Excel Calendar pt. 1: Setup

We are going to start using a very powerful and interesting program called Excel. It creates spreadsheets, which generally help you to keep track of data. There are many, many different uses for Excel and it is a very good program to know something about. Lucky for you, you’ve signed up for the right class!

First, as always, make sure OneDrive is running on your computer… (you did that already today, right?)

Then, open Excel

Please start a Blank Workbook

Right now, your file will have a TERRIBLE name and might be saving in the wrong spot. Look at the top for the file title and click it

Give it a better name! Never leave a file as Book1 (or whatever number). We’re making a Calendar:

If it’s saving in your OneDrive, that’s good…

But you may wish to put it in your ICT folder. I’ll click More options…

Then Browse to find my ICT folder

and put my file there

Now it’ll AutoSave and the file name will be correct

I recommend going into the View menu

and choosing Page Layout, since we are designing something in pages that could be printed

Now go into the Page Layout menu

and change the Orientation to Landscape (remember that from Word?)

You shouldn’t have to change the page Size, but check and make sure that it’s on Letter:

At the top of your page, you’ll see something that says Add header. That’s something that can be automatically added to each of your pages. Click that box.

You’ll probably be automatically directed to the Header & Footer menu, but switch to that if not:

In that header box, we’ll insert the Sheet Name. Press that button:

The pages in your “Workbook” are called Sheets. You’ll see a little tab at the bottom of the screen that says Sheet1

Double click into there and change the name of this page to template

You’ll now see that in that top box

You know how I’m always on your case to remember to change the font? We’ll make sure you can’t leave this boring, lame format on any of your pages

At the very top left, you’ll see a little striped triangle that you can use to select everything on your Sheet

Click it!

That will select all of the boxes (CELLS) on your Sheet:

Choose a font that looks good to you! Want your calendar to be fancy? Pick a fancy looking font! Want it to be silly? Pick one that looks silly! Want it to be serious? Pick one that looks serious!

JUST MAKE SURE IT’S EASY TO READ!

I like to make my writing a little bigger

You could even change the colour of your writing if you like:

You can (and should) format other elements later with different fonts, sizes, and colours, but this just makes sure that you have a look to start from that you have chosen yourself!

Excel is kind of magical. It can kind of predict what you want to be in those Cells sometimes.

Go into the top left cell and type Sunday:

At the bottom right of that cell, there’s a tiny little square. It’s actually a handle that you can pull

If you click on that handle, you can drag it to the right to fill in the other days of the week:

Excel will do some magic and put the names of the other days of the week in for you:

You might notice (depending on the font and size that you chose) that some don’t fit and there’s lots of extra space on the right side of your page. You can adjust the width of your columns so they fill up the page and the words fit better.

If you click on one of the Column numbers at the top, it’ll turn green and will highlight the column of cells below. If you click and drag across (or click one, hold Shift, and click 7), it’ll highlight all of those columns at once:

If you go on the line between 7 and 8 and DRAG that line to the right a little bit, it’ll resize all of those columns at once!

Adjust the width until your days all fit on the page and you don’t have any extra columns:

I don’t like how my text looks. I realize that I forgot to center it and I want to add a border and some shading.

You can select an entire ROW (horizontal) the same way you selected the Column. Find a row number on the side and click it to select everything in that row:

I want my days to be centered:

Much better!

I’m also going to put a border around those (choose your own options):

And I’ll shade them in:

Now go into the box below the first Sunday and type the number 1. That’s the only number you’ll need to type in!

Click on the box next to 1 (below the first Monday):

Excel is a great tool for doing Math. You don’t even have to know how to do the math yourself because Excel is smarter than you. When you want Exccel to do math, the first thing you type in is an Equal sign (=). Go into the next box and type an =

after the Equal sign, go click on that cell where you entered the number 1

That cell’s location will be put into the formula after the Equal sign:

That would just put a 1 into this box. We want to take whatever is in that box and add 1, so type in +1

Hit Enter on your keyboard and you should see a 2 in the box (not very impressive, I know, but WAIT!)

Remember that little Handle at the bottom right of a Cell? Drag it to Saturday:

Cool!

for the next set of numbers, SKIP A ROW OR TWO

I’m putting my next set in Row 4

Here, I’ll start with an Equal sign, then click on the 7th (under Saturday), then add +1

That gives me the start of the next row, but I need to do one more formula (LAST ONE) to add one to that number. In the next Cell, type that Equal sign, then click the 8, then +1