Lutz F.

Krebs

Introduction to
Microsoft Office
© 2001 – 2002 Universiteit Maastricht.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in any
form or by any means, without prior, written permission from the publisher.

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TRADEMARKS
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publication may be trademarks, service marks, or trade names of companies
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internationally.

DISCLAIMER
WE HAVE USED EXCEPTIONAL CARE IN PREPARING THIS BOOK.
NONETHELESS, PUBLISHER AND AUTHOR MAKE NO CLAIMS OR
WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR
COMPLETENESS OF THE BOOK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM
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INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR OTHER DAMAGES.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following for their continued support:
Dirk Tempelaar. The computer whiz kids at ACO and ICTS. Andreas van
Rienen and Carsten Sturmann. Christiane Arndt.

FEEDBACK
We are happy to hear from you. You can contact the author directly at
l.krebs@ke.unimaas.nl.

Version 1.2 – 28/07/02

Maastricht University
P.O. Box 616
6200 MD Maastricht
Netherlands
 CONTENTS

A. GENERAL TOPICS
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1. Introduction 3
2. Common Elements of Microsoft Office Programs 7

B. MICROSOFT WORD
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1. Introduction 19
2. Entering & Editing Text 23
3. Formatting Your Document 33

C. MICROSOFT EXCEL
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1. Introduction 41
2. Entering Data & Making Calculations 45
3. Formatting Your Spreadsheet 57
4. Analyzing & Displaying Data 69

D. MICROSOFT POWERPOINT
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1. Introduction 81
2. Building Your Visual Aids 85
3. Refining & Rehearsing 97

APPENDIX
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A. A Selection of Useful Excel Functions 107

 Image: size-isnt-everything.co.uk

GENERAL TOPICS
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1. INTRODUCTION
Office packages are bundles of programs that help you with daily
‘office’ chores, such as writing documents, making extensive
calculations, preparing presentations, maintaining databases etc. While
there are a number of competing Office suites, Microsoft Office is the
unchallenged market leader and is used by the majority of companies
around the world.

An Overview
This manual is meant as an introduction to the three most important
programs in Microsoft Office 2000: Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

In the first section, we will discuss all the elements that these three have
in common. We then devote a section to each of the programs. In the
section on Word, we discuss how you can use this word processor to
type, edit and format documents such as writing assignments. In the third
section, we will learn the basics about Excel. Excel is Office’s
spreadsheet program, and it is used heavily in your Quantitative Methods
subjects. The fourth section then provides a step-by-step guide to
creating presentations in PowerPoint.

What you need to get started

Strictly speaking, you do not need anything. All of the above programs
SMR (Studenten Micro Ruimte) are installed in our faculty’s computer labs (or SMRs as they are called at
Synonym for computer lab at our our university). There are two SMRs at the Faculty of Economics and
university.
Business Studies, and both are located in the main building at
Tongersestraat 53. To use a PC there, you need your student ID number
and a password that has been mailed to you together with your student
ID card.

THE COMPUTER ROOMS

SMR 1 SMR 2
LOCATION Rooms 3.047 – 3.061 Rooms 0.012 – 0.014
NUMBER OF PCS 120 60

OPENING HOURS
Mon – Thu 9 a.m. – 10 p.m. 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Fridays 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Weekends closed closed

MORE INFO www.fdewb.unimaas.nl/smr/

In general, the SMRs should only be used for study related activities,
e.g. downloading and reviewing lecture notes, writing papers, registering
4 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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for courses etc. If you want to write personal emails or surf the web for
fun, you are asked to restrict yourself to the early morning (9 – 10 a.m.)
or the evening (after 5 p.m.). Even with these rules in place, the SMRs
tend to get crowded often.

When the SMRs are closed, you can walk over to the library, which
offers a small computer room of its own. Be aware that other faculties
also use this computer room – you may have to wait (possibly a long
time) for a PC to become available. If you know in advance that you
need a PC for a study related reason, you can make a reservation for up
to two hours per day.

THE LIBRARY

ADDRESS Bonnefantenstraat 2
PHONE (043) 388 34 27
WEBSITE www.ub.unimaas.nl

OPENING HOURS
Mon – Thu 8.30 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Fridays 8.30 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Saturdays 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sundays 12 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Our computer labs can get very crowded during peak times, and it may
be a good idea to buy a used or new PC to work at home. In that case,
you will also need to buy a copy of Microsoft Office, as Office is a
commercial program. The cheapest way to get Microsoft Office 2000 is
to buy it from the ICT Service Center. Office 2000 Professional costs 25
€1 for students and includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus other
useful programs such as Microsoft Outlook.

THE ICT SERVICE CENTER

ADDRESS Looiersgracht 14, Room 0.011

PHONE (043) 388 35 64
EMAIL servicedesk@icts.unimaas.nl
WEBSITE www.icts.unimaas.nl

OFFICE HOURS Phone/Email Walk in

Weekdays 8 a.m. – 10 p.m. 8.30 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturdays 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. closed

On the Use of this Book

In this book, we assume that you have access to a PC with the
appropriate software. We also presume that you know in general how to

1
These prices are sharply reduced in comparison to normal retail prices, because Maastricht University (in cooperation
with other Dutch universities) buys large quantities of educational licenses.
 General Topics: Introduction 5
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operate a Windows-based PC. We will take it from there.

This manual is not meant to be all-encompassing. It is meant as an

introduction and as a guide. We will focus on getting you started, and in
doing so will ignore a number of useful advanced features. You are
encouraged to go beyond the contents of this book and explore the tools
that you are working with. Some of your future courses will also expand
upon the contents in this manual, particularly the QM courses make
extensive use of Microsoft Excel. If you feel that you need further
guidance, there are a number of excellent printed resources. Personally,
we find the jargon-free language and useful hints of the ‘For Dummies’
series to be particularly appealing, but there are certainly many other
useful and well-written computer books out there. There is also a lot of
helpful information on the web.

This book is focused on showing you how to accomplish certain tasks in

Microsoft Office. Be aware that there are usually several ways to get
things done. We will endeavor to show you as many of them as possible.
In doing so, we will use the following conventions:

· Toolbar buttons that initiate a certain function are usually

A toolbar. displayed in the margin together with a brief description of what
the button does.

· If you need to press a key on the keyboard, we will indicate this

by printing the key, e.g. / implies that you need to hit
‘enter’. Frequently, key combinations are used to accomplish
tasks. An example of such a key combination would be c +
P, which means that you should press and hold the ‘ctrl’ key
while pressing ‘p’.

· When you need to enter more than a few characters, we will not
print the individual keys, because that would be space consuming
and hard to read. Instead, we will indicate the text using a special
font, as demonstrated here: ‘enter this’.

· Some of the options cannot be initiated by using a keyboard

shortcut or an on-screen button. Such options are can usually be
found in the menu bar. If we want you to select an option from
A menu bar. the menu bar, we will list the names of the options in
chronological order. E.g. ‘File’ „ ‘Print’ would imply that you
click on ‘File’ in the menu bar, and then select ‘Print’ from the
menu that appears. Instead of clicking on the items, you can also
use your keyboard: press a and the underlined letter, in our
example a + F. Once the menu is open, simply pressing the
underlined letter is sufficient. E.g. after pressing a + F,
pressing P will be enough to take you to the print menu.
6 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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· Finally, we will use a similar notation when you need to select

options from the Start menu, e.g. ‘Start’ „ ‘Programs’ „
‘Microsoft Word’ will launch Word. Once again, you can use
keyboard shortcuts: press the Windows key (ÿ), followed by the
The Start menu.
underlined letters.

If you are stuck…

If you cannot find the answer here, there are still a number of ways to
get help.

If you are stuck using a certain program, the first thing you can try is
pressing the 1 key. Pressing 1 is like asking the computer for help.
In most cases, the appropriate program will then give you additional
information on whatever you are currently doing. The intricacies of the
help system are discussed in more detail in the second chapter of this
section.

There are, however, cases when your computer does not understand your
problem (because the persons that built the software did not foresee it) or
when your PC is not able to help you (because it is malfunctioning). In
such cases, you may want to check out a helpful website, Tech24
SelfHelp at www.tech24inc.com/help.html. Tech 24 offers self-help
links that are sorted by category (e.g. ‘Internet’, ‘Email’, ‘Outlook’).
They also offer live support from certified technicians.

You can also try contacting the producer directly. If you have trouble
with any part of Office, you might want to visit www.microsoft.com to
see if they know the answer to your question. However, some producers
do not offer a lot of support or charge money for it.

Another option is to call or email the computer whiz kids at the ICT
service center of our university. They offer support for the software used
throughout the university, which includes among others Windows,
Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and the McAfee virus scanner. (See
the info box on p. 4 for their contact information.)

Finally, befriending a geek may be the best solution. Geeks are by nature
friendly, helpful and extremely well versed in all things computer. If you
can count one of them as your friend, he (or in rare cases she) probably
won’t mind dropping by and helping you out when you are having
trouble with your PC. An invitation to dinner or to the movies in return
won’t hurt either.

We wish you success in working with Microsoft Office!

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●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
COMING UP…
This chapter discusses common
2. COMMON ELEMENTS OF MICROSOFT
elements of all Office programs.
We will first discuss their OFFICE PROGRAMS
common makeup and will then
turn towards common functions.
All Microsoft Office programs, and indeed most Windows programs,
share some common elements. We will start out by discussing features
that are more or less similar across all Office Programs, namely the
menu bar, toolbars, and status bar. We will then dive into functions that
are shared by all Office products, such as the methods to create, open,
save and print files.

Common features
All Office programs have a comparable assortment of control features: a
menu bar, several toolbars and a status bar. We will now discuss these
elements one by one.

The menu bar

The menu bar offers you access to all services of the application you are
using. You can call up any item on the menu bar either by clicking on it
directly or by pressing and holding the a key while pressing the
underlined letter of the entry. (E.g. to open the file menu, press a +
F.)

Clicking on any of the headings will bring up the appropriate menu,

which contains a broad range of functions. Be aware that no Office
application displays all of the available functions right away. Many
computer users experienced the vast range of available options as
confusing. This is why Microsoft Office applications initially display
only the most frequently used items. Only if you do not do anything for a
moment after opening a menu will they display the remaining options.
Click the ‘expand menu’ button To speed up the process, you can also press the ‘expand menu’ button at
to see the entire range of options. the bottom of the menu.
8 Introduction to Microsoft Office
●●●●●●●●●●●●

If the option you are

looking for is not in the
list, you can wait a few
moments for the menu to
expand to its full
length…

… or you can click on

the ‘expand menu’
button

to expand it to full size

immediately.

All options available in Office applications are grouped into one of the
menus. While the individual options differ between the applications, the
general menus are rather similar.
· The ‘file’ menu offers options to create and open documents,
save, preview and print your work and other options related to
the actual document.

· The ‘edit’ menu allows you easy access to the most fundamental
editing options, such as cutting, copying and pasting, undoing
and redoing changes, as well as finding and replacing text.

· The ‘view’ menu allows you to determine how you would like
your document to be displayed. Furthermore, it gives you access
to parts of your document and of the application that are not
always visible on the screen, such as specialty toolbars.

· The ‘insert’ menu lives up to its name: it enables you to insert all
sorts of objects into your document, whether it is a mere symbol,
an equation, a footnote, a comment or a picture.

· Under the ‘format’ heading, you find all of the formatting

options. What you can format depends on the application: e.g.
fonts and paragraphs in Word, cells, rows and columns in Excel,
and slides in PowerPoint.

· The ‘tools’ menu contains an assortment of helpful functions,

such as the spell checker.

· The ‘window’ menu comes in handy when you are working on

several documents simultaneously, as it allows you to arrange the
documents in any way that you like or that is useful to you.
 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 9
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· Finally, the ‘help’ menu is your first stop whenever you are
stuck.

The toolbars
While the menu bar is highly useful, it would be frustrating if you had to
use it all the time. Imagine you want to cut a line of text and place it
somewhere else – it would take quite long if you had to select ‘edit’,
‘cut’ and then ‘edit’, ‘paste’ for every simple adjustment. For that
reason, there are a number of toolbars that contain shortcuts to the most
frequently used functions.

Generally, Word, Excel and PowerPoint will display only the two most
important toolbars at startup: the standard toolbar and the formatting
toolbar.

The standard toolbar gives access to the most common functions:

creating, opening, saving, printing and emailing documents, cutting,
copying and pasting text, undoing and redoing changes, etc.

The formatting toolbar, as its name suggests, gives access to the most
common formatting options. Using it, you can e.g. change the typeface,
size, alignment, and indentation of your text.

The function of the most important buttons will be discussed in the

appropriate sections of the next chapters. If you are looking for a
particular shortcut or are not certain what a specific button does, there is
a quick way to get help: let your mouse pointer hover above the button
for a few moments, and a yellow sign will appear with a brief
explanation.

Toolbars are similar to menus in one aspect: unless there is an

abundance of space, they only show the most commonly used functions.
Use this button to get access to
If you do not use a particular shortcut button for a while, it will drop off
infrequently used shortcut the toolbar. To get it back, click on the ‘more buttons’ button at the right
buttons. end of the appropriate toolbar.

All applications also offer toolbars for specific problems. Beside the
standard and formatting toolbars, Word offers 14 additional toolbars,
Excel offers a further 12 and PowerPoint another 11 additional bars. You
‘View’ „ ‘Toolbars’ can make additional toolbars visible by clicking on ‘View’, ‘Toolbars’
on the menu bar, and then selecting the appropriate toolbar.
10 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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The status bar

The status bar gives ready access to a wealth of information about your
document, but the type of information is very much dependent on the
application. Most of the information displayed there is aimed at the
advanced user, and we will only discuss it in a small number of cases.

Common functions
We will now turn towards the common functions of Microsoft Office.
There are usually several ways to activate a function, such as a button on
a toolbar, a keyboard shortcut or an entry in the menu bar. All possible
ways to launch a feature are detailed in the margin.

Please note that buttons on the toolbar work slightly differently than the
other two options: they immediately execute the feature, without giving
you an opportunity to change any settings. If you press e.g. the ‘print’
button on the toolbar, your document will be printed immediately using
the settings from the last print job. This could be dangerous if you are
working in the SMR and your last print process used the expensive color
printer! If you want to check or change any of the settings before
activating a feature, you should use the keyboard shortcut or the entry in
the menu bar.

Creating new documents

Pressing the ‘new document’ button on the standard toolbar will get you
c + N a completely blank document in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Using the
‘File’ „ ‘New…’
Create a new document. keyboard shortcut or ‘File’ menu will allow you to choose between a
blank document and some prefabricated templates, such as templates for
letters in Word or PowerPoint presentations with elaborate designs.

Opening existing documents

c + o If you want to access an existing document, you can press the ‘open’
‘File’ „ ‘Open…’ button on the standard toolbar, select ‘File’, ‘Open’ in the menu bar or
Open a document. press c + O. All of them work in the same way; they lead to a
window in which you can select the file to be opened:
 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 11
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To open a file, you first need to go to the location of the file. Two of the
most frequently used locations, the ‘my documents’ folder and your
‘desktop’, can be found using the shortcuts on the left side of the
File type
Files can be classified into
window:. You can also use the ‘history’ button to locate files that you
different types, indicating that have recently worked on. If all this does not help, e.g. when your file is
they contain different on a floppy disk, use the ‘look in’ box at the top of the window to
information. E.g. Word navigate to the location of your file.
documents can contain elaborate
texts, while PowerPoint files
contain slides for a presentation.
Once you have moved to the appropriate location, you should see a list
Files cannot simply be opened of documents. If your file is among them, you can open it by double-
with any program. If you do not clicking on its name or by selecting it and pressing the ‘open’ button. If a
have the software associated large number of files is listed, you may need to scroll through the list to
with the file type, e.g. find the file you are looking for. If you are in the right location, but your
PowerPoint for PowerPoint
documents, you may not be able
file is not on the list, check if the right file type is selected. However, the
to use the file, or you may be correct type will usually be selected by default, e.g. Microsoft Excel will
restricted in its use. always try to open Excel documents initially.

Saving documents
c + S If you have worked on a document and wish to save your progress so
‘File’ „ ‘Save…’ that you can continue editing or using it later, use the ‘save’ button,
Save the current document. select ‘File’, ‘Save’ from the menu or press c + S. If you created a
new document, you will be asked to enter a name for the document.

If you already saved the document earlier on, you will not have to enter
its name anymore – the old version will simply be overwritten.

– Different file types

Under very specific circumstances, you may want to save a document in
a different file type than its standard file type. E.g. if you intend to email
an essay to a person who does not own Microsoft Word, sending it as a
Word document may not be a good idea. In this case, you can select
12 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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different file types at the time when you enter the file name.

Usually, you will select the file type by consensus: the recipient will tell
you what file types he can use and you will select one of them. In the
vast majority of cases, it will not be necessary to change the file type and
we will only return to this subject in the section on PowerPoint.

– Saving under a new name

In some cases, you may want to save a file without overwriting the old
‘File’ „ ‘Save as…’
version, e.g. because you have made significant changes and you want to
Save the current document under preserve the original together with the revised version. In that case, you
a new name. can select ‘File’, ‘Save as’ from the menu bar and enter a new filename.

Printing documents
c + P Pressing the ‘print’ button will immediately print the entire document on
‘File’ „ ‘Print…’ the standard printer, or on the printer that was used for the last printout.
Print the current document. Pressing c + P or choosing ‘File’, ‘Print’ from the menu bar will
allow to make a number of choices before printing, such as:
· which parts of the document you want to print
· which printer you would like to use
· how many copies you would like to print

– Print preview
Before printing a document, you can check whether everything looks the
‘File’ „ ‘Print preview…’
Print preview.
way you intended it to look. Pressing the ‘print preview’ button or
selecting the appropriate item from the menu bar will get you a
miniature preview of the printed document. You can choose to preview
Preview a View several
each page individually, resulting in a more detailed preview, or you can
single page. pages. opt to preview several pages simultaneously. You will be able to choose
how many pages to preview (up to a maximum of 24 pages) and how
they should be arranged. If you are satisfied, you can print directly from
the print preview by clicking on the ‘print’ button (see above), or you
can return to the document for further changes by clicking on ‘close’.

– SMR printer guide

If you are working in the SMR, selecting the correct printer is important.
At the time of writing (July 2002), Hewlett-Packard printers were used
for simple black and white paper printouts. To make a color printout or
to print sheets for overhead projectors, you can use the Tektronix Phaser
printer. Be sure not to confuse the two: printing on the Tektronix printer
is far more expensive than making a normal printout. Once you have
selected a printer for your printouts, it will be used until you select a
different printer. For more information, ask the SMR duty manager or
visit the SMR homepage.
„ www.fdewb.unimaas.nl/smr/
 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 13
●●●●●●●●●●●●

Closing documents
If you want to continue working e.g. in Word, but are done with one
particular document, you can close it. Keeping documents open when
c + 4 you are not working on them will tie down computer memory and may
‘File’ „ ‘Close’ slow down your computer’s other operations. There are lots of ways to
Close the current document. close a document. You can press c + 4 or select ‘File’, ‘Close’
from the menu bar. Alternatively, you could click on the ever-present
‘close’ button that can be found in the top right corner of every
window. Be aware that there may be two such buttons if you have only
one document open: the upper ‘close’ button closes the application, e.g.
Word, while the lower ‘close’ button closes only the current document.
If you have more than one document open, there will only be one close
button, which will always close the current document.

Cutting, copying, pasting

The most comfortable way to move text and other items around in a
document or to transfer them between documents is to cut or copy the
desired item and to paste it wherever it is needed. Before you can do so,
you need to select what you want to cut or copy. There are small, but
significant differences between the procedures used to select text in
Word, cells in Excel and slide elements in PowerPoint. We will therefore
discuss these techniques individually in the appropriate chapters.

– Cutting or copying?
Once you have highlighted the text, cells or objects that you want to cut
s + x or c + x
‘Edit’ „ ‘Cut’ or copy, you will have to choose between cutting and copying them.
Cut Both methods will allow you to insert the object(s) in some other spot,
but there is a crucial difference between them: cut text disappears from
its original location while copied text remains where it is. E.g. if you
c + i or c + C want to move a passage from the middle of your essay to the end, you
‘Edit’ „ ‘Copy’ would usually cut it. If, on the other hand, you want to re-use a passage
Copy in some other essay, you would copy it.

Before you can insert the text, you need to move the cursor to its new
s + i or c + V location, e.g. to the end of your essay. You can then push the ‘paste’
‘Edit’ „ ‘Paste’ button, press s + i or select ‘Edit’, ‘Paste’ from the menu bar.
Paste You can paste the same element as many times as you like.

Undoing changes
When you have done something really disastrous, e.g. deleted all the text
c + Z in your document, you can undo the changes one at a time by clicking on
‘Edit’ „ ‘Undo’
Undo the ‘undo’ button. If you click on the right part of the ‘undo’ button ,
you will see a list of your last changes and you can undo as many of
them as you like.
14 Introduction to Microsoft Office
●●●●●●●●●●●●

If it turns out that the changes were indeed justified, you can re-do them
c + Y by clicking the ‘redo’ button. If you use the ‘redo’ button immediately
‘Edit’ „ ‘Redo’ after pressing the ‘undo’ button, then your changes will be restored. If
Redo your last action however was not to ‘undo’ something, then the ‘redo’
button will be deactivated. Instead, you can use the keyboard shortcut or
c + Y the appropriate ‘Edit’ menu item to repeat your last action. This will not
‘Edit’ „ ‘Repeat’
Repeat
work in all circumstances.

The help system

If you get stuck working in a Microsoft Office application, simply hit
1 1 or push the ‘help’ button. What happens next depends on the
e.g. ‘Help’ „ ‘Microsoft Word
Help’
settings of your computer. If the Office Assistant is installed, it will
Launch the help system. spring to action and offer help. If the Office Assistant is not installed,
pressing 1 will bring up the help system, which is a combination of a
user manual and a list of anticipated questions.

– The regular help system

The help system will appear in the form of another window that will
push your current window to the side so that both windows are visible at
the same time. Its window is split into two main areas: a navigation area,
which helps you find the topics you want, and a text area, where the
actual help will be displayed.

There are three different ways to get information:

The contents and index work just like you would expect them to: the
‘contents’ area offers a list of all the chapters and sections contained in
the user manual, while the index is an alphabetical list of all the words
used in the manual. The answer wizard is probably the most useful tool:
 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 15
●●●●●●●●●●●●

it lets you search a list of topics for your particular problem. Let’s
assume you are working in Word and want to italicize text, but you do
not know how. Simply call up the help system, click on ‘answer wizard’
and type in a couple of keywords:

When you push the ‘search’ button, the help system will return with a
list of topics that may be of relevance for you:

In our case, the answer to our problem is right at the top of the list. If
you have trickier problems, you may have to go through a number of
topics. To read any of the listed topics, click on its title. The topic will
then be displayed in the adjacent area:

– The office assistant

The office assistant is a cartoon character that is meant to help you do
your daily chores using Microsoft Office programs. It will take the form
of a paperclip unless you actively ‘hire’ another character as your
assistant. When you press 1 and the office assistant is installed on
Clippy, the best-known (and your computer, you can ask questions in the same way as when you are
most hated) office assistant. dealing with the answer wizard (see above).

Furthermore, as long as the office assistant is visible on the screen, it

will monitor what you are doing and will offer suggestions when it
thinks that you could accomplish a task more efficiently. This behavior
may be quite useful while you are still learning the ropes, but after a
while, many users get irritated with the office assistant. If you want to
get rid of it, right-click on it and select ‘hide’ from the menu that pops
‘Help’ „ ‘Hide the Office up. Alternatively, you can select ‘Help’, ‘Hide the Office Assistant’ from
Assistant’ the menu bar.
16 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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Dialogue box
A window that requires your – Help in working with dialogue boxes
decision on some topic. E.g.
when you save a document, your During some particular activities, there is a quicker way to get help.
PC needs to know under what Let’s assume that you want to print something. You have clicked on
name it should save the ‘File’, ‘Print’ and a window has popped up where you can adjust some
document and will open a
window where you can enter the
of the print settings before printing. However, you are unfamiliar with
filename. This window would be some of the advanced settings. In almost all of these dialogue boxes, you
a dialogue box. will find a button with a question mark in the upper right corner.
Pushing this button will put you into ‘quick help’ mode. To indicate you
are in this mode, a question mark will be added to your mouse pointer
. When you now click on any element of the dialogue box, a brief
description of its function will be displayed.

For example, clicking on the ‘ok’ button in quick help mode…

will yield the following explanation:

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 Image: size-isnt-everything.co.uk

MICROSOFT WORD
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1. INTRODUCTION
Microsoft Word is a word processor, a program designed to handle a
wide variety of pieces of writing. You can use it to write anything from a
short letter to reports of several hundred pages. It offers a broad range of
formatting options and also allows you to integrate images, graphs,
tables, equations and all sorts of other objects into your documents.

You can start Microsoft Word by clicking on its icon on the desktop, or
alternatively by selecting it from the ‘Programs’ category of the Start
menu. Word will start as well if you double-click on any Word
‘Start’ „ ‘Programs’ „ document. Finally, you can also use the ‘new office document’ and
‘Microsoft Word’ ‘open office document’ tools, which may be located in your quick
launch bar or at the top of your Start menu.
Create new Open existing A few moments after launching Word, its window will appear on your
Office docs. Office docs.
screen:

The Word screen

As all Microsoft Office programs (and most other applications), Word

features the usual assortment of a menu bar, several toolbars and a status
bar. Beyond that, the screen is dominated by white space. This is where
20 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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you will be entering and editing your documents.

We will discuss most of the elements found on the toolbars and some of
the options on the menu bar in the latter chapters, so we will only
examine the status bar here. Word’s status bar plays a more prominent
role than the status bars of other Office applications. It provides a wealth
of information about your document.

Let’s investigate the individual elements on the bar.

· Page 1: we are on the page labeled ‘1’.2

· Sec 1: we are in section 1 of our document.
· 1/1: this is the first page of our document, and there is one page
in total.
· At 2.5 cm: on the current page, we are 2.5 cm below the top
margin.
· Ln 1: this is line 1 on the current page.
· Column 1: in the current line, we are in the first column. 3
4
· REC, TRK, EXT, OVR: a number of options are not active.
· English (U.S.): we are using American English for our document.
· The two empty boxes represent activities. The first one will
inform you about the status of the automatic spell check, the
second one will report on saving and printing activities that occur
in the background.

Writing a document in Word

In producing a document in Word, you will usually follow these steps:
1. Create a new document. (Analogous to taking a fresh sheet of
paper.)
2. Typing a first version of the document.
3. Revising and editing it.
4. Applying formatting to your text.
5. Preserving the document for later use by saving or printing it.

The distinction between these stages is in a way artificial. Once you have
acquainted yourself with Word, you will certainly apply formatting
while typing, and you will probably save your document early on.
Nonetheless, we will investigate these processes separately from each
other for the sake of order.

The following chapter is dedicated to the second and third step of the

2
This is not necessarily the first page of the document, e.g. in books the first pages are usually labeled ‘i’, ‘ii’, ‘iii’ and so
on, as they contain the cover page, contents, etc. The first page of actual text is then labeled ‘1’.
3
These are not ‘columns’ as such. Instead, it represents the number of the next character. Here, we are at the beginning of
the line, so the next character will be the first.
4
Note that the options are gray; if they are active, they will be black as the rest of the information on the status bar. We will
discuss some of these options in later chapters.
 Microsoft Word: Introduction 21
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process: typing your document and editing it. As it turns out, there is
quite a bit to say about these deceivingly simple activities. The third
chapter is then concerned with the formatting of your document. Finally,
saving and printing in Word works just like in any other Office
application. Therefore, these activities will not be discussed separately –
we refer you to the second chapter of the general section, ‘Common
Elements of Microsoft Office Programs’.
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COMING UP…
The present chapter discusses the
2. ENTERING & EDITING TEXT
peculiarities of typing a
document in Word, how you can In this chapter, we will discuss the basics of creating a document in
edit it and how the spell
checking works. Word. While we assume that almost everyone has already seen a
keyboard, there are a few peculiarities to working with a Word processor
such as Word, and these are discussed in the section on typing text. We
then discuss how you can edit your document. Finally, we discover what
Word does while you are typing.

Typing text
There are few peculiarities about typing and even people that have never
used a keyboard before will quickly get used to the process. In the
following, we discuss a series of loosely related issues.

Want to learn touch-typing?

If you have not typed a long text yet, it may be a good idea to learn
professional touch-typing instead of developing your own ‘hunt and
peck’ method of typing. Among the advantages are increased speed,
fewer mistakes and reduced strain on your hands and wrists. Also,
learning it early on is easier than unlearning your own style later.
Fortunately, learning touch-typing is not overly difficult and it can be
done at zero cost.

TYPING TUTORS ON THE WEB

We have dug out four automated typing tutors that you can download
for free from the web. All of them have received good grades from their
users. Feel free to download them all and see which one works best for
you.

Analytical Eye Typing Tutor

This software can be downloaded and used for free.
„ www.aspex.force9.co.uk/ae/ttutor

KP Typing Tutor
This software can be downloaded and used for free.
„ www.fonlow.com/zijianhuang/kp/

TypingMaster Touch Typing Tutor 2002

This is a professional application, which you would have to buy. The producer does however offer a very
good (and free) demo on their website.
„ www.typingmaster.com/tutor.htm

Clasys Elite Typing Tutor 2001

This software is shareware: you can use and evaluate it for free for 30 days. If you want to continue using it
after 30 days, you will need to pay a small registration fee.
„ www.clasys.com/elitetyping.html
24 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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Cursor
An indicator on your computer The cursor
screen that shows where the next
character will appear. Before you start typing, we would like to introduce the cursor to you.
The cursor is the blinking, vertical line on your computer screen. It tells
you where your next character will appear. It also plays a role in editing
your document, as you will need to move it around to correct mistakes,
delete obsolete passages etc. We will discuss these functions in the
section on editing.

Special function keys

Now that you know where your text will appear, we can start typing.
While almost everyone is familiar with the use of a keyboard by now,
there are a few keys that have a special significance in word processing
programs. Below, we list the five most important ones and tell you what
they are used for and what they should not be used for.
· If you are still familiar with typewriters, you may expect to use
the / key very often. But since Word takes care of the line
breaks and the distance between paragraphs, it is no longer
necessary to press / except once at the end of every
paragraph.

· It is no longer necessary to use the n bar for anything

other than separating words. If you want to indent the first line of
a paragraph, use the T key instead.

· The T key (pronounced ‘tab’ key) can be used to conveniently

indent the first line of a paragraph or indeed the entire paragraph.

· The B key, called ‘backspace’, is used to delete characters

that you have just written. Each time you press B, the first
character to the left of the cursor will be deleted.

· The x key has a similar function: it also deletes characters, but

only those to the right of the cursor.

Entering umlauts & accents

While all PCs at the University of Maastricht use English keyboards, it is
still possible to write letters with umlaut marks and accents. Certain key-
combinations are reserved for this purpose:
 Microsoft Word: Entering & Editing Text 25
●●●●●●●●●●●●

Sign Example Key combination

acute accent á, é ’ + the appropriate letter
cedilla ç ’ + C
circumflex accent ê, î ^ + the appropriate letter
grave accent ò, ù ` + the appropriate letter
dieresis ä, ï “ + the appropriate letter
tilde ñ ~ + the appropriate letter

This also has consequences for typing ordinary signs. When you press
one of the combination keys ’, `, ^, “, or ~, the sign will not
appear until you enter the next character. If the next character does not
form an umlaut, then both signs will appear simultaneously. E.g. typing
“ and N will result in ‘"n’.

If you want to type a combination sign without any following letter, you
need to press the combination key, followed by n . No space
will be printed on the screen – the space is simply used to release the
combination sign from limbo. The same holds if you want to type a
combination sign and a letter that would usually combine. E.g. to obtain
‘"e’, press “ followed by a n , then press E.

‘Insert’ „ ‘Symbol…’ If you need to use any characters or symbols that cannot be created using
the above-mentioned method, select ‘Insert’, ‘Symbol’ from the menu
bar for a broader range of characters.

Insert and overtype mode

You can type in two different modes: insert and overtype. If you are
writing in overtype mode, every new character that you type will replace
the character directly to the right of the cursor. You should only use this
mode when you deliberately want to replace a few letters. Instead, it is
best to use the insert mode most of the time. In insert mode, your new
characters will be inserted, pushing any characters to the right of the
cursor further in that direction.

The status bar tells you in which mode you currently are. If the overtype
sign is black, then you are in overtype mode; if it is gray, you are in
Overtype Insert mode
mode
insert mode. You can switch between the two modes by pressing the i
key.

Creating ordered lists

Entering a list of items is easy in Word. If you enter a line that starts
with a number as ‘1)’ or ‘1.’, Word will assume that you are writing a
list. Once you press /, Word will indent the line (and all following
lines) and automatically add the appropriate number to the next line.
26 Introduction to Microsoft Office
●●●●●●●●●●●●

Press

You can then enter the rest of the list without having to worry about the
numbering. The advantage is that you can add and delete items and
Word will automatically adjust the numbering of all following items.
Once you are done with the list, press / twice to continue writing
normally.

Alternatively, you can begin and end an ordered list by clicking on the
Ordered list. ‘ordered list’ button. To fine-tune your list, select ‘Format’, ‘Bullets and
Numbering’: you can then adjust the style of numbering and you will
‘Format’ „ ‘Bullets and also be able to specify whether the numbering should start at ‘1’ or at
Numbering…’ any other position.

Creating unordered lists

Unordered lists work just like ordered lists, but instead of numbering,
they use bulleting. If you start a line with a dash ‘–’, Word will
Unordered list.
automatically set up an unordered list for you. You can also start a
bulleted list by clicking on the ‘unordered list’ button. In all other
respects, unordered lists work just like ordered lists.

Adding footnotes and endnotes

To insert a footnote or endnote at any position in your document, click
‘Insert’ „ ‘Footnote…’ on ‘Insert’, ‘Footnote’ on the menu bar. Before you can enter the actual
note, you will need to specify whether it is a footnote or endnote, and
whether you want to use automated numbering or not. Automated
numbering is a useful feature: if you use it, Word will keep track of all
footnotes and endnotes in your document and will adjust their
numbering accordingly. Once you confirm your choice, you can start
typing your note. When you are done, click on ‘close’.

Inserting objects into your document

Objects are items that can be included in text documents, such as
pictures and charts. Microsoft Word can handle a broad variety of
objects and there are three different ways to insert them into an existing
document:
· pasting them from other applications
· inserting them from a file or library
· creating them inside Word

– Pasting objects
s + i or c + V
‘Edit’ „ ‘Paste’ The easiest way to insert documents in Microsoft Word is to paste them:
Paste copy the object in the other application and paste it into Word by
 Microsoft Word: Entering & Editing Text 27
●●●●●●●●●●●●

clicking on the ‘paste’ button, pressing s + i or selecting ‘Edit’,

‘Paste’ from the menu bar. But while this method may be fast, it may not
be the best option.

In fact, Word is able to insert the same object in different ways. E.g. an
Excel graph can be insert as a ‘Microsoft Excel Chart Object’ or as a
picture. The former will allow you to edit the graph even when you no
longer have the Excel file, but this advantage comes at the price of an
increased file size. The latter option will simply include a static picture
of the graph, which has the same quality, but can no longer be edited as
an Excel chart. Similar choices exist for most objects that you can paste.
‘Edit’ „ ‘Paste special…’ When you select ‘Edit’, ‘Paste special’ from the menu bar, you will be
presented with a window where all possible options are listed.

Word also provides a brief explanation for each option that is meant to
guide you in the selection process.

– Using files or libraries

Inserting objects from a file is a very reliable method, presuming that
Word knows how to deal with the information. You can e.g. insert a
great variety of images as well as documents from other Microsoft
Office applications. But Microsoft Word does not know how to deal
with every file. If you do not get the desired results, try opening the
object in the program in which it was originally created, then pasting it
into your Word document.
‘Insert’ „ ‘Picture’ „ ‘From
file…’
To insert an image from a file, select ‘Insert’, ‘Picture’, ‘From file’. To
insert any other sort of object, selecting ‘Insert’, ‘Object’ and then
‘Insert’ „ ‘Object…’ switch to the ‘Create from file’ category.

You can also insert pictures from Microsoft’s ClipArt library, which
‘Insert’ „ ‘Picture’ „ ‘Clip comes with Microsoft Office. To do so, select ‘Insert’, ‘Picture’, ‘Clip
Art…’
Art’. You will then be able to select illustrations from a broad range of
categories. You can also insert sounds and movies from the ClipArt
gallery, but these are obviously useless if you plan to print the document.
28 Introduction to Microsoft Office
●●●●●●●●●●●●

– Creating new objects

‘Insert’ „ ‘Object…’ Finally, you can also create a broad array of new objects inside Word.
To do so, select ‘Insert’, ‘Object’ from the menu bar, and then choose
the type of object that you would like to create.5

Because of the technical implications of this process, creating new

objects in Word is not an entirely stable process. It may be wiser to
create graphs and other objects the traditional way, by using e.g. a
drawing program to create the graph and then pasting the result into your
Word document.

Editing your text

In the following, we discuss how you can move around in your
document to add additional text, and how you can select parts of your
work so that you can move, format or delete it.

Moving around in a document

You can move your cursor to a new location in the text simply by
clicking on that location with your mouse pointer. But once you start
serious revisions, you may find that it can be quite tiring if you have to
grab the mouse every time you want to jump to another spot. Instead,
you could use the arrow keys u, d, l and r, but this is rather slow.
Fortunately, there are some keyboard shortcuts that allow you to move
around quickly in a document:
· c + l and c + r allow you to move wordwise in each
direction.
· c + u and c + d take you to the beginning and end of
the current paragraph.
· h and e take you to the beginning and end of the current
line respectively.
· c + h or c + e enable you to jump directly to the
beginning and end of the document.
· M and W scroll your document by one screen-length in
each direction.
· c + M or c + M take you to the previous or next
page in the document.

Once you have arrived at the desired location, you can add additional
text or alter the original text.

Selecting text
If, instead, you want to move, format or delete parts of your work, you
need to select the section of your document to which the changes should
be applied. To select text using the mouse, follow these three steps:

5
Which objects you can generate depends on the software configuration of you computer.
 Microsoft Word: Entering & Editing Text 29
●●●●●●●●●●●●

1) Move your mouse pointer to the beginning of the text that you
want to highlight.

2) Press the left mouse button and keep it pressed while…

3) you move the mouse pointer to the end of the text.

Instead of using the mouse, you can also use the keyboard:
1) Move the cursor to the beginning of the text.
2) Press and hold the s key while…
3) moving the cursor around with the arrow keys u, d, l and
r.

This allows you to highlight one character at a time. You can speed up
the process by holding s and c while using the arrow keys. This
will highlight one word at a time.

Some additional timesavers:

· Pressing s + h or s + e highlights everything
from your current position to the beginning or end of the current
line.
· Pressing s + M or s + W selects larger portions of
text.
· Pressing c + s + h or c + s + e
highlights everything from your current position to the top or
bottom of the document.
· Pressing c + s + u or c + s + d selects
everything from your current position to the top or bottom of the
paragraph.

Once you selected all desired elements, you can continue to cut and
paste them normally. (See ch. 2 of the general section, ‘Common
Elements of Microsoft Office programs’, for more details.) Furthermore,
you can delete entire blocks of text by selecting them and pressing x.
Finally, you will also need to select text if you plan to format it (see next
chapter).

While you are typing…

… Word is busy, too: it checks what you are typing. Word will
automatically correct some of the most common typing demons. Words
with two capital letters, e.g. ‘EXample’, will quietly be fixed, ‘acheive’
becomes ‘achieve’ again, and so forth. Furthermore, it will alert you to
more complex issues by underlining them in red or green.
30 Introduction to Microsoft Office
●●●●●●●●●●●●

Spelling mistakes…
Red underlining indicates a possible spelling mistake. We say ‘possible’
simply because Word’s dictionary is not all-encompassing. Certain
scientific terms still elude it, as do certain place names, names of persons
and companies, etc. Still, it is worth checking out each term with red
underlining.

When you right-click on the underlined word, Word will offer some
suggestions regarding the correct spelling. You can then select one of the
suggestions or you can tell Word to:
· add the unknown word to its dictionary (so it does not show up as
a mistake any more)
· ignore the word (in this particular document)
· automatically correct this mistake in the future
· or to switch to a different language

… and grammar trouble

Similarly, green underlining indicates a possible grammatical mistake.
Invariably, the grammar check is less reliable then the spell-checker:
computers still have trouble to identify all the different meanings that we
can express in a language. Therefore, they do not always know what is
right and what is wrong. E.g. how about a bit of Yoda-talk6:
“Jumbled this sentence is.”
Word is not the slightest bit distressed by the above sentence. Not even
when you write “jumbled is sentence this” instead. It does however a
pretty good job in other areas, such as:
· capitalization errors
· confusion of homophones, e.g. ‘there’, ‘their’ and ‘they’re’
· hyphenation
· multiple negation
· passive sentences
· punctuation
· subject-verb agreement
· long or wordy sentences

As with spelling mistakes, you only need to right-click on the underlined

word to see some suggestions. Word also tells you why it thinks that
your sentence is wrong.

Spelling and grammar status

Word provides you with a way to check the spelling and grammar status
of a document. The second icon on the right on the status bar tells you
whether you still need to check your document:

6
Yoda is not only a mighty Jedi-master and skillful manipulator of the English language, he is also a registered trademark
of Lucasfilm Ltd.
 Microsoft Word: Entering & Editing Text 31
●●●●●●●●●●●●

· If it displays a moving pen, then Word is still busy evaluating

your document. You will have to wait a few moments for the
results.
· If you find a check mark, then there is reason to rejoice: Word
was not able to find spelling or grammar mistakes. Good job!
· More frequently, you will see this icon: Word has found at least
one mistake somewhere. While it is entirely possible that Word is
misguided in its analysis, it still pays off to manually check your
document before you print it or hand it in.

Doing a complete spelling and grammar check

7 Once you are done with a document, you may want to do a complete
‘Tools’ „ ‘Spelling and checkup. You can launch such a check by pressing the ‘spelling and
Grammar…’ grammar’ button on the standard toolbar, by selecting ‘Tools’, ‘Spelling
Initiate a complete spelling and and grammar’ from the menu bar or by pressing 7. Word will then
grammar check. take you past all the mistakes it found, giving you the opportunity to
correct or ignore every single one.

Writing documents in a different language

If you are using an English version of Word, then it assumes by default
that you are writing an English document.7 Similarly, a Dutch version
Word will assume you are using Dutch, and so forth. Writing documents
in another language will understandably confuse Word. There are two
possibilities: if you are starting a new document in a language that is
known to Word, it will usually recognize this after a few words and
adjust the language setting for the document accordingly.8 In that case,
Word will proceed to check the spelling in the appropriate language.

In three cases however, Word will not be able to make the adjustment:
1) You may be using a different dialect of a particular language.
E.g. you may be writing American English while Word expects
British English. You can check which language Word expects by
having a look at the status bar. If that is not the language that you
want to use, you can change it. To do so, select everything that
‘Tools’ „ ‘Language’ „ ‘Set
Language…’ you have written so far, then click on ‘Tools’, ‘Language’, ‘Set
Language’ from the menu bar and choose the appropriate
language. Blue checkmarks appear next to the languages for
which Word has a dictionary.

2) If you are just using a few terms from another language in an

otherwise English document, Word will not recognize them as
foreign-language terms. In that case, the best option is to adjust
the language setting for these words. Simply highlight those
particular terms, select ‘Tools’, ‘Language’, ‘Set Language’ from

7
Whether that is British or American English depends on where the version was released. PCs in the SMR are usually set
to British English by default.
8
It is possible that Word is slightly off, e.g. mistaking Canadian French for French French.
32 Introduction to Microsoft Office
●●●●●●●●●●●●

the menu bar and choose the appropriate language.

3) Finally, it may be the case that Word simply does not have the
appropriate dictionary installed. The English version of Word
comes with dictionaries for all dialects of English, French and
Spanish. If you are using Dutch or German terms, Word will be
lost. In that case, you can either ignore the spellchecker or turn it
off. To turn it off, highlight the offending words, select ‘Tools’,
‘Language’, ‘Set Language’ from the menu bar and check the
option ‘do not check spelling or grammar’.
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COMING UP…
This chapter discusses ways to
3. FORMATTING YOUR DOCUMENT
change the appearance of your
document. Good formatting can support your message and give your document a
personal touch. In this chapter, we will discuss several ways to format
documents. We will begin with formatting options that affect individual
words, and then move on to talk about formatting at the paragraph and
document level.

Adjusting the appearance of text

Font
c + s + F
This changes the typeface of your text. There is usually a broad
assortment of typefaces available, but the general choice is between
three different types of fonts: serifs, sans serifs and decorative fonts.

Serif typefaces are fonts that feature small decorative lines at their stem
and shaft. These lines help guide the eye along the line of text, making
serif fonts better suited for long pieces of writing. The following fonts,
among others, belong to this category:

Sans serif fonts lack the decoration and are therefore very clear. They are
a good choice for text that should draw the attention of the reader, such
as titles and labels. The following fonts are sans serif typefaces:

Fonts in the decorative category do not contain letters and are therefore
not suited for the setting of text. Instead, they offer a variety of symbols
for illustrative purposes. WingDings, WingDings 2, WingDings 3 and
WebDings fall into this category.

The default font is ‘Times New Roman’. As a serif font, it is very easy
to read in print.

Font size
c + s + P This changes the size of your text. The default size for text is 12 pt.9 and
is widely used because it guarantees readability.

9
This size is also usually used for writing assignments, essays, etc. Note that some block coordinators may require other
sizes – please check the requirements for each assignment individually.
34 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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Font style
Bold c + B
These options influence the appearance of your text. You can set your
Italics c + I text in boldface and italics, and you can underline your text. By
Underline c + U convention, underlining is no longer used to highlight words; instead,
text is set in boldface or italics. Underlining is now used to indicate
Internet links instead.

Font color
To change the color of the text, click on the ‘font color’ button. This will
change the color of your text to whatever color is indicated on the
Clicking on the left part of the
button will change the color of
button. (It is indicated in the bar below the ‘A’; in our case, it is black.)
your text to the color indicated If you however do not want your text to appear in that particular color,
on the button. you can click on the right part of the button to expand the color menu.
If you wish to use another color,
click on the right part of the
button.

Highlighting text
Highlights your text. Clicking on the highlight button will allow you to mark important
sentences or words by highlighting them. Clicking on the left side of the
button will add the corresponding background color to your text. If you
do not like the default color, click on the right side of the button to
choose between bright and dark shades of red, yellow, green, blue and
gray, as well as turquoise, pink, violet, teal and black.

Further options…
The options described above are clearly the most important options. But
also Word offers a number of other choices for your text that can be
accessed by clicking on ‘Format’, ‘Font’ on the menu bar. Under the
‘Format’ „ ‘Font…’
‘font’ category, you find most of the previously discussed options, as
well as a range of underline styles and typesetting effects. In the
‘character spacing’ section, you can magnify the font, increase the space
between characters and raise or lower the text. Finally, the ‘text effects’
section allows you to animate your text, which is obviously only useful
when you distribute the document electronically.

Formatting entire paragraphs

Paragraph formatting is formatting that cannot be applied to single
words but only to entire paragraphs. The two most important paragraph
formats, its alignment and indentation, are available as shortcuts, the
 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 35
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remainder of the options is available through menu settings.

Paragraph alignment
Left c + L
Center c + E Here, you can choose the alignment for the current paragraph. You can
align it to the left or right margin, you can center each row so that the
Right c + R distance to both margins is equally big, or you can justify your text,
Justify c + J aligning it with both margins simultaneously.

Indentation
Increase Decrease The ‘decrease indent’ and ‘increase indent’ buttons allow you to adjust
indent indent the indentation of text.

Paragraph spacing
This feature is located in the paragraph options – you can access it by
clicking on ‘Format’, ‘Paragraph’ on the menu bar. It determines how
‘Format’ „ ‘Paragraph…’
large the gap between paragraphs should be. E.g. if you want to have a
full line’s distance between all paragraphs, you could send the spacing
after the paragraph to 12 pt. It is preferable to use this setting instead of
pressing / several times between paragraphs, as it is easier to
adjust the paragraph spacing once for the entire document than to add
additional line feeds throughout your text.

Line distance
This feature is also located in the paragraph options – select ‘Format’,
‘Format’ „ ‘Paragraph’ ‘Paragraph’ on the menu bar to access it. With this setting, you can
influence the distance between lines. E.g. writing assignments usually
require a 1.5 line distance for improved readability. You can use the
preset levels ‘single’, ‘1.5 lines’ and ‘double’ or create a custom setting.

Recycling your work

Once you have created a set of formats that you like, Word allows you to
easily recycle them using two methods: the format painter and
formatting styles.

The format painter

The format painter allows you to transfer formatting from one paragraph
to another. Its advantage is speed: if you need to transfer formatting only
once, then this is the faster solution:
1. Position the cursor in the paragraph whose formatting you would
like to copy.
36 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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2. Press the ‘format painter’ button on the standard toolbar. A

Press this button to transfer paintbrush will be added to your mouse pointer .
formatting to another part of 3. You can now select the text to which the formatting should be
your document. applied.
Before: After:

Formatting styles
Styles allow you to save a particular set of formats and recall it
whenever you it is needed. This is the better solution of you wish to
apply a formatting again and again throughout your document. To save a
style:
1. Position your cursor inside the paragraph whose formatting
should be preserved, …

2. click on the style box on the formatting toolbar and …

3. enter a descriptive name for your style.

Once you have saved a style, you can easily apply it again:
1. Select the text to which the style should be applied, and …

2. select the appropriate style’s name from the style box.

Changing the page layout

Finally, there are options that affect the entire document, or at least
significant parts of it. There are two groups of settings in this category:
general page settings, such as the paper size, as well as the header and
footer settings.

General page settings

Among the general page settings are:
· the paper size, e.g. ‘A4’
· the paper orientation, ‘portrait’ vs. ‘landscape’
· the width of the four margins

‘File’ „ ‘Page setup…’ All of these settings can be adjusted by clicking on ‘File’, ‘Page setup’.
The first two options can be found in the ‘paper size’ category, while the
latter option belongs to the ‘margins’ category.
 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 37
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Header and footer

‘View’ „ ‘Header and Footer’ To edit your document’s header and footer, select ‘View’, ‘Header and
Footer’ from the menu bar. Your view will shift to a section in the upper
margin of the page and an additional toolbar will appear. Everything that
you enter here will appear on each and every page.

Insert the page number. The toolbar enables you to insert predefined variables, such as the page
number or the date. You can also insert complete headers, such as ‘page
x of y’ using the ‘Insert AutoText’ button.
Insert complete headers.
Finally, it is also possible to obtain different headers for the first page, as
well as for odd and even pages. You can activate differentiated headers
‘File’ „ ‘Page setup…’ by pressing the ‘page setup’ button and then selecting ‘different first
page’ and/or ‘different odd and even’.

Once you are done manipulating the header and footer, you can return to
the normal view by pressing ‘close’.
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MICROSOFT EXCEL
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1. INTRODUCTION
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program, a program that allows you to
enter all sorts of information, relate the individual bits of information to
another, and to use them for calculations and analyses. Most Excel users
only find out about its full capabilities after they have been using it for a
while, so we will get started right away…

Starting Excel
To start Excel, double-click on the Microsoft Excel icon on the desktop.
‘Start’ „ ‘Programs’ „ Alternatively, you will find Microsoft Excel in the Start menu under
‘Microsoft Excel’ ‘Programs’. Excel will start as well if you double-click on any Excel
document. Finally, you also can use the ‘new office document’ and
Create new Open existing ‘open office document’ tools. Within a few seconds, you will see the
Office docs. Office docs. Excel window on your screen:

Excel’s window is dominated by cells.

Besides the ever-present menu bar and toolbars, you will notice that the
screen is dominated by heaps of small boxes arranged in rows and
Cells
Containers of information, which
columns. These cells are the cornerstones of spreadsheet programs. Cells
can be filled with text, numbers are containers for information. There are few restrictions on the kind of
or formulas. information a cell can contain:
42 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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· numbers of all kinds, e.g. 2.638, ½, 75%, 1.653 ´ 1015

· date or time information, e.g. 01/01/2002, or 12:41:03
· currency values, e.g. € 1,500.00
· text, e.g. “Maastricht University rules!”

So far, this is not particularly exciting: any table could do that. But the
advantage of spreadsheet programs is that you can also fill cells with
formulas, and Excel will automatically do the calculations for you.

Before we turn towards these advanced functions of cells, we investigate

another aspect: their order. All cells are arranged in rows and columns,
as you can see on the screen. These rows and columns, in turn, are
labeled – columns are labeled with letters, rows are labeled with
numbers. Each cell can be identified by its column letter and row
number:

Worksheet In identifying cells, we first list the column, then the row. So the top left
A page in your Excel document; cell is number ‘A1’, not ‘1A’. In total, there are 65,536 rows and 256
contains 65,536 rows and 256
columns of cells.
columns10. Together, these cells make up one ‘worksheet’ (or simply
‘sheet’).

Beyond cells, there are three other important features:

· The name box, which is located directly above the worksheet
area. It tells you where you currently are on the worksheet, e.g. in
cell ‘A1’, and it allows you to give your cells names (see ch. 2):

· The formula bar, which helps you enter information and formulas
into cells. It is located to the right of the name box and looks
quite unspectacular:

· Finally, the sheet selector. Believe it or not, some people think

that the 16,777,216 cells contained in one sheet are not sufficient
for their needs. Luckily, you can have as many sheets as you like
– by default, Excel will create three empty sheets when you open
a new document. The sheet selector, which is located right
beneath the actual worksheet, helps you to select the sheet on
which you want to work.

10
By the way, the column after ‘Z’ is labeled ‘AA’, followed by ‘AB’ and so forth till you get to column ‘IV’
 Microsoft Excel: Introduction 43
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In the following three chapters, we will investigate most of the basic

functions of Excel. The next chapter discusses how you can enter
information in Excel and how you can use this information in
calculations. The third chapter covers the different formatting options
that are available in Excel. Finally, the fourth chapter discusses two
advanced topics: a) it builds the foundation for various data analysis
tasks in Quantitative Methods, and b) it discusses how you can display
information graphically using Excel’s chart wizard.
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COMING UP…
Here, we learn how you can
2. ENTERING DATA & MAKING
enter information in Excel and
how you can use this information CALCULATIONS
in calculations.

This chapter covers the basic function of Excel: to receive data and to
manipulate it using calculations. We start out by discovering different
ways to enter data, and then develop the concepts of formulas and
functions.

Entering information
Excel stores information in cells. Each cell is meant to contain only one
piece of information, e.g. a number (however large that number may be)
or a sentence. To enter data in a worksheet, we first need to determine
which cell should receive the information. Once we have selected a cell,
we can start typing.

Selecting cells
You can select cells using your mouse or keyboard. If you are using the
mouse, simply place your mouse pointer on top of the desired cell and
click once. (Note that the mouse pointer takes the form of a cross
when you are working with cells.)
1) 2) 3)

The cell that is currently being used, or the ‘active’ cell, is surrounded by
a thick black border.

Alternatively, you can use the keyboard to move from your current
position to another cell on the worksheet: simply use the arrow keys u,
d, l and r to get to your destination.

Entering information
Once you are ‘in’ the cell of your choice, you can start entering
information simply by typing.

Be aware that the information you are entering is not placed in the cell
until you confirm that you are done. You can do so by
· pressing /. This will place the information in the cell and it
will also take you to the cell directly below your current position.
· pressing T. This will place the information in the cell and it
will also take you to the cell directly to the right of your current
position.

The only difference is where you end up next. If you are entering a
46 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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column of information, you should use / because it will move you

to the next cell in your current column. Conversely, if you are entering a
row of information, use T.

Because Excel does not place any information in the cell until you
confirm it, you can always step back if you are making a mistake. Let’s
assume that you are entering information in a cell that already contains
information, and that you do not want to overwrite the old information.
In this case, you can simply press ~ to annul what you were doing.

Be aware that Excel is programmed to recognize certain types of

information, such as dates, times, currency values, percentages and
fractions. If you e.g. enter ‘€ 1625’, Excel will recognize that you are
entering a currency value and will format it as such.

Entering series
Entering information can be quite tedious, especially when you are
entering information that repeats or follows a pattern. Fortunately, Excel
can fill in such series for you. Let’s assume that you want to create a
table of quarterly profits for the years 1990 – 2000. Usually, we would
have to enter the entire series: 1990, 1991, 1992, and so forth. Similarly,
we would have to label cells ‘1st quarter’, ‘2nd quarter’, etc. Fortunately,
there is a shortcut. Instead of typing the entire series, we only enter the
first item, e.g. ‘1st quarter’. We then select this cell, so that it is
surrounded by the thick black border again:

Note that there is a black dot in the lower right corner. When you place
your mouse pointer above this dot, it will change from the familiar
selection cross to a black plus sign . When it takes this shape, you
can continue a series by pressing and holding the left mouse button
while dragging the mouse in the desired direction:
Microsoft Excel: Entering Data & Making Calculations 47
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While you are doing so, Excel tells you what it will place in the last cell,
so that you know when to stop. Once your series has reached its desired
length, release the left mouse button and Excel will place the appropriate
information in the cells.

In our first example, Excel recognized what it was supposed to do.

However, this is not always the case: when we enter ‘1990’ and try to
complete the series as described above, Excel is clueless:

To be precise, it does not know how the series is supposed to work: is

the next cell supposed to be 1991, 1995, 2000 or something else? This
can be remedied by providing Excel with a hint: entering the second cell,
too. If you select both entries, Excel can continue the series for you:

Using Excel for calculations: formulas

What distinguishes a spreadsheet program such as Excel from a simple
table is its ability to perform calculations with the information that you
entered. To make a calculation, you need to place a formula in a cell.

To distinguish a formula from a normal bit of information, every

formula starts with an equal sign ‘=’. The simplest formulas contain
basic arithmetic operations, such as additions, subtractions,
multiplications and divisions. An example would be
=2+2
If you enter this formula in a cell and press /, you will see the
following:

Note that the actual cell contains the result, while the formula can be
48 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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found in the formula bar. This keeps the worksheet from becoming
cluttered. If you want to edit a formula at a later stage, select the
appropriate cell, then press 2 or click on the formula bar.

ARITHMETIC OPERATORS

The arithmetic operators in Excel are slightly different than the ones we
are used to from mathematical formulas.

Operation Operator Example

Addition + =2+2
plus sign Result: 4

Subtraction – =3–5
minus sign Result: –2

Multiplication * =2*3
asterisk Result: 6

Division / =5/2
slash Result: 2.5

Raising to power ^ =3^2

hat Result: 9

Excel follows the arithmetic rules of precedence when calculating the

result of a formula. This implies e.g. that powers have precedence before
multiplication and division, and that the latter have precedence before
addition and subtraction: =2+4/2 will yield 4, not 3. You can prioritize
certain parts of equations by enclosing them in brackets: =(2+4)/2 will
yield 3.

You can have more than one pair of brackets in the same term, e.g.
=((2+4)/2+6)/18. As you include more and more brackets, it becomes
harder and harder to keep track of them. That’s why Excel assigns
different colors to pairs of brackets, depending on their level. The first
pair of brackets will be black. If you open another pair inside the first
pair, it will be green. If you open a pair of brackets inside the first two,
then the third pair will be purple, and so forth. Also, whenever you close
a bracket, Excel will briefly indicate the corresponding opening bracket,
so that you know which pair of brackets you just closed.

Referring to cells (Part 1)

Formulas are not limited to simple numbers, you can include cells in
your calculations, too. To do so, use their cell address, the combination
of column letter and row number. An example would be the addition of
cells A1 and A2 depicted here:
 Microsoft Excel: Entering Data & Making Calculations 49
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This has one huge advantage: when you change the contents of, say, cell
A2, cell A3 adjusts automatically. Every time you enter new
information, all formulas will be recalculated – no further action is
required on your part.

CIRCULAR REFERENCES

When you enter a formula that includes a cell reference, Excel uses the
content of that cell for the calculation. Say, if you were to enter the
formula =A1*2 in cell A2, Excel would obviously need to read the
content of A1 to calculate the value of A2. Let’s assume that A1 in turn
contains the formula =A2-3. So to calculate A2, Excel needs to know
the value of A1. But to calculate A1, Excel needs to know A2. It’s like
the hen and the egg: a circle with no clear beginning.

The essence is that no formula can refer to its own result – doing so
creates a circular reference. If you create such a circular reference,
Excel will immediately warn you: besides opening the automatic help
system to explain what is going on, Excel will indicate where the
circular reference is to be found.

You will then need to break the circle by changing the formula in one of
the involved cells.

Functions
Obviously, the scope of primary arithmetic operations is limited. Some
calculations would become very tedious, while others would be
completely impossible to realize if we only had these five operations at
our disposal. Imagine you would like to sum all cells between A1 and
A30. If you had to write
=A1+A2+A3+A4+ … +A30
you would get tired soon. That’s why Excel offers a range of functions
that extend the scope of formulas while simplifying the actual work.

Functions always look the same:

NAME (parameter 1, parameter 2, …)
A function starts with its own name. Any information that the function
Parameters requires is then included in brackets. These so-called parameters have a
Bits of information that
functions use in calculations
predetermined order11 and they are separated by commas. Depending on
the information that a function needs, you may have to enter up to 30
parameters (although most functions make do with just 1 to 3).

11
The appendix contains a list of functions, which specifies each function’s parameters and their order.
50 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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Let’s illustrate this with some examples:

One of the simplest functions is the function pi(), whose sole purpose is
to return the number p, 3.141… Because p does not depend on any
outside factors, the function does not require any parameters:
PI()
We can include functions in our formulas like normal terms, e.g.
=2.5^2*PI()
will calculate the area of a circle with a radius of 2.5 units (19.635
square-units). If you simply want the result of a function, you will still
need to enter an equal sign:
=PI()
will return 3.141592654.

One of the most useful functions is sum(), which sums all terms
contained in the brackets. It requires at least one parameter:
SUM (number 1, number 2, …)
You can use sum() with ordinary numbers, but you can also enter cell
references, e.g.
=SUM (251, A1, C3)
What’s more: you can place functions inside functions:
=SUM (10, PI())

Referring to cells (Part 2)

So far, we have only dealt with single cells at a time. But what do you do
when you want to work with a whole range of cells? Let’s come back to
the example where we wanted to sum all cells between A1 and A30. So
far, we could write
=A1+A2+A3+A4+ … +A30
or we could write
=SUM(A1,A2,A3,A4, … ,A30)
but neither of them seems very appealing. Fortunately, there is a
shorthand for including several cells simultaneously: quote the address
of the top left cell and the address of the bottom right cell, separated by a
colon. In our example, we would write A1:A30. This shorthand can be
used with many different functions, such as sum():
=SUM(A1:A30)
You can include as many cells as you like, e.g.
=SUM(A22:Y7453)
would sum all 185,800 cells between A22 and Y7453.

You do not need to enter cell references manually. While you are
 Microsoft Excel: Entering Data & Making Calculations 51
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entering your formula, you can simply use the mouse to select the range
of cells that you want to refer to. Excel will then enter the appropriate
cell reference for you:
1) 2) 3)

INTERNATIONAL DIFFERENCES

There are obvious differences between the English version of Excel and
versions in other languages. Not only have all menus and dialogues
been translated, the function names have been translated, too. Some of
the function names are easy to translate, e.g. sum() becomes som() in
the Dutch version. Others, however, differ significantly from the direct
translation. It is therefore best to use an English version of Excel.

Additional problems can result from the use of different decimal

indicators: if you are using a non-English version of Windows, then
your system most likely uses a decimal comma instead of a decimal
point.

Two things change when your computer uses a decimal comma:

1. Even when you are using an English version of Excel, you will
need to use a decimal comma. E.g. =2,5^2*PI()
2. As a result, parameters in functions are not divided by a comma,
but by a semicolon, e.g. =SUM (251; A1; C3)

The ‘function wizard’

You can enter functions just like any other formula: simply select the
desired cell and start typing. For simple functions like pi() or sum(), this
is certainly the easiest and quickest way. But many functions require
several parameters, accept only certain values or are simply hard to
remember. The ‘function wizard’ is there to help you enter such
functions.

Whenever you want to enter a function, be it in the middle of a formula

or in an empty cell, press the ‘paste function’ button to call up the
‘Insert’ „ ‘Function…’ function wizard. This will bring up the selection screen, where you can
Start the function wizard.
choose the appropriate function:
52 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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All functions are grouped together in categories such as ‘statistical

functions’, ‘math and trigonometry functions’, and so forth. This usually
allows you to find the function you are looking for pretty quickly. If you
do not know which category a function belongs to, you can use the all-
encompassing ‘all functions’ category. A list of the most recently used
functions is also available.

Once you have selected the category in the left list, you will be able to
select the desired function in the right list. For each function you select,
a brief explanation will be given below the two lists.

For now, let’s assume that we want to round the number contained in
cell A1 to three digits after the decimal point. To do so, we select the
round() function from the ‘math and trigonometry’ list and click ‘ok’.

This takes us to a second window where you have the opportunity to

enter all the details. Excel lists the required parameters, as well as any
optional parameters (there are none in our example), tells you what each
of them means and reminds you what type of information is required. In
our example, the first parameter is the number that we want to round,
and it obviously needs to take the form of a number.
 Microsoft Excel: Entering Data & Making Calculations 53
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Since we want to round the number in cell A1 to 3 digits, we enter ‘A1’

in the first field and 3 in the second field. Instead of writing ‘A1’, we
could also have selected the cell A1 with the mouse. If you want to
To select cells when working in select a cell that is not visible on the screen, press the ‘cell selection’
the function wizard, push this
button.
button in the right corner of any field and the window will shrink,
allowing you to freely select any cells. Once you are done, press the
‘transfer references’ button to return to the function wizard.
Once you are done, you can
transfer the selected cell While you enter the information, Excel will check your input and, if
reference to the Wizard by
pressing this button.
necessary, give you feedback. If, e.g. you were to enter text instead of a
number, you would get the following error message12:

Once Excel has sufficient information, you will see a preliminary result
on the screen. You can then confirm your choice by click ‘ok’.

You can also use the function wizard to edit existing functions. Simply
select a cell that contains a function and press the ‘paste function’
button.

Parameter types
Different functions require different sorts of information. Broadly
speaking, there are several different types of parameters, such as
numbers, text and logical statements. Parameters of the type ‘number’
and ‘text’ are self-explanatory. But if you lack experience with
programming languages or spreadsheets, you will not have encountered
logical statements so far.

Logical statement A logical statement is a statement that compares one bit of information
A comparison of two pieces of with another to check whether they fulfill a certain condition. For
information that is either correct
or incorrect, e.g. 0 = 1 is such a
instance, A2 = 2 is such a statement. Here, the two bits of information
statement, and it is incorrect. are the cell ‘A2’ and the number ‘2’, and the condition is that both bits
of information must be equal to each other. Another statement would be
A2 > 2. In this case, the condition is that the cell ‘A2’ must contain a
value that is larger than 2.

Excel will try to determine whether a condition has been met or not. In
our second example, A2 > 2, the condition would be met if the cell ‘A2’
contained the value ‘3’, because 3 > 2. In that case, we say that a

12
See below for an interpretation of the different error messages.
54 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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statement is true or correct. If, however, the cell ‘A2’ contained the
value ‘1’, then the condition would not be met. We would say that the
statement is false or incorrect.

The decision whether a statement is true or false is the result of such a

logical statement. Just as =4+3 will return 7, =1>0 will return true. This
‘response’ can then be used in logical functions e.g. for making
decisions.

Logical statements and functions will be discussed in more detail during

your Quantitative Methods classes.

A selection of functions
Finding the right function for the right task is not always easy.
Therefore, we have compiled a selection of functions that are useful
during the first blocks of your study. The functions are grouped into
three categories (mathematical, statistical and logical functions) and can
be found in the appendix.

Referring to cells (Part 3)

When you are editing cells, you will notice that formulas quickly
become hard to read if they contain several terms. While it may not be
possible to simplify all formulas, you can make them easier to
understand by giving your cells names. It is possible to christen cells in
three steps:
1. Select the cell or cells that you want to label, …

2. click on the name box and …

3. enter a name, followed by /.

Once you have named your cells, you can refer to them in formulas by
their name. In our example, we would be able to write =SUM(profit),
which is much easier to understand then e.g. =SUM(B4:B21).

Errors
Sometimes, Excel encounters an error when it is calculating the formulas
that we enter. There can be two causes for this: either we did not enter
the formula correctly, or a cell that we are referring to contains invalid
information. An example for the first type of error would be a simple
spelling mistake: =SIM(A1:A200) instead of =SUM(A1:A200). An
example for the second type of error would result if we entered the
Microsoft Excel: Entering Data & Making Calculations 55
●●●●●●●●●●●●

formula =A1/A2 and A2 contained the value ‘0’ – the formula is

theoretically correct, but in practice it results in a division by zero.

Excel indicates errors by printing an error message in the appropriate

cell, allowing us to go back and investigate what went wrong. All in all,
Excel knows eight different types of errors:
· #DIV/0! Your formula may be fine, but one denominator turns
out to be zero, leading to a ‘division by zero’ error. You may
want to check whether your formula and all cell references are
correct, and whether any cells that you refer to are empty.

· #N/A. This error occurs only in connection with the incorrect use
of lookup-functions. Lookup-functions are not discussed here
since they are an advanced concept.

· #NAME? Excel does not recognize the name of a formula or cell

that you used. Entering =SIM(A1:A200) instead of
=SUM(A1:A200) will get you this error. You will need to return
to the cell and check all function and cell names that you used.

· #NULL! This error is rather uncommon and occurs only in

response to advanced types of cell references.

· #NUM! You have entered an invalid number, e.g. a number that

is too large.

· #REF! This error indicates an invalid cell reference. It occurs e.g.

when you replace one cell with another cell, when the original
cell was used in a formula. The invalid reference has been
removed from your formula; you will need to edit it.

· #VALUE! Generally happens when the information that you

entered does not match the requirements, e.g. when you enter text
where a number is expected. =53+"Hello?" would result in such
an error.

· ######## This is not actually an error; the formula you entered is

fine. Instead, the cell is too small to display its output. For
example: if the result of your formula is 187,355,202,937,928.98,
but the cell only has room for eight digits, Excel will return this
error. Increasing the width of the cell will take care of the
problem.
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COMING UP…
This chapter discusses different
3. FORMATTING YOUR SPREADSHEET
formatting options for cells and
worksheets. Over time, worksheets can become very complex, but that does not
necessarily imply that they need to become cluttered or hard to
understand. The present chapter discusses how you can format your
worksheet. You can use these functions to make your worksheets easier
to grasp and navigate, e.g. by formatting numbers, highlighting
important cells and using borders and white space to delineate different
data series.

First, we will discuss how you can select the cells to which changes
should be applied. We will then discover how it is possible to format the
content of cells, the appearance of cells and the appearance of entire
worksheets.

Selecting cells
To select a single cell, click on it so that it is surrounded by a thick black
border:

Selecting a coherent block of cells works like selecting text in

PowerPoint or Word:
1) Move your mouse pointer to the top left cell of the block that you
want to highlight.

2) Press the left mouse button and keep it pressed while…

3) you move the mouse pointer to the lower right cell of the block.

Alternatively, you can click on the top left cell, then press and hold the
s button while clicking on the lower right cell.

Finally, to select several unrelated cells:

1) Click on the first cell so that it is surrounded by a thick black
58 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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border.

2) Press and hold c while you click on the next cell that you want
to select. This cell will now be surrounded by a light black
border, while all previously selected cells will be lightly shaded.

3) Repeat the second step until you have selected all desired cells.

There are shortcuts that allow you to select entire rows, columns or even
the entire worksheet:
· To select an entire row or column, click on the row or column
heading.

· To select an entire worksheet, click on the upper left corner of

the worksheet area (the area to the left of the first column header
and above the first row header):

Formatting cells

Changing the content type

Excel allows you to format cells to fit any sort of content, such as dates,
currency values, fractions, etc. It will try to do so automatically when
you enter the information, but in some cases, you may want to adjust the
content type manually. You can do so by selecting one of the shortcuts
on the formatting bar:
 Microsoft Excel: Formatting Your Spreadsheet 59
●●●●●●●●●●●●

These shortcuts allow you to have your number formatted as a currency

value13 or as a percentage. You can also switch digit grouping on.
Commas will then separate groups of three digits: 1475346 will become
1,475,346. Finally, you can increase or decrease the amount of visible
decimal places.14

c+1 More options are available in the ‘Format’, ‘Cells’ dialogue under the
‘Format’ „ ‘Cells…’ ‘Number’ heading:

There are nine different categories that you can choose from:
· General numbers. Allows you to specify the amount of visible
decimal places, how negative numbers should be formatted and
whether digit grouping should be applied.

· Currency values. Allows you to specify the amount of visible

decimal places, how negative numbers should be formatted and
which currency symbol should be used. Numbers will be aligned
at the decimal point.

· Currency values (accounting style). Similar to the ‘currency’

type, except that the currency symbols will also be aligned. It is
not possible to change the formatting of negative numbers.

· Dates. Allows you to specify how the date should be formatted.

· Time values. Allows specification of the time format.

· Percentages. Allows you to choose the amount of decimal places.

13
The currency depends on your PC’s regional settings.
14
If necessary, Excel will round the number automatically.
60 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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· Fractions. Allows you to specify constraints for the fractions, e.g.

‘only single-digit fractions’, or ‘only quarters’.

· Numbers in scientific notation. Shorthand for writing extremely

large or small numbers as multiples of 10 to a power, e.g.
1.563 ´ 10 27 would equal
1,563,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Because Excel lacks the ability to write powers properly, it will
write 1.563E+27 instead.

· Text. Usually, Excel will automatically recognize when you are

writing text. This setting is useful if there are ambiguities, e.g.
when you want to write an equal sign without it being interpreted
as a formula by Excel.

Besides these nine categories, there are a number of special-purpose

categories available. If all else fails, you can design your own category.
Finally, you can format cells as ‘general’, i.e. leaving them without any
formatting whatsoever.

Formatting the cell content

The formatting toolbar offers a number of choices regarding the lettering
of your cells.

– Font
c + s + F This changes the typeface of your text. There is usually a broad
assortment of typefaces available, but the most common ones are

Arial is selected by default as it provides good readability for numerical

data. Excel will automatically adjust the cell height for you when you
choose another font whose letters are higher than Arial’s. However, the
cell width will not be adjusted, so if you select a font with wider
characters, less information will be visible inside each cell. See the
section on increasing the cell size (p. 63) for tips on correcting this
problem.

– Font size
c + s + P This changes the size of your text. The default size is 10 pt. Once again,
 Microsoft Excel: Formatting Your Spreadsheet 61
●●●●●●●●●●●●

Excel will automatically adjust the height of all affected cells, but it will
leave their width unchanged. If you increase the font size, less
information will be visible in each cell, see the section on increasing the
cell size (p. 63) for tips on correcting this problem.

– Font style
Bold c + B
This changes the appearance of your text. You can set your text in
Italics c + I boldface and italics, or you can underline your words. By convention,
Underline c + U underlining is no longer used to highlight text; instead, text is set in
boldface or italics. Underlining is now used to indicate Internet links
instead.

– Paragraph alignment
Left Center Right Allows you to choose whether your text is aligned to the left or right
margin of the placeholder, or whether it is centered.

– Indentation
Increase Decrease The ‘decrease indent’ and ‘increase indent’ buttons allow you to adjust
indent indent the indentation of text.

– Font color
Clicking on the left part of the Finally, you can also change the color of the text, e.g. to indicate an
button will change the color of important word. To do so, click on the ‘font color’ button. This will
your text to the color indicated change the color of your text to whatever color is indicated on the
on the button.
If you wish to use another color,
button. (It is indicated in the bar below the ‘A’; in our case, it is black.)
click on the right part of the If you do not want your text to appear in that particular color, you can
button. click on the right part of the button to expand the color menu.

Recycling your work

You can apply any changes you are making to as many cells as you like.
But you can also recycle your formatting at a later stage, e.g. when you
have added new columns or rows and want to transplant the formatting
from existing cells. To do so,
1. select a cell that is formatted to your liking and …
62 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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2. press the ‘format painter’ button on the standard toolbar. At this,

Press this button to copy the your mouse pointer will change shape .
formatting of one cell to other 3. You can now select any cells to which you want to apply the
cells. same formatting.

Before: After:

Formatting the cell

– Borders

The borders menu. The borders menu allows you to quickly adjust the borders of cells. First,
select the cells that you want to affect. Then expand the borders menu by
clicking on the right part of the button to see the menu below.

Each of these buttons will make a number of borders visible or invisible.

E.g. if you highlight a cluster of cells and click on the top left button,
you will get a border around the cluster, but no internal borders between
cells.

c+1 Advanced border formatting options can be found in the ‘Format’,

‘Format’ „ ‘Cells…’ ‘Cells’ dialogue, under the ‘Borders’ heading.

When adjusting borders, first select the line style (thick, thin, dashed,
double, etc.) and the line color. You can then opt for one of the three
quick selection buttons, which affects a number of borders
simultaneously. Alternatively, you can apply individual borders by
clicking on any of the eight border toggles. These will switch the
corresponding borders on and off.
 Microsoft Excel: Formatting Your Spreadsheet 63
●●●●●●●●●●●●

If you are formatting a block of cells, then the outside border toggles
will affect only the cells on the perimeter of the block. E.g. the ‘bottom
border’ button will toggle the bottom border for all cells in the bottom
Top Left
row. If you are working on a single cell instead, or on several non-
Bottom Right contiguous cells, then the buttons will simply toggle the top, bottom, left
and right borders.

The inside border buttons are only available when you are working on a
block of cells. They will switch borders between rows and columns on
Between Between
rows columns and off.

Finally, the diagonal strikethrough buttons will provide you with the
appropriate strikethroughs inside cells.
Diagonal strikethrough

– Background color
You can set the background color of any cell by using the ‘background
color’ button.

– Increasing the cell size

Frequently, you will enter information that does not ‘fit’ inside a single
cell, i.e. the information cannot be displayed completely. If there is
nothing in the next cell, then Excel will simply write across the cell
boundary:

But if there is something in the next cell, then you will only see part of
the information:

This problem can be solved in two ways: you can make cells wider (or
higher), but this will affect all cells in that particular column (or row).
Alternatively, you can merge the cell with its neighboring cells.

– Adjusting column width and row height

There are several ways to adjust the width of a column or the height of a
row. You can do it manually by:
1. Moving your mouse pointer to the border between two column or
row headers, so that it changes into a two-pronged arrow , and
…
64 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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2. pressing and holding the left mouse button while you resize the
column or row to your liking.

Once you release the mouse button, your changes will be put into action.

‘Format’ „ ‘Row’ „ ‘Height…’ Alternatively, you can select ‘Format’, ‘Column’, ‘Width’ or ‘Format’,
‘Format’ „ ‘Column’ „ ‘Row’, ‘Height’ from the menu bar. You will then be asked to enter a
‘Width…’
number between 0 and 255, which represents the average amount of
characters visible in each cell.15

However, there is a quicker way: move your mouse pointer to the gap
between two column or row headers and perform a double-click. This
will automatically resize the column or row to fit the cell with the largest
content.

‘Format’ „ ‘Row’ „ ‘AutoFit’ Alternatively, you can select ‘Format’, ‘Column’, ‘AutoFit’ or ‘Format’,
‘Format’ „ ‘Column’ „ ‘Row’, ‘AutoFit’ from the menu bar.
‘AutoFit’

– Merging cells
The second option would be to merge two or more cells. This is
advantageous whenever you want to make a cell wider, higher, or both
without affecting the other cells in its row or column. To merge cells:
1. select all the cells you want to merge and …

2. press the ‘merge and center’ button.

Pressing this button will merge
all selected cells. It will also
center their combined content.

You have just created a family-sized cell! Two things should be noted:
firstly, the content of the new cell will be centered. If you prefer it to be
aligned to the left or right margin, you will need to adjust the alignment
yourself. Secondly, and more importantly: the new cell will only keep
the value of the top left cell. The content of all other cells will be lost!
15
Be aware that this value is an average. After all, a ‘w’ is wider than an ‘i’. It is also presumed that you are working with
the standard font and size, Arial 10 pt.
 Microsoft Excel: Formatting Your Spreadsheet 65
●●●●●●●●●●●●

If you want to ‘unmerge’ this cell at any point in the future,

c+1 1. select the merged cell
‘Format’ „ ‘Cells…’ 2. select ‘Format’, ‘Cells’ from the menu bar
3. switch to the ‘Alignment’ category and

4. unselect the ‘Merge cells’ option.

Working with rows and columns

Inserting and deleting rows and columns

‘Insert’ „ ‘Rows’ To insert a new row or column, select ‘Insert’, ‘Rows’ or ‘Insert’,
‘Insert’ „ ‘Columns’ ‘Columns’ from the menu bar. New rows will be added above the
currently active cell, while new columns will be inserted to the left of it.
If you want to insert more than one row or column, highlight as many
rows or columns as you need, and select the ‘Insert’, ‘Rows’ or
‘Columns’ option. Excel will insert as many new rows or columns as
you have currently selected.

Hiding parts of your worksheet

In some cases, you may want to hide parts of your worksheet, e.g. to
‘Format’ „ ‘Row’ „ ‘Hide’ make it easier to grasp. To do so, highlight the row(s) or column(s) you
‘Format’ „ ‘Column’ „ ‘Hide’ want to hide and select ‘Format’, ‘Row’, ‘Hide’ or ‘Format’, ‘Column’,
‘Hide’ respectively. Your rows or columns will still be there, they will
just not be plainly visible. Hiding parts of your worksheet will not affect
any of the formulas. To make hidden columns visible again, highlight
‘Format’ „ ‘Column’ „ the last column before and the first column after the hidden part, then
‘Unhide’ select ‘Format’, ‘Column’, ‘Unhide’ from the menu bar. A similar
‘Format’ „ ‘Row’ „ ‘Unhide’
procedure works for rows.

Two things should be noted: firstly, it is not possible to hide individual

cells; only entire rows and columns can be hidden. Secondly, hiding
parts of your worksheet will not protect your data from prying eyes.
There are better ways to secure your work, but an experienced user can
easily circumvent all of Excel’s security measures. If you have
confidential data, you should rely on professional encryption tools.

Working with sheets

Labeling sheets
Especially when you are working with more than three sheets, it can be
hard to keep track of them all. Fortunately, you can easily give them
more meaningful names than ‘Sheet7’. To label a sheet,
66 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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1. double-click on its sheet tab, …

2. enter the new name and …

3. press /.

Copying and moving worksheets

To copy or move a sheet, right-click on its tab and select ‘move or copy’
from the menu that pops up.

By default, Excel assumes that you want to move or copy the sheet
within the same workbook. If you want to transfer a sheet to another
workbook, you need to open this workbook before moving or copying
the sheet. You can then specify to which workbook the sheet should be
sent and where it should be inserted. Finally, you can choose whether
you want to copy the sheet or move it.

Note that there can be problems when you move or copy a sheet to
another workbook. If formulas on the transferred sheet referred to any of
the other sheets in the original workbook, then this information will not
be included in the process. If you open the new workbook, these
formulas will not work unless you open the original document too.

Inserting and deleting worksheets

‘Insert’ „ ‘Worksheet’ To insert a new worksheet, select ‘Insert’, ‘Worksheet’ from the menu
 Microsoft Excel: Formatting Your Spreadsheet 67
●●●●●●●●●●●●

bar. To delete a worksheet, right-click on its tab and select ‘delete’ from
the menu that appears. Any formulas that refer to cells on the deleted
worksheet will cease to function.

Hiding a complete worksheet

‘Format’ „ ‘Sheet’ „ ‘Hide’ By selecting ‘Format’, ‘Sheet’, ‘Hide’ from the menu bar, you can hide
‘Format’ „ ‘Sheet’ „ an entire worksheet from view. To let it reappear again, click on
‘Unhide…’ ‘Format’, ‘Sheet’, ‘Unhide’ from the menu bar and then select which
sheet you would like to make visible again. We should warn you that
hiding worksheets will not protect sensitive data. Although Excel
contains a number of security features that you could use, an
experienced user can easily circumvent all of them. Rely on professional
encryption tools if you need to protect confidential data.
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COMING UP…
This chapter introduces Excel’s
4. ANALYZING & DISPLAYING DATA
data analysis tool and explains
how you can produce graphs This chapter concludes our coverage of Microsoft Excel by discussing
with Excel.
two advanced topics. In the first part, we briefly discuss Excel’s data
analysis tools. In the second part we learn how to present data
graphically by creating charts.

The data analysis tools

Excel includes a set of tools that enables you to analyze data in a variety
of ways. For instance, it enables you to perform ANOVAs, z- and t-tests,
and creates histograms and correlation tables for you. Unfortunately, this
useful tool is not automatically available in Excel; you need to install it
first.

Installing the tools

The data analysis tools are not automatically installed in Excel. Instead,
they are an add-on, a component that needs to be activated separately.
To find out whether you can use the data analysis tools, click on ‘Tools’
in the menu bar. If you can find an option called ‘Data analysis’, then the
appropriate component has already been activated and you can
immediately start with your analysis. If no ‘Data analysis’ option is
listed, then you need to activate the component manually.

‘Tools’ „ ‘Add-ins…’ 1. Select ‘Tools’, ‘Add-ins’ from the menu bar.

2. Select ‘Analysis Toolpak’ (not ‘Analysis Toolpak VBA’) in the

window that appears. While you are there, you may want to
activate the ‘Solver’ add-in, too. It will be used later in your
Quantitative Methods course.

After a few moments, the data analysis tools will be available.

70 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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Using the data analysis tools

The description of each individual data analysis tool and its function
goes beyond the scope of this introduction. A significant number of
these tools will be covered in detail during your first year-QM courses.
Therefore, we limit ourselves to a brief discussion of their common
features.

The data analysis tools, as most other features of Excel, usually expect
your data to be arranged in columns, i.e. each column represents a
different variable, while each row represents an individual observation.
E.g. in the table below, several houses have been categorized according
to their sales price, size, age, and other variables.

When you want to analyze data using the data analysis tools, you do not
‘Tools’ „ ‘Data analysis…’ need to select the data beforehand. Instead, you can immediately launch
the toolset by selecting ‘Tools’, ‘Data analysis’ from the menu bar.

You can then choose from an assortment of analysis tools. In the next
step, you will need to enter information that is specific to the tool of your
choice. Common to all tools are the following options:

– Input options
Here, you select which part of your data needs to be analyzed. You can
either enter the cell reference directly, or you can select the cells
manually by
1. clicking on the ‘selection’ button, …
2. selecting the cells with your mouse and …
3. confirming your choice by clicking on the ‘transfer reference’
 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 71
●●●●●●●●●●●●

button.

1. 2. 3.

It is recommended that you select the column heading (‘size’ in our

example), too. Excel will use this label in its output: if you are doing
several analyses, you won’t have to guess which is which. If you select
the column label, be sure to also select the ‘labels’ option – otherwise,
Excel will not know how to deal with the text.

– Output options
Also common to all analysis tools is the output options dialogue. Here,
you can specify where the results should be stored. There are three
options:
· Output range. This option saves the results to a range of cells on
any existing worksheet. You only need to select the top left cell.
Be aware that the output will usually consume several rows
below and several columns to the right of that cell. Any data in
these cells will be overwritten, so it is crucial that you select a
cell that is not next to any important data.

· New worksheet ply. This will create a new worksheet and save
the results there. If you want to, you can provide a label for the
new worksheet.

· New workbook. This will create a new Excel document and save
the data there.

The specific options of the individual tools will be among the subjects of
your Quantitative Methods classes.

Creating charts
Let’s assume that you have prepared a ‘revenues and costs’ calculation
and you would like to communicate your results. A chart of the figures
would be the optimal tool for this purpose, as charts are quickly and
easily understood by everyone.
72 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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The quick and dirty method

You can create a chart very quickly using these two steps:
1. Select the two data series (including their labels or headings)

2. Press -.

14,000 €

12,000 €

10,000 €

8,000 €
Revenues
Costs
6,000 €

4,000 €

2,000 €

0€
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

The result is not too bad for such a small effort. There are, however, a
number of drawbacks to this procedure. Most notably: Excel will always
create a bar graph, which is not appropriate in a number of situations. In
our example, there is a better alternative available…

When to use which graph

Different types of information call for different types of graphs. The
question which graph to use in which situation will be discussed during
your Quantitative Methods classes. Therefore, we only provide a short
overview of the most important types of charts:
· Bar charts are mainly used to allow a comparison of amounts
across a range of categories. An example would be a comparison
of the scores of two students in several subjects.
 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 73
●●●●●●●●●●●●

· Line charts are a good way to display developments over time.

Such a graph would have been more appropriate for our example
above, since we want to investigate the development of revenues
and costs over the last year.

· Pie charts show how many percent each category contributes to a

total, e.g. which part of the monthly costs stems from wages,
advertising expenditure, etc.

· Scatter plots allow us to plot observations for two separate

variables. E.g. we could plot countries according to their GDP
per capita and their social security expenditures.

In the following, we will create a more appropriate line graph for our
revenue and cost data.

Using the chart wizard

Once again, we start out by selecting the data series that we want to plot.
Remember to include the labels for both data series in your selection.

We then call up the chart wizard by clicking on the appropriate icon. The
This button launches the chart chart wizard allows us to create and configure a chart in four steps. In
wizard. the first step, we select which type of graph we wish to use.

For each type of chart, there are several subtypes. Excel provides a brief
explanation of the purpose of the currently selected type below the
selection window. You can also call up a preview to see how your data
would be displayed using the selected chart type. Once you are done,
74 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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clicking ‘next’ will take you to the second step.

From this step onward, Excel will automatically provide you with a
thumbnail preview so that you have an idea what the final chart will look
like. In the second step, you have the opportunity to make minor
adjustments to your chart. First of all, Excel assumes that your data is
arranged by columns, as is indeed the case in our example. If your data
is arranged by rows, then you can make the appropriate adjustment now:

Secondly, and more importantly, you can also adjust the labeling of your
graph. To do so, switch from the ‘data range’ to the ‘series’ category.

Here, you can specify the label for each individual series, as well as
category headings that will be used to label the x-axis.

Before we started the wizard, we selected not only the actual data series,
but also its label. Excel has recognized the top row as the heading and
has already labeled the series for us: in the series list you can see that
both data series are recorded with the appropriate names. If necessary,
you can change these labels be entering a different name in the ‘name’
box.

Before we continue with step 3, we also add category labels. To do so,

1. click on the ‘selection’ button in the ‘Category (X) axis labels’
box…

2. select the row headings from our original table, and …

3. confirm your choice by clicking on the ‘transfer reference’

button.

Excel will then add the appropriate labels to the x-axis. Our graph now
looks roughly like this:
 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 75
●●●●●●●●●●●●

Next on our agenda: adding titles to our graph and to the axes.

Meticulous labeling generally improves the quality of a graph. In our

case, we might want to label the graph ‘Revenues & Costs 2001’, with
the currency unit (‘Euro’) added to the y-axis.

A brief overview of the other options:

· In most cases, you will need both axes. Still, you have the option
of removing one or both of them by unselecting them in the
‘axes’ menu. Furthermore, you can also specify how the labels
for the x-axis should be displayed. It is usually best to go with the
‘automatic’ setting.

· In the ‘gridlines’ category, you can switch gridlines for both axes
on and off. ‘Major’ gridlines are gridlines spaced at broad
intervals. ‘Minor’ gridlines are only useful when your audience
needs to be able to track down the value for each observation
rather precisely.

· The next category allows you to switch the legend on and off,
and it also allows you to specify where exactly it should be
located in the graph.

· The ‘data labels’ category allows you to add data labels to all
lines. These labels are used when it is important for your
audience to know the exact values for each observation. Using
these labels tends to clutter your graph, so use them sparingly.

· Finally, adding a ‘data table’ enables you to include the exact

76 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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values for each series and each observation in a table below the
graph.

This concludes the third step. The only remaining task is to specify the
location of our graph.

If you wish to print the graph on one page together with your
calculations, you should include it as an object in the appropriate sheet.
However, if you plan to transfer the graph to another document, e.g. to a
Word file, it will be of better quality if you place it on its own sheet for
now.

Once you click ‘finish’, the chart will be created to your specifications:
14,000 €

12,000 €

10,000 €

8,000 €
Revenues
Costs
6,000 €

4,000 €

2,000 €

0€
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If you find at a later point that you need to adjust any of the choices
made so far, simply right-click on any open space in the graph (i.e. not
on the labels, lines, or axes). The menu that appears allows you to go
back to any of the four steps…

Furthermore, you can edit the graph by double-clicking on any of the

 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 77
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elements. E.g. double-clicking on one of the data series will allow you to
specify its style and color. Similarly, clicking on the chart background
allows you to adjust its color and border. Finally, you can also alter the
appearance of the gridlines and axes in a variety of ways. The range of
options is vast and goes beyond the scope of this introduction.

Transferring a graph to another document

To copy a graph to another document, e.g. for inclusion in a writing
assignment written in Word, simply click on the white area that
surrounds the actual chart. (Be careful not to click on the axes, labels or
legend.) If you push the ‘copy’ button, you will note that the entire chart
will be surrounded by a dashed border. You will be able to insert the
graph into other documents as long as this border is there.

‘Edit’ „ ‘Paste special…’ When you insert the graph into Word or PowerPoint, you may want to
do so by selecting ‘Edit’, ‘Paste special’ from the menu bar, instead of
simply clicking on the ‘paste’ button. This will allow you to specify how
the chart should be inserted. Usually, the choice is between the options
‘Microsoft Excel Chart Object’, ‘Picture’ and a couple of others.

Choosing ‘Microsoft Excel Chart Object’ allows you to edit the graph
later on, even when you do not have the original Excel document
anymore. At the same time, opting for ‘Microsoft Excel Chart Object’
will greatly increase the size of your Word or PowerPoint file because
all data and all options need to be saved together with the chart. If you
want to keep the file size as small as possible, go for the ‘picture’ option.
There will be no qualitative difference between the two ways of pasting
the chart.
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 Image: size-isnt-everything.co.uk

MICROSOFT POWERPOINT
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1. INTRODUCTION
Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation graphics program. You can use it
to prepare visual aids and handouts for your presentations. If you are
using a beamer, you will even be able to add movies, sounds and
animations to your presentation.

In the following, we will acquaint you with the program and offer you a
step-by-step guide to preparing presentations.

Starting PowerPoint
You can start PowerPoint by double-clicking on the PowerPoint icon on
your desktop. If there is no such icon, you can start the program by
clicking on ‘Programs’ and then ‘Microsoft PowerPoint’ in the Start
menu. PowerPoint will start as well if you double-click on any
‘Start’ „ ‘Programs’ „ PowerPoint document. Finally, you can also use the ‘new office
‘Microsoft PowerPoint’ document’ and ‘open office document tools’.

Create new Open existing Unless you are opening an existing PowerPoint document, you will be
Office docs. Office docs. presented with a range of choices that are meant to get you started
quickly. For now, we presume that you want to create a new
presentation. In that case, you have to choose between three options:

The AutoContent Wizard will provide you with a structured outline for
your presentation. Say you want to present a marketing strategy for your
marketing course, then PowerPoint would suggest a structure like this:
· Describe the market
· Introduce the product
· Provide an overview of the competition
· Position the product
· Discuss the communication strategy
· Comment on logistical aspects
· Provide a way to measure success
· Outline a schedule

The AutoContent Wizard is an extremely useful feature if you are not

entirely certain how to structure your presentation. But there is a major
caveat: there are almost no AutoContent Wizards for students. In most
cases, you will have to do it on your own.

Template wizards do not help you with the actual content of your
presentation, but they provide pre-designed slides for your presentation.
82 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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These templates include all the settings for background patters, color
schemes and fonts, so that you do not have to worry about the look of
your presentation anymore. The advantage is that you can immediately
start working on the content.

However, some people are easily distracted by the design elements on

the slides. For these people, it may be best to start with a blank
presentation. You can always go back and add a design template later.

In the following, we will start off with a blank presentation. The main
reason is expressed by the mantra ‘form follows function’. A
presentation is always about the content, so you should focus first and
foremost on what you want to say.

After you have selected ‘blank presentation’ from the opening screen,
you will need to choose how your first slide should be structured.

Choose your slide structure…

You will usually start your presentation with a title slide. To do so,
double-click on the top left option.

Finding your way in PowerPoint

At this point, you will be confronted with the main screen of
PowerPoint.
 Microsoft PowerPoint: Introduction 83
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Besides the obligatory menu bar, toolbars and status bar, you will note
that the screen has been divided into three distinct areas.

Outline pane To the left, we have the outline pane. When you are creating a new
Used to design the broad presentation, you will usually turn to the outline pane first. It is used to
structure of a presentation.
prepare the general structure of your presentation.

Slide preview The large area to the left is the slide preview. This is where you will
Area where you edit your slides. refine your presentation by adding text, images and graphs.

Notes pane Finally, below the slide preview is the notes pane. Here you can leave
Area where you jot down notes remarks regarding each individual slide. These notes will not show up on
for individual slides.
the screen during your presentation, but they will be included in the
handouts that PowerPoint can generate for you.

Before you start…

Be aware that your visual aids are just that, a support for your
presentation. You should first and foremost focus on what you want to
say, not what is on the screen or on the overhead projector. A good way
to obtain this focus by completing a short exercise before you start
working on your slides: find a place where you are alone and try to hold
your speech without preparing or using any notes. (If you are presenting
a paper or essay you have written, put it away.) Even though the exercise
may be awkward and your impromptu speech may be rather short, it is a
84 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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helpful experience.

Once you are done, collect all the points that you mentioned during your
test run. Now, try to structure your points logically, from the problem to
the solution, from the broad to the detailed, etc.

At this point (or even during your speech), you may notice that you
forgot to mention one thing or another. Be sure to include them in your
structure, but highlight them with a colored marker – these are topics
that you may tend to forget again and you will have to pay special
attention to them when rehearsing your presentation later.

Once you have a broad structure, you are ready to prepare your slides.
We will do so in the following order:
1. Transfer your structure to PowerPoint
2. Flesh out each individual slide
3. Add notes when necessary
4. Check the order of your slides
5. Add outlines and summaries
6. Add a layout and additional effects

The first two steps are the biggest chunk of work, and we will focus on
the in the following chapter. The remaining four tasks are concerned
with checking and refining your presentation, and are discussed in the
third chapter of this section.
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COMING UP…
This chapter discusses how you
2. BUILDING YOUR VISUAL AIDS
can create transparencies in
PowerPoint, moving from a In the process of creating slides for a presentation, creating a structure
broad outline to a complete
series of slides. and populating your slides with text and illustrations is the largest part of
the work. Below, we will discuss how you can quickly create a large
number of slides by transferring your outline to PowerPoint. We will
then focus on giving these slides substance by adding text, images,
tables and charts.

Transferring your structure to PowerPoint

Entering your outline in PowerPoint does not take too much time.
Simply click once on the outline pane and you can start typing. Initially,
PowerPoint will interpret your input as titles for each slide. Every time
you press /, PowerPoint will generate a new slide for you. This
way, you can easily create and label a large number of slides without
needing to enter the actual content.

However, if you have a large number of slides, entering at least a few

keywords regarding their content may be beneficial. To do so, press
/ and T after entering the title of a slide. Pressing T moves
you to a lower level: everything that you enter now will show up as
keywords on the slide. Once you are done entering the last keyword,
Your outline might look like press / and then s + T. You will then be able to enter a
this… slide title again.

Fleshing out the individual slides

Once you have prepared a broad outline, you will want to enter more
The slide selector is
detailed text on each slide. To do so, we move to the slide preview. You
directly below the can use the scroll bars to select the slide that you want to work on, or
scroll bar. you can use the slide selector to browse through the slides one by one.

On slides, everything needs to be in placeholders. The advantage of

placeholders is that they can be moved around or resized easily to fit
your needs. Almost all slides have pre-positioned placeholders, which
you can recognize by their dashed border and the hint ‘click to add text’
or ‘click to add title’.

Entering text
To enter text, click once inside the border of the placeholder of your
choice. Once a placeholder contains text (or anything else), its border
becomes invisible. If you want to edit the text inside a placeholder,
simply click once on the text itself.
86 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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When entering text, remember that your slides are only meant as a
support for your actual presentation. That implies that you should keep
your text short and to the point. The best way to do this is to restrict
yourself to keywords only. You do not want your audience to spend
significant time reading elaborate sentences on the screen while they
should be listening to you. Also, for reasons of visibility, you should
restrict yourself to 30 words or (preferably) less per slide, and make sure
that the text is big enough. Font sizes around 30 pt. are best. Only if you
are really desperate can you go down to 24 pt. Everything below 24 pt. is
a big no-no.

Formatting text
To format your text, you can use the formatting toolbar.

You have the following options:

– Font
This changes the typeface of your text. There is usually a broad
c + s + F assortment of typefaces available, but the most common ones are

– Font size
This changes the size of your text. For reasons of visibility, choose sizes
c + s + F around 30 pt. You should go no lower than 24 pt.

Unlike in Word, it is probably best if not to use this option. To maintain

a uniform look throughout your slides, PowerPoint contains two options
that apply standardized changes to your text. Both can be found on the
formatting toolbar.

– Adjusting the font size

The first set of buttons allows you to change the size of your text. Each
c + s + > time you click the ‘increase font size’ or ‘decrease font size’ buttons,
Increase the font size.
PowerPoint adjusts the size of your text by a degree that will be visible
on the screen.
 Microsoft PowerPoint: Building Your Visual Aids 87
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c + s + <
Decrease the font size. – Promoting and demoting text
The second set of buttons adjusts the level of the text. In your lists, some
entries may be broad categories and some may be individual items that
belong to a category, as in our example below:
· Economics Propedeuse
o Block 1
§ Organization & Marketing
§ Quantitative Methods 1
o Block 2
§ Competition & Government Policy
§ Quantitative Methods 2

Here, ‘Economics Propedeuse’ is the broadest category, and it contains

subcategories such as ‘block 1’. These subcategories in turn include
individual entries, which are even narrower in scope.

We say that ‘Economics Propedeuse’ is on the highest level, and the

other categories are on lower levels. When you enter your list, you start
by typing
· Economics Propedeuse
· Block 1

At this point, you will have to demote ‘block 1’ to a lower level by

clicking the ‘demote’ button, or pressing T.
Demote · Economics Propedeuse
o Block 1

In PowerPoint, this will indent the line you are currently in. It will also
decrease the font size and change the style of the bullet to indicate a
Promote conceptual difference. To reverse the process, you can ‘promote’ entries
to higher levels by using the ‘promote’ button or pressing s + T.

– Font style
Bold c + B This changes the appearance of your text. You can set your text in
Italics c + I boldface or italics, and you can underline your words or add a shadow.
By convention, underlining is no longer used to highlight text; instead,
Underline c + U
text is set in boldface or italics. Underlining is now used to indicate
Shadow Internet links instead. The shadow will be too weak to create a
distinction between more and less important text, but you can use it as an
added effect for words that stand alone.

– Paragraph alignment
Left Center Right Allows you to choose whether your text is aligned to the left or right
c + L c + R margin of the placeholder, or whether it is centered.
88 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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– List type
Ordered list. Finally, most of the text on slides is in the form of a list. Here you can
choose whether it is an ordered or unordered list. To illustrate:
An ordered list: An unordered list:
Unordered list. 1. First item · One item
2. Second item · Another item

– Adjusting the color

Finally, you can also change the color of the text, e.g. to indicate an
Clicking on the left part of the important word. To do so, click on the ‘font color’ button which is (for
button will change the color of no reason at all) not located on the formatting but on the drawing
your text to the color indicated toolbar. This will change the color of your text to whatever color is
on the button.
If you wish to use another color,
indicated on the button. (It is indicated in the bar below the ‘A’; in our
click on the right part of the case, it is black.)
button.
If you do not want your text to be that particular color, you can click on
the right part of the button to expand the color menu.

The color menu always contains eight colors, all of which serve a
particular function.
1. Background
2. Text and lines
3. Shadows
4. Title text
5. Fills
6. Accent
7. Accent and hyperlink
8. Accent and followed hyperlink

Depending on the design template’s color scheme, the colors may

change, but their function will not. E.g. the second color will always be
the standard color for text. To highlight text, use the ‘accent’ color (no.
six).

We realize that (depending on your taste preferences), some of these

colors may cause nausea. In that case, feel free to click on ‘more font
colors’ and take your pick from the palette that pops up. However,
sticking with the eight colors above has one advantage: if you change to
another design template later on, your colors will be adjusted
automatically to the new color scheme. Color that you choose from the
‘more font colors’ palette will not be adjusted – you will have to go
through each slide manually to see if your colors conflict with the new
design template.
 Microsoft PowerPoint: Building Your Visual Aids 89
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The effect your changes will have…

There are two possible scenarios. You may want to change text that you
have already typed, or you may alter the attributes of text you are about
to type.

– Editing text
When you want to change the attributes of text that you already typed,
you need to indicate which part of the text you want to affect. You can
do so by marking the text.

1. Move your mouse pointer to the beginning of the text that you
want to highlight.

2. Press the left mouse button and keep it pressed while…

3. you move the mouse pointer to the end of the text.

4. Make your changes.

Using the mouse may not always be the fastest way to select text. The
section on selecting text on p. 90 details several keyboard shortcuts that
can greatly speed up the process.

– Altering the attributes of text you are about to type

If you want to adjust the properties of text that you have not typed yet,
simply make the changes without highlighting anything and start typing.
E.g. if you know that the next word should be printed in italics, simply
press c + I or click on the italics-button and type the word. To
continue typing normally, press c + I again.

To remove formatting
If you mistakenly italicized some text, you can simply undo the damage
by pressing the italics-button again. The same goes for all the formatting
c +n styles. There also is a shortcut to remove all formatting simultaneously:
Removes all formatting. simply hold c while pressing n .

Cutting, copying, pasting

Just like in most Office programs, you can cut, copy and paste text and
other objects. Before you can cut or copy, you need to select the
elements that you want to affect. The procedure differs for selecting text
and for selecting placeholders. Once you selected all desired elements,
90 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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you can continue to cut and paste them normally. (See ch. 2 of the
general section, ‘Common elements of Microsoft Office programs’ for
more details.)

– Selecting text
To select text using the mouse, follow these three easy steps:
1) Move your mouse pointer to the beginning of the text that you
want to highlight.

2) Press the left mouse button and keep it pressed while…

3) you move the mouse pointer to the end of the text.

Instead of using the mouse, you can also use the keyboard:
1) Simply move the cursor to the beginning (or end) of the text.
2) Press and hold the s key while…
3) … moving the cursor around with the arrow keys u, d, l and
r.
This allows you to highlight one character at a time. You can speed up
the process by holding s and c while using the arrow keys. This
will highlight one word at a time.

Some additional timesavers:

· Pressing s + h or s + e highlights everything
from your current position to the beginning or end of the current
line.
· Pressing c + s + h or c + s + e
highlight everything from your current position to the top or
bottom of the document.
· Pressing s + M or s + W highlights larger portions
of text.
· Pressing c + s + u or c + s + d highlight
everything from your current position to the top or bottom of the
paragraph.

Selecting placeholders
1) Click on the first placeholder. A border may appear around the
placeholder. (This depends on its contents.)
 Microsoft PowerPoint: Building Your Visual Aids 91
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2) Press and hold s while you click on the next placeholder. It,
too, may be surrounded by a border.

3) Repeat the second step until you have selected all desired
placeholders.

Undoing changes
When you have done something really disastrous, e.g. deleted all the text
c + Z on one slide, you can always undo the changes one at a time by clicking
‘Edit’ „ ‘Undo’
Undo changes. the undo button. If you click on the right part of the undo button , you
will see a list of your last changes and you can undo as many of them as
you like.

If it turns out that the changes were indeed justified, you can re-do them
c + Y by clicking the ‘redo’ button. If you use the ‘redo’ button immediately
‘Edit’ „ ‘Redo’ after pressing the ‘undo’ button, your changes will be restored. If your
Redo last action however was not to ‘undo’ something, then the ‘redo’ button
will be deactivated. Instead, you can use the keyboard shortcut or the
c + Y appropriate ‘Edit’ menu item to repeat your last action. This will not
‘Edit’ „ ‘Repeat’
Repeat
work in all circumstances.

Adding additional slides

c + M If you need to insert additional slides at any point, click on the ‘new
‘Insert’ „ ‘New Slide…’ slide’ button. You can then choose from an assortment of preformatted
Insert additional slides. slides for simple text, two-sided arguments, tables, graphs etc.

Choose your slide structure…

92 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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Add a table to your slide

To add a table to your slide, simply click on the ‘add table’ button on the
Adds a table of the dimensions standard toolbar and select the dimensions of your table from the grid
that you specify. that pops up:

The table will then be placed on your slide. Tables are always placed
inside their own placeholder – it is not possible to add a table to a
preexisting text placeholder.

You can now add text to the individual cells. If the cells are too big or
too small, you can resize them by placing your mouse on top of any of
When you are above a table
border, your mouse pointer looks
the borders, so that it turns into a double line that is pulled by two
like this to indicate that you can opposing arrows . Press and hold the left mouse button and resize the
resize the table. table to your liking.

Whenever you are working on a table, the ‘tables and borders’ toolbar
To see the ‘tables and borders’ will automatically pop up. You can also force it to appear by clicking the
toolbar, press this button. ‘tables and borders’ button on the standard toolbar.

Below, we provide a quick overview of its features.

– Drawing tools
Instead of creating a table as described above, you can also use the
Press this button to draw a table.
drawing tools. Click on the ‘draw table’ button and your mouse point
will turn into a pen . Now you can conveniently draw cells and entire
When drawing tables, your tables. When you are done, you need to turn the drawing feature off by
mouse pointer looks like a pen. clicking on the ‘draw table’ button a second time.
 Microsoft PowerPoint: Building Your Visual Aids 93
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If you made mistakes when drawing or if your table has a few

Erase cells and borders using this superfluous cells, you can take care of them by using the eraser. Click on
tool. the ‘eraser’ button to switch the feature on or off. When the tool is
activated, your mouse pointer will look like an eraser and will perform
the same function: it will remove unnecessary lines and cells from your
When erasing, your mouse tables.
pointer will look like this.

– Border attributes
Sets the line style. You can adjust three different types of border attributes: their style,
thickness and color. Among the border styles you can select to have no
border, a straight line, or a dashed line. The thickness determines how
Sets the border thickness. pronounced the border will appear on the screen. Common values are 1
pt., 2 ½ pt. and 3 ¼ pt. Finally, the border color button presents you with
the obvious choice. Once again, you can choose between colors from the
Sets the border color. standardized color scheme or from the ‘more colors’ palette.

– Borders menu
The borders menu allows you to quickly adjust the borders of a whole
The borders menu.
array of cells or even of the entire table. To apply these settings, you
need to select the cells that you want to affect. You can then expand the
borders menu by click on the right part of the button :

Each of these buttons will make a number of borders visible or invisible.

E.g. if you highlight your entire table and click on the top left button,
you will get a border around your table, but no internal borders between
your cells.

– Background color
You can set the background color of any cell by using the ‘background
This button allows you to pick a
background color for your cells.
color’ button. As always, you can take your pick from the standardized
color scheme or you can opt for any other color.

– Table menu

Quick access to the table menu.

The table menu gives you access to a number of maintenance functions
for your table: you can add columns and rows and quickly select parts of
your table or even the entire table.
94 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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– Merge & split cells

In some cases, you may want to combine a number of cells into one
Merge as many cells as you like
using this button.
larger cell. You can do so by highlighting these cells and then clicking
on the ‘merge cells’ button. Obviously, this button will only work if you
have selected more than one cell. The opposite is also possible: you can
This button lets you split a cell
split a cell into as many rows and columns as you want, simply by
into a number of rows and/or clicking on the ‘split cell’ button. This button is not available when you
columns. have selected more than one cell.

– Vertical alignment
Top Center Bottom The vertical alignment determines whether your text is located at the top,
the center or the bottom of each cell.

Adding other elements to your slides

You can also freely insert content from other applications. You may e.g.
want to add a graph from Excel. To do so, simply cut or copy the graph
in Excel and paste it into your slide. The object will automatically be
placed inside its own placeholder, so that you can move it around and
resize it.

‘Insert’ „ ‘Picture’ Alternatively, you can add pictures, movies, sounds and other objects by
‘Insert’ „ ‘Movies and Sounds’ clicking on ‘Insert’ on the menu bar, and then selecting among the
‘Insert’ „ ‘Object…’
‘Picture’, ‘Movies and sounds’ and ‘Object’ options. You can insert
pictures from files, from a scanner or from a digital camera, and you
ClipArt may want to check out PowerPoint’s ClipArt library. Finally, you can
A picture or drawing inserted insert just about any object that you can create using other software.
into text documents for
illustration purposes.
Moving and resizing individual placeholders
Once you placed your content on the slide, you may want to refine the
layout by moving the individual placeholders around or by expanding or
shrinking some of the items.

To move tables and text placeholders, click inside them once to make
The border of a text placeholder. their border visible. If you place your mouse pointer on top of the
border, it will sport a four-way arrow: you can now move the object
around by pressing and holding the left mouse button while moving the
Your mouse pointer will look mouse. Moving objects other than text boxes or tables is even easier:
like this. your mouse pointer only needs to be on top of the object, you do not
have to worry about its border.
 Microsoft PowerPoint: Building Your Visual Aids 95
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Resizing objects works in a similar way. If you are working with a text
To resize objects, use the white placeholder or a table, you need to make its border visible by clicking on
squares at the corners and in the the text or table once. Notice that there are white squares at each of the
middle of their border. four corners and in the middle of each border. When you place your
mouse pointer on top of any of these squares, it will turn into a two-
pronged arrow, indicating that you can now make the object larger or
When resizing objects, your
mouse pointer will look like a
smaller. Simply press the left mouse button and keep it pressed while
two-pronged arrow. you move the object’s border.

Example:

Move your mouse pointer Press the left mouse Release the mouse button
to one of the squares. button and keep it pressed when the object has the
while you relocate the desired dimensions.
border.

Note that each square only allows you to move the border(s) to which it
is attached. E.g. the square in the middle of the top border will allow you
to move the top border up and down (see above), while the square in the
lower right corner allows you to simultaneously move the borders to the
right and below the object. The mouse pointer will indicate in which
directions you can move.

To resize objects other than text boxes and tables, you will need to click
on them once. At this point, the appropriate white squares will appear
next to the object.

Adding arrows, geometric shapes, etc.

Finally, you may want to add arrows, boxes or other shapes to convey
certain ideas. You may e.g. want to draw a mind-map. You can easily do
so using the drawing toolbar.

Simply select a shape by clicking on the appropriate button and start

drawing. To draw, move your mouse to the point where you want the
upper left corner of the object to be. Press and hold the left mouse button
and move to the point where the lower right corner should be located. If
the object did not come out quite right, you can move and resize it like
96 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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any other object on a slide.

Furthermore, you can easily adjust its properties by using one of the
attribute buttons on the drawing toolbar.

Finally, the ‘draw’ menu features some additional options, such as

The ‘draw’ menu offers a great rotating objects or placing them in above or below other objects. The
number of further options. ‘draw’ menu can also be found on the drawing toolbar.
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COMING UP…
In this chapter, we learn how to
3. REFINING & REHEARSING
perfect the order of slides, how
to add outlines and summaries, Once you have prepared all individual slides, it is time to polish your
and how to prepare a slide show
or printouts for your presentation by checking the order of the slides, adding outlines and
presentation. summaries, and by rehearsing it. Finally, we will turn to the question of
printing your slides and materials or transferring them to a disk.

Before you go on…

At this point, you may want to have a first rehearsal of your
presentation. You should try to do the test run without notes: by now,
you have spent considerable time on your presentation, so you should be
fairly well acquainted with its content and order. This rehearsal serves
several purposes:
· to give you a better idea of what you will be saying when each
individual slide is on
· to time yourself
· to check whether the content of all slides fits your speech, so that
any mistakes can be corrected before you invest further work
· to see if you have trouble remembering certain facts, figures or
discussion points, which can then be put on cue cards for use
during the presentation

There are several ways you can rehearse. Pressing 5 will start the
presentation. You can use n, /, d, r and N or the left
mouse button to move forward in your presentation, i.e. to put the next
slide on. If you went too far, you can use u, l and P to return to the
previous slide.

‘Slide show’ „ ‘Rehearse Alternatively, you can do a timed rehearsal. To do so, click on ‘Slide
timings’ show’, ‘Rehearse timings’ on the menu bar. The computer will now keep
track of the time you spend on each slide. When you are done with your
presentation, PowerPoint will tell you the overall total and will give you
the option of saving the timing for each slide. At this point, you should
select ‘no’, to keep PowerPoint from using these timings to
automatically switch from slide to slide16.

Adding notes
One of the reasons for the rehearsal was to find out whether you have
trouble remembering certain items. If you do, you may want to
document them in the notes for the appropriate slides. Alternatively, you
can direct your notes at your audience and have PowerPoint print them
on your handouts. The choice is up to you.

16
You should use the automatic slide timing only when your presentation is complete and you have rehearsed it several
times so that you know your rhythm. Until then, it is best to manually switch from slide to slide
98 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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Check the order of your slides

Another reason for the rehearsal was to check whether your slides are in
The fourth icon on the view a sensible order so that your presentation flows naturally and does not
selector takes you to the ‘slide
sorter’ view.
jump from topic to topic. If you want to rearrange your slides, you can
switch to the ‘slide sorter view’ using the view selection bar or by
‘View’ „ ‘Slide sorter’ clicking on ‘View’, ‘Slide sorter’ on the menu bar.

The slide sorter view provides you with miniature previews of a large
number of slides, allowing you to simply pick them up and drag them
around.

PowerPoint in the ‘slide sorter’ view.

To move a slide, simply click on it and keep the left mouse button
pressed while you drag it to its new position.

Add outlines and summaries

In the last stage of the content phase, you may want to give your
audience some additional guidance. It is beneficial to start your
presentation with an outline of the subjects that you will discuss, and to
summarize your arguments before reaching a conclusion.

An outline slide is meant to give an overview of the topics that you are
about to discuss. In most of the cases, it will be sufficient if it simply
contains a list of these topics. Such a slide, which is called a ‘summary
slide’ in PowerPoint, can easily be created automatically: simply
Automatically create a summary highlight all your slides (or at least the important ones) in the slide sorter
slide… view17 and click on the ‘summary slide’ button. This will automatically
17
Click on the first slide, press and hold s, then click on the last slide. To select or unselect individual slides, press and
hold c while clicking on the slides.
 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 99
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insert an outline slide (or possibly several outline slides) containing the
titles of all the highlighted slides.

While PowerPoint calls your outline a summary page, a real summary

page is meant to recapture your main arguments before your conclusion.
It is meant to provide the big picture for the audience that may still be
stuck in the detailed arguments that you presented. Such a page should
be written manually.

When you are giving a rather long presentation, it may be a good idea to
have an outline at the beginning and a summary at the end of each part
of the presentation – but this usually applies only to presentations that
last 10 minutes or longer.

Add a layout and additional effects

Design templates
With the content prepared, we turn towards the looks of your
presentation. If you started out with a blank presentation, you can now
add a design template to your slides by selecting ‘Format’ from the
‘Format’ „ ‘Apply design
template…’
menu bar, and then clicking on ‘Apply design template’. You can then
choose out of an array of different designs. Your choice will affect all
the slides in your presentation.

Be aware that design templates also change the fonts used in your slides,
so that the text may be arranged slightly differently. Check each
individual slide to see if you need to correct anything. You can switch
back from the ‘slide sorter’ view to the ‘normal’ view by clicking on the
first icon on the view selector bar, by double-clicking on any individual
‘View’ „ ‘Normal’ slide in the ‘slide sorter’ view or by selecting ‘View’, ‘Normal’ from the
menu bar.

Transitions and animations

Also, if you are delivering your presentation using a beamer or computer
screen, you may want to add some transitions and animations to your
slides. Transitions determine how a new slide replaces its predecessor on
the screen. Your new slides could e.g. fly in from the right side of the
screen. Or the screen could fade to black and then fade in on the new
slide. Animations, on the other hand determine how individual
discussion points enter the screen. By default, all your discussion points
are immediately visible on your slide. If you select an animation, your
slide will initially be empty (except for the title) and your bullet points
will enter the screen one by one at the push of a button.
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A number of different options available in the ‘slide sorter’ view. First,

Choose your transition here… mark all the slides to which you want to apply a particular effect. Then
click on the ‘transition’ field and select a transition effect. The same
holds for animations. You will see a miniature preview once you have
…and your animation here. selected any effect.

Rehearsing your presentation

Finally, you may want to rehearse your presentation for a couple more
times. (You will find more detailed information regarding timed and
non-timed rehearsal on p. 97.) This is also the time to prepare your cue
cards.

Transferring your presentation

There are many different ways to take your slides to the presentation. If
you know that you can use a beamer or computer screen when delivering
your presentation, you will want to take them in electronic form.
Otherwise, you will need to create sheets for an overhead projector.
Finally, you may want to distribute handouts so that your audience can
take notes during the presentation.

Transferring your slides in electronic form

If you know that PowerPoint is installed on the PC you will be using
during your presentation, you only need to save your presentation. To do
This saves your presentation… so, click on the ‘save’ button. By default, your slides will be saved as a
normal ‘presentation’. Instead, you may opt to save it as a ‘PowerPoint
show’. The difference is marginal: when you open a ‘PowerPoint show’,
the presentation starts immediately. This saves some time because it will
not open directly in PowerPoint and you do not need to press 5 to start
the presentation. To save your slides as a show, select ‘PowerPoint
show’ in the ‘save as type’ selection box. Once you have saved the file,
you can transfer it to a floppy disk or email it to the place were you will
use it.

If, however, there are doubts whether you have PowerPoint available
during your presentation, it is best to go with the ‘Pack and go’ wizard.
Simply click on ‘File’ from the menu bar, and then select ‘Pack and go’.
‘File’ „ ‘Pack and go’
This wizard packages your presentation so you can use it on any
Windows-PC. The first step does not require any action, so you can
immediately click on ‘next’.

In the second step, you need to indicate which presentation you want to
package. For now, we assume that you want to use the presentation that
you are currently working on.
 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 101
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In the third step, you can choose where you want to save the final result.

Next, PowerPoint needs to know what it should include. If you included

any graphics or other objects, be sure to select ‘include linked files’. If
you used any fancy fonts (instead of the normal fonts that are set by
default), you should also select ‘embed TrueType fonts’ to be on the safe
side.

Finally, if you know that the PC to be used during your presentation

does not have PowerPoint installed, you always need to include the
viewer.

This was the last step, clicking on ‘finish’ now will create several files.
A setup file (‘pngsetup’) and one or more archive files (in our case:
‘pres0.ppz’). If you selected a floppy disk drive as a destination, then the
files may not fit on a single floppy. They will then be distributed over
several disks. To install your presentation, simply run ‘pngsetup’ by
double-clicking on the icon. This will then allow you to extract your
entire presentation to a destination of your choice. After extraction of the
files, you will be given the option of immediately running the
presentation.

As a final remark: be aware that many things can go wrong. The

computer or beamer you were planning to use may be out of order, your
floppy disk may be damaged or you may be forced to shift to another
room that does not have the appropriate equipment installed. If it is not
too expensive, it may be advisable to print your presentation on a set of
102 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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ordinary overhead sheets (see below) just to be safe.

If you are using an overhead projector

In this case, you will have to print a set of overhead sheets. If you have a
printer at home, it may be able to print sheets for you. Please check its
user manual to see if it is capable of doing so and if it needs any
particular type of sheets. You should be able to get blank sheets at any
decent stationary store.

If you cannot use your own printer to produce sheets, you can print your
sheets in the computer lab. To do so, save your presentation on a floppy
(see above), open it in the SMR and press c + P. (Do not press the
print button, this will instantaneously create a printout before you can
make any of the required adjustments!)

To avoid making any costly misprints, please follow these instructions

precisely:
1. Select ‘Tektronix 850’ as printer.

2. Click on ‘Properties’ (right next to the printer name).

3. Set ‘transparency’ as the paper source.

4. Close the ‘properties’ window by clicking on ‘ok’.

5. Make sure that the number of copies is set to ‘1’,

6. that PowerPoint is about to print ‘slides’,

7. and (if you want color sheets) that ‘grayscale’ and ‘pure black
and white’ are not selected.

8. Start the print process by clicking on ‘ok’.

Please be aware that printing slides (and particularly color slides) is

significantly more expensive than printing normal documents. Also, you
will need to return the settings to their initial values after your printout if
you intend to print other documents too.
 General Topics: Getting Hooked Up 103
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Preparing handouts and notes

PowerPoint can also generate handouts for your audience. There are two
different types: ‘handouts’, which only include miniature views of your
slides, and ‘notes pages’ which include a copy of each slide together
with the notes that you entered for that slide.

For print options, press c + P. (Please make sure that a Hewlett-

Packard laser printer is selected at this stage.) To print handouts, simply
select them from the ‘print what?’ list. You can then choose how many
slides should be printed per page: 2, 3, 4, 6 and 9 are possible values.
Three slides are a common value, because this setting leaves
your audience enough room to take notes for each individual
slide.

Alternatively, you can also print notes for your presentation. To

print them, all you need to do is to select ‘notes pages’ from the
‘print what?’ list.
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 Image: size-isnt-everything.co.uk

APPENDIX
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A. A SELECTION OF USEFUL EXCEL

FUNCTIONS
This appendix lists a number of useful Excel functions in the areas of
mathematics and statistics. All logical functions are listed as well, as
they play a crucial part in any subject area.

For each function, the following information is given:

Syntax · its use
Set of grammatical rules. The
syntax determines in which order · its syntax
you convey information. Just as · an explanation of the variables (if applicable)
there is a certain order in the
English language, e.g. ‘Subject – Also, one or more examples are provided for most functions.
Verb – Object’ for a normal
sentence, there is a certain order
to information that you pass on Whenever we discuss the syntax of a function, we will indicate it with a
to your computer. Without this special font:
order, the computer would be
unable to understand the SUM (number 1, number 2, …)
significance of each bit of All required parts of a function will be printed in bold. In our example,
information.
you will need to include at least one number in the brackets. You can
include more numbers, separated by commas18, but it is not necessary to
do so. Note:

Mathematical functions

abs() – Absolute value

This function returns the absolute value of a number, i.e. the same
number but without its sign.
ABS (number)
where:
· number is a number of your choice or a reference to a single cell

Examples:
=ABS(-5) will return 5
=ABS(5.867) will return 5.867

exp() – (Natural) exponential function

This function raises Euler’s number e to a power. In mathematical
terms: e x
EXP (exponent)
where:

18
Note that punctuation marks depend on the regional settings of your PC. For further information, see p. 3.
108 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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· exponent is any number or reference to a single cell

Examples:
=EXP(0) returns 1
=EXP(1) returns 2.7183 (e, Euler’s number)
=EXP(2) returns e 2 = 7.389

Remark: exp() is the inverse of ln(), the natural logarithm.

ln() – Natural logarithm

This function returns the natural logarithm of a number.
LN (number)
where:
· number is any positive number or reference to a single cell
which contains a positive number

Examples:
=LN(-1) will return a #NUM! error because the number is not positive
=LN(0) will return a #NUM! error because the number is not positive
=LN(1) will return 0
=LN(2.7183) will return 1

Remark: ln() is the inverse of exp(), the natural exponential function.

log() – Logarithm
This function returns the logarithm of a number to a specified base.

LOG (number, base)

where:
· number is any positive number or reference to a single cell
which contains a positive number
o base is any positive number or reference to a single cell which
contains a positive number (optional, if left empty, ‘10’ will be
used)

Examples:
=LOG(-1) will return a #NUM! error because the number is not positive
=LOG(10) will return 1
=LOG(2, 5) will return 0.431
 Appendix: A Selection of Useful Excel Functions 109
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Matrix functions
All matrix functions except mdeterm() are slightly different from
normal functions because they need to be entered for several cells
Array functions simultaneously. Such functions are called array functions.
Functions that are valid for an
array of cells. The result of such
a function not only depends on To enter such functions, follow these three steps:
the function itself, but also on 1. Select as many cells as you need (in the correct proportion). E.g.
the position of each cell in the if you are calculating the inverse of 2 × 2 matrix, you will need
array. E.g. the same function to select 2 × 2 cells.
could return a different result for
cell 2 in row 1 than for cell 4 in
row 3. Array functions are
entered in a different way than
2. Enter the formula, e.g. =MINVERSE (A1:B2)…
normal functions.

3. and press c + s + / to apply it to all selected

cells simultaneously.

Note that the formula for each of the cells has subtly changed. It now
reads ={ MINVERSE (A1:B2) }, to indicate that it is valid for an entire
array of cells.

mdeterm() – Determinant of a matrix

Returns the determinant of a square matrix. (This function should not be
entered as an array function.)

MDETERM (array of cells)

where:
· array of cells is reference to a coherent block of cells with an
equal amount of rows and columns (there are no determinants for
non-square matrices)

Examples:
=MDETERM(A1:B2) will return the inverse of this 2 × 2 matrix
=MDETERM(A1:B3) will return a #VALUE! error because this is not a
square matrix

Remark: if any cells in the matrix are empty or contain text, mdeterm()
will return a #VALUE! error.

– minverse() – Inverse of a matrix

Returns the inverse of a square matrix. This function needs to be
entered as an array function! The resulting matrix will be of the same
size as the original matrix.
110 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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MINVERSE (array of cells)

where:
· array of cells is reference to a coherent block of cells with an
equal amount of rows and columns (non-square matrices cannot
be inverted)

Examples:
=MINVERSE(A1:B2) will return the inverse of this 2 × 2 matrix
=MINVERSE(A1:B3) will return a #VALUE! error because this is not a
square matrix

Remarks:
· If any cells in the matrix are empty or contain text, minverse()
will return a #VALUE! error.
· Not all square matrices can be inverted. minverse() returns a
#NUM! error if a matrix does not have an inverse.

– mmult() – Matrix multiplication

Returns the product of a matrix multiplication of a k × m and an m × n
matrix. This function needs to be entered as an array function! The
resulting matrix will be of the order k × n.
MINVERSE (first array, second array)
where:
· first array is reference to a coherent block of cells of any size,
i.e. a matrix of the order k × m, where k and m can be freely
chosen
· second array is reference to a coherent block of cells that has as
many rows as there are columns in the first array, i.e. a matrix of
the order m × n, where n can be freely chosen but m is
determined by the first array

Examples:
=MMULT(A1:B3,G17:I18) will return a 3 × 3 matrix
=MMULT(A1:C3,G17:I18) will return a #VALUE! error, because the
number of columns in array one (3) is unequal to the number
of rows in array two (2)

Remark: if any cells in the matrix are empty or contain text, mmult()
will return a #VALUE! error.

– transpose() – Transposes a matrix

Returns the transpose of a matrix, i.e. a matrix whose rows have been
converted into columns. This function needs to be entered as an array
function! If the original matrix is of the order m × n, then the resulting
matrix will be of the order n × m.
 Appendix: A Selection of Useful Excel Functions 111
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TRANSPOSE (array of cells)

where:
· array of cells is reference to a coherent block of cells

Example:
=TRANSPOSE(A1:C2) will return a 3 × 2 matrix

Remark: there are no restrictions regarding the content of the cells.

Transpose also works with text or empty cells.

pi() – p
Returns p (pi), 3.141…, accurate to 15 digits.
PI ()
No parameters are required.

round() – Rounding
Rounds a number to a specified amount of digits after the decimal point.
ROUND (number, amount of digits)
where:
· number is the number that you want to round
· amount of digits is the amount of digits after the decimal point
to which you want to round (entering negative numbers will
cause Excel to round before the decimal point)

Examples:
=ROUND(1.234, 0) will return 1
=ROUND(1.234, 1) will return 1.2
=ROUND(42.234, -1) will return 40

sqrt() – Square root

Returns the square root of a number.
SQRT (number)
where:
· number is any positive number

Examples:
=SQRT(4) will return 2
=SQRT(-4) will return a #NUM! error, because the square root of a
negative number is not defined
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sum() – Sums
Adds the contents of cells.
SUM (number 1, number 2, …)
where:
· number 1 is a number or a reference to a (group of) cells
o you can include additional cell references or numbers up to a
total of 30 (optional)

Examples:
=SUM(1,2,3) will return 6
=SUM(A1:A200) will add the contents of all 200 cells and return the
total
=SUM(A1:B3,6,C7) will add the contents of the number 6 to the
contents of the cells A1:B3 and C7

Remark: empty cells or cells that contain text, logical values or errors
will be ignored.

trunc() – Truncation
Truncates a number with a specified precision.
TRUNC (number, amount of digits)
where:
· number is the number that you want to truncate
o amount of digits is the number of digits after the decimal point
that you want to preserve (optional, if left empty, ‘0’ will be
used; entering a negative value for ‘amount of digits’ will cut of
digits in front of the decimal point)

Examples:
=TRUNC(18.956) returns 18
=TRUNC(18.956,1) returns 18.9
=TRUNC(18.956,-1) returns 10

Statistical functions

average() – Mean
Returns the arithmetic mean of the specified cells or numbers.
AVERAGE (number 1, number 2, …)
where:
· number 1 is a number or a reference to a (group of) cells
o you can include additional cell references or numbers up to a
total of 30 (optional)
 Appendix: A Selection of Useful Excel Functions 113
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Examples:
=AVERAGE(1,2,3) will return 2
=AVERAGE(A1:A200) will return the average of all 200 cells

Remark: empty cells or cells that contain text, logical values or errors
will be ignored. A cell that contains a ‘0’ will therefore affect the mean,
an empty cell will not.

binomdist() – Binomial distribution

Returns the binomial probably of k successes in n trials, when the
probability of a success is p.
BINOMDIST (k, n, p, cumulative)
where:
· k is the amount of success, a natural number between 0 and n
· n is the total amount of trials, a positive natural number
· p is the probability for success as a percentage or decimal value
· cumulative is a logical value that determines whether the
probability mass function or cumulative probability is returned

Examples:
=BINOMDIST(1,2,50%,false) returns 0.5
=BINOMDIST(1,2,0.5,false) returns 0.5
=BINOMDIST(1,2,0.5,true) returns 0.75
=BINOMDIST(2,1,0.5,true) returns a #NUM! error because there
cannot be more successes than there are trials
=BINOMDIST(1,2,1.1,true) returns a #NUM! error because
probabilities cannot be smaller than 0 (0%) or larger than 1
(100%)

critbinom() – Binomial distribution

Determines the amount of successes for which the cumulative

probability equals or supersedes a specified critical value.

CRITBINOM (n, p, critical value)

where:
· n is the total amount of trials, a positive natural number
· p is the probability for success as a percentage or decimal value
· critical value is the percentile that you want to determine

Example:
=CRITBINOM(10,0.5,0.75) will return 6, because the cumulative
probability for 6 successes is past the 75% threshold
(82.8%), while the cum. probability for 5 successes remained
below the critical value (62.3%)
114 Introduction to Microsoft Office
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0.3
> 75%

0.25

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
k

count() – Number of elements

Counts the amount of numbers in a list.
COUNT (number 1, number 2, …)
where:
· number 1 is a number or a reference to a (group of) cells
· you can include additional cell references or numbers up to a
total of 30 (optional)

Examples:
=COUNT(1,2,3) will return 3
=COUNT(1,"A",3) will return 2
=COUNT(A1:A200) will return the amount of cells between A1 and
A200 that contain a numerical value

Remark: empty cells or cells that contain text, logical values or errors
will be ignored.

max() – Largest element

Finds and returns the largest element in a list of numbers.
MAX (number 1, number 2, …)
where:
· number 1 is a number or a reference to a (group of) cells
o you can include additional cell references or numbers up to a
total of 30 (optional)

Examples:
=MAX(1,2,3) will return 3
=MAX(A1:A200) will search the cells between A1 and A200 and return
the largest value
=MAX(A1:A200, 10) will return 10 or the largest value found between
A1 and A200, whichever is larger
 Appendix: A Selection of Useful Excel Functions 115
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Remark: empty cells or cells that contain text, logical values or errors
will be ignored.

median() – Median
Returns the median of a list of numbers, i.e. it returns the middle value.
MEDIAN (number 1, number 2, …)
where:
· number 1 is a number or a reference to a (group of) cells; the
numbers do not need to be orders according to value
o you can include additional cell references or numbers up to a
total of 30 (optional)

Examples:
=MEDIAN(1,2,3) will return 2
=MEDIAN(1,2,3,4) will return 2.5 (the average of 2 and 3)
=MEDIAN(1,2,3,5) will return 2.5 (the average of 2 and 3)
=MEDIAN(2,5,1,3) will return 2.5 (the average of 2 and 3)

Remark: empty cells or cells that contain text, logical values or errors
will be ignored. A cell that contains a ‘0’ will therefore affect the
median, an empty cell will not.

min() – Smallest element

Finds and returns the smallest element from a list of numbers.
MIN (number 1, number 2, …)
where:
· number 1 is a number or a reference to a (group of) cells
o you can include additional cell references or numbers up to a
total of 30 (optional)

Examples:
=MIN(1,2,3) will return 1
=MIN(A1:A200) will search the cells between A1 and A200 and return
the smallest value
=MIN(A1:A200, 5) will return 5 or the smallest value found between
A1 and A200, whichever is smaller

Remark: empty cells or cells that contain text, logical values or errors
will be ignored.
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normdist() – Normal distribution

Returns the (cumulative) probability for a point under a normal
distribution with a given mean and standard deviation.
NORMDIST (x, mean, standard deviation, cumulative)
where:
· x is the value for which you want the probability
· mean is the mean of the normal distribution
· standard deviation is the standard deviation of the normal
distribution
· cumulative is a logical value that determines whether the
cumulative probability is returned (for most intents and purposes,
this value will be set to true)

Examples:
=NORMDIST(75,80,5,TRUE) will return 0.159
=NORMDIST(A1,100,25,TRUE) will return the cumulative
probability under the normal distribution with m = 100 and s
= 25 on the interval [–∞, A1] (see graph)

normsdist() –Standard normal distribution

Works like normdist(), but uses the standard normal distribution.
normsdist() returns only the cumulative probability.
NORMDIST (z)
where:
· z is the value for which you want the probability

Example:
=NORMSDIST(0) will return 0.50

norminv() – Normal distribution

Returns the point x under a normal distribution with a given mean and
standard deviation for which the interval [–∞, x] yields a given
probability.
NORMINV (probability, mean, standard deviation)
where:
 Appendix: A Selection of Useful Excel Functions 117
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· probability is the cumulative probability under the normal

distribution on the interval [–∞, x]
· mean is the mean of the normal distribution
· standard deviation is the standard deviation of the normal
distribution

Examples:
=NORMINV(0.5,100,10) will return 100
=NORMINV(40%,100,25) will return the point x indicated in the graph
below

normsinv() –Standard normal distribution

Works like norminv(), but uses the standard normal distribution.
NORMSINV (probability)
where:
· probability is the cumulative probability under the standard
normal distribution on the interval [–∞, z]

Example:
=NORMSINV(50%) will return 0

percentile() – Percentiles
Returns the specified percentile.
PERCENTILE (array of cells, percentile)
where:
· array of cells is reference to a coherent block of cells
· percentile is the percentile as a decimal value between 0 and 1

Examples:
=PERCENTILE(A1:A200,0.1) will return the 10th percentile
=PERCENTILE(A1:A200,1.1) will return a #NUM! error because
there is no 110th percentile

Remarks:
· if the array contains less than 1 or more than 8,191 elements,
percentile() will return a #NUM! error
· empty cells or cells that contain text, logical values or errors will
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be ignored
· percentile(A1:A200,0) is equivalent to min(A1:A200)
· percentile(A1:A200,0.5) is equivalent to median(A1:A200)
· percentile(A1:A200,1) is equivalent to max(A1:A200)

quartile() – Quartiles
Returns a specified quartile.
QUARTILE (array of cells, QUARTILE)
where:
· array of cells is reference to a coherent block of cells
· quartile determines, which quartile will be returned:
§ 0 – the minimum value
§ 1 – the lower quartile
§ 2 – the median
§ 3 – the upper quartile
§ 4 – the maximum value

Examples:
=PERCENTILE(A1:A200,1) will return the lower quartile
=PERCENTILE(A1:A200,6) will return a #NUM! error because the
second value needs to be a natural number between 0 and 4

Remarks:
· if the array contains less than 1 or more than 8,191 elements,
quartile() will return a #NUM! error
· empty cells or cells that contain text, logical values or errors will
be ignored
· quartile(A1:A200,0) is equivalent to min(A1:A200)
· quartile(A1:A200,2) is equivalent to median(A1:A200)
· quartile(A1:A200,4) is equivalent to max(A1:A200)

stdev() – Standard deviation

Calculates the standard deviation of a sample.
STDEV (number 1, number 2, …)
where:
· number 1 is a number or a reference to a (group of) cells
o you can include additional cell references or numbers up to a
total of 30 (optional)

Example:
=STDEV(A1:A10) will return the standard deviation of the values
contained in the cells A1 through A10.
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tdist() – Student t-distribution

Returns the one- or two-tailed cumulative probability for a point under a
T-distribution with given degrees of freedom.
TDIST (x, d.f., tails)
where:
· x is the value for which you want the probability
· d.f. indicates the degrees of freedom of the distribution
· tails indicates whether you want the one- or two-tailed
probability

Examples:
=TDIST(1,200,1) will return 0.159 (see graph)

=TDIST(1,200,2) is equivalent to =2*TDIST(1,200,1)

Remark: when d.f. < 1 or when tails does not equal 1 or 2, tdist() will
return a #NUM! error.

tinv() – Student t-distribution

Returns the point x which cuts off a given probability in both tails of a
student T-distribution with given degrees of freedom.
TINV (probability, d.f.)
where:
· probability is the total cumulative probability that should be left
in both tails (e.g. 5% in total implies 2.5% in each tail, see graph)
· d.f. indicates the degrees of freedom of the distribution
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Example:
=TINV(5%,200) will return 1.972 (see graph)

var() – Variance
Calculates the variance of a sample.
VAR (number 1, number 2, …)
where:
· number 1 is a number or a reference to a (group of) cells
o you can include additional cell references or numbers up to a
total of 30 (optional)

Example:
=VAR(A1:A10) will return the standard deviation of the values
contained in the cells A1 through A10.

Logical functions
Logical functions allow a computer to deal with logical statements. A
Logical statement logical statement is a statement that compares one bit of information
A comparison of two pieces of with another to check whether they fulfill a certain condition. For
information that is either correct
or incorrect, e.g. 0 = 1 is such a
instance, A2 = 2 is such a statement. Here, the two bits of information
statement, and it is incorrect. are the cell ‘A2’ and the number ‘2’, and the condition is that both bits
of information must be equal to each other. Another statement would be
A2 > 2. In this case, the condition is that the cell ‘A2’ must contain a
value that is larger than 2.

Excel will try to determine whether a condition has been met or not. In
our latter example, A2 > 2, the condition would be met e.g. if the cell
‘A2’ contains the value ‘3’, because 3 > 2. In that case, we say that a
statement is true or correct. If, however, the cell ‘A2’ e.g. contained the
value ‘1’, then the condition would not be met. We would say that the
statement is false or incorrect.

The decision whether a statement is true or false is the result of such a

logical statement. Just as =4+3 will return 7, =1>0 will return true. This
‘response’ can then be used in logical functions e.g. for making
decisions.

The following logical functions are all based on logical statements.

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and()
This function will return true if all of the given conditions are true.
AND (condition 1, condition 2, …)
where:
· condition 1 is a logical statement
o you can include additional logical statements up to a total of 30
(optional)

Examples:
=AND(1=1, 2<3) will return true because both statements are true
=AND(1=1, 2>3) will return false because at least one statement is false
(it does not matter how many statements are false)

false()
Returns false.
FALSE () or FALSE
No parameters are required.

Remark: the brackets can be omitted.

if()
Evaluates a statement and commits an action in response.
IF (condition, response if true, response if false)
where:
· condition is any logical condition
· response if true is the action committed when the logical
condition is true
o response if false is the action committed when the logical
condition is false (optional)

Examples:
=IF(A1>A2,A1-A2,A2-A1) will deduct A2 from A1 if A1 is bigger than
A2 (and vice versa)
=IF(0=1,"Your PC is drunk!","Everything is fine.") will always return
“Everything is fine”, because 0 is never equal to 1 (unless
your PC is drunk)

Remarks:
· you can refine the condition using the and(), or() and not()
functions
· you can include up to 7 further if() functions in the responses
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not()
Reverses the condition, i.e. returns true for a condition that is false and
false for a condition that is true.
NOT (condition)
where:
· condition is a logical statement

Examples:
=NOT(2<3) will return false, because the original statement is true
=NOT(1=0) will return true, because the original statement is false

or()
This function will return true if at least one of the given conditions is
true.
OR (condition 1, condition 2, …)
where:
· condition 1 is a logical statement
o you can include additional logical statements up to a total of 30
(optional)

Examples:
=OR(1=1, 2>3) will return true because at least one statement is true (it
does not matter how many statements are true)
=OR(1=0, 2>3) will return false because all statements are false

true()
Returns true.
TRUE () or TRUE
No parameters are required.

Remarks: the brackets can be omitted.

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