How to Make Excel Spreadsheets

Creating spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel is a great way to organize the information in both your business and personal life. The types of data that can be used in Excel include text, numbers, and formulas. Whether you want to create a Contacts database you can sort in a variety of ways, create formulas to calculate repayment plans for your refinanced mortgage, or a growth chart for your business, you can do it all in an Excel spreadsheet.

These eHow instructions cover the steps to create a spreadsheet in Excel 2003 for your contacts. There are no complex formulas here.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computer
• Excel 2003
• Data to input

1. Gather the information you want to use to create your spreadsheet.

2. Start your computer and open your Excel program. When you start up the Excel program your screen will be filled with a big empty grid. This is the Excel worksheet that you'll be entering data into.
   
   Each column of the spreadsheet has a letter on top and each row is numbered. There are tabs at the bottom of the page named Sheet1, Sheet2 and Sheet3.

3. When you opened your Excel program the first cell in the upper left corner of the worksheet is outlined in black. This means it is the active cell and where any information you type will be entered. To change where you want to start typing just click on a different cell.

4. To set up your spreadsheet you'll want to start by entering titles at the top of each column so you and anyone else viewing your spreadsheet will understand what the data means.
   
   For example: To create a spreadsheet of personal and business contacts your titles could include the following information: Last Name, First Name, Spouse's Name, Children's Names, Business Name, Address1, Address2, City, State, Zip, Phone, Fax, Email, Website.

5. Click on the cell you want to start inputting your data into. This is now your active cell. Type in your column titles. Rather than using your mouse while typing, just hit the Tab key after you've finished the title for each cell and you'll move to the next cell.
   
   To differentiate titles from the data type the spreadsheet column titles in all CAPS and BOLD font.
   
   To make your titles bold highlight your title row by left clicking in the gray cell of the row you want to highlight, then either hold down the CTRL button and hit the letter B or click the B in your tool bar.

6. Once you've inputted all your column titles it's time save and name your spreadsheet. Go to File in your toolbar and click Save As. Give your spreadsheet a name related to the information you are inputting.
   
   In our example we called our spreadsheet simply CONTACTS.
   
   Once the save is complete, scroll to the bottom of your spreadsheet page to where it says Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3. This is where you can create separate sheets for you business and personal contacts. Right click on the Sheet1 tab, select RENAME and type Business. Right click on Sheet2 tab, select RENAME and type Personal.

7. Now it's time to enter your data. Click in the empty cell under the column where you'd like to enter your data and begin typing.
   
   After entering information into a cell if you want to move to the next adjacent cell hit the TAB key. If you want to move to the cell below the cell you were typing in hit the ENTER key.

8. To move between the two Sheets you've created just click on the sheet title and it will open whichever spreadsheet you want to work in.

9. A great, time saving feature Excel has is Auto Complete. This is a real time saver if you have a lot of people with the same last name or from the same company to ad to your spreadsheet.
   
   When you start typing information into a cell and the first few letters you are entering match an entry you've all ready made, Excel will fill in the remaining characters for you. Just hit the ENTER key when you see this and the characters will automatically populate the cell you were working in. This will work for text and text with numbers but not numbers only.

10. After you've entered data you might decide you need another column for more information. Perhaps you've decided to add birthdays to your contact database. There's no need to start all over, it's simple to insert a new column in your spreadsheet wherever you'd like.
    
    To insert a single column, go to the top of your spreadsheet and click the cell immediately to the right of where you want the new column to go. So if you want to add a birthday column between columns D and E, you'd click a cell in column D, to the right of the new location. Then right click, and select Insert Column.

11. After you've enter all your data you'll want to sort your information and Excel gives you a variety of ways to sort the data in your spreadsheet.
    
    Click on TOOLS in the tools bar, then click on SORT. This will bring up a box with three smaller boxes in it where you can select the columns you want to sort by, how to sort and in what order.
    
    For your business contacts you might decide to sort by Zip Code, Business Name, Last Name to create a mailing list to target a specific area.
    
    For your personal contacts you might decide to sort by Birthday and Last Name, First Name to make sure you get those birthday cards out in time.