Welcome to Lesson 3 of the Basic Microsoft Excel Tutorial. In this lesson we will cover Cells. I hope you enjoy the lesson.

Cells

Step 1: Cells Introduction

A cell is the basic unit for Microsoft Excel. A cell is where a column and a row meet. Within a cell you can enter text, number, calculations, pictures, charts, graphs, etc…

Step 2: Copy and Paste a cell

Select the cell or cells that you want to copy. Then select Edit on the menubar, and then Copy. Now select the cell where you want to paste the data to. Select Edit on the menubar , and then Paste. The data from your previous cell will now be copied to the new cell.

Step 3: Deleting a cell

Select the cell that you want to delete. Then on the Edit menu, click Delete. From here you can choose how you want the other cells to be affected. You can either shift cells up or to the left. You can also delete the entire row or column.

Step 4: Filling in data based on other cells

Microsoft Excel also gives you the ability to quickly fill in cells depending on what is in adjacent cells. To do this you click and drag using the fill handle of the cell. The fill handle is the little box in the bottom-right corner of the cell selection. From here you can drag to fill remaining cells. If Excel determines that the contents contain a series (such as dates, numbers, letters, etc…) it will automatically continue the series. Otherwise, the data will be copied to the adjoining cells.