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Entering and Editing Worksheet Data 3
Formulas can be simple mathematical expressions, or they can use some of the powerful functions that are
built into Excel. Figure 3.1 shows an Excel worksheet set up to calculate a monthly loan payment. The
worksheet contains values, text, and formulas. The cells in column A contain text. Column B contains four
values and two formulas. The formulas are in cells B6 and B10. Column D, for reference, shows the actual
contents of the cells in column B.
ON the CD-ROM
This workbook, named loan payment calculator.xlsx, is available on the companion CD-ROM.
FIGURE 3.1
You can use values, text, and formulas to create useful Excel worksheets.
CROSS-REF
You can find out much more about formulas in Part II.
Entering Text and Values into Your Worksheets
To enter a numerical value into a cell, move the cell pointer to the appropriate cell, type the value, and then
press Enter or one of the arrow keys. The value is displayed in the cell and also appears in Excel’s Formula
bar when the cell is active. You can include decimal points and currency symbols when entering values,
along with plus signs, minus signs, and commas. If you precede a value with a minus sign or enclose it in
parentheses, Excel considers it to be a negative number.
Entering text into a cell is just as easy as entering a value: Activate the cell, type the text, and then press
Enter or an arrow key. A cell can contain a maximum of about 32,000 characters — more than enough to
hold a typical chapter in this book. Even though a cell can hold a huge number of characters, you’ll find
that it’s not possible to actually display all these characters.
If you type an exceptionally long text entry into a cell, the Formula bar may not show all the
TIP
text. To display more of the text in the Formula bar, click the bottom of the Formula bar and
drag down to increase the height (see Figure 3.2).
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