Excel Introduction

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program: a grid of boxes where you type numbers and text, and then let Excel do the calculations. A kirana shop owner can total the day's sales in it, a teacher can work out class results, and an accounts clerk can prepare a GST invoice, all without a calculator.

In this lesson you will learn how a spreadsheet is organised, what a cell address is, which versions of Excel exist today, and you will write your first formula.

Rows, columns and cells

An Excel sheet is made of columns and rows. Columns run up and down and are named with letters: A, B, C and so on. After Z come AA, AB, and the last column is XFD. Rows run across and are numbered 1, 2, 3, up to 1,048,576.

The box where a column and a row meet is a cell. Every cell has an address made of its column letter and row number. The cell in column B, row 3 is B3. Excel always writes the letter first, so 3B is not a valid address.

Throughout this tutorial, sheet data is shown as a table with the column letters across the top and the row numbers down the left side, exactly like the Excel window. You can type the same values into the same cells and rebuild every example yourself.

Here is a small sheet from Meera's stationery shop in Lucknow:

The text "Gel pen" is in cell A3. The number 120 is in cell B4. Row 1 holds headings that describe each column; this is a good habit for every sheet you make.

Your first formula

A formula is an instruction that calculates a value. Every formula starts with an equals sign =. Type this into cell D2 of Meera's sheet and press Enter:

=B2*C2

540

Excel multiplied the price in B2 (45) by the quantity in C2 (12). The cell shows the result, 540, while the formula bar above the grid shows the formula itself. If Meera changes the price in B2 to 50, cell D2 updates to 600 straight away. That automatic recalculation is the main reason people use a spreadsheet instead of a calculator.

Now add a heading "Amount (₹)" in D1, put the same kind of formula in D3 and D4, and total the column in D5:

=SUM(D2:D4)

1320

SUM is a function, a ready-made calculation that Excel provides. D2:D4 is a range, which means "every cell from D2 to D4". The amounts are 540, 300 and 480, so the total is 1320. You will learn many functions in this tutorial, starting with SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, MIN & MAX.

What people use Excel for

• Lists and registers: stock lists, attendance registers, customer details.
• Calculations: bills, salaries, marks, EMI and interest.
• Reports: monthly sales summaries with totals and charts.
• Analysis: finding the best-selling item or the slowest month with sorting, filtering and PivotTables.

Excel is not the right tool for everything. Long letters belong in a word processor, and data shared by hundreds of users at once usually belongs in a database. For personal, office and small-business numbers, though, a spreadsheet is often the fastest tool you have.

Which Excel do you have?

Several versions of Excel are in use today. Newer versions have more functions, so it helps to know which one you are using.

To check your version on Windows, open File > Account and look under Product Information. This tutorial teaches Microsoft 365, and every lesson says when a feature needs a newer version. Where Google Sheets behaves differently, the lesson says so, and Google Sheets Differences covers the gaps in one place.

How formulas are shown in this tutorial

Formulas appear in boxes labelled Excel formula. Type them exactly as shown, starting with =, into the cell the lesson names. The value the cell then shows appears in an Output box. When a formula sits inside a sheet table, it is written in code style, for example =B2*C2, so you can see which cell holds which formula.

=B3*C3

300

Common mistakes

• Forgetting the equals sign. If you type B2*C2 without =, Excel stores it as plain text and shows exactly what you typed.
• Typing the answer instead of a formula. Writing 540 by hand in D2 looks the same today, but it will not change when the price changes. Let formulas do the work.
• Mixing units in one column. Keep "Price (₹)" as plain numbers. Typing "45 rupees" turns the cell into text, and formulas cannot calculate with it.

Key points

• A sheet is a grid of columns (letters) and rows (numbers); each cell has an address such as B3.
• A formula starts with = and recalculates automatically when its input cells change.
• A function such as SUM is a ready-made calculation; D2:D4 is a range of cells.
• Microsoft 365 has the newest functions; Excel 2021 and 2024 have most of them; Excel for the web and Google Sheets are free.
• Put clear headings in row 1 and keep each column to one kind of data.

=SUM(D2:D4)

2270