Activity #1----Learning Excel

General Chemistry Laboratory

Fall 2013
Jeromy Rech
Dr. Jason Keleher
Lewis University
Before we get down in the graphs and equations of Excel, lets start with the general format of
how Excel is set up. This tutorial is focused primarily on Excel 2007 Version, but other years are
very similar. Once you open up Excel, you are given a blank spreadsheet with multiple tabs on
the upper right hand corner.

The far upper right hand corner holds a four multicolored box button. This is the start
button that allows you to do many different functions like print and save the
spreadsheet.
Next to the start button is the quick access

ribbon.

This holds multiple different functions like save, undo/redo, print preview, print, new page, spell
check, and much more. If
this is your first time
using Excel, your quick
access ribbon may look
different. In order to add
or remove functions,
click on the small
downward arrow to the
right of the box to access
the following menu: By
clicking on the More
Commands button in
the lower quadrant, you
can access the screen on
the next page. The right
column is all of the
possible commands and
the left column are all the

commands you have in your quick access ribbon. In order to move a command from one to
another, click on it and click the corresponding add/remove button in the center of the screen.
Remember to click the OK button to the bottom right hand corner to save any changes.

Moving just below the quick access ribbon is the main tabs. These are the general heading for all
the things we will work with in Excel. The Home and Insert tabs will be the two most
common tabs you will be using throughout this lab.

If the Home tab is not highlighted like in the picture above, click on it so it is now. Lets begin
by exploring what all is in the home tab.

As you can see the home tab is broken up into further sections called Clipboard, Font,
Alignment, Number, Style, cells, and Editing. First up is the clipboard tab.
This tab is pretty self-explanatory. If you have cells highlighted, which
we will get to later, you can copy and cut, just like in Word, by clicking
the Cut and Copy button. Next, by clicking paste, you will insert
whatever is selected in the copy queue of the clipboard. Finally is the
Format Painter button. If you highlight a cell and then click the Format
Painter button, you will save the formatting of the cell highlighted. This
means the font, size, color, and the boarders that belong in the selected
cell. The next cell you click will then change and meet the same
formatting.
Next is the Font tab, which is the exact same as Word with the
exception of the Boarders options, which is circled in the
picture to the right. Once clicked on, a drop down tab will open
with all different types of boarders that will line the cell and in
what orientation. This is very helpful for making organized tables filled with data.
The alignment tab is mainly focused on organization.
The top right is options for how the text is aligned in
the cell, following the order: top, centered, and
bottom. The slanted ab button allows you to slant
text in different angles. Underneath is the right, center,
and left aligned text options. To the right is the
decrease and increase tab button. Below is an image of how each work. They are in the same
order as the tabs.
The two buttons to
the right of all the
alignment options
are the Wrap
Text option that
allows text to
move to the next
line. If you look in
cell A1, the upper
right hand cell, wrap text is applied, while in cell B2, the cell to the right doesnt have the

function, causing the word awesome to be cut off. Finally, the Merge and Center button will
combined selected cells into a larger one, making it great to make titles with.
The next sub-tab up is the Number tab. This can be very helpful when
entering data.

Using the quick access buttons underneath the

general option are ways to change you data
to dollars, percent, add commas where needed,
and add more/less numbers after the decimal.
You should keep significant figures in mind when choosing these two
buttons. By clicking the arrow to the right of the word general, you get
other possible choices for you data. This allows you to type dates,
time, fractions, and scientific notation with ease. This area can be
helpful when making a table with proper labeling.

The remaining sub-tabs are not nearly as important for us. The style
tab allows different color and font and size options, but for our use,
this just causes confusion and disorder.
The cells tab allows you to insert and
delete columns are rows, which can also be down when you right
click on selected cells, rows, or columns. Finally the Editing tab,
which can be used as a shortcut for a couple things. The AutoSum
button will all up all selected cells, but we will learn later in the
tutorial how to type our own functions to do the same. The Sort and
Filter button can organize the selected cells in greatest to least, least
to greatest, alphabetical and other orders. The left side is data in no
particular order, but once selected, done by clicking and dragging,
and choosing the lowest to highest option, the data is organized in
that order. This can be helpful to organize your data.

This covers most of the functions that are important to keeping things formatted properly and
keeping everything organized. The next important section comes in the Inset main heading tab.
To access these options, click on the Insert word next to
the Home tab.
For our uses, the only majorly important sub-tab is the
Charts tab. This will allow us to make charts and graphs
of the data we collect in lab. We will spend more time
on graphs later.
Now it is time to move to the actual uses of excel. Begin by looking at a blank spreadsheet like
the one below.

Lets begin with learning columns, rows, and cells. Currently, the above picture is docked in cell
A1. You can identify which cell you are currently in by looking for the large black boarder
around the cell, or by looking at the cell location box, which is circled in the picture above,
located under the copy/cut/paste section.
A column is a group of cells
in the vertical direction. For
all of the cells in the 7th set of
cells order can be called
Column G. All columns are
given alphabetical names.

14
12
10

Quantity

Rows are similar to columns

but oriented in the horizontal
direction. For example, all of

You Holler, We'll Haul'er Trucking

Rice

Shoes
Gloves

4
2
0
Seattle

Chicago

Denver

New York

the cells in the nine cells below the starting cell could be classified as Row 9. All rows are given
numerical names.
To get you started with working with Excel, lets create a couple spreadsheets as practice.
In the first spreadsheet, you are the manager of a trucking company that ships different products
all over the United States. We will be making a bar graph of the inventory that your business has
at different locations. Begin by having a blank Excel spreadsheet open. For this graph, we want
to build a bar graph with the amount of each commodity in stock at each location. The final
graph should look something like the graph to the right.
When typing a chart in excel, you need to be very careful about the layout. In this graph, we
want to graph the quantity of each commodity in each city, so we will begin by defining were to
place out cities on a blank excel sheet. Begin by going to cell A2 and type in Seattle. Next,
type Chicago in cell A3. Continue by typing Denver and New York in cells A3 and A4
respectfully. Your spreadsheet should look like the one to the right.

Next we will want to add each commodity. These will reside in the first row of the spreadsheet.
In cell B1 type Rice, in cell C1 type Shoes, and in cell D1 type Gloves. You Excel sheet
will now look like the below.

Now that we have our parameters set, we will enter the amount of each item in the intersecting
cell. For example, the amount of rice in Denver will be entered in cell B4. Rather than just giving
you the exact location, the below paragraph will list all the information and you need to find the
proper place for the data.

Chicago is the major glove supplier, so the Chicago warehouse holds 12 gloves in stock.
New York and Denver to not typically store many gloves due to this, so both locations
hold only 1 glove in stock. Seattle has 4 shoes at the moment, but that is not as much as
Denver and Chicago who have 5 and 6 shoes in stock, respectfully. New York has 3
boxes of rice, which looks like a lot compared to Denvers single box. New York is not
the big supplier because Chicago has 8 boxes of rice in stock. Seattle also has 5 boxes of
rice in stock, which allows room for their 8 gloves. Finally, New York has 2 shoes ready
to ship.
After reading the above paragraph, enter the amounts of each commodity in each city on
your Excel spreadsheet. You sheet should now look like the following:

Now all of the hard work is out of the way, it is time to get a bar graph made. First, change over
to the Insert tab.
Under the Insert Tab, select the column option in the middle of the screen. A drop down menu
will open like the one below, at which time you will need to select the first option under the 2-D
Column section.

After you select the chart you want, a graph should appear in your spreadsheet. If you click on
the graph, a series of colored boxes will appear around the selected data. These boxes describe
what Excel understood about your request. The purple box defines the x-axis unit, the green box
defines the different series to be graphed, and the blue box defines the data that will be graphed
and in what magnitude or height along the y-axis.
The next thing we will want to do is work on labeling the chart with a title, x-axis and y-axis
titles, and any other formatting to make the graph easier to read.

One thing that you should notice is that when you click on the graph, a series of new tabs will
appear. These are all tabs that are just specific to the graph, so they only appear when a graph is
selected.

The first tab is the Design tab, which has a large focus on what type of graph you will use like
bar graphs, pie charts, line graphs, and scatter plots. The Layout tab has a large focus on the
making on making the chart labeled and easier to read like chart titles, axis titles, best fit lines,
and gridline options. Finally, the Format tab has options that help make the graph prettier like
color options, outlines, and size of the graph.
In order to make the graph look more ordered, lets define the y-axis, also known as the quantity
of each commodity the trucking company has. To do this, open the Layout tab, click on the Axis
Titles option, select the Primary Vertical Axis Title option, and then choose the rotated title.

Once the option is selected, a new y-axis title will appear. By

double clicking the title, the option to enter a new title will
appear. Delete the current title of Axis Title and enter the new
title of Quantity in the new space.
Next, in the layout tab, select the chart title option and then
choose the above chart option. Just like the y-axis title option, a
new title will appear above the graph called Chart Title.
Delete the current chart title and enter the new title of You
Holler, We'll Haul'er Trucking. At this point you have a ready
to go bar graph that includes a title and axis titles.

The next type of graph that we will make will be used much more in your career as a scientist.
We will make a scatter plot of data, insert a line of best fit, extract the equation of the line and
how well the line fits the data points, as well as inserting error bars to show the uncertainty on
measurements.

Hours Spent Watching TV

12

y = -0.3933x + 10.033
R = 0.9728

10

Hours per Day

The graph that we are going

to make is to the right. This is
a case study done by Dr.
Nosaj Rehelek at Cambridge
University about the amount
of television a person watches
and how it changes over time.
There were five different
participants that were studied
for 15 years.

8
6
4
2
0
0

10

15
Age

20

25

Because you have experience entering data, the base set of data will be given to you already.

On a new Excel sheet enter the above data in the same order. Column A is the Age of each
participant, Row 1 denotes each participant, and the data remaining
cells is the amount of TV watched on average each year by each
person.
The first thing we will do is average the data for each age group. To
average a series of data, the statement =average() has to be typed in
a cell, in this case cell G. Then, the data that has to be averaged
together has to be highlighted, this will automatically place the data
between the () and this will average the data, it should look like this.
For efficiency sake, this process can be dragged down (dropdown)to the whole column by highlighting G2 and then dragging down the right-hand corner to
the end of the data set in column A.

Another useful analytical tool used in Science is standard deviation and excel is capable of
performing this function. To perform this function, =stdev() has to be typed into a cell, in this
case in column H. The same process used above for average is used for standard deviation.

The same drop-down method can be used for any function and in this case can be used for
standard deviation. At this point, the excel sheet should look like this.

Now a graph of Average vs. Age has to be created for statistical purposes, notice how in the title
it is Y axis vs. X axis or otherwise known as Dependent Variable vs. Independent Variable.
Earlier, you were taught how to create a bar graph by selecting all the data, which were next to
each other. In the case, we want to only graph columns A and G, to this the key ctrl has to
be held down as you select the respective columns, once done it should look like this.

Now, go to the insert tab and then in the graph section choose the Scatter option and then choose
Scatter with only Markers.

This will create a scatter plot with the data selected, after this is done just create the Chart title
and Axis title just as done earlier. Enter titles of Hours per Day, Age, and Hours Spent

Watching TV respectfully. The graph should look exactly like this.

Hours per Day

Hours Spent Watching TV

9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0

10

15

20

25

Age

While this data shows a clear decreasing trend as age increases, we want to format a Line of
Best Fit for the data points and from that line, extract a slope. To do this, first select the chart so
the three chart option tabs appear. Next select the Treadline option on the right side of the
screen. A drop down menu will appear. You could select a Linear Treadline option, but further
formatting will be needed, so now we will choose the last option of More Treadline Options.

Once you select the More

Treadline Option the
following menu will pop up
on your screen. You will need
to choose a series of options.
First, under the
Trend/Regression Type, select
the Linear option.
If you are going to use a
legend, which we are not in
this case, you give a title to
the treadline by clicking on
Custom and typing in the box
to the right the name you want
to appear in the legend.

Finally, the last three options

allow for the treadline going
through a specific y-intercept,
which is only needed when
data around x-axis zero is

Hours Spent Watching TV

Hours per Day

The Forecast option will allow

the line to extrapolate past the
data points. In this case, we
will extrapolate the treadline
line 5 points in each direction.
It is ill-advised to extrapolate
the data over a long period of
time. This is because many
trends can level out and stop
increasing/decreasing. In our
case, if we extrapolate the
line, by the time a person is
27, he/she will never watch
television ever. This is
probably not the case, and the
data will probably start to
level off and sit in a range
around one hour.

9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

y = -0.3933x + 10.033
R = 0.9728

10

15

Age

20

25

close to y-axis zero. The next two options will need to be highlighted for our case. These two
options are very important. The first will generate an equation for the line. This is really useful,
because we can now get data from points not tested. For example, we can see how many hours a
12 year old watches even though a 12 year old was not tested. Next is the R-squared value
option. This will generate a percentage that describes how close the data points are to line. The
closer this value is to 1, the better the data. In most cases, you want an R-squared value over 0.9.
Our data from the TV study had a 0.9728 fit, which is a very strong fit.
Next we have a couple quick formatting things. By right clicking on the y-axis or x-axis
numbers, not the title but the numbers, a format axis menu will appear if you select the last
option of Format Axis. This can allow you to set the range at which each axis shows. For our
case, we will choose a fixed value rather than the automatic assigned values. In the minimum
section enter 0 and in
the maximum section
enter 25 for the xaxis.
Once you finished this,
you can enter a range
of 0 to 12 for the
y-axis.
At this point along, you
chart should look like
the below graph.
From the initial graph a couple of pages previous, the only thing that needs to be done is adding
error bars to the graph.

Hours Spent Watching TV

12
10
Hours per Day

Adding Error bars can

be a little tricky so you
need to focus and make
sure you read and
follow all of the
following directions.

y = -0.3933x + 10.033
R = 0.9728

8
6
4
2
0
0

10

15
Age

20

25

After clicking on the graph, go

into the layout tab under chart
options. Right next to the
treadline option is a section for
error bars.
Just like with the treadline
option, we will be plugging in a
lot of specific information, so
rather than clicking on the Error
Bars with Standard Deviation
option, we will be selecting the
More Error Bars Options
button.
Once clicked on, the following
menu will pop up. Make sure
that under the display menu, the
direction is Both and the end
style is Cap.
Now for the uncertainty/error
option, we will be selecting the
Custom error and using the
Column H standard deviation
values. Click the Specify
Value button next to the
custom option. The following
box will appear in the screen
once you do so:

This next part is very important. Under the Positive Error Value box, delete the current value of
={1} and then highlight the cells of H2 through H7. The below picture will help guide you.

You will then delete the ={1} in the Negative Error Value box and highlight the same cells as
above. This will then make the error bars travel the given standard deviation in both the positive
and negative
direction.

Hours Spend Watching TV

12
10

Hours per Day

After you select

the OK button,
error bars will
appear on your
graph. They
should look just
like the graph to
the right. The error
bars that are
horizontal will
automatically be
added, but are not

y = -0.3933x + 10.033
R = 0.9728

8
6
4
2
0
-2

10

15
Age

20

25

needed in our case, so left click on one of the horizontal bars. All of the horizontal bars should
then get boxed in. At this point, click the delete key and the horizontal error bars will be deleted.
You graph should now look like the following:

Hours Spend Watching TV

12

Hours per Day

10

y = -0.3933x + 10.033
R = 0.9728

8
6
4
2
0
0

10

15

20

25

Age

At this point, you now have a pretty good understanding of how Excel works. There are still
hundreds of different functions and operations that Excel can do, but this is a solid foundation for
you to build upon.
We will now test you ability by giving you an activity that requires you to use excel to graph
different data points.