• Excel Access at U.C.-Davis
• Starting Excel in Windows
• Standard Excel Setup
• Adding-in the Data Analysis command to Excel
• Versions of Excel
• Purchase of Excel
• Excel Documentation

EXCEL ACCESS AT U.C.-DAVIS

Classes such as Economics 102 have access to the Divisoion of Social Sciences computer lab in SSH 0233.

In addition UCD computer labbs have Excel.
Schedules are available at http://lm.ucdavis.edu/labs/rooms
U.C.-Davis lab computers currently have Microsoft Excel 97 on PC's and Excel 98 on Macintoshes.
The PC labs are (as of Sept 1999) at 1131 Meyer, 301A Surge IV and 27 Olson.
The Mac labs are (as of Sept 1999) at 1 Olson, 21 Olson, 241 Olson, 247 Olson, 1102 Hart and 307 SurgeIV.
These labs are booked for classes in core times of the day and you will generally need to use them outside these hours.
In addition there are open access labs at TB114 and 177MU (The Station) and possibly 301A Surge IV.
On lab computers Microsoft Excel is in the Microsoft Office folder.

You need to logon to the lab computers and logout when done. This requires a campus computing account.
No account? Then go to IT Express in Shields Library room 182 or run the account setup program on a computer in one of the computer labs. Any questions call IT-CAP at 752-2548. It takes 1-2 days for a new account to be set up.
Forgotten password or account name? Then you need to come into IT Express in Shields Library room 182 with photo id.

You can use either PC or Macintosh. I will use PC (Windows 95/98/NT) and the class labs will use PC.
I assume that many (most?) of you will have Excel on home computers while some will use UCD lab computers.
 

STARTING EXCEL IN WINDOWS

One way to start Excel is to go to left-click on the Start menu at the bottom-left hand corner of the computer, then click on programs, and then click on Microsoft Excel (or if there is no separate Excel entry then go to Microsoft Office and within this click on Excel).
 

STANDARD EXCEL SETUP

The standard Excel setup has the following features, beginning at the top of the screen

• Menu bar with items File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Tools, Data, Window and Help .
• Standard Toolbar with icons for New, Open and Save Document; Print and Print Preview; Spelling; Cut, Copy, and Paste; Format Painter; Undo and Redo; Insert Hyperlink and Web Toolbar; Autosum and Functions; Sort Ascending and Sort Descending; Chart Wizard, Map and Drawing; Zoom and Office Assistant.
• Formatting Toolbar with Font and Font Size; bold, italic and underline; align left, center and right; merge and center; currency, percent and comma style; increase and decrease decimal; decrease and increase indents; borders; fill and font color.
• Cell indicator and Formula Bar.
• Workspace area bounded by column numbers A, B, C, .... at top and row numbers 1, 2, 3, ... on left.
• Sheet tabs at bottom which give the file name.

ADDING-IN THE  DATA ANALYSIS COMMAND TO EXCEL

The default configuration of Excel does not automatically support descriptive statistics and regression analysis.
You may need to add these to your computer (a once only operation).

In Excel click on the Tools menu.

• If the Data Analysis command appears in the Tools menu then you are fine.
• If not then you need to select the Add-ins command in the Tools menu and check Analysis ToolPak and Analysis ToolPak - VBA.

VERSIONS OF EXCEL

There are many versions of Excel. Which will do?
I assume Excel 97 for Windows (or more recent than that) since this is available on the lab PC's.
Earlier versions are most likely still okay, except that they may not be able to read in my Excel workbooks which are saved for Excel 97 for Windows. If this is a problem then I will also try to save Excel workbooks for earlier versions.
 

PURCHASE OF EXCEL

At present (September 1999) U.C.-Davis does not have an agreement permitting cheap purchase of Excel.
(This may change in future. For U.C.-Davis site-licenses see https://software.ucdavis.edu:443/highres/search.cfm)
A stand-alone copy of Excel 2000 for Windows at the bookstore costs $132.
 

EXCEL DOCUMENTATION

This web-site has on-line tutorials. This will be a good start but not complete. Additional resources include:

• Books on using Excel for data analysis. I like:

Michael R. Middleton, Data Analysis Using Microsoft Excel: Updated for Office 97,
Duxbury (an imprint of Brooks/Cole a division of Thomson Learning), ISBN 053435968X
Paperback - 270 pages 2 edition (October 1999), $24.
To find other books see www.amazon.com and search on keywords Excel data analysis.
• A statistics text book which provides details on Excel.

For learning Excel this is not as useful as the books tend to be very lengthy. I use:
David M. Levine, Mark L. Berenson and David Stephan, Statistics for Managers Using Microsoft Excel",
Prentice-Hall, Second Edition, 1999. See especially chapter 1 supplement and the separate Excel index at the end of the book.
• Self-paced training tutorials available on-line.

At U.C.-Davis go to http://spt.ucdavis.edu/
and then the easiest course to obtain is the text-based courses at http://spt.ucdavis.edu/tbt/tbtdocs/index.html
• Excel help files.

For further information on how to use Excel go to
   http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/cameron