Enter data on worksheet

• To enter data into a cell simply click on the correct cell and type in your data
• to finish the process you can either press the enter key on the keyboard, press one of the cursor keys or click in the next cell
• pressing the enter key will enter the data and move the highlight bar down one cell
• using the cursor keys enters the data and moves one cell in the direction of the relevant cursor key
• clicking on a cell will move the highlight to this sell. they will all be ready for you to type data in to them

Tips on entering numbers
In microsoft excel, a number can contain only the following characters: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 + - ( ) , / $ % .
Excel ignores leading plus signs (+) and treats a single period as a decimal.
all other combinations of numbers and nonnumeric characters are treated as text.

• to avoid entering a fraction as a date, precede fractions with a 0 (zero); for example, type 0 1/2.
• precede negative numbers with a minus sign (-), or enclose the numbers in parentheses ( ).
• all numbers are right aligned in a cell. to change the alignment, select the cells. on the format menu,click cells
• or use arrow key
• click the alignment control tab
• or tab to it
• select the options you want.

The number format that is applied to a cell determines the way excel displays a number on a worksheet.

If you type a number into a cell that has the general number format, excel may apply a different number format.
For example, if you type £14.73, excel applies a currency format.

• To change the number format, select the cells that contain the numbers.
• on the format menu, select cells,
• click the number control tab,
• or use arrow key

Select a category and format.

Excel stores a number as numeric data even if you use the cells command to apply the text format to the cells that contain the numbers.

• To have excel interpret numbers such as part numbers as text, first apply the text format to empty cells, and then type the numbers.
• if you've already entered the numbers, apply the text format to the cells, select each cell, press f2, and then press enter to re-enter the data.

Tips on entering text
In microsoft excel, text is any combination of numbers, spaces, and non-numeric character
Forexample, Microsoft Excel treats the following entries as text: 10aa109, 127axy, 12-976, 208 4675.

All text is left aligned in a cell.

• to change the alignment, select cells on the format menu,
• select the alignment control tab,
• select the options you want.

Tips on entering dates and times
Microsoft Excel treats dates and times as numbers.

The way that a time or date is displayed on a worksheet depends on the number format applied to the cell.

When you type a date or time that excel recognises, the cell's format changes from the general number format to a built-in date or time format.

By default, dates and times are right aligned in a cell. if excel cannot recognize the date or time format, the date or time is entered as text, which is left aligned in the cell.

when entering dates such as December 01, excel matches the day first and then the year. for instance, December 01 is entered as december 1 of the present year, not as December of the year 2001.

To type a date and time in the same cell, separate the date and time with a space.

To type a time based on the 12-hour clock, type a space followed by am or pm (or a or p) after the time. otherwise, excel bases the time on the 24-hour clock.

For example, if you type 3:00 instead of 3:00 pm, the time is stored as 3:00 am.

Regardless of the format used to display a date or time, excel stores all dates as serial numbers and stores all times as decimal fractions.

To display a date as a serial number or display a time as a fraction,

• select the cells that contain the date or time.
• on the format menu, select cells
• select the number control tab
• select general in the category box

Times and dates can be added, subtracted, and included in other calculations.

• To use a date or time in a formula, enter the date or time as text enclosed in quotation marks.

For example, the following formula would display a difference of 68: ="5/12/2004"-"3/5/2004"