Engineering Fundamentals: An Introduction to Engineering, 4th ed.c

the simplest and the easiest way to move around in a worksheet is to use a mouse.

For example, if you want to move from cell A5 to cell C8, move the mouse such that the mouse

pointer is in the desired cell and then click the left mouse button. To edit the content of a cell,

choose the cell, double-click the left mouse button, and then similar to editing a word process-

ing document, use any combination of delete, backspace, or arrow keys to edit the content of

the cell. As an alternative to double clicking, you can use the F2 key to select the edit mode.

Keep in mind that as you become more proficient in using Excel, you will learn that for

certain tasks there is more than one way to do something. In this chapter, we will explain one

of the ways, which can be followed easily.

A Range

As you will soon see when formatting, analyzing, or plotting data, it is often convenient to

select a number of cells simultaneously. The cells that are selected simultaneously are called a

range. To define a range, begin with the first cell that you want included in the range and then

drag the mouse (while pressing down the left button) to the last cell that should be included in

the range. An example of selecting a range is shown in Figure 14.2. Note that in spreadsheet

language, a range is defined by the cell address of the top-left selected cell in the range followed

by a colon, :, and ends with the address of the bottom-right cell in the range. For example, to

select cells A3 through B10, we first select A3 and then drag the mouse diagonally to B10. In

spreadsheet language, this range is specified in the following manner —A3:B10. There are sit-

uations where you may want to select a number of cells that are not side by side. In such cases,

you must first select the contiguous cells, and then while holding (pressing) the Ctrl key select

the other noncontiguous cells by dragging the mouse button.

Excel allows the user to assign names to a range (selected cells). To name a range, first

select the range as just described, and then click on the Name box in the Formula bar and type

in the name you want to assign to the range. You can use upper- or lowercase letters along with

numbers, but no spaces are allowed between the characters or the numbers. For example, as shown

14.2 Cells and Their Addresses 421

■Figure 14.2 An example showing the selection of a range of cells.

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