Chapter 2: Entering and Editing Worksheet Data

In This Chapter

Understanding the types of data you can use

Entering text and values into your worksheets

Entering dates and times into your worksheets

Modifying and editing information

Using built-in number formats

This chapter describes what you need to know about entering and modifying data in your worksheets. As you see, Excel doesn't treat all data equally. Therefore, you need to learn about the various types of data that you can use in an Excel worksheet.

Exploring Data Types

An Excel workbook file can hold any number of worksheets, and each worksheet is made up of more than 17 billion cells. A cell can hold any of three basic types of data:

• A numeric value

• Text

• A formula

A worksheet can also hold charts, diagrams, pictures, buttons, and other objects. These objects aren't contained in cells. Instead, they reside on the worksheet's draw layer, which is an invisible layer on top of each worksheet.

cross-icon Chapter 23 discusses some of the items you can place on the draw layer.

Get Excel 2013 Bible now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.