How to Make a Spreadsheet

Spreadsheets can be very helpful in allowing people to keep track of records and their financial information. This article will teach you how to make a spreadsheet using Excel. In Excel each column is represented by a column (A, B and C) and each row is represented by a number (1, 2 and 3). As a result each cell in a spreadsheet can be identified by its location. For example, the cell in the second column of the third row is cell B3.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A computer
• Microsoft Excel

1. Create categories. In the top row of your spreadsheet, in each cell, type in the name of a category. For example, if you want to make a spreadsheet of all of your expenses, type "Date" in A1, "Item" in B1, "Store" in C1 and "Price" in D1.

2. Enter the data. Now that you have your categories, you can start entering your data, starting with the second row of your spreadsheet.

3. Calculate totals. Excel has formulas that if you type them in, will calculate numbers in your spreadsheet. For example, Column D has been used the list the price for your purchases and you have entries in rows 2 through 15 in your spreadsheet. To calculate the total, in cell D16, type in "=SUM(D2:D15)." That will add up the totals in cells D2, D3, D4 and so on.

4. Filter entries. Say you want to know how much of the money you've spent is going towards food or is at the book store, there's an easy way you can do this task. Highlight all of you category titles, then go to "Data," "Filter" and "Auto Filter." This allows you to click on the column's header and select one of the entries. For example if you click on "Store" you will have the ability to view "all" or view each of the entries. If you click on "Exxon," it will then list every purchase in your spreadsheet that you made from Exxon.

Tips & Warnings

• There are many things you can do to customize and better organize your spreadsheet. You can format cells to different fonts, numbers and colors. You can also take the data on your spreadsheet to create visual graphs.

Resources

• Excel tutorials