Excel 2016 Bible

Chapter 1Introducing Excel

IN THIS CHAPTER

1. Understanding what Excel is used for
2. Looking at what's new in Excel 2016
3. Learning the parts of an Excel window
4. Introducing the Ribbon, shortcut menus, dialog boxes, and task panes
5. Navigating Excel worksheets
6. Introducing Excel with a step-by-step hands-on session

This chapter is an introductory overview of Excel 2016. If you're already familiar with a previous version of Excel, reading (or at least skimming) this chapter is still a good idea.

Identifying What Excel Is Good For

Excel is the world's most widely used spreadsheet software and is part of the Microsoft Office suite. Other spreadsheet software is available, but Excel is by far the most popular and has been the world standard for many years.

Much of the appeal of Excel is due to the fact that it's so versatile. Excel's forte, of course, is performing numerical calculations, but Excel is also useful for nonnumeric applications. Here are just a few of the uses for Excel:

• Number crunching: Create budgets, tabulate expenses, analyze survey results, and perform just about any type of financial analysis you can think of.
• Creating charts: Create a variety of highly customizable charts.
• Organizing lists: Use the row-and-column layout to store lists efficiently.
• Text manipulation: Clean up and standardize text-based data.
• Accessing other data: Import data from a variety of sources.
• Creating graphical dashboards: Summarize a large amount of business information in a concise format. ...