Excel from zero to hero



Excel is best tool for data analysis. This things are not thought academically. I have researched a lot to design this course.


This blog is for the learns which is beginning their data journey and data manager.


You can easily use Excel for analysis and visualization process.


I will start from very basic and very advanced level.


We will also learn about advance chart and graph.


Excel is made up of different row and column.

Vertical part is called column(represented by alphabets) and horizontal part is called row(represented by numbers).

Intersections of row and column combine and form a cell. Simple set of small rectangle that you see is cell

There are  3 sheet in excel.

But we can also increase sheet just by clicking plus icon that the bottom of excel.

Excel Window or opening file is corresponding to notebook

and the sheets is corresponding page in your note book.

There are 16,384 column and there are 1048576 row in excel.

Name cell is very easy simply we look at the intersection of row and column.

Altogether there are 17179869184 cell in excel sheep



Top portion is ribbon there are so many tabs in ribbon.

Let discuss about different tabs





Home tab

Here are so many option like

clipboard to copy cut paste

and styling many things



Insert tab 

is used to insert elements into the worksheet like image, chart text box etc.



Page Layout tab 

is used overall appearance of your worksheet and printing as well



Formula Tab

is used to insert formulas



Data tab

is used for data related commands like data validation, filtering , sorting and other advance tools



Review Tab

is to review you worksheet including spelling checking, translate or add comments


View Tab

is to see how our sheet is viewed for example zoom, freeze , arrange, macros(codes to make automatic)


 we can easily add, delete and edit data in cell

we can also increase and decrease the cell of size


Work or manipulation does not affect the other sheet in excel its completely like a different page of notebook


We can also easily rename the sheet name just by double clicking on it


we can simply drag and drop the sheet

to order or manage sheet in work book

we can also insert row or column just by right clicking on the row or column

We can also increase the width of column and height of row


we can also zoom in and zoom out from the zoom option in the bottom right side of excel sheet

We can also hide and unhide sheet in excel just by right clicking on the sheet


We can also hide and unhide sheet by using format option of Home tab



Entering data in cell is very  simple we can simply click on the desire cell and enter data


selected cell is highlighted and cell name is even shown in the top right of excel window

selected or heighted cell means if we type form keyboard we simply enter data in cell



Formulas in Excel

using formula in excel is very easy

we can do from very simple arithmetic calculation to very complex arithmetic calculation in excel

to put formula we should begin with equals to sign

and we can manipulate different values as per our requirements

We actually we the value in cell but we can see the formula in the formula bar which is at the top ,beside of cell name in excel


Basic Formula Operation

Formula is simply an expression from which we can do many ariuthematic calculation

=cell name + cell name for addition

=cell name * cell name for multiplication

=cell name - cell name for subtraction

=cell name / cell name for division

We expands the operations which is very use full

formula gets dynamic to corresponding cell reference and value gets automatically updated

if we want to sum constant along with sum we must make constant as constant

so we must stop the referencing of constant


For that we can use $ symbol eg $A1 so A1 cell what change in formula even if we drag or expand


Function

is pre define formula

for eg sum(range), average(range)



rank(),

sumproduct() function returns the sum after multiplying number in an array. It can also be used to count cells based on criteria provided.


rand() function returns random numbers greater than 0 and less than 1. The numbers change on recalculation.

rand function is used for throwing dice ,tossing coin etc

randbetween(bottom,top)


we can simply go to formula tab and see many functions

Difference between RANK, RANK.AVG and RANK.EQ
There are three versions of the RANK formula that you can use in MS Excel
RANK was available in the older versions of excel. We can still use it, probably it will not be available in the coming versions of Excel. There are two new versions of Rank now - RANK.EQ and RANK.AVG. Below example may clear the difference between these two -
For values 5,6,6,7 -RANK and RANK.EQ will return ranks as 1,2,2,4 (Same rank for same values) and RANK.AVG will return ranks as 1 ,2.5 ,2.5 ,4. (Average of 2nd and 3rd rank). Because RANK.AVG takes average of the ranks where values are same, we often see decimal digits in ranks calculated using this formula.
If all the values in the list are unique, all the three formulas assign same ranks in that case.


Textual Function

trim( ) function removes spaces all before and following the words i.e. leading and trailing spaces and also removes extra spaces between words but does not remove the single space between words.



concatenate function joins several (more than 1) text string into 1 string

concatenation can also be done with the help of & symbol

substitute function is used to replace a part of text in string with something else. SUBSTITUTE function is used to clean data. This function is case sensitive

=substitute(text,old_text,New_text,[instance_number])


upper and lower function converts the entire text string into upper case and lower case letter


length function returns the number of characters in a string (text or numeric value). It also counts the spaces and special characters


left right and mid

this function returns the number of specific characters from the start/end of the string.

"MID" returns the number of specified character from the specified point.

=LEFT(Text,[num_chars])

=RIGHT(Text, [num_chars])

=MID(text,[starting_position),[num_chars])


Logical Function

AND OR

AND checks if all arguments are true and return TRUE value else returns FALSE value.

OR checks if any of the conditions are true or not and returns TRUE value else returns FALSE value


=AND(logical 1,logical 2,logical3 and so on..)

=OR(logical 1,logical 2,logical3 and so on..)



if

it check whether a condition is true or not and on the basis of that returns value

=if(logical test,[value if true],[value if false])


countif

this function returns the count of number of cells which consist of numbers and meet a given condition


=countif(range,count)


sumif function returns the sum of the cells which meet a given criteria


today/now

today function returns today's date in date format

now function returns current date and time in excel date and time format


day , month , year

day function returns the day of the months in numeric format

=day(date)


months() returns the month from a user supplied date

year() returns the year form a user supplied date


date and time diff

days() calculates the number of days between  2 dates


Datedif function is used for calculating the difference between two dats


=days(end_date,start_date)

or

=datedif(start date,end date, unit)


VLOOKUP(vertical look up)

VLOOKUP function looks up a supplied value in the first column of a table and returns the corresponding value from another column


=VLOOKUP(lookup_value , table_array , col_index_num , [range_lookup])


HLOOKUP(Horizontal Lookup)

HLOOKUP function looks up a supplied value in first row of a table and returns the corresponding value from another row

=HLOOKUP(lookup_value,table_arrray,row_index_no, [range_lookup])


INDEX

index function returns a reference to a cell that lies in a specific row and column of a range of cells

=index(array, row,[col_num])


MATCH

match function looks up a value in an array and returns the position of the value with in the array

=match(lookup_value, lookup_array,[math_type])


INDEX MATCH

index match is faster and lighter way than VLOOKUP

The older brother of the much-used  VLOOKUP, INDEX MATCH allows you to look up values in table based off of other rows and columns


=index(range,MATCH(lookp_value,lookup_range,match_type))


Data tools

Sort

we can sort according to largest to smallest

smallest to largest

A======>Z

Z======>A

custom sort

you can sort either from sort and filter from home tab

or data tab also


Filtering 

we can do 

1. Text Filter

2. Number Filter

3. Custom Filter

4. Short cut key

we can go to sort and filter in home tab

or

short key is Alt + A + T


Text to columns

Types of data validation

1. Delimited

2. Fixed length

 in data tab text to columns

delimited - characters such as commas or tabs separated each field

fixed width - fields are aligned in columns with spaces between each field, we can add and delete desire column


Remove duplicates

types of data validation

1. Exact

2. Column Specific

in date tab remove duplicate option



Formatting data and tables

changing font font size, color , shapes . borders


we can increase and decrease decimal value according to our need from home tab 


conditional Formatting

is one of my favorite tool which provides up to visually highlight the data as per the rules that we have specified


In view tab

gridline is used to remove lines 

if we uncheck the formula bar formula will not be visible to us

if we uncheck headings row and column name are removed

freeze planes to freeze the group of cell


Pivot Table

are very strong tools which are used to summarize large data sets

automatically group together similar variables to give out meaningful summary

go to Insert tab

click on pivot table

entire table area should be selected

either select same worksheet or new work sheet

on right sight there will be pivot table field

there are all Colum name and different fields in the right hand sides

We can simple drag column name desire field and look at the sheet and analyze our data



Analyze tab ==> Insert Slicer (similar to filter but much our interactive and easy)


Charts

Bar/ Column chart, Line Chart, Scatter Plot, Pie & Doughnut charts, Statistical Chart - Histogram, Waterfall, Sparklines

Best way to compare is chart

  • compare item to other item
  • compare data over time
  • Make relative comparisons
  • compare data relationships
  • Frequency Comparison
  • Identify "outlier" or unusual situations

Elements of Charts


Data series is the combination of several data points

Horizontal axis is aka categories axis

Legend is aka the information box which 

data label and tile are also important elements

Grid line are basically the extension of vertical axis scales which makes easier the viewer to determine the magnitude of data points


Creating a chart is easy but creating a good chart that conveys message is difficult

We can simply create chart by selecting table going to insert tab and clicking on Recommended chart 


Bar chart and column chart are most common chart

column chart are often used to compare discrete items

types of column chart

1 Cluster column chart

2 Stacked column chart

3 100% stacked chart

Its always good to start from scratch

we can add element simply by clicking on + icon which is along the chart


if bar is rotated than it is column chart


Formatting chart

As we know chart have several elements

to edit or format each element we can simply double click on element area

go go to Design or Format tab of chart tools

and start formatting

we can easily use fill and line, effect, size and properties


Line charts

are often use to plot continues chart

and are useful for identifying trends



Area Chart

very similar to line charts

Area below the line are colored in area chart


Pie and Doughnut chart

Pie charts is useful when we want to show relative proportions or contribution to whole

Pie chart can show only one data series

Pie chart are most effective with the small number of data points

Generally pie chart should not use more than 5 or 6 data points i.e. slices 



Scatter chart and Bubble chart

to identify the relation between 2 variable

to draw a trendline


we can bring linear trend line on chart by simple clicking on + icon and checking trendline option





Frequency distribution

A frequency distribution for qualitative data lists all categories and the number of elements that belong to each of the categories

relative frequency of category= frequency of that category / sum of all frequencies


A bar graph is a graph made of bars whose height represents the frequencies of respective categories 



frequency distribution for quantitative data lists all the classes and the number of values that belong to each class. Data presented in the form of a frequency distribution are called grouped data.


graph of frequency distribution of categorical variable is called histogram


These are the process

  1. Select the number of classes , usually between 5 and 20
  2. calculate the class width 
    classwidth  = (maximum data value)- (minimum data value) / number of classes
    Round this result to get a convenient number
  3. Choose the value for the first lower class limit by using either the minimum value or a convenient value below the minimum
  4. Using the first lower class limit and the class width , list the other lower class limits
  5. List the lower class limits in a vertical column and then determine and enter the upper class limits
  6. Take each individual data value and put a tally mark in the appropriate class. Add the tally marks to find the total frequency for each class


Waterfall chart

It easy from 2016 version 

if we are using office version before 2016 it difficult and is long process




Sparkline are great and we can make it easily to show a trend

type of sparkline

line 

column

win/loss



Pivot Charts

Pivot charts are the graphical representation of pivot table

Named Range

we can name cell simply by going to cell name

so instead of using cell address we can simply used the name that we have assign

apart from cell we can also name the cell range

There are two reason to assign name to cell or cell range

1) When we assign name to cell or range that name can be cell in the drop box on cell name and use in formula directly 

2) To revisit the cell or range directly from drop down of cell name



Indirect function

In excel indirect function returns a valid reference from a given text string



Shorts cuts

Excel short are very much similar to the other office package software

But there are lot more in excel


we can move around excel using arrow keys

to go to end of the range ctrl + arrow keys

one screen down Page down

one screen up Page Up

one screen right Shift + page down

one screen left shift + page up

to go to first cell in row just click home key

to go to first cell of sheet just click Ctrl + Home key

to select range click shift and arrow key 

go to end of the range or table ctrl + arrow key (right)

ctrl + shift + arrow key go and select entire row or column


ctrl + Alt + V for detail paste option


F7 for spelling suggestions


to view all formula Ctrl + `((key below esc)


press Alt key and you can see many shortcuts

type word to implement shortcuts



Macros

Macro is set of programming instructions stored as the procedures. It contains sequence of code which performs certain actions. Action may be keys press on keyboard or mouse clicks.


so when ever we will run this codes all the action will be performed in the excel sheet.


creating macro

we need developer tab at the top 

to make macro dynamic from selected cell we use click on use Relative reference in developer tab

than click on record macro 

select the desire short cut key

and click on stop macro


then you can use your macro with shortcut on on cell


we can also use macro with button , bottom can be inserted from the insert option in Developer tab




























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