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A Short Introduction to

Microsoft Office

Volume

1

2

G Y Ö N G Y I B U J D O S Ó

A Short Introduction to

Microsoft Office

Copyright 2012 Gyöngyi Bujdosó

Handbooks for Computer Science Trainings

Volume 1

Supported by

Technical Editor:

Chapter 1 – Chapter 3 written by Gyöngyi Bujdosó

Chapter 4 by Gyöngyi Bujdosó and Edéné Rutkovszky

Last Update: January 2013

First Edition: January 2013

Published by University of Debrecen Centre of Arts, Humanities and Sciences

Notice of Rights All rights reserved. No part of this handbook may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or

transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

Summary

Chapter 1. Microsoft Word ..................................................................... 7

Chapter 2. Microsoft PowerPoint ........................................................... 22

Chapter 3. Microsoft Excel ....................................................................... 39

Chapter 4. Microsoft Project ................................................................... 59

4

Table of Contents

1. Microsoft Word 7

Basics of using Microsoft Word ......................................................................................... 7 Running the Microsoft Word .................................................................................................................7 Creating a new document .......................................................................................................................8 Parts of the Word document window .................................................................................................9 Prerequisites ...............................................................................................................................................9 Hidden marks for text formatting .........................................................................................................9 Your first document............................................................................................................................... 10

Enter the text ............................................................................................................................. 10 Save the document .................................................................................................................... 10 Print the document ................................................................................................................... 11 Close the document ................................................................................................................. 11

Open a document ................................................................................................................................... 11

Character formatting ......................................................................................................... 12 Typefaces and Fonts ............................................................................................................................... 12

Purposes....................................................................................................................................... 12 Changing fonts ............................................................................................................................ 12

Font sizes .................................................................................................................................................. 13 Font shapes (bold, italic) ....................................................................................................................... 13 Colors ........................................................................................................................................................ 13

Paragraph formatting .......................................................................................................... 14 What is a paragraph in Word? ............................................................................................................ 14 Alignment .................................................................................................................................................. 14 Indentation ............................................................................................................................................... 15 Lists ............................................................................................................................................................ 16

Unordered or Bulleted list ...................................................................................................... 16 Ordered or Numbered list ..................................................................................................... 16

Pictures .................................................................................................................................. 17

Tables ..................................................................................................................................... 18

Page layout ............................................................................................................................ 19

Keys, key combinations and their functions ................................................................. 20

Quick Access Toolbar ....................................................................................................... 21

2. PowerPoint 22

Basics of the use .................................................................................................................. 22 Running Microsoft PowerPoint ........................................................................................................... 22 Creating a new presentation ............................................................................................................... 23 Parts of the window ............................................................................................................................... 24 Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................................ 25

Your first presentation .......................................................................................................................... 25 Enter the text ............................................................................................................................. 25 Save the presentation ............................................................................................................... 26 Close the presentation ............................................................................................................. 26

Open a presentation .............................................................................................................................. 27

Design the layout ................................................................................................................ 27 Design templates ..................................................................................................................................... 27

Chose a theme ........................................................................................................................... 28 Choose a color scheme ........................................................................................................... 29

Slide layout ............................................................................................................................................... 30

Text ........................................................................................................................................ 31 Title slide................................................................................................................................................... 31 Content slides .......................................................................................................................................... 31

Pictures .................................................................................................................................. 32

Animations ............................................................................................................................ 34 Transitions ................................................................................................................................................ 34

Direction ...................................................................................................................................... 35 Timing ........................................................................................................................................... 35

Animations ................................................................................................................................................ 35 Types of animation .................................................................................................................... 35 Managing animations ................................................................................................................. 35

Viewing the slide show ...................................................................................................... 36

Considerations .................................................................................................................... 37 Choosing designs and colors ............................................................................................................... 37 Creating effective presentations ......................................................................................................... 38

3. Microsoft Excel 39

Basics of the use .................................................................................................................. 39 Run the Microsoft Excel ....................................................................................................................... 39 Creating a new workbook ................................................................................................................... 40 Parts of the window ............................................................................................................................... 41 Data ............................................................................................................................................................ 42 Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................................ 42 Denotations.............................................................................................................................................. 42 Mouse pointer (or cursor) shapes and functions in Excel ........................................................... 43

Your first workbook .......................................................................................................... 44 Names and areas ..................................................................................................................................... 44 Entering data ............................................................................................................................................ 45 Save the workbook ................................................................................................................................ 45 Print the workbook................................................................................................................................ 46 Close the document .............................................................................................................................. 47

Basics of calculations .......................................................................................................... 47 Data types ................................................................................................................................................. 47 Simple data and simple formulas ......................................................................................................... 48

Functions ............................................................................................................................... 50 Often used functions – An exercise .................................................................................................. 52

Absolute and relative cell references ............................................................................. 54 Relative references ................................................................................................................................. 54 Absolute references ............................................................................................................................... 56

Charts .................................................................................................................................... 58

6

4. Microsoft Project 59

Project Management ........................................................................................................... 59 What is a project? .................................................................................................................................. 59 How to plan a project? .......................................................................................................................... 60

Scope and goal management ................................................................................................... 60 Task, activity management ...................................................................................................... 60 Resource management ............................................................................................................. 60 Risk management ....................................................................................................................... 61 Communication management ................................................................................................. 62

Running the Microsoft Office Project ............................................................................ 62 Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................................ 62 Parts of the window ............................................................................................................................... 63

Developing a project .......................................................................................................... 64 Create a new project............................................................................................................................. 64

Project settings .................................................................................................................... 65 Start date .................................................................................................................................................. 65 Calendars .................................................................................................................................................. 65 Rates .......................................................................................................................................................... 68

Tasks ...................................................................................................................................... 68 Simple tasks .............................................................................................................................................. 69 Milestones ................................................................................................................................................. 69 Recurring tasks ........................................................................................................................................ 70 Summarizing tasks ................................................................................................................................... 70 Inserting, deleting tasks, changing task level and options ............................................................. 71

Duration ................................................................................................................................ 72

Scheduling tasks ................................................................................................................... 72 Links ........................................................................................................................................................... 72 Predecessors ............................................................................................................................................ 73

Managing resources ............................................................................................................ 75

Views...................................................................................................................................... 77 Gantt Charts ............................................................................................................................................ 77 PERT diagram – Network Diagram ................................................................................................... 77 Critical path – Tracking Gantt............................................................................................................. 78

7

Microsoft Word

This chapter will help you to get to know the basics of Microsoft Word

as a part of introduction to computer science. You can learn the basic

functionalities of the software and how to create, open,

save and close Microsoft Word documents.

Microsoft Word is a multipurpose word processing software: it can create a simple letter as well as

large documents with hundreds of pages containing texts, tables, figures and charts; it has tools for

designing invitation cards as well as designing and creating web pages. From this chapter you can

learn the basics of text editing with Microsoft Word (later referred to as “Word” or “the program”

only).

Those files that the Microsoft Word can create are called documents.

We refer to the name of the menus or menu items, buttons, ribbons or keys on the keyboard with bold

face font shape, such as “File menu”, “Shading button”, “Home ribbon”, or “press Enter”.

“Click” means clicking with the left mouse button. We indicate by “right click” if you need to use the

right button of the mouse. Let’s start now!

Basics of using Microsoft Word

Running the Microsoft Word

When you Run the

Microsoft Word, choose the

Windows’ Start menu;

from Programs choose

Microsoft Office and then

Microsoft Word 2010, then

you get an empty

document.

Chapter

1

A SHORT I NTRODUCTION TO MICRO SOFT OFFICE

8

Creating a new document

When the Microsoft Word is running and you need a new document:

1. Click on the File tab

2. Select the New menu item

3. Select the Blank document from the Available Templates group

4. Click on the Create button

Then you will get a blank Microsoft Word document.

MICROSOFT WORD

9

Parts of the Word document window

On the picture you can see some important parts of the Word window:

1. File menu

2. Ribbons’ Name Tags

3. Ribbon (Home ribbon)

4. Quick Access Toolbar

5. Name of the document

6. Rulers

7. Insertion point: a blinking

vertical line (cursor in text

editing mode) that shows the place where you can enter/write in or edit the text.

If you do not see the rulers in the Word window, click on the View ribbon name, and mark

the Ruler check box ( Ruler) in the Show part of the View ribbon. Rulers and the format

indicators on them can be very useful during text formatting.

Prerequisites

We cannot deal with all parts of computer use. We assume that you can use computers and you

have some knowledge about computers, keyboards and Windows. We assume that you have

knowledge about parts of computer science, for example you know what file and folder mean,

and you can find them on the computer. You can find a small table on page 20 with some

important key commands that you should know if you want to work with Microsoft Word.

Hidden marks for text formatting

Show/Hide button on the Home ribbon (P): If the button is on, you can see the hidden marks

which control the format of the text. You can turn off this function by clicking on it again.

Paragraph mark ( ): This ends a

paragraph and opens a new one. By

pressing the Enter key, you insert a

paragraph mark that closes the given

paragraph.

You can see two paragraph marks in

the red circle (E) that have to be

deleted.

A space (S) is represented by a dot ()

when the Show/Hide button is on.

It can be inserted by pressing the

spacebar.

P

E S


10

Your first document

Enter the text

You have already created a document by running the Microsoft Word program. Now you have

a blank document. Please, turn on the Show/Hidden button in the Paragraph part of the Home

ribbon (see above). You can see an empty paragraph: one paragraph mark and the blinking

cursor to the left. Type the following text into the document:

A windmill is a machine which converts wind energy into rotational energy

by means of vanes called sails or blades.

Please, do not press Enter at the end of the lines, just at the end of a paragraph. The Word

recognizes if a word does not fit into a line. In this case Word puts that word into the next line. If

you press Enter at the end of a line, it will be impossible or very difficult to format the

paragraphs. (There are some exceptions, we deal with them later.)

Do not use

Enter inside paragraphs to get a new line inside the paragraph;

more than one Enter between paragraphs;

spaces inside words;

more than one space between words.

Save the document

In Word more tools are available for saving documents:

You can simply click on the small disk ( ) on the Quick

Access Toolbar. You can choose the Save command from the

File menu. The third way: hold down the Ctrl key while

pressing S on the keyboard. If you save a document the first

time, you will get the Save As dialog box when you choose

the Save item. The files need to be saved in a proper folder,

with a meaningful name. In the File name field, give the

“Windmill_1” name to the document now. Create and open

a Windmills folder in the My Documents folder.

Save the file there.

The default file extension of a Word

2010 document is docx.

So there will be saved a

Windmill_1.docx file in the My

Documents/Windmills folder.

Save icon

MICROSOFT WORD

11

Print the document

Before you print a document, it is worth checking

the final layout of the document on the screen.

Click on the Print Preview and Print button (A) on

the Quick Access Toolbar. Check the pages by using

the scroll bar. If changes are required, return to the

document editing mode by pressing the Esc key on

the keyboard, make the changes and come back to

the print preview. On the left side of the window

you can see the options of the Print menu. You can

get the same menu if you choose the Print

command from the File menu. Choose the

appropriate printer, make the settings, and click on

the Print button (B).

Close the document

You can close the document by choosing the Close

command from the File menu, or by clicking the

button at the upper-right corner of the window. You can close the Microsoft Word program

by choosing the Exit command from the File menu.

Open a document

If you want to open an existing (already saved) document, the easiest way is to double click

on the name or the icon of the given document in an explorer window. It launches the

Word program and loads the document.

You can open a document from the Word program, too. If you run the Word, choose Open

from the File menu. In the Open dialog box, you have to find and select the file you want to

open. Double click on the file name, or click on the file name and the Open button below.

A

B


12

Character formatting

Typefaces and Fonts

Purposes

There are many typefaces that you can use in Word. These

typefaces were designed for various purposes. Here I list some

typefaces you can choose for special purposes:

Long printed documents – such as books, dissertations and

essays – the following typefaces are proposed:

Garamond, Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua. These

typefaces are perfect for reading hundreds of pages.

Newspapers: There are some typefaces for typesetting

newspapers, such as Times New Roman or Times. These

were designed for reading only some pages at a time.

Screen: Because many documents are read on computer screen

or tablets, etc., some typefaces were optimized for

reading on screen. Such typefaces are, for example,

Georgia and Verdana or Cambria and Calibri. You can

also use Palatino here – it is easy to read.

The most important factors that we have to keep in mind

when choosing fonts for a document:

purpose of the document,

target group,

media (screen or paper, what kind of paper?),

legibility.

Changing fonts

More fonts belong to a typeface, such

as Gill Sans MT, Gill sans MT

Condensed, etc. There is a default

font in every Word document that

you can change from a drop-down

menu on the Font part of the Home

menu. Select the text you want to

change. Click inside the Font field.

Scroll through the list until you have

found the font, then click on it.

Garamond

Palatino Linotype

Century Schoolbook

Book Antiqua

Times New Roman

Times

Georgia

Elephant

Verdana

Cambria

Calibri

Egyptian 505 BT

Oregon LDO Medium

Bradley Hand ITC

English 111 BT

AvantGarde

Helvetica

Arial

Gill Sans MT

Gill Sans MT Condensed

Humanist UBlk BT

MICROSOFT WORD

13

Font sizes

We have to define the size of the fonts we need for the text. The size we have to choose depends

on the font we use, and on the purpose of the document (essay or invitation card).

For a dissertation or an essay printed on A4 or legal papers (see later), we can use

10 pt, 11 pt or 12 pt for Palatino Linotype

12pt, 13 pt, 14 pt for Garamond

10 pt, 11 pt or 12 pt for Book Antiqua

9 pt, 10 pt, 11 pt or 12 pt for Times New Roman

To change the font size, first select (highlight) the text you want to

change. Click on the drop-down arrow next to the Font field. Select

the font size you need. If the number you want to select is not on the

list, you can enter it into the Font Size field, then press Enter. The

size must be between 1 and 1638 pt.

Font shapes (bold, italic)

To emphasize the part of the text we use various font

shapes. In a printed text, emphasized texts are in italics,

in electronic documents it is more often in bold.

1. Highlight the text

2. Click on the B icon for getting boldface letters,

or

3. Click on the I icon for making the text in italics

There are more possibilities for character foormatting in Word. Some of them can be used

from the Font part of the Home ribbon. You can find the other options if you click on the

small arrow on the lower right corner of the Font part.

Colors

We can change the color of the text. For coloring the text,

you have to do the following:

1. Highlight the text you want to color

2. Click on the drop-down arrow next to the

Font Color icon ( )

3. Choose a color from the palette, or

3. Click on another possibility

o More Colors… option offers millions of

colors

o Gradient allows to make the font gradient.


14

Paragraph formatting

What is a paragraph in Word?

There are paragraphs which are paragraphs in a grammatical sense. In this case you have to

type the text of the paragraph continuously. You have to press Enter only at the end of the

paragraph.

There is another type of “paragraph” that the Word uses for text formatting. You can see such

“technical paragraphs” in a list, where you have to press Enter at the end of the list item.

A grammatical paragraph Technical paragraphs

According to the point of view of the Word, a paragraph is all text between two

occurrences of the paragraph mark (or Enter, ).

Alignment

There are four basic paragraph alignment types. For applying them, there are 4 buttons in the

Paragraph part of the Home ribbon. Here are the formats they produce:

Align Text Left

A windmill is a machine which converts the

energy of wind into rotational energy by means of

vanes called sails or blades.

Center




Align Text Right




Justify




(You can see the name of a button if you place the cursor on the button. You will see the name of

the button and some explanative text in a second.)

You can use the Alignment option in the paragraph dialog box if

you click on the small arrow in the corner of the Paragraph part of

the Home ribbon.

MICROSOFT WORD

15

Indentation

Indentation belongs to paragraphs.

Types of indentation:

1. First line indentation

2. Left side indentation of a

whole paragraph

3. Right side indentation of a

whole paragraph

4. Hanging indentation

5. Spacing above and/or below a

paragraph

Click on the small arrow at the

lower right corner of the Paragraph

part of the Home ribbon and you

get the Paragraph dialog box.

1. First line indentation: you can choose

it from the Special drop-down

menu. Set the size of the indentation

in the By field

2. Left side indentation of paragraphs: The

Left in the Indentation part. It is zero

by default. Here you can give

another measure of the indentation.

3. Right side indentation: The Right field

of the Indentation part. Similar to the

Left one.

4. Hanging paragraph: You can

choose this shape from the Special

menu, and can give its size in the By

field.

5. You can control the distance of

paragraphs here. In the Spacing part,

the Before can create spacing above,

the After below the paragraph.

6. Line spacing: distance of baselines

inside a paragraph.


16

Lists

We use lists where we want to emphasize a number of things,

tasks, etc. A list gives a structure to the message. There are two

types of lists: Unordered (or Bulleted), and Ordered (or

Numbered). In the paragraph group of the Home ribbon, there are

three buttons and three drop-down arrow next to them for

applying these formats:

Bullets, Numbering and Multilevel list. (You can see the name of the button if you place the cursor

on it. You will see the name of the button and some explanative text right away.)

Unordered or Bulleted list

Unordered lists are sometimes called bulleted list. We use

this type of list if the order of the items is not important,

they do not have a required order. For example:

Computer peripherals:

computer printers

image scanners

microphones

Final, printed layout of a bulleted list

For formatting a bullet list, a paragraph mark has to be

placed at the end of each list item. Put the cursor into a paragraph or select the paragraphs you

want to format as bulleted list items, and then click on the Bullets button on the Home ribbon.

Ordered or Numbered list

We used numbered list when the order of the items is important, because they have a natural

order, or they have a specific ranking. The writer wants to give an order for the listed items, or

they have an obligatory order. For example:

The first three project steps:

1. Define the scope

2. Determine available resources

3. Check the timeline

Final, printed layout of a numbered list

For expressing the order, we can use

Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.), uppercase letters (A, B, C, etc.) lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.) or

uppercase Roman numerals (I, II, III, etc.), or lowercase Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, etc.).

There is a paragraph mark at the end of each list item. Put the cursor into a paragraph or select

the paragraphs you want to format as numbered list items, then click on the Numbering button.

MICROSOFT WORD

17

Pictures

Often you need images, illustrations in your document. For inserting an illustration you have to

choose the Insert ribbon. Place the insertion point where you want to insert the illustration, then

follow the instructions below:

1. Click on the Picture

button in the Illustration

group.

2. Select the picture

(click on it).

3. Click on the Insert

button at the

bottom

of the dialog box.

If you have inserted a picture into a document, you can use the Format ribbon. Click on the

picture you want to format, click on the Format tab on the right of the standard ribbon tags, then

you will see the Format ribbon. (If the window is wide enough, you can see the name of all

buttons.)

The functions of the Adjust group of the ribbon provide tools for modifying the pictures. For

example you can change the brightness, the color of the picture. You can give an artistic effect to

it, and restore ( ) the picture if you need its original form. In the Picture style group,

you can find tools to ensure the displaying effect. The Arrange part is for arranging and placing

the picture. In the Size group you can modify the size of the picture by giving new vertical and

horizontal sizes for the picture, and – with the cropping tool – you can cut off those parts that

you do not need.


18

Tables

You have more tools for inserting a table. One of the easiest ways is to use the Table button on

the Insert ribbon. You have to select the size of the table. Click on the small square that indicates

the size of the table. In this case, a table with 4 columns and 3 rows will be inserted at the

insertion point.

If a table has been inserted, you will have two additional ribbons. (You can see and access these

ribbons if the insertion point is inside the table.) The Design ribbon contains the design tools.

You can give a nice format to a table if you use a

predefined format. If you click on the More arrow at

the right side of the formats, you can reach all

predefined formats. If the cursor hovers above a

format, Word shows it on your table.

MICROSOFT WORD

19

The Layout ribbon contains those commands that you can use to modify the structure of the

table. For example, you can insert or delete rows and columns; split or merge cells; set the height

of a row or the width of a column; define the alignment of the texts in cells.

Page layout

If you want to print a document, you have to know the size of the sheet of paper you would like

to print on. In our country, the A4 is the common paper size. Click on the Size drop-down menu

in the Page Setup group, select the A4 size. After choosing the proper paper size, you can choose

the margin sizes by opening the Margins

drop-down menu. A margin is the distance

of the text and the edge of the sheet. Select

the last option from the menu: Custom

Margins. Here you can set the size of the

margins.


20

Keys, key combinations and their functions

Key or

Key combinations Functions If nothing is selected If something is selected

[Enter] Paragraph

Close the given paragraph

and open a new paragraph.

Use it only at the end of a

paragraph

Replace what has been selected

with an “end of paragraph”

[Del] Delete

Delete the character or other

object that is to the right of

the cursor

Delete what has been selected

[Backspace] Delete

Delete the character or other

object that is to the left of the

cursor

Delete what has been selected

[Ctrl] + A Select All Select the whole document same

[Ctrl] + S Save Save the file same

[Ctrl] + C Copy Copy what has been selected onto

the clipboard

[Ctrl] + X Cut Delete what has been selected and

put it on the clipboard

[Ctrl] + V Paste

Paste the texts or objects from

the clipboard into the

document

Delete the selected text and paste

the texts or objects from the

clipboard into the document.

[Ctrl] + Z Undo Undo the action that has

been performed last

[Ctrl] + Y Redo Redo the action which was revoked by “Undo”

[Ctrl] + [Enter] New page Open a new page at the insertion

point

Delete the selected text and

open a new page

[Shift] + [Enter] New line Open a new line in a paragraph Delete the selected text and

open a new line

MICROSOFT WORD

21

Quick Access Toolbar

We have to mention the Quick Access Toolbar that can be found on the program window of

almost each software of Microsoft Office. This toolbar contains the frequently used commands,

and can contain any command that you use often. By default, it is on the upper left corner of the

window, and contains the Save, the Undo and the Redo commands.

Save: Saves the file.

Undo: Revokes the last performed operation. If you

want to revoke more than one operation, click

the drop-down arrow next to the Undo button.

You will get the list of some performed

operations. Click that one from then you want to

revoke every operation.

Redo: If you undo some operations, you can redo them by clicking the Redo button. If

you want to redo more than one revoked operation, click the drop-down arrow

next to the Redo button, then click the required operation in the list.

This menu is independent from the ribbons you can see.

Those commands that you use often can be put here. Some of the commonly used commands

are listed in the Customize Quick Access Toolbar drop-down menu that you can find on the right

side of this toolbar.

If you want to assign more commands to the Quick Access

Toolbar you have two possibilities:

Click the More Commands option in the Customize

Quick Access Toolbar drop-down menu and choose

the command that you want to put into the small

menu.

Click on the button/icon of the command on any

ribbon, then – in the shortcut menu that appears –

choose the Add to the Quick Access Toolbar option.

22

PowerPoint

This chapter will help you to get to know the basics of Microsoft PowerPoint

as a part of introduction to computer science. You can learn how to create,

open, save and close Microsoft PowerPoint presentations and

how to format objects, how to design and make presentations and how to assign

animations to objects.

In Microsoft PowerPoint you can design and create presentations that contain various design

elements, texts, charts and tables, or pictures, movies and animations. You can use a number of

templates to make presentations easier and faster. You can save your file as an editable presentation or

a slide show.

These presentations are projected generally by a projector. It means that you have to keep in mind that

you will have an audience that would like to see the contents of your slides. You have to pay attention

to the motivational techniques, too. When you give a lecture, the slideshow you are projecting has to

move along with your oral presentation. The oral presentation and the projected slide show will give

an impression to your audience. You have to pay attention to this during the design process.

Basics of the use

Running Microsoft PowerPoint

Run Microsoft PowerPoint:

choose the Windows’ Start

menu; from Programs

choose Microsoft Office and then

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, then

you will get

a new, blank presentation.

Chapter

2

MICROSOFT POWERPOINT

23

Creating a new presentation

If Microsoft PowerPoint is running and you need a new presentation:



3. Select the Blank presentation in the Available Templates and Themes group


Then you will get a blank Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO MICROSOFT OFFICE

24

Parts of the window

The PowerPoint window is divided into three useful parts that we use in editing presentations:

Slides View, Normal View and Notes Pages.

The Normal View is for editing the slides. In the Notes Pages you can write notes for each slide.

In the Slide View you can control the order of the slides and can change the slide in the Normal

View.

1. File tab

2. Ribbons’ names/tags

3. Ribbon groups

4. Ribbon commands


6. Name of the presentation

7. Rulers

8. View buttons

9. Zoom slider


25

Prerequisites

We cannot deal with all parts of computer use. We suppose that you can use computers or you

have some knowledge about computers, keyboards and Windows. We assume that you have

knowledge about certain parts of computer science, for example you know what a file or folder

mean, and you can find them on the computer. You can find a small table on page 20 with some

important key commands that it is good to know if you want to work with Microsoft

PowerPoint.

Your first presentation

Enter the text

You have already created a presentation by running the Microsoft PowerPoint program, or by

creating a new, blank presentation from the File menu of PowerPoint. So you have a blank

presentation.

As you can see, this presentation is not

really blank because there are some

structural parts on the slide you got. This is

called Title Slide which is the first slide of

the presentation and it is obligatory. The

structure and the design of the first slide

are always different from the others. (See

later.) If you click into a text box and begin

to type a text, you will see that the size of

the font types, the letter sizes and the font

colors are also determined.

Click on the New Slide icon on the Home

ribbon. You will get a new blank slide that

has a different design concerning the

structure as well as the fonts, too. This is a

Title and Content slide where you can give

a heading (a title) for the slide and can

write the content of the slide.


26

Save the presentation

More tools are available in the PowerPoint for saving

a document:

You can simply click on the small disk

( ) on the Quick Access Toolbar.

You can choose the Save command from

the File menu.

The third way: hold down the Ctrl key

while pressing S on the keyboard

(Ctrl + S).

If you have used any of these three possibilities,

and if you save this presentation for the first time,

you will get the Save As dialog box (see below).

The files must be saved in a proper folder, with a meaningful file name.

Open the Windmills folder in the My Documents folder if you have got it.

If you do not have this folder, create it with the Create New Folder button ( ) and

then open a Windmills folder. In the File name field, write the

“Windmill_presentation” that will be the name of the presentation file.

Click on the Save button.

The default file extension of a Word 2010 presentation is pptx.

So you will have a Windmill_presentation.pptx file in the My Documents/Windmills folder.

Close the presentation

You can close the document by choosing the Close command from the File menu, or by

clicking the button at the upper-right corner of the window. You can close the Microsoft

Word program by choosing the Exit command from the File menu.

Save icon


27

Open a presentation

If you want to open an existing (already saved) presentation, the easiest way is to double

click on the name or the icon of the given presentation in an explorer window or on the

desktop. It launches the PowerPoint program and loads the presentation.

You can open a presentation from

the PowerPoint program, too. If

the PowerPoint is running, choose

Open from the File menu. In the

Open dialog box, you have to find

and select the file you want to

open:

Double click on the file name,

or

Select the file you want to

open in the dialog box click

on the Open button below.

Design the layout

Design templates

When you have created a new, blank presentation, it is good to apply a design template for your

slide show. If you are familiar with graphical design and desktop publishing, you can design

your own presentation layout. If not, you can use a number of designed PowerPoint templates.

A design template must coordinate the whole layout of the slide show. You can see here some

important elements of a design template:

It provides background to the slides.

Defines the structure of the title slide and the other slides, as well.

Defines the typefaces, as well as the letter sizes and colors.

Usually there are many graphical design elements in a template, such as bullets, rules or

buttons for ameliorating the visual effect of the slide show.

Sets the language of the slides.

There are many design templates installed on your computer, but the Microsoft’s web site also

offers a lot, and many other places can be found on the web that offer free templates or sales

many others. Here we use only some installed templates.

Thee default template is the Normal template that you use if you do not choose any other

template.


28

Chose a theme

When you have created a presentation, first you have to choose a Theme that determines the

overall layout of the slide show.

Click on the tab of the Design ribbon. On the Design ribbon you can find several settings which

are related to the appearance of the slides. Here we deal with the themes represented by

templates.

First in the Themes group of the Design ribbon, choose a theme by clicking on the sample

picture.

You can see the layout of the title slide of six themes on the next figure.


29

Choose a color scheme

If you do not like the color set of a

theme, you can change it to another

color set. Most themes contain built in

color sets as you can see on this

figure.

Click on the drop-down arrow

of the Color option in the

Themes group of the Design

ribbon.

Choose a color set.

Click on that one you want to

apply for this presentation

The color set defines the colors of the

background, the letters, the applied

graphical design elements, etc.

Here you can see some samples on the effects of choosing different color schemes on a theme.


30

Slide layout

The first slide of a presentation is always a Title Slide. For the slides which follow we have

several choices, defined in the Theme we choose. Designers can assign different layouts to

different contents. The presentation can be more varied and more interesting if you use different

slide layouts depending on the content or the role of the slides.

For the Theme we choose for the illustration here, there are slide layouts for normal content, for

section headers, for pictures and other contents.

You can choose a slide layout if

you insert a slide: click on the lower part (the name) of the New Slide button;

you want to change the layout of an inserted slide: click on the Slide Layout button on the

Home ribbon.

Here you can see a short presentation

with some slide: title slide, content slide,

picture with caption and content with

caption.


31

Text

In the previous section you saw how you could choose a design template or a color scheme.

If you have chosen a layout, you can begin to edit the presentation. The placeholders of the

slides will help you to organize the content and to design your whole oral presentation.

Title slide

As default, the first slide has a Title Slide layout in a new presentation.

Here you can enter the title of the presentation into the proper placeholder (Click to add title);

and the subtitle and your name into the placeholder of the subtitle. The layout is determined by

the selected theme.

Content slides

For the content you can choose several layouts. Here you can see a Title and Content layout.

Add a title for the slide. You can enter the text into the big placeholder. The text usually appears

in multilevel bulleted list by default. You can change the list levels by using the Increase List

Level and Decrease List Level buttons which are in the Paragraph group of the Home ribbon.


32

Pictures

In PowerPoint you have to use illustrations for emphasizing, explaining the content of the slide,

or just making it humorous. The insertion of a picture is similar to that one in Microsoft Word,

but in PowerPoint you need more settings. Here you can see the most common ones.

In PowerPoint, there are some tools which make easier the insertion of pictures or other

illustrations such as charts, tables, media clips, or ClipArts. In the Placeholder boxes you can see

the small icons of those things that you can insert in an easy way onto the slide.

The icons/buttons you can see there:

Tables

Charts

SmartArt Graphics

Pictures

ClipArts

Media Clips

If the slide layout that you chose does not contain a Content Placeholder, or you need more

pictures on a slide, you have to use the Insert ribbon. Follow the instructions below:

1. Click on the Picture button in the Images group.

2. Select the picture (click on it).

3. Click on the

Insert button

at the bottom

of the dialog

box.


33

If you have inserted a picture into a document, you can use the Format ribbon. Click on the

picture you want to format, click on the Format tab on the right of the standard ribbon tags, then

you will see the Format ribbon. (If the window is wide enough, you can see the name of all

buttons.)

The functions of the Adjust group of the ribbon give tools for modifying the pictures. For

example you can change the brightness, the color of the picture. You can give an artistic effect on

it, and restore ( ) the picture if you need its original form. In the Picture style group,

you can find tools for giving displaying effect. The Arrange part is for arranging and placing the

picture. In the Size group you can modify the size of the picture by giving new vertical and

horizontal sizes for the picture, and – with the cropping tool – you can cut off those parts that

you do not need.

If you insert a picture onto a slide, you can add special effects to it. Here there are two slide

designs with two different and built-in 3D effects


34

Animations

There are two kinds of animation in PowerPoint:

animated slide transitions – called Transitions

animations of objects such as pictures, texts, etc. on slides and called Custom Animations

or just Animations

Transitions

Slide transition is an animated transition of a slide from the previous one. It determines how the

given slide appears. You can reach them from the Transition ribbon. The transitions that we

demonstrate on these two slides are set on the second slide.

There are many types of transitions. You can use simple transitions that need less power from

the computer. For example, Push is such transition. It pushes the previous slide out from bottom

to top as default, from top to bottom, from left to right or from right to left. On the next figure

you can see the effects of the following transitions with their default settings: Push, Shape, and

Dissolve.

There are some complicated, which are more attractive, but needs more effort from the

hardware.

Here we demonstrated the effects of three Exciting transitions: Cube, Shred, and Vortex.


35

You have some possibilities for modifying some default settings of the transitions:

Direction

Some transitions give possibilities for modifying the direction of the transition. For example, the

direction at the Push transition can be modified From bottom to top to From left to right.

Timing

In the Timing group of the Transition ribbon mainly you can set the timing options of the

transitions, such as Duration. You can set here if you do not need mouse click for appearing the

next slide. If not, you can set after how any time should the slide disappear. You can make a

movie with the help of this option. In the Sound field of this group, you can assign sound effect

or music to the transition.

Animations

PowerPoint allows you to assign animations to any object of a slide, or make new effects by

giving the paths of motions. For accessing the possibilities, click on the Animations tab. On the

Animation ribbon you can use the settings if an object is selected. (Many themes include the

animations of the objects inserted in the predefined placeholders. If you want to modify them or

there are more objects on the slide, you can use the ribbon of custom Animations.)

Types of animation

First, select a picture on this slide, and then you can see the animation types on the Animations

ribbon. There are three groups of animations:

Entrance animations: The object appears on the projected slide. (Color: Green)

Emphasis animations: The object is emphasized on the projected slide. (Color: Yellow)

Exit animations: The object disappears from the projected slide. (Color: Red)

Managing animations

Pictures and texts have different animations. First, select a picture or any other object on the

slide, and then you can see the types of animations in the Animation group of the Animations

ribbon. If you click on the More drop-down arrow next to the animation types, you can see all of

the animations. The green stars denote the Entrance animations, the yellow stars the Emphasis,

the red stars the Exit animations. If you turn on the Animation Pane button, you will see a pane

that contains all the setting of the animations have been set on the given slide. The animations of

a selected object are highlighted on this pane. Here you can change the order of the animations.

You can modify or add any setting to the animations.


36

For viewing the preview, click on the Preview button, or use the [Shift]+[F5] key combination.

For getting back to the edit mode, use the [Esc] key.

Viewing the slide show

If you are giving your lecture, or you are you are editing the presentation, you need to project

the slide show. For getting the tools of running the slide show, select the Slide Show ribbon. You

can start the slide show from the first slide – than choose From Beginning, or from the currents

slide, in this case click on the From Current Slide button.

You can use the [Esc] key for returning the editing mode.


37

Considerations

Choosing designs and colors

Which are the most important facts that you have to take into account when choosing a theme

or a color scheme for a presentation? Some of them:

Topic of the lecture ◦

Topic: You have to match the style of the slides with the topic of your presentation.

It means that it is better to choose a theme with modern appearance if you speak

about a new project or investment in a new type of mobile phone.

A theme with classical style fits better if you speak about the poems of Shakespeare.

Message: If you have long messages in your presentation, it is better to choose such

templates that have large space for the messages (for example the graphical

elements do not occupy too much space on the slides). If you have short messages,

you can choose a theme that leave small spaces for the message on a slide, or you

can use very simple theme, and put extremely large images onto the slides.

Audience ◦ You have to fit the layout of the slides to the audience. A cheerful theme

sounds better for a young audience or for a birthday party, but a solid theme is

better for a team meeting at your workplace.

Lecture hall

Light: If the place where you will give the lecture is dark, it is better to choose a

theme with lower contrast. You can see such themes in the third row of the previous

picture. If there is sunshine in the hall where you will speak, higher contrast is

advised.

Size: If the lecture hall is big, i.e. there are people in it who will be far from you, it is

better to use larger letters on the slides, even if the projected slides are also large.

Hardware

Projector: If you have a chance, project the presentation with the same projector that

you will use during your speech, because some projectors have low resolution that

can “destroy” or “modify” the design, or simply cannot project those colors which

have been chosen correctly.

Computer: Some designs need more effort from the computers. It is worth to make

sure that you will have a computer with resources enough for your presentation.


38

Creating effective presentations

The requirements of presentations are changing quickly as the taste of people changing fast.

Internet is a good place for getting information about the new trends.

A good lecturer has to know the actual common taste. If a lecturer suits the elements of the

presentation to it, he or she can send the message easier to the audience, and she or he can have

better chance to take effect on the audience.

There are much different estimations about the new trends of oral presentations, but there are

some common points of them, such us

A presentation has to have a main message. People have to know what you speak about.

A slide has to contain one clear message.

A slide must contain small amount of text. Too much text can hide your message. For this,

you have to delete the unnecessary and redundant information from the text you want to

say.

A slide with many bullets is not trendy in 2012.

Design is not a functionless decoration. It has to help the transmission of the message.

If you have practice in design, you can design and save your own presentation themes. If not, it

is better to use the predesigned themes and color schemes with keeping mind the considerations

written above.

39

Microsoft Excel

This chapter will help you get know the basics of Microsoft Excel

as a part of the introduction to computer science. You can learn how to

create, open and save Microsoft Excel workbooks. You will know how to use

numbers, functions and formulas, how to us absolute and relative

references, and how

to insert charts and pictures.

In Microsoft Excel you can do with numbers that you would like to – almost without any limitation.

You can add, subtract, multiply and divide them; or raising them to a power. You can use simple

functions such as summa or maximum; or you can make complicated calculations such as

approximations. You can use the numbers as simple numerals or dates. You can make sequences; and

you can count interests or trends. In Excel workbooks you can store not just numbers but any other

types of data.

If you want to demonstrate data in a presentation or in a document, you can insert charts that

ameliorate the level of visualization. Graphing is another good tool for visualizing in an effective way.

Thousands of data can be stored in a workbook, and a number of workbooks can be assigned to each

other. It means that you can manage or control millions of data from a single Excel workbook.

Basics of the use

Run the Microsoft Excel

Choose the Windows’ Start

menu; from Programs

choose Microsoft Office and

then

Microsoft Excel 2010, than

you will get

a new, blank Excel workbook.

Chapter

3


40

Creating a new workbook

If the Microsoft Excel is running and you need a new presentation:



3. Select the Blank workbook in the Available Templates group


Then you will get a blank Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

CHAPTER 3. MICROSOFT EXCEL

41

Parts of the window

The PowerPoint window is divided into useful parts that we use during editing the

presentation.

The Normal view is for editing the slides. In the Notes page you can write notes for each slide.

In the slide view you can control the order of the slides and can change the slide in the Normal

view.

1. Name of the workbook


3. File menu

4. Ribbons’ names/tags

5. Ribbon’s groups

6. Ribbon commands

7. Column names (A, B,…)

8. Row numbers (1, 2,…)

9. Reference of the active

cell in the name box

10. Formula bar

11. Worksheet names/tags

12. View buttons

13. Zoom slider


42

Data

The data you can find in this handbook are fictive; they do not consider any real data of any database.

Prerequisites

We cannot deal with all the parts of computer use. We suppose that you can use computers and

you have some knowledge about computers, keyboards and Windows. We assume that you

have knowledge on some parts of computer science, for example you know what the file and

folder mean, and you can find them on the computer.

In addition we presume that you know the basics of mathematics, for example what the summa

means; what does the arithmetical sequence mean; why does a zero divisor cause a problem.

Here we have no chance to give a full explanation of the mathematical background of each

formula, but we aim to do it.

Denotations

In the title bar you can see the name of the file (see 1 on the previous figure). Here, in Excel, we

call it as a workbook. In one workbook there can be many sheets – called worksheets (11) – where

we can store the data. By default, an Excel workbook contains three worksheets, but we can

insert many other. The name of a worksheet appears on its sheet tab. The names (or titles or

labels) of the sheets are Sheet1, Sheet2, etc. by default. You can (and should) rename them.

You can rename the active worksheet (whose content can be seen in the window, and whose tab

is white):

1. Click with the right button of the mouse (right-click) on the worksheet name,

2. From the format menu choose the Rename option; and

3. Enter a new name.

In Excel, we have to use often both the left and the right button of the mouse. If we write simply

“click”, it means always that you have to click withy the left button of the mouse. If you want to

use a content sensitive shortcut menu, you have to “right-click” – it means that you have to click

once with the right button of the mouse.

There is another nomination that we have to speak about here, this is the spreadsheet. It is

another name for these types of files. Although, the use of this word can cause some confusion,

because a spreadsheet could denote a whole file, i.e. a workbook, or it could denote a worksheet

in a workbook, too. So that can make difficult to understand the instructions. In this handbook

we use the nomination workbook for an excel file, and the worksheet for a sheet in a workbook.


43

Mouse pointer (or cursor) shapes and functions in Excel

In Excel we have to know the different shapes of the mouse pointer (cursor) because they have

functions that you have to use during your work.

Shape Name and Function

Arrow Pointer: Used for making a cell active

Used for moving selected cell ranges

Cross Pointer: Used for selecting cells

Editing Cursor: Indicates the cursor position when editing a cell content in the cell

or in the Formula Bar

Fill Handle: Used for copying formula or extending a data series

Selecting Arrow: Used for selecting a whole row when positioned on the row

number

Selecting Arrow: Used for selecting a whole column when positioned on the

column letter

Resizing Arrows: This cursor shape appears at the border of the column letters

Drag to widen or narrow the width of a column

Resizing Arrows: This cursor shape appears at the border of the row numbers

Drag to increase or decrease the height of a row

Dragging Tool: Used for moving a selected range of cells or shape

Denotes that you are moving a selected range of cells or shape

Denotes that you can move / you are moving the selected range of cells or shape

while holding down the Ctrl key

Pointer Finger: Link can be chosen with it


44

Your first workbook

Names and areas

You have already created a workbook by running the Microsoft Excel, or by creating a new,

blank workbook from the File/New menu of the Excel. So now you have a blank workbook with

three worksheets in it, and you can see the worksheet that has the name Sheet1.

The working area is divided into rows and columns. You can see the column names (A, B, C,

etc.) above the cells; and the row numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.) on the left of the cells.

There is one cell that has a thick black

border – this is the “active cell”. The

column name (D), and the row number

(3) of the active cell are highlighted by

an orange background. Each cell is

identified by an address. If it is in a

formula, we call it a reference. In this

case, the reference of our active cell is

D3 that you can see in the name box.

You can enter data only into the active

cell. The content of the active cell is

displayed in the formula bar; the value

of the active cell can be seen in the

active cell.

In Excel, several features are assigned to each cell. Look at the next figure.

Address/Reference: The address or the reference of the active cell is B3 on this figure. That you can

see in the Name Box. The name of the column and

the row are highlighted.

Content: The content of the active cell is a formula that you

can see in the Formula Bar: = 4 + 5. As you can see,

the cell does not contain the euro (€) character.

Value: The value of the active cell is 9 that you can see in

the active cell.

Format: The number is displayed with two decimals and a

currency is displayed. The background of the cell is

blue, the letters are in black. (About formatting the

cells and of its content, see later.)


45

Entering data

If you type anything in Excel, it will be the content of the active cell. You can enter many types

of data, for example numbers, texts, dates (see later).

Validation ◦ For validating the content that you have typed, you have to press Enter, or one of

the arrow keys, or click on another cell.

Escape ◦ Unless you validate the data you have typed, you can press the Esc key to cancel the

data input. In this case you will get back the original data in the cell.

Warning! You can rewrite very easy the data in Excel. If a cell with content is the active cell, and

you type something than press Enter or click another cell, the previous content of the cell will

disappear and replaced by the new data. If you do not want to replace the data in the active cell,

you can press Esc to cancel the input before validating the data.

Save the workbook

More tools are available in the Excel for saving documents:

You can simply click on the small disk ( ) on the

Quick Access Toolbar.

You can choose the Save command from the File

menu.

Or hold down the Ctrl key while pressing S on the

keyboard.

If you save this document first time, you will get the Save As

dialog box. The files have to be saved into a proper folder,

with a meaningful name.

Now create and open a Data folder in the My Documents

folder. In the File name field, enter the “Frames” name for the

workbook.

Save the file by clicking the Save button in the Save As

window.

The default file extension of an Excel 2010 workbook is xlsx.

So now a workbook with the Frames.xlsx file name has been

saved in the My Documents/Data folder.

Save icon


46

Print the workbook

Before you print the content of a worksheet, it is worth checking the layout.

From the File menu choose the Print option. Here you can see a print preview of the worksheet

and many options that you should check before printing.

On the right side of the window, check that the data you want to print can be seen on the

page(s).

In the middle part, choose the printer you want to use. Set the number of copies you need.

In the Settings part, select that you want to print. (The Print Active Sheets is the default setting.)

Give the range of pages that you want to print.

If you need more copies, you have to choose how they should be collated.

Choose an orientation. The default is Portrait. Maybe the Landscape would fit better to your

table.

Choose a paper size, than set the margins for that.

Return to the editing mode – if some changes are needed – by pressing Esc, make the changes

and come back into the Print menu.

If you have made all necessary settings, click on the Print button in the Print menu window.


47

Close the document

If you have finished the work with a workbook, you can close it by choosing the Close

command from the File menu, or by clicking the button at the upper-right corner of the

window. You can close the Microsoft Excel program by choosing the Exit command from the

File menu.

Basics of calculations

Data types

You can use several types of data in Excel. The are some of them:

Text – such as “Price”. It can contain any character that you can type from the keyboard.

Number – such as “123” or “–345” (without the quotation marks). A number can contain a plus

or a minus sign, digits, and a decimal sign. The decimal sign that you have to use is

declared in the Regional Settings of the Windows. It can be a dot (.) or a comma (,).

English language use points for decimals.

Date – such us 11/22/2012. The standard appearance of the dates are given in the Regional

Settings of the Windows, but you can change the format in each cell.

Formula – such as “= 4 + 5” (without the quotation marks).

A formula has to begin with the equal sign (=).

It can contain for example

◦ Numbers: 1, 298, etc. If you want to store a phone number such as 00608877 in

a cell, you have to enter a single quotation mark before the numbers, for

keeping the leading zeros: '00608877

◦ Operators: +, -, etc.

◦ Functions: SUM, AVG, etc.

◦ Parentheses: (, )

◦ Cell addresses or references: B3, H8, etc.

◦ Range references: B2:D7, etc.

(A range contains all cells within a

rectangle that is determined by the

two cell addresses as its two opposite

corners; in this case by B2 and D7.)

It has to fulfill the mathematical requirements, e.g., you cannot divide anything by

zero, or you have to use the parentheses in the right way in the mathematical

sense.


48

Simple data and simple formulas

Create a new, blank workbook. On Sheet1, now we create a simple document for getting the

quantity of the material for framing the picture, i.e. the length of the listel and the surface of the

glass pane.

On Sheet1, select the cells from A2 to C8:

Click on the cell A2, hold down the left

mouse button, and select the cells until C8.

Click on the menu arrow of the Borders

menu in the Font group of the Home menu.

Click the Thick Box Border in the Borders

menu.

Enter the data into the cells you see on the

next figure. As you can see, the numbers 70

and 90 are in separate cell. This is important

if we want to use the numbers in

mathematical formulas.

The height of the frame is in the cell E2, and the width is in the cell B9.

Into the cell E7 enter the following formula: =2*E2 + 2*B9

Into the cell E8 enter the following formula: = E2 * B9

The formula in E7 multiplies by 2 the content of E2 and also the content of B9, and then

summarizes these two products. The formula in E8 multiplies the content of E2 by the content

of B9.


49

After entering the two formulas, you can see

the result values: 320 in E7 and 6300 in E8.

Click on the cell B7, than you can see the

formula in the Formula Bar.

If you change any of the values in E2 and B9,

you will get the proper values in E7 and E8.

By default, the Excel calculates all formulas in

the workbook after every change in the

workbook. It means that if you change any

value or formula in this workbook, all

formulas will be recalculated.

Changing the background of the cells can

make the worksheet well-arranged:

Select the cells D7, E7 and F7.

Click on the Fill Color drop-down menu

arrow.

Choose a light color.

Select the cells D8, E8 and F8.

Click on the Fill Color drop-down

arrow.

Choose a different light color.

If you want to make it nicer, you can insert a

picture in the same way as you learned in the

chapter PowePoint on page 32.

After coloring some cells, the worksheet looks

like an application.


50

Functions

Many functions are there in Excel. You can reach the functions in many ways:

You can get all functions if you click on the Insert Function icon ( ) at the left of the Formula

Bar. By default, you can see the most recently used functions in the list on the dialog box. Here

you can see SUM, AVERAGE, IF, HYPERLINK, COUNT, MAX and SIN. If you need other functions, you

can open the drop-down menu where you can select a category of functions that you want to

browse. You can get the whole list of functions by choosing the All option from the category list.

Click on the name of the function that you want to use.

On our example we clicked of the AVERAGE function. Below the list of function list, you can see

the syntax of the function and some explanation what this function does whit its argument(s).

If this is the function that you want to

use, click OK. You get a dialog box

with the settings of the function.


51

In the Function Arguments panel,

you can give all arguments of the

selected function. Next to the each

argument you can see the value(s)

of the entered cell(s).

Under the arguments you can

read a short description about the

argument.

Under it you can see the

estimated result. If you have

entered the arguments, click OK.

The function will be inserted into

the active cell.

On the right side of the Home ribbon, you can find a small

drop-down menu. The commonly used functions are in it,

and a link to the other functions (More Functions…).

If you click on the Σ icon, you insert an auto SUM function.

If you click on the drop-down arrow, you get this menu.

Click on the function that you want to use, or on the More

Functions option, and you get the Insert Function dialog box

(see above).

You can also type into the cell the function name that you

want to use. You can see a list with the function names, and

then the syntax of the function will appear that you are

typing.

When you giving the cell references in an argument, the

corresponding cell will be highlighted. The color of the cell

reference and the color of the border of the highlighted cell

are the same, which make the checking easy.

On the last figure of this

subsection, you can see

the entered and

completed function in the

Formula Bar. The result

value appears in the cell.


52

Often used functions – An exercise

We have data on sugar producing countries, and we want to know how much sugar the

countries need, the totals, the averages, the biggest and the smallest amounts.

For this, we can use the often used functions.

Click on D14, now this is the active cell. From the small drop-down menu of the Home ribbon,

select the SUM function. The Excel selects a range of cells that it estimates the concerning cell

range. If it is the range you want to use, press Enter, and the function will appear in D14. The

offered range can be modified by using the cross pointer – if it is needed.

The process is similar in the cell

D15, where an average function

is needed.

Click on D15.

Choose the AVERAGE function.

Select the cell range that have to

be in the function argument.

Press Enter.

In D15 you will get the average

of those numbers which are in

the cell range D4:D13.


53

The process is similar in the case of the MIN and MAX functions, too. If you entered all of the four

functions into the “Production” column, you have to have the following functions and results:

In column E you have to have similar functions.

And the results:


54

Absolute and relative cell references

Relative references

Continuing the previous exercise, we can see that the cell references in the function arguments

in the two columns differ only in the names of columns. For example, the formulas in the 14th

row:

SUM(D4:D13) in column D and

SUM(E4:E13) in column E.

Consequently, the formula of the 14th row in column F should be:

SUM(F4:F13)

Excel has a tool, the Filling Tool that can be used for copying formulas into the consecutive

columns or rows when the formulas differ only in the cell references.

For copying the formula in E14 into the cell F14:

Click on the cell E14 because you have to copy its formula into the F14 cell.

Move the mouse pointer to the lower right corner of the active cell (i.e. E14).

Hold down the left mouse button and drag to the cell F14.

You have copied the formula that you can see if you click on F14. The formula here:

SUM(F4:F13)

Move the pointer to the lower right corner of the

cell

Drag to F14

Copying the formula has changed the references You can copy more formula in the same time

As you can see, the cell references have been changed during copying. This is why we call these

type of references as “relative references”. So you have to use relative references, if you want to

copy a formula, but the references have to be changed during copying.


55

Now we have to need to calculate the numbers of the “Import Needed” column in this example.

(See the figures above.)

Write the appropriate formula into G4: = –1*(D4 – (E4+F4)), or in brief = –(D4 – (E4+F4))

(you will get 1350 result).

Hold down the left mouse button and select the cell range from G1 to G13 with the Fill

Handle.

If you want to copy only the content of the cell without of its format, select the Fill Without

Formatting option from the small Fill In dropdown menu at the lower right corner of the

filled cell range.

Under the data in column G, the same calculations as in columns D, E and F are needed. You can

copy the formulas from column F:

Select the cell range from F14 to F17 (i.e. the range F14:F17)

Move the mouse pointer to the lower right corner of the selected area.

Hold down the left mouse button and select the cell range from G14 to G17.

As you can see, copying the formula with relative addresses by using the Fill Handle tool saves

you from typing many formulas with almost the same contents.


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Absolute references

Absolute references are needed in many formulas that you want to copy. The absolute

references have three forms depending on the mathematical meaning: Sometimes you need to

fix only the row number, sometimes only the column name, sometimes both.

In Excel there are 4 types of references: 1 relative and 3 absolute.

B25 Relative reference Absolut reference, where

B$25 Absolut reference of the row Only the row number is fixed

The column name will be changed if you skip

into another column during copying

$B25 Absolut reference of the

column

Only the column name is fixed.

The row number will be changed if you skip

into another row during copying

$B$25 Absolut reference for both The row number and the column name are

fixed

None of them will be changed if you skip into

another row and/or column during copying

Here we continue with the previous exercise. Now we want to know for each country that its

import is how many percent of the totally needed import of the ten countries. The mathematical

formula for getting it

The required import of a given country

The total of the import these countries need

It means, that we need the formula

in H4 in row 4: =G4/G14

in H5 in row 5: =G5/G14

in H6 in row 6: =G6/G14, etc.

If we copy the formula in the previous way, we got =G5/G15 in row 5 because the row numbers

would increase by 1 in the references.

It means that you have to fixate the number 14 in the address G14 in the formula of cell H4.

You can do it with the $ sign. The formula you need

in H4 in row 4 is: =G4/G$14


57

If you copy this formula into the other rows with the Fill Handle, you get the right formulas and

the right results in each row of column H, as you can see on the figures below.

In this example, we could have used

in H4 the =G4/$G$14 absolute reference form,

because it would resulted the same values. The range where the formula was copied is in the

same column. It means that the column number does not change if you do not fix it or if you fix

it as well.

For getting the percentage

format of the numbers, click

on the Percent Style icon in

the Number group of the

Home ribbon.


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Charts

Charts make the information transmission more effective than tables.

In Excel (as well as in the other programs of Microsoft Office) there are many types of charts.

In Excel, you can reach them from the Charts group on the Insert ribbon.

On the Pie, Doughnut

and Bubble type chart

only one sequence of

data can be presented.

On the other chart types

many data sequences can

be shown.

Excel gives many tools

for creating charts.

The easiest way is to insert a chart, if you select all data that you want to see on the chart. After

inserted a chart, you can modify the format all parts of it from the Design, the Layout and the

Format ribbons in the Chart Tools. You can see the Chart Tools and the tags of these ribbons if

the chart is selected.

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Microsoft Project

The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of Microsoft Project

and introduce some basic features to allow users to manage projects and

using this software. From this chapter you get information about how to

create a plan, how to assign resources to a task, how to set their details, and

how to manage the budget. You can learn about viewing and

understanding Gantt charts.

Project management is a nice and complex field that has several topics that you have to know if you

want to plan project tasks. In this chapter we go through the basics that you have to know before

using the Microsoft Project software.

Microsoft Project 2007 is an efficient tool for project managers. It is designed specifically to increase

effectiveness and productivity around managing project type activities. It can help manage key project

components using planning, tracking and analyzing tools.

Project Management

What is a project?

By the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic Dictionary, a project is a “plan for a scheme or

undertaking”. Projects are different from ordinary work. There are some features that they have

to fulfill:

Projects are designed to promote changes and innovations

Projects have time frame

Projects have to be planned

Projects uses resources

Projects need budget

Projects require evaluation

The outcome of a project is a kind of products in most cases

Here are some examples for projects:

Chapter

4


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Planning a big party

Hosting an exhibition

Designing and producing a book

Designing and implementing a computer system

A project needs inputs and outcomes:

A project manager has to control the most important factors:

Goals – Tasks

Resources

Time

Risks

Products – some kind of sense

How to plan a project?

Without a serious planning, the success of project could be unlikely. How to begin? Here are the

steps that you have to follow during planning.

Scope and goal management

You have to start to plan a project with defining the clear scopes and goals. If you do not have

clear goal(s) the outcome(s) of the success of the project will be uncertain. First you have to write

the list of goals with short descriptions of their some details. It is good to specify the

requirements and the definition of the success.

Task, activity management

Tasks that are required to accomplish the goals should be assigned to every goal. For this, you

have to make a list of goals and assign a task or a task list to each of them with the tasks that are

needed for reaching the goal.

Resource management

Resources are the things which are needed for accomplish the project. A project manager has to

analyze the tasks and determine what kind of resources the tasks need. The allocation of

resources can have a major influence on project schedules, because resources usually are limited,

some of them are hard to obtain, others are expensive, or both.

There are many types of resources that can be necessary for performing a project, such as:

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Human resources ◦ People can be needed e.g. for administration, product delivery, system

analysis, making designs, driving trucks, coordinating the work of the groups, etc. It is

very important in a project plan that the right number and kind of people have to be

available at the right time and place.

Equipment ◦ Projects need equipment that has to be planned. The project manager has to

discover what kinds of tools are needed for performing the operations of the project.

These tools can be, for example, some computers, printers and software, some sound

amplifiers or trucks could be required.

Time ◦ Performing operations need time. In the projects there are factors without project

operations which need time, too. For example, waiting for permissions from the local

government needs time and cannot begin some project tasks before receiving it. It is

important to divide the time plan into phases, and to fix some deadline for activities. The

correct estimation of the required time is very important. If the project management

underestimate the required time of (some) tasks or other factors, the success of the project

could be uncertain; this is a common mistake in project management.

You have to calculate the project participant’s time. You have to know for example how

many hours they can work a day (it can be different for people in the administration and

in delivery), or how many days they can work a week (some of the project members are

employees of another company, so they cannot work in the project each day).

Financial resources – Budget and cost control◦ Money is needed for all tasks of the project.

The project manager has to know the financial requirement of the human resources, the

equipment, the administration, hiring the trucks, etc. Of course, the project manager has to

know the amount of the accessible money; he or she has to harmonize the incomes and

the outgoings of the project.

The aim of activity resource estimating is to estimate the resources which are needed for each

activity. The resources should be deployed in the most effective manner they can be.

Risk management

It is necessary to pay attention on risks in planning a project. You can save a lot of money if you

deal with uncertain events during the project. This allows you to deliver your project on time,

on budget and with the quality results your project sponsor demands.

You have to make the risk management of part of your project. You have to identify the risk at

an earlier stage of your project. You have to identify and analyze the threads and the

opportunities. You have to make a priority list of risks. You have to clarify the ownership of the

risks. Each project member has to know if he or she has the responsibility to optimize a given

risk for the project. You have to plan and implement the responses to the risks during the

project. Associate the risks to the appropriate tasks, and tracking the risks.


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Communication management

You have to make a plan of project meeting. For time to time the members of the project have to

meet and speak about the activities, the risks and they have to present the outcomes of the given

phases. The project members have to harmonize the field they are responsible and make

correction in the plan if it is needed. Some project needs to disseminate materials at the end of

some phases.

Running the Microsoft Office Project

Choose the Windows’ Start

menu; from Programs

choose Microsoft Office and then

Microsoft Office Project 2007,

than you will get

a new, blank project.

The Microsoft Office Project is

not a member of any

Microsoft Office package.

Here we use the Microsoft

Office Project 2007.

Prerequisites

We cannot deal with all the parts of computer use. We assume that you are familiar with the use

of computer keyboard and mouse. In this document we suppose that you can use the Microsoft

Windows and the Microsoft Windows based products. We assume that you know what the file

and folder mean, and you can find them on your computer if you want.

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Parts of the window

The window of the MS project 2007 is divided into three main parts:

Task Area – contains the task names and other features of the tasks.

Gantt Chart – can show many features of the task, such as duration, links, resources, etc.

Project Guide Pane – helps you to develop the project, and special parts of the projects.

If you do not see the Project Guide Pane it might be a good idea if you turn on the project guide

because it can help you making your first project plan: From the Tools menu choose the

Options… and the Options dialog box appear. Click on the Interface tab and turn on the Project

Guide.


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Developing a project

Create a new project

If you opened the Microsoft Project from the Start and Programs (All Programs) menu, you

have a new blank project that you can work with.

If you want to create another project, click on the File menu,

choose the New… option, and select the possibilities you

have: You can create a Blank Project; you can open an

existing project, or you can use a template for creating the

new project.

If you choose the Templates >> On computer… option, you get the Templates dialog box that

shows those templates which are installed on your computer. As you can see on this figure

below, there are many templates that you can use.

You can find many templates on the Microsoft Office Online website, too. If you chose

Templates on Office Online option from the Templates group, a web browser will be opened

presenting the Microsoft Office Online website, where you can browse the many different

templates and can choose from tem.

Save the project with the name ‘ABproject’. From the File menu choose Save, select a folder, enter

the ABproject name into the File name field, then click Save.

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Project settings

For designing your project, you can use the options of the Project Guide pane or you can set all

of the necessary settings and enter data from the menus of the Microsoft Project. In this guide

we do not use the Project Guide.

The first task is to give the basic settings of the project. Here we do not deal with all options that

you can set, only the most important data that you need in designing your project.

Start date

From the Project menu choose Project Information. In the Project Information for ‘ABproject’

dialog box give the Start date for the project. The dates of the project tasks will fit to this date.

Here we chose 15th of January in 2013.

If you do not have any restriction, do not set the Finish date. If the Finish date is not given, it will

be calculated based on the tasks that the project contains.

Calendars

For scheduling the project task, you will need calendars. You will need a “standard” calendar

that can be assigned to most of the resources.

You will need calendars for human resources, for example for the designer who can work for

the projects only on Tuesday afternoon from 14.30 to 19.00 and Wednesday morning from 8.00

to 10.45, for the truck driver who can work only 6 hours per day from Tuesday to Saturday.

You will need calendars for not human resources such as truck, cranes or plotters that you need

for project tasks and you have to hire them.


66

The Standard calendar has to be set first.

From the Project menu select the Project Information option. In the Project Information for

‘ABproject’ dialog box you can set the Standard calendar as default.

Then from the Tools menu, choose Options… In the Options dialog box click on the Calendar tab.

You have to enter the first day of the working week, the time when the work starts and ends,

how many hours per day, hours per week, days per month people will work for the project by

default.

Creating a new calendar: Choose Tools >> Change Working Time and

Click on the Create New Calendar button for creating a new calendar. Or

Select a person whose calendar you want to modify. Or

Select an existing calendar and modify it. Here you can give for example the national

holidays, too.

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On the Exceptions tab you can give extensions such as illness or vacation. Here M. Smith will on

holiday at the end of January.

On the Work Weeks you can modify the settings of the work week. Here M. Smith works until 2

o’clock on Friday.


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Rates

On the General tab of the Tools >> Options dialog box you can set the default standard and

overtime rates that the program will use automatically based on the calendars.

On the Schedule tab you have to give the units for the settings. Here we chose Days for entering

the duration of the tasks and Hours for giving working time.

Tasks

After you made the preliminary settings of the project, you have to give the tasks of the project.

You have to organize the tasks into a structure. In this point of view, you have four groups of

tasks that you can work with:

Simple tasks are those tasks that can be described and planned by giving the time that

they need, the resources, and so on. For example: drawing the illustration for a book.

Recurring tasks that occur at regular intervals, such as project meetings.

Milestones form a special group of tasks. These special tasks (or events) are important in

the project life such as a control, a decision made by the management, the arrival of

permission etc. Usually they have 0 hour duration (from the point of view of the project)

for example the arrival of the building permit needs no efforts from the project members.

Sometimes the milestone tasks need some time, for example making a decision by the

project management.

Summarizing tasks help to organize the project into phases. These tasks contain tasks with

their properties. The duration of these tasks are counted by summarizing the durations of

its subtasks.

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Simple tasks

You can give the names of the tasks in the Task Name column in the Task Area. For entering the

task name you have to click on a cell in the Task Area and type the task name.

In the task list you can see some tasks. We entered only the names of the tasks. (Settings later.)

Milestones

Most of these tasks are “simple” tasks, but the acceptance of the application design is not a

simple task, it will be a milestone in the project. For making this application a milestone, double

click on the task, or click first on the task and then on the Task Information icon. You will get the

Task Information dialog box.

Look at the Gantt area. You can see that each simple task is represented by a small (one day

long) blue rectangle, and after setting this task as a milestone, the rectangle changed to a black

diamond.


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Recurring tasks

During a project there are meetings and other recurring task. For inserting a recurring task, click

on the Insert menu and choose the Recurring Task option. You get the Recurring Task

Information dialog box where you can give several settings of the task.

Here we entered the name of the meeting, the duration (2 hours) and the recurrence pattern: The

programmers will have to meet on Tuesday every week. The start and the end date will be set

later. After clicking the OK button, you will get a recurring task in your project.

Summarizing tasks

If you want to designate phases in the project, you have to insert summarizing tasks at the

beginning of the group of the related tasks. The previous task list you have to insert a task before

the first task.

Click on the first task and press the Ins (or Insert) key on the keyboard, or from the Insert

menu choose the New Task option. An empty task line will be inserted above the

selected task.

Enter the name of the summarizing task: Preliminary Phase.

Click on the next task because it has to be push into a subtask position in the Preliminary

Phase.

Click on the Indent icon.

The sign of the summarizing task in the Gantt area has been changed: It is black now, and there

are two small arrows at the ends of the black bar. This sign denotes that this task is a

summarizing task.

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Insert more phases into the list and use the Indent icon for making the task subtasks. If you want

to see the summarized data of the whole project, it is useful to insert a Project Total onto the

highest level of the list. You can check the result on the next picture.

Inserting, deleting tasks, changing task level and options

Entering the data of a task: If you click on an empty cell in the Task Name column on the Task

Pane, you can enter the name of the task.

Inserting a task between to existing tasks: Press the Ins (or Insert) key on the keyboard, or from

the Insert menu choose the New Task option. An empty task line will be inserted above

the selected task, and you can enter the data of the task.

Changing the settings of a task: Double-click on the task, or select the task and click on the Task

Information icon. Then you will get the Task Information dialog box.

Deleting a task: The easiest way is to select the whole row of the task by clicking on the number

of the task row, then press the Del (or Delete) key on the keyboard.

Putting the task on a lower level: click on the Indent icon

If you want to bring a task to a higher level, you have to click on the Outdent icon.


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Duration

You have to give duration for each task. Minutes, hours, weeks and months can be used. If you

want to fix the duration of a task, you have to select the Fixed Duration option from the Task

Type menu of the Task Information dialog box. Otherwise the duration will be recalculated

based on the work or on the unit of the work.

The tasks are not scheduled yet, so the starting date is the same at each task, and the duration of

the whole project is equal to the duration of the longest task.

Scheduling tasks

Links

Now you have to make links between tasks.

There are more tasks for scheduling the project:

Finish-to-Start (FS) : The previous task has to be finished before the other can start

Start-to-Start (SS) : The tasks have to start in the same time

Finish-to-Finish (FF) : The tasks have to be finished in the same time

Start-to-Finish (SF) : A task can finished when the other has been started.

If you insert a link, you will have a Finish to start link that you can change to another one if you

need it.

Select those tasks that you want to link to each other. (Hold down the Ctrl key and click

on the tasks you want to select.)

Click on the Link Tasks icon. The tasks will be linked. In the Predecessors column you will

see the number of the task that has to be completed before the start of this task.

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You can change the type of the link: Double click on the link arrow, and perform the necessary

settings in the small dialog box: Change its type or delete the link between these tasks.

Predecessors

A task that must be completed before another task can start. This is called a predecessor. You

can see the predecessors in the Predecessors column. The first task has no predecessor and each

of the following tasks has to have at least one. In our example we set only some predecessors

now.

In some cases a task might have more than one predecessors. It means that more than one tasks

have to be completed before that one can start. In other cases a task may be predecessor to

several others. In our example, the task number 10 is the predecessor for two tasks (11 and 13),

and the task number 23 has two predecessors (21 and 22).


74

You can check the types of the links in this column. The default is the Finish-to-Start which is not

signed, but the others are denoted.

After completing the schedule, we got that the project needs – under these conditions – 49.38

days.

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Managing resources

As you could see at the beginning of this chapter, there are more types of resources that we have

to handle. In Microsoft Project, resources are grouped into three groups:

Work resources: People and equipment

Material resources: Supplies and stocks

Cost resources: just money.

You can make the setting concerning the resources on the Resources Sheet. From the View

menu, select the Resources Sheet option and you will get a dialog box where you can give the

data for all resources you will need for the project.

Then you have to assign the resources to the tasks.


76

Go back to the Gantt Chart view (View menu). In the Resources names column you can choose

the resources for a task. A task can have more resources. You can control the resources assigned

to a task from the resources tab of the Task Information dialog box (double click on the task).

You can see at this task that the duration was recalculated because we assigned two people to

this task. If you need the original duration, change the Type of the task.

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Views

For checking and controlling the parts of the projects, you can use different views. You can find

some of the view types in the view menu, and you can choose others if you select the View >>

More Views… menu item. Let us see some of them.

Gantt Charts

Select View >> Gantt Diagram. That is the view that we used in the previous sections in this

chapter. Henry Gantt used these graphical bars in his industrial management studies to

compare timeframes.

PERT diagram – Network Diagram

Select View >> Network Diagram. Here you can check the associations, the links, and resources.


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Critical path – Tracking Gantt

You have to know which task can be and cannot be delayed in the project without delaying the

whole project. Choose the View >> Tracking Gantt view type and you will get information about

the critical path. The red bars are critical, i.e. if they delay, the project will delay. Blue bars are

not on the critical path.