I wish I knew how to use excel! I learn by visual ie being actually shown how to do something, and don't know anyone who can teach me how to use this program - lucky you!

Let me know if any of you have questions ok?
Barbara

I took my first free Excel lesson at the library last week. Today is the second one.

So far, I really haven't gotten much out of it.

Moni... who is hoping for a different instructor today.

Excel is great for compiling lists...I just wish I had been trained in it...I volunteer'd to keep a lists of folks I work with...there are about 200 of us...it makes it sooooo much easier for editing!

Can I ask why you're using Excel? Unless you'll be performing math functions on the data, Excel may be overkill. Not that you can't use it, just that Word will do many of the same functions, and is more user-friendly. I've found that many people use Excel to make a simple table, often because Excel does tables "automatically," whereas in Word, you have to manually insert the table.

Anyway, just curious. Always fun to learn something new, isn't it?

Since I've been job hunting, I see that almost all offices require you to know Excel. I don't. It really is beneficial to know it. I'm on a waiting list now to take a class to learn it. I'm impressed that you're teaching yourself. It was confusing to me when I tried that.

I love Excel! I use it to maintain a list of mailing addresses for our church -- we send out a quarterly newsletter to 800 people. I don't generally need to, but it's nice to be able to go in and sort by zip code or city.

Also, I can just add the entries and then let Excel sort them alphabetically. Then I just do a "mail merge" and print mailing labels.

:-)

Congrats on learning Excel. It's almost a never ending process though once you've got the basics down it becomes much more understandable. I took quite a number of Excel course levels prior to my retiring and I always enjoyed them. I had one spreadsheet that was so detailed and interconnected to hundreds of pages of data and hidden macros I was always afraid to let anyone touch it in case they ruined something LOL
Therefore the biggest TIP... always always always hit the SAVE button every once in awhile as you work just in case.
AND when you're done ALWAYS make a duplicate copy of the whole spreadsheet and keep it in a file under your name separate from the main file, just in case. Nothing worse than finding your work lost or wrecked. But being smart you have "your backup" LOL

Regarding keeping genealogy/historical data I'm thinking that Excel isn't exactly the best program for that. Microsoft Access is more geared to sorting, sifting and printing documentary data whereas Excel is more for numerical data.
The better part of Access is that data entry is much simpler, you create a "form" with fill in the blanks and just type away the name, date, birthplace, year, etc and it magically compiles it all for retrieval however you want it. With Excel you have to go filling in all those little boxes on the spreadsheet. I highly recommend taking the MS Access course as well.

Way to go, Tami! I love Excel and especially the newest on Office 2007!

I also wondered why you are using Excel, but you must have your reasons. I second the suggestion to learn Access - if you like Excel you will love the capablilties of Access for data management.

I'm not crazy about using Word for tables, but many people swear by it. Guess it's all what you are accustomed to using.

Feels good to learn new skills, doesn't it?

~Betsy

"Excel for Dummies", is how I learned Excel. I tried a class, but it moved to fast for me. I think "self taught" was easier for me than a Class Setting.

It worked great for me doing Store Goals. I could make Graphs and Charts to show sales.

I also used Excel to total Employee Hours.

If there is correspondence with charts I usually use Word and Format the Chart.

I also, use Excel to Plan my Landscape Gardening. You can insert shapes to simulate Shrubs and Flowers. I did a plan for my Daughters back yard when she added a pool and deck.

I was going to Post the drawing, but I realize it is on the other computer. Try it its fun. You can use the "fill" for colors textures and patterns. Someone on the Garden Forum taught me this when I first joined.

Gayle

Gayle, seeing as you brought up using Excel to draw, I thought I'd post this:

It's a "plan view" of my kitchen island. I created it to help me visualize how my new island would look and to get the curve on the ends the way I wanted.

I did this drawing in Word, using the drawing tools and fills, colors, and patterns. I did a drawing for all five sides of the island, using the wood-grain fill for the cabinets. And, I also drew it to scale. :)

Glad you posted that. I play with Word and Excel alot. I lost my Jasc Paint Disc and I sure miss it on this computer.

Gayle

I love Excel and use it a lot at work. I'm not too fond of Word for lists. I don't find it all that friendly.

pkguy wrote, "The better part of Access is that data entry is much simpler, you create a "form" with fill in the blanks and just type away the name, date, birthplace, year, etc".

You can do that in Excel too. Just set up the spread sheet with your headers in the top row. Click on the first cell in the header. Go to the DATA menu to FORM. You should have a nice little data base to use for each entry without having to click on the cells.

Linda

I am using Excel because that's what the lady in charge is using. I didn't have to set up anything, she had it all set up on the disc in a base program to fill in. I just had to be able to open an Excel program to use it. When I worked maaaany years ago, we didn't have computers. Not even in the main office. I will have to watch the library to see if they run any Excel classes. I am enjoying learning the few new things I've learned so far.

I, too, am a very visual learner. Don't give me a book and tell me to learn that way. ZZZZZZZZZZ! It's all Greek to me, er, computereze?

I had a couple of questions, and emailed the lady in charge. She is self taught and is very good at explaining in an email what to do. If I need personal help, she'll do that, too. She gave me 10 pages on a disc to start with. These are pre scanned. I get to do the typed version of it.

Tami