Excel Basics & Formatting
A quick, visual overview of the Excel interface and basic formatting tools — the essential context before you start writing formulas.
What Is Excel & How Is It Organised?
Excel is a grid-based spreadsheet — an enormous table of rows and columns where every intersection is a cell. Each cell has a unique address (like B5) and can hold a value, a label, or a formula. That's it. Everything else you ever learn in Excel — formulas, Pivot Tables, charts — happens inside this grid.
🖥️ Excel Interface — Click Any Part to Learn About It
This is what you see when you open Excel. Click each highlighted button to understand what it does.
Click any highlighted part of the Excel window to learn what it does.
Making Data Readable & Professional
Formatting in Excel does not change your data— it only changes how it looks. A number is still a number even if it's bold, red, or displays as ₹1,000. Understanding this distinction is critical for any analyst.
Cell Formatting
- Bold / Italic / Underline (Ctrl+B / I / U)
- Font family, size and colour
- Background fill colour
- Borders — thin, thick, all sides
- Text alignment (left, centre, right, wrap)
Number Formats
- General — Excel decides (default)
- Number — decimal places control
- Currency / Accounting — ₹1,234.50
- Percentage — 0.85 → 85%
- Date — 2024-01-15 or 15-Jan-2024
- Custom — you define the pattern
Conditional Formatting
- Highlight cells automatically based on rules
- Red cells for negative values
- Green scale for high-to-low ranking
- Data bars to visualise magnitude
- Icon sets (arrows ↑↓ for trends)
- Top 10 / Bottom 10 automatic highlight
Excel Tables (Ctrl+T)
- Converts a range into a structured table
- Auto-adds filter dropdowns to headers
- Formulas use friendly names: Table1[Amount]
- Auto-expands when you add new rows
- Provides built-in table design styles
- Basis for Power Query and Pivot Tables
Ctrl+T to format your data as an official Excel Table BEFORE building any formula or Pivot Table. It makes everything easier and more robust.Quick Knowledge Check
8 questions covering both Excel Basics and Formatting — confirm you're ready to move to formulas