Happy Computers Essentials Guide to

Using AUTOFILL To Make Copying Easy!

Excel provides a very powerful and quick way of copying formulas and text. This is called AUTOFILL.

You know when you can perform an AUTOFILL because the cursor changes to a as you move it over the tiny black box at bottom right corner of the selected cell, as pictured here.

Autofill To Copy Text & Numbers

Select the cell to copy Click & Drag with the mouse to do this

Move the mouse to the bottom-right corner Your cursor will change to a small plus sign (pictured above)

Click and drag to highlight where to copy to

Release the mouse button The text will be copied and adjusted if necessary.
Excel will actually do something clever if you copy the word Jan. to other cells. It will work out that you are creating a series of months and will fill in Feb., March, April, automatically for you. Try it and see what happens.

Autofill with More Than One Cell

Highlight two cells in a series (such as dates a week apart) and Autofill will continue that series:

Creating Your Own AutoFill Lists

You can create a custom fill series:
Click on the Tools Menu, then options

Click on the Custom List Tab

Select New List in the Custom lists box

Type the Entries in the list entries box, beginning with the first entry

Press Enter after each entry

Click on Add When Finished

Click OK

AutoFill To Copy Formulas

Select the cell to copy Click & Drag with the mouse to do this

Move the mouse over the bottom-right corner Your cursor will change to a small plus sign (pictured above)

Click and drag to highlight where to copy to

Release the mouse button The formulas will be copied and adjusted automatically.
AutoFill With The Right Mouse Button

Instead of dragging the AutoFill handle with the left mouse button you can use the right mouse button. When you let go you will be presented with a menu of options that you can pick from (such as creating growth trends)

Erasing Cells

Erasing The Contents Of Cells

You can blank the contents of any cell:
Select Cell(s) to be blanked

Press Delete on the keyboard

Erasing The Formats From A Cell Or Range Of Cells

Select Cell(s) to be blanked

Click on Edit Menu The menu will drop down

Click on Delete

Click on Formats

Undo

If you make a mistake and change a cell you didn't mean to - or accidentally delete a whole range of cells - Excel has a really useful way of undoing any damage.
Click on the Undo button Or CTRL + Z, or Edit Menu : Undo

Getting Excel To Do Your Calculations!

The power of worksheets comes from the ability to set up formulas in cells, and to re-calculate when figures change.
Start A Formula With The Equals Sign
You should always start a formula in Excel with the equals sign so that Excel knows it is a formula and not just text to be displayed

Entering a Formula

Select the cell where the result of the formula is to appear

Type =

Enter formula It appears in the formula bar and the result in the cell.

Press Return Or click on the tick

Entering A Formula By Pointing

You don't need to write in the cell references. Simply point to them instead.
Select Cell where result of calculation is to appear

= Type =

Click on first cell.

+ Type +

Click on next cell

Press Return Or click on the tick
Pointing can be used on all formulas instead of typing them in.

Arithmetic Symbols

+ Addition

- Subtraction

* Multiplication

/ Division

^ Exponent

% Percentage

Precedence of Calculation

Calculations are not simply done form left to right. Below is the order in which all calculations are performed.

Priority	Symbol	Explanation
1	()	Anything in brackets is done before anything outside the brackets is even considered
2	^	Raises a number by an order of magnitude: raises it to the power of something else e.g. X^2
3	* /	Multiply and divide are on the same level. Whichever is furthest left in a formula is therefore done first.
4	+ -	Plus and minus are on the same level as above.

The acronym for this is BODMAS

Brackets Order Divide Multiply Add Subtract