Online Tutorial on using the Basics of Excel with Business Statistics

This tutorial is designed for business and accounting major students at EMCC.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this learning session you should be able to:

· Navigate through an excel worksheet

· Build basic mathematical formulas with Excel

· Insert business functions for statistical work with Excel

· Find supporting documentation when working with Excel Functions

To start Microsoft Excel from the desktop click on Start>Programs>Microsoft Office>Microsoft Excel

An Excel Worksheet is made up of rows and columns. The intersection of the rows and columns create cells having unique names consisting of the row and column identifiers.

Row 1

Cell A1

Column A

To navigate to various cells, you can point and click with the mouse or use the keyboard arrow keys, along with other keyboard shortcuts.

To perform basic arithmetic with Excel, begin with an empty cell and insert an equals sign (=). Then reference the cells to be included in the formula and add the appropriate operator(s). The basic math operators are:

+ Addition

- Subtraction

* Multiplication

/ Division

^ Exponent

Below is an example of a multiplication operation.

Below is an example of using an exponential operation.

Finding Business Statistical Functions in Excel

Select the cell you want the function to be in, and then click the Insert Function button.

Click the Insert Functions next to the Formula Bar

Alternatively, you may open the Insert menu, and then select Function as shown.

The Insert Function dialog box will appear.

Excel has over 300 functions available. Functions provide an efficient way to have Excel perform complex calculations in specialized areas such as mathematics, statistics, logic, trigonometry, accounting, and finance.

Click the Category Dropdown button to see the available categories of functions.

Dropdown Button

Below is a partial look at Excel’s available Statistical Functions:

Statistical Category Selected

Here is how to insert a function which will calculate the standard deviation for an entire population of numeric values. The standard deviation of the cells below can be found with the STDEVP function. Start by selecting the appropriate cell for the function.

Next, open the Insert Function dialog box and select the function.

Function Description

Selected Function

Additional information on the function is found by clicking here

Appropriate cell selected and appropriate function selected. Now click OK.

Insert the range of cells to be included in the standard deviation calculation. In the example below, the semi-colon indicates that all the cells starting with D1 and ending with D10 will be included in the calculation. Excel may insert this range for you automatically.

If the label next to the textbox is bold, the textbox must have cell references or values inserted. If the label is not bold, cell references or values are optional. For this calculation, only the upper textbox must specify the range of cells to be calculated. When the required textbox entry is complete, click the OK button to insert the function.

Completes Entry

Optional (not required for this example)

Bold (Required)

After clicking OK, the standard deviation calculation is complete.

To find out more about Excel functions, use Excel’s Help features to see additional information.

Excel’s Help Menu

Enter the topic of interest

This concludes the Basics of Excel with Business Statistics tutorial. If you need more information on this online tutorial, please call Steve Kazarian or Rodica Costin at: 623-935-8187 in the Information Commons at EMCC.