Part I: Getting Started with Excel
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After performing these steps, a new icon appears on your Quick Access toolbar.To use a data entry form, follow these steps:- Arrange your data so that Excel can recognize it as a table by entering headings for
the columns in the first row of your data entry range. - Select any cell in the table and click the Form button on your Quick Access toolbar.
Excel displays a dialog box customized to your data (refer to Figure 2-7).
- Fill in the information.
Press Tab to move between the text boxes. If a cell contains a formula, the formula result
appears as text (not as an edit box). In other words, you can’t modify formulas using the
data entry form.
- When you complete the data form, click the New button.
Excel enters the data into a row in the worksheet and clears the dialog box for the next
row of data.
Entering the current date or time into a cell.....................................................
If you need to date-stamp or time-stamp your worksheet, Excel provides two shortcut keys that do
this task for you:l Current date: Ctrl+; (semicolon)l (^) Current time: Ctrl+Shift+; (semicolon)
The date and time are from the system time in your computer. If the date or time is not correct in
Excel, use the Windows Control Panel to make the adjustment.
Note
When you use either of these shortcuts to enter a date or time into your worksheet, Excel enters a static value
into the worksheet. In other words, the date or time entered doesn’t change when the worksheet is recalcu-
lated. In most cases, this setup is probably what you want, but you should be aware of this limitation. If you
want the date or time display to update, use one of these formulas:
=TODAY()
=NOW()
Applying Number Formatting .............................................................................................
Number formatting refers to the process of changing the appearance of values contained in
cells. Excel provides a wide variety of number formatting options. In the following sections,
you see how to use many of Excel’s formatting options to quickly improve the appearance of
your worksheets.