In Excel, you can create a table and calculate and analyze the data in the table.
As a first step toward using Excel, let's create a table.

Reading this article you will learn how to create and use a table. This article consists of the following two pages.

Practice: Start Excel Refer to "Let's start and quit Excel" for how to start Excel.

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• Let's create a table

Let's create a table

1. Drag to select the range of cells to be used to create the table.

   

2. Click Table in Table on the Insert tab.

   

3. The Create Table dialog box appears. Click the OK button.

   

4. The selected cell range is converted into a table.

   

Tip: When I created the table, a new tab appeared? When you create a table, the Table Tools are displayed, and the Design tab is automatically added to the Ribbon. The commands for changing the table's name and size and its design are grouped together on the Design tab. The Design tab is hidden when you click a cell outside of the table. Click any cell in the table to display the Design tab again.

Tip: When I created the table, cells with text in them appeared! When you create a table, "Column1", "Column2" and similar numbers are entered automatically in the first row of the selected cell range. This is called the "header row".

Creating a table with the first row as a header row

If you want to include table headers in the cell range used to create the table, select the My table has headers check box in the Create Table dialog box. The first row of the selected cell range becomes the header row.
Let's enter a table header and make the first row the table header row.

1. Open a new worksheet, and type in the text we want to make the table header in the cells. For example, let's enter "Breakfast" in "A1", "Lunch" in "B1", and "Dinner" in "C1".

   

2. Drag to select the range of cells to be used to create the table. Here, we are going to make a table from cell "A1" to cell "C4".

   

3. Click Table in Table on the Insert tab.

   

4. The Create Table dialog box appears.[Select the My table has headers check box, and then click the OK button.

   

5. The selected cell range is converted into a table. The cells containing the data from Step 1 are changed to the header row style.

   

   If you created a table in Step 4 with the My table has headers check box cleared, a header row is added automatically.

   

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Next is "Let's customize a table".