Introduction
"There are corporate executives, wholesalers, retailers and small-businesses owners who talk about their business lives in two time periods: before and after the electronic spreadsheet" - Steven Levy
When Excel 4.0 for Windows was released in April 1992 it pushed back new barriers of ease of learning, ease of use, power and flexibility. Excel is now being used for an ever increasing range of tasks, from straight forward accounting and financial analysis to statistical analysis, what-if forecasting, equation solving and the production of Computer Based Learning materials.
This documentation is for Excel version 5.0 and Excel 97 (part of Office 97) is even more powerful than ever. To give a complete detailed run-down of what Excel can do is impossible in a document this size, but it is hoped that a general overview of the capabilities of the program will be obtained so that the reader will be able to decide if Excel is the right tool for the task he/she wants to perform and will feel confident to try Excel out for themselves.
Aim of this Document
This document is designed to introduce you to the Excel for Windows program.
From the information in this document you should be able to open Excel, find
your way around the interface and use the Help system. You should also be able
to enter data, save files, print files and perform simple calculations.
This document is not intended to act as a comprehensive manual. The official manuals run to 1 thick volume plus 2 accessory manuals. Users who want detailed information are refered to the manuals kept in the Help Desk, or else to the manuals held by the library. Alternatively there are a wide variety of commercial books available that describe the use of Excel in some detail.
The document is intended for anyone wishing to use Excel. It is assumed that you already know how to login to the Novell network, start MS Windows and perform basic MS Windows operations with the mouse. No prior knowledge of Excel or any other spreadsheet package is assumed but it is assumed that you know what a spreadsheet is and what it is used for. In particular you should be familiar with the concepts of the cell reference, relative and absolute cell addressing, ranges and spreadsheet formulae. If you do not you are strongly recommended to read the document Overview of Spreadsheets prior to using this document.
This document simply gives an overview of Excel 5.0, a description of the interface and points you towards further help. It does not give a step-by-step introduction to the program.
