Introduction Microsoft Excel  (full name  Microsoft Of fice Excel)  is  a  spread sheet-applica tion  written  and  distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Win dows and Mac OS X. It fea tures calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables and a macro pro gram ming language called  VBA  (Vi sual Ba sic for Applications). It has been the most widely used spreadsheet application available for these platforms since version 5 in 1993. Excel is included as  part of Microsoft Office. A spreadsheet is a  software tool that lets one enter,  calculate,  manipulate and  analyse  set of numbers.

Worksheet ::  It is  a grid  of cells  made up of horizontal rows and vertical columns.  Worksheet contains 65,536 rows and 256 columns.

Row Number  :: Each row is given a number that identifies it, starts from  1, 2, 3,  4, … so on.

Column  Letter ::Each column  is given a  let ter that iden ti fies it,  starts from A … Z, AA … AZ, BA …  BZ, … IA – IV.

Cell  ::  It is  a ba sic unit of worksheet where num bers, text, for mu las etc, can be placed.

Cell Pointer ::It is a  cell-bound ary that spec i fies which cell is ac tive at that mo ment.

Current  Cell ::  It is a  cell which is ac tive.

Range of Cell  ::  It is a group of con tig u ous cells that forms a rect an gu lar area in shape.

Work Book :: A worksheet  is a grid of cells  made up of rows and col umns.  Mul ti ple worksheets can be com bined un der a file know as work book.

Data in Worksheet  :: Three types of data can be en tered, num bers/char ac ters (012345678 + – (), 1 $; %, E,  e), text and for mu las.

Formula ::  It is  a se quence of val ues,  cell ad dress,  names func tions  or op er a tors  in a cell that  pro duces  a new value from ex ist ing values. Cell  Ref er enc ing  Each cell in worksheet has  a unique ad dress,  when cell ad dress is  re ferred  in for mu las, it is called cell ref er enc ing. Rel a tive  Ref er enc ing 

Cell referencing :: in which the cells are re ferred by their rel a tive po si tion in the worksheet  rel a tive  to  a  par tic u lar  cell.

Referencing  Cell ::  ref er enc ing in which the cells are re ferred by their fixed po si tion (ab so lute po si tion) in  the worksheet.

Mixed  Referencing  :: Com bi na tion  of  rel a tive  and  ab so lute  ref er enc ing  is  called  mixed  ref er enc ing.

Functions  ::Functions  are  predefined  formulas  that  per form  calculations  by  using  spe cific  val ues,  called arguments.

Arguments  :: Ar gu ments are the val ues passed to the  func tions, us ing which the  func tion car ries out some task. It can be numbers,  text,  logical values, constants,  formulas  or other functions.

Structure  :: The struc ture of a func tion be gins with the  func tion name, fol lowed  by an open ing pa ren the sis, the ar gu ments for the func tion sep a rated by com mas and a clos ing parenthesis.

Charts :: Charts/Graphs are the pictorial representation of worksheet data.

Area Chart  :: An area  chart emphasizes  the magnitude of change over  time.

Column Chart  :: A column chart shows  data-changes  over a period of time or illustrates comparisons among item.

Bar Chart  :: It illustrates  comparisons  among individual items. Categories are organized vertically and values horizontally.

Line  Chart :: It shows trends  in data at equal intervals. It is useful for depicting the change in a value over a period  of time.

Pie Chart ::  It shows  the proportional size of items that make up  a data  series  to the sum of the items.

XY  (Scatter) Chart  ::It shows  the relationships  among the numeric values in several data series or  plots two groups  of numbers  as series of  XY  coordinates.

X-axis :: This is a horizontal  axis known as category axis.

Y-axis :: This  is a vertical axis  known as values  axis.

Data series ::  This  is the set of values you want to plot  in the chart.

Chart area ::  This is the total  region surrounding the chart.

Plot area  ::  The area where data is plotted. The plot area is bounded by axes in a 2D-chart whereas in 3Dchart it is bounded by walls and floor.

Chart title :: The descriptive text aimed at helping user identify the chart.

Axis title  :: These are the titles  given to three axis  ie, X, Y, Z.

Legend  :: The legend helps to identify various  plotted  data series.

Gridlines  :: These are horizontal and vertical lines which inserted in the chart to  enhance its readability.

Data Label :: It provides additional information about a data marker.