Data Entry and Analysis in Excel for Windows 95
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Data Entry and Analysis in Excel for Windows 95 | ||
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February 19, 1996 | ||
Microsoft(r) Excel for Windows(r) 95 makes a user's tasks easier by eliminating some of the steps required to complete them. Let's take a look at three of the most useful features in Microsoft Excel for Windows 95 that can save you time and effort: AutoFilter, AutoComplete, and AutoCorrect.
AutoFilter lets users see only the categories specified
from drop-down lists right on the worksheet. AutoFilter is perhaps
the most elegant feature in Microsoft Excel 5.0, due to its simplicity
and almost universal appeal. AutoFilter allows the user to view
only those rows of a list that contain a specific entry. For example,
in the following list, the user can filter for all rows that contain
the continent Asia.
In studying how people use Microsoft Excel 5.0 AutoFilter,
Microsoft noticed that people often want to find fields that contain
numerical data that isn't easy to match. Therefore, Microsoft
Excel for Windows 95 AutoFilter includes a Top 10 filter. For
example, instead of trying to figure out how to search for countries
with populations greater than 200 million, Top 10 picks the top
10 countries by population:
Users can further refine the AutoFilter selection by requesting the top 5 percent of countries, as shown below. The Top 10 dialog box helps users build the right expression to see just the rows they want.
You can see the benefits of using AutoFilter by downloading an interactive sample file . For more information on AutoFilter, see Getting Results and online Help in Microsoft Excel for Windows 95.
Research in spreadsheet usage shows that data entry
is the second most common task performed: users often enter the
same text repeatedly into a spreadsheet. In many instances, they
are entering data in lists, and repeat entries typically consist
of company names, products, or regions. In the past, people have
used copy and paste, AutoFill, Fill Down and custom AutoFill to
duplicate these entries. AutoComplete eliminates data entry errors
and speeds repetitive data entry by automatically completing an
entry (based on previous entries) as the first few letters in
a cell are typed. When the user begins to type in a cell, AutoComplete
scans up and down in the column to find a match for what the user
is typing. If it finds a match, AutoComplete fills in the rest
of that text.
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For users who would prefer not to type any portion of repetitive
entries, AutoComplete is also available through a drop-down list
of previous entries. This helps enhance accuracy by ensuring that
users don't enter duplicate data incorrectly.
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For more information on AutoComplete, see Getting Results and online Help in Microsoft Excel for Windows 95.
Entering and editing data in worksheets can account for up to 50 percent of a user's time in Microsoft Excel. To make this task faster and more accurate, Microsoft Excel for Windows 95 introduces AutoComplete to speed repetitive data entry. For the many other cases where users are typing in original data, Microsoft Excel offers AutoCorrect, first introduced in Microsoft Word 6.0 for Windows(r). AutoCorrect fixes common typographical errors in cells as well as capitalization mistakes, eliminating the time required to correct mistakes.
AutoCorrect can also speed data entry by allowing users to type in "shorthand"-users type abbreviations that AutoCorrect expands into full entries.
AutoCorrect shares a replacement list with the other Office applications. Once the user adds words to the list in Microsoft Word, the words also appear in the AutoCorrect list for Microsoft Excel. This list begins with several hundred entries, and users can add their own replacement list manually or as they run a spell check on a worksheet. For more information on AutoCorrect, see Getting Results and online Help in Microsoft Excel for Windows 95.
Quick data entry and analysis is simpler than ever before if you use Microsoft Excel for Windows 95. Be sure to watch this space in the future for profiles on the latest features in the Microsoft Office suite of applications.
