Excel tutorial Introduction · 2014-03-08 · Excel tutorial for Numerical methods (CEng 2002) 2 AAU, Institute of Technology, Civil Engineering Department By: Zerihun Alemayehu The

Excel tutorial for Numerical methods (CEng 2002)

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AAU, Institute of Technology, Civil Engineering Department By: Zerihun Alemayehu

Excel tutorial

Introduction

Microsoft Excel is an electronic spreadsheet. You can use it to organize your data into rows

and columns. You can also use it to perform mathematical calculations quickly.

Microsoft Excel consists of worksheets. Each worksheet contains columns and rows. The

columns are lettered A to Z and then continuing with AA, AB, AC and so on; the rows are

numbered 1 to 1,048,576. The number of columns and rows you can have in a worksheet is

limited by your computer memory and your system resources.

The combination of a column coordinate and a row coordinate make up a cell address. For

example, the cell located in the upper-left corner of the worksheet is cell A1, meaning

column A, row 1. Cell E10 is located under column E on row 10. You enter your data into the

cells on the worksheet.

Start Excel: it should look like this

Ribbon

Working

area

Formula

bar

Office button


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The ribbon: See below

The Ribbon is made up of the following components:

✦ Tabs: Excel’s main tasks are brought together and display all the commands commonly

needed to perform that core task.

✦ Groups: Organize related command buttons into subtasks normally performed as part of

the tab’s larger core task.

✦ Command buttons: Within each group that you select to perform a particular action or to

open a gallery from which you can click a particular thumbnail, you find command buttons.

Note that many command buttons on certain tabs of the Excel Ribbon are organized into

minitoolbars with related settings.

✦ Dialog Box launcher: This button is located in the lower-right corner of certain groups

and opens a dialog box containing a bunch of additional options you can select.

The Formula Bar

Formula Bar

If the Formula bar is turned on, the cell address of the cell you are in displays in the Name

box which is located on the left side of the Formula bar. Cell entries display on the right side

of the Formula bar. If you do not see the Formula bar in your window, perform the following

steps:

1. Choose the View tab. 2. Click Formula Bar in the Show/Hide group. The Formula bar appears.

Note: The current cell address displays on the left side of the Formula bar.

Perform Mathematical Calculations

In Microsoft Excel, you can enter numbers and mathematical formulas into cells. Whether

you enter a number or a formula, you can reference the cell when you perform mathematical

calculations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division. When entering a

mathematical formula, precede the formula with an equal sign. Use the following to indicate

the type of calculation you wish to perform:

Quick access bar

Group

button

Dialog box

launchfsder

Tab


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+ Addition - Subtraction * Multiplication / Division ^ Exponential

Recognizing cursor styles - There are four common cursor styles used in Excel.

Click and drag to highlight

multiple cells with this

cursor, or click in a cell to

select the single cell

Click and drag with this

cursor to fill cell contents

into cells below or to the

right.

Click and drag the contents

of the selected cell to any

other cell.

Click to place the cursor

into the Formula bar so

that you can edit an

equation or function.

Exercise 1: Inputting data and basic calculation

a. Select cell A2 and type your name (example Hailu Tefera).

b. Press enter then it should go to cell A3. Type courses. Press enter and type

programming. Input the rest as shown in the figure below.


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c. Select cell B3 and type mark. Press enter and input the rest as shown below

d. Select cell A9 and type total. Then press enter and type average in cell A10.

e. Select cell B9 and type =B4 + B5 + B6 + B7 + B8

(Note: in Excel formula always starts with an = )

f. Press enter. Type in cell B10 =B9/5 (i.e. to calculate the average) then press enter.

g. From the quick access bar click to save your work name it “mygrade”

Exercise 2: Calculating using Excel formulas

In this exercise we are going to calculate the sum and average using built in Excel

formulas

a. Open the previous “mygrade” Excel sheet.

b. Click and select cell B9 and click on the ribbon the icon. The worksheet

should look like this


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Now press enter. You will get the summation of the values from B4 up to B8.

c. Now select cell B10 and in the ribbon click the downward arrow and then select

average. As alternate you can also type =average( in the selected cell.

Then the worksheet should look like this


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Since we want to calculate the average for the values from cell B4 to B8, in type

=average(B4:B8), then press enter.

d. Click the save button

3. Working with graphs

Exercise 3: plotting courses verses mark

In this exercise we will try to plot a bar chart of courses verses mark

a. Open the previous worksheet

b. Click and on cell A3, keep holding the mouth down and try to drag and select all

the courses and the corresponding marks. See below

c. Go to the ribbon and click the insert tab


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d. From the charts group click and select column then select the first option from 2-

D column category select Clustered column

e. Then the bar chart will appear on the worksheet as shown below

Insert tab


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4. Exercise 4: Finding root graphically

In this exercise we will see how we can roughly determine the roots of a polynomial

function f(x) = x3

+ x2

-9x+9 = 0

Steps

a. Open excel

b. Select cell A1 and type finding root graphically

c. Select cell A2 and type x and click on cell B2 and type f(x)

d. Select cell A3 and type -4

e. Select cell B3 and type = A3^3 + A3^2 - 9*A3 + 9

f. Press enter

g. Now select cell A4 and type =A3+0.5 (incrementing the value of x by 0.5)

h. Move the cursor to the bottom left corner of cell A4 till the cross changes from

think cursor to thin dark cursor, hold the mouth down and drag it up to cell A19.

i. Select cell B3 at the bottom left corner, hold the mouth down and drag it up to cell

B19. By doing these (step h and j) we copied the formula to the cell without the

need to retype to the same formula repeatedly.


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j. Click the save button and save your work. Name it “root1”.

k. To plot the graph first select the cell range from A2 to B19 by dragging the cursor

starting from cell A2 through B19. Your selection should appear as shown in the

figure below


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l. Now click on the insert tab from the Ribbon

m. Then from the chart group click on scatter button which will drop down different

Scatter chart types.

n. From the drop down select the second option “Scatter with Smooth lines and

Curves” chart type


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From the graph we can see that the polynomial equation have three real roots at x = -3, 1 and

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Documents

Excel tutorial Introduction · 2014-03-08 · Excel tutorial for Numerical methods (CEng 2002) 2 AAU, Institute of Technology, Civil Engineering Department By: Zerihun Alemayehu The