How to Use Microsoft Excel 2003

Microsoft Excel 2003 is a computer spreadsheet program that is part of Microsoft Office 2003. Excel 2003 is the predecessor to Excel 2007; both programs are widely used in business and finance for data organization and analysis. Excel 2003 can serve a variety of purposes from storing data in a digital format to creating graphs and performing calculations on data. A basic level of knowledge with Excel 2003 can be an important job skill.

Things You'll Need

• MS Excel 2003

Instructions

1. Open Excel 2003. Click "Start," "All Programs," "Microsoft Office" and then "Microsoft Office Excel 2003."

2. Select a cell by left-clicking on it. You can select any cell to edit the value on the cell with the left mouse button. After selecting a cell, you can navigate to other cells using the arrow keys.

3. Enter a value into a cell. After selecting a cell, type words, numbers or both and then press the enter key. The value will appear in the cell; you can continue selecting cells and entering data to create large tables of data.

4. Switch and edit worksheets. Click the different worksheet tabs at the bottom of the Excel window to switch to a different worksheet. Each Excel 2003 workbook can have many worksheets with unique sets of data. You can rename worksheets by double-clicking on the worksheet name and then typing a new name. You can add more worksheets by clicking on the "Insert" menu and then selecting "Worksheet."

5. Print spreadsheet data. Click on the tab of the worksheet you want to print, then click "File," then "Print," select the appropriate option for the print job you want to perform under "Print what," (print the active worksheet, selection, the whole workbook, etc.) and click "OK."

6. Save your spreadsheet. To save your workbook in Excel at any time, click "File" and then "Save." You can also hold down the "control" key and then press "S" to save the file.

Tips & Warnings

• Excel 2007 has many of the same functions and features as Excel 2003, but the user interface is different. Excel 2007 can open workbooks from Excel 2003 (.xls files) but files saved in the native Excel 2007 format (.xlsx) will not open with Excel 2003.

• Regularly save your workbook to ensure that system errors, power outages or other issues do not cause you to lose data.

References

• Ischool.utexas.edu: Excel Basics
• Csus.edu: Excel Basics (PDF file)
• Rutgers: MS Office 2003 tutorial (PDF file)