then the cell. On a sheet called Summary, this formula shows the October total stored in E8 of the Oct sheet:

=Oct!E8

If the sheet name contains a space, wrap it in single quotes. Excel adds the quotes for you if you click the cell instead of typing:

='Oct Sales'!E8

Moving around a large sheet

Real sheets have hundreds or thousands of rows. Scrolling with the mouse is slow; these keys are faster:

You can also click the Name Box, type an address such as H500 and press Enter to jump straight there. On a Mac, many shortcuts use the Command key instead of Ctrl; Keyboard Shortcuts lists both.

To keep headings visible while you scroll, go to View > Freeze Panes > Freeze Top Row. Row 1 now stays at the top no matter how far down you go.

Quick answers from the status bar

Select some cells that contain numbers. Without typing any formula, the status bar at the bottom shows their Average, Count and Sum. This is perfect for a quick check. Right-click the status bar to add Minimum, Maximum and Numerical Count.

The status bar does not store anything in the sheet. When you need the total to stay in the sheet, write a formula such as:

=SUM(B2:B31)

Saving in the right file type

Press Ctrl+S to save. The first time, Excel asks for a name and a place. If you save to OneDrive, AutoSave (the switch at the top left) saves every change automatically and keeps a version history under File > Info > Version History.

Common mistakes

• Reading the cell instead of the formula bar. A cell can show 540 while holding the formula =B2*C2 or the typed number 540. The formula bar tells you which.
• One giant sheet for everything. Put each month or each topic on its own sheet, with clear tab names.
• Saving the only copy as CSV. You lose every formula and every extra sheet.

Key points

• The ribbon holds all commands in tabs and groups; the Search box finds any command by name.
• The Name Box shows and jumps to cell addresses; the formula bar shows a cell's real content.
• A workbook is the file; worksheets are the pages inside it.
• Refer to another sheet with SheetName!Cell, adding single quotes when the name has spaces.
• Save normal work as .xlsx; use .xlsm only for macros and .csv only for exporting data.

=B2+B3

56000