Excel is a program which is meant to manipulate data. It works on the principle of a "spreadsheet", a large sheet of cells. Each cell may contain numeric data, text, build-in functions, or user defined expressions. In the latter cases, Excel always evaluates these functions to a numerical value; Excel does not manipulate algebraic expressions.
Upon starting Excel, the program opens up a new spreadsheet, and displays the upper left hand corner of it. Such a spreadsheet is illustrated below. Each cell is labeled by a column number (a letter by default) and a row number (a number by default); for instance, cell A1 is the upper-leftmost cell. The cursor can be located in any cell by clicking on the target cell. Its location is always reflected in the "cursor location field".
Excel displays by default a menu bar at the top of the screen. Some of the functions available by a button click are related to the "environment" in which Excel functions; for instance the opening or closing of worksheets, the printing, and the saving of worksheets to disk can be controlled via this menu bar. Some of these functions are equivalent to those provided by the Windows or Macintosh menu bar in the application, typically found under the "file" down-menu. Some of the global functions buttons on the menu bar are described below.
Chapter 5
Section 5.2
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