GETTING STARTED WITH EXCEL

Introduction

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet tool that organizes data into rows and columns. Excel is useful in data cleaning, filtering and analysis.
In this article, we will start from basic excel capabilities and gradually build up to advanced data cleaning.

Core Concepts of Excel

Ribbon in Excel

Ribbon is the menu bar you see at the top of Excel sheet
It contains different tools and commands that help you work with your work

1.Home — basic formatting, alignment, number formats, and editing tools.
2.Insert — used to insert tables, PivotTables, charts, and other visual elements.
3.Page Layout **— controls how worksheets are arranged and displayed when printed.
4.Formulas **— provides access to Excel functions and formula-related tools.

1. Data **— used for data analytics. It contains tools for sorting, filtering, removing duplicates, data validation, and other data management activities. 6.Review — includes tools for reviewing, commenting, and protecting worksheets. 7.View **— controls how the workbook and worksheets are displayed.

Rows,Columns,Cells

Rows- runs horizontally across the worksheet and are usually represented by numbers.
Columns - runs vertically across the worksheet and are represented by letters
Cell - Formed when a row and a column meet e.g D7

Data Types

A data type is basically the different information contained in a cell. It can take different forms e.g Text, Numbers, Currency, Percentage

Data Cleaning

I learnt some basic data cleaning techniques such as;

1. Removing duplicates
2. Handling missing values
3. Removing extra spaces with_ TRIM() 4. Standardizing text with UPPER(), _LOWER(),PROPER()
4. Fixing inconsistent dates

Raw Uncleaned data

Cleaned data

Data Validation

The restrictions on the type of data user can input into a cell. (Dropdown lists, Numbers , ranges, date limits, text length)

Data Cleaning And Formatting

Removing duplicates: Prevents inflated results in analysis.
Mombasa
Mombasa
Standardizing text this ensures consistency
NAIROBI
NairoBi
checking dates: corrects inconsistent format and invalid entries, fixing words format:
use PROPER() to standardize capitalization in names.

Conclusion

In conclusion data cleaning in excel is more the a technical step, it is the foundation of reliable analysis. This is a effective data cleaning turns Excel from a simple spreadsheet tool into a powerful engine for analytics.