Excel Order of Operations to Keep in Mind

The worksheet cell that contains the cell cursor. Each worksheet can have only one active cell.

An Excel 2007 add-in program that adds extra financial, statistical, and engineering functions to Excel's pool of built-in functions.

A feature that looks at the entries that you make in a worksheet column and automatically duplicates them in subsequent rows whenever you start a new entry that begins with the same letter or letters as an existing entry in that column.

A feature that alerts Excel 2007 to common typing errors and your own typing errors (that you specify) and tells the program how it should automatically fix them for you.

An Excel 2007 feature that quickly creates a series of entries based on the data you enter in one or two cells. AutoFill works with days of the week, months of the year, yearly quarters; consecutive series of numbers; and formulas. You also can add your own custom AutoFill series.

A feature in Excel 2010 that enables you to temporarily hide everything in a table except the records you specifically want to view, based on criteria you specify.

A new feature in Excel 2010 — accessible from the green File tab — that enables you to manage files and to view the properties and stats about the workbook file you're editing.

The intersection of a column and row in the worksheet.

The cell identifier, determined by its column letter(s) followed by the row number, as in cell A1, the very first cell of each worksheet at the intersection of column A and row 1.

An electronic version of a sticky note that you can add to a cell but that does not print.

The black border that surrounds the active cell in a worksheet.

Readymade drawings, illustrations, and photos offered by Microsoft for use in Microsoft Office applications.

Graphical or text buttons located in groups on Excel 2007's Ribbon that you select to perform a particular action or to open a gallery from which you can click a particular thumbnail.

A utility in Excel 2007 and 2010 that you use to find potential compatibility issues if you plan to save an Excel workbook file in the older Excel 97–2003 file format.

A feature that enables you to have Excel 2007 change the appearance of your cell data if certain conditions (that you specify) are met.

The worksheet cell that contains the cell cursor. Each worksheet can have only one current cell.

A range of cells in a worksheet in which you enter a series of possible values that Excel plugs into a formula so you can perform what-if analysis on the data.

A rectangular window with settings and commands that appears when you click a dialog box launcher or certain other commands on the Ribbon.

A small icon in the lower-right corner of a group of command buttons on the Ribbon that you click to access a dialog box with additional related settings and commands.

A type of cell entry that instructs Excel to perform a calculation.

The horizontal toolbar located below the Ribbon that displays the cell address and the contents of the current cell. Use the Formula bar to enter or edit formulas and cell entries and assign names to cells.

A part of a formula that takes a number of specific arguments and then returns a single value based on those arguments.

A drop-down list of thumbnail selections that appears when you click certain command buttons on the Ribbon.

A section of a tab on the Excel 2007 Ribbon that organizes related command buttons into subtasks normally performed as part of the tab's larger core task. The name of a group appears at the bottom of the group, such as the Font group on the Home tab.

Specially formatted text that anyone can click to jump to Web sites, move to other cells or workbooks, or create an e-mail message.

A combination of keys that you can press to execute certain commands, as opposed to finding and clicking the commands' buttons on the Ribbon or elsewhere.

A feature in Excel 2007 that enables you to point to thumbnails on a drop-down gallery to see how a new font, font size, table style, or cell style would look on your selected data before you actually apply it.

A series of commands or actions in Excel that are recorded and saved together in a file. You can run the macro whenever you need to perform the task.

A small toolbar that displays commonly used formatting commands (along with a shortcut menu) when you right-click a cell in the worksheet.

The left-most section of the Formula bar that displays the address or name of the current cell.

The round button with the four-color Office icon at the top left corner of the Excel 2007 program window, which provides access to common file-related commands.

File format developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated that enables people to open and print documents without access to the original programs with which the documents were created.

A special type of table unique to Excel 2007 that enables you to summarize large amounts of data and pivot or rearrange the table's data to display different summaries of the information it contains.

A small toolbar to the right of the Office button that includes buttons for commands you use often, such as Save and Undo. You can add buttons to customize the toolbar.

A new feature of the Excel 2007 interface that replaces the menus and toolbars of previous versions; appears at the top of the Excel window, just below the title bar.

A small window that displays descriptive text when you point to but don't click a command on the Ribbon or other objects in a worksheet.

Horizontal and vertical bars that appear on the bottom and right side of the worksheet window and enable you to quickly move to a different area of a worksheet.

Icons that appear immediately to the left of the sheet tabs in a workbook, which enable you to bring new tabs into view for worksheets that contain too many sheets for their tab names to appear at the bottom of a workbook.

Small tabs near the bottom of a worksheet that you click to move between the worksheets in a workbook. You can assign descriptive names to sheet tabs.

A menu that displays context-sensitive commands when you right-click a cell or object in a worksheet.

New graphic objects in Excel 2010 that enable you to quickly filter the contents of a PivotTable on more than one field.

A type of graphic object in Excel 2007 that gives you the ability to quickly and easily construct graphical lists and diagrams in the worksheet.

Tiny graphs (miniature charts) that fit within a single cell in the worksheet, used to show basic trends in data.

A horizontal bar that appears at the bottom of the Excel 2007 window and keeps you informed of Excel's current mode. In addition, you can use the Status bar to select a new worksheet view and to zoom in and out on the worksheet.

The various "pages" of Excel 2007's Ribbon interface that you click to display command buttons relating to the tab's name, such as Page Layout and Formulas.

A pre-designed worksheet that can be used as a basis for creating new worksheets.

Stylized text objects that you use to add pizzazz and emphasis to headings and other text in Excel 2007 worksheets.

The basic file type that you create when you use Excel 2007. A new workbook consists of three worksheets by default.

The main document that you work in when you enter data into cells within Excel 2007. A worksheet is stored in a workbook file.

The portion of an Excel 2007 worksheet in which you enter cell data and add objects such as charts and graphics.

A file format developed by Microsoft that enables people to open and print documents in XPS Reader without access to the original programs with which the documents were created (such as Excel).

An object on the Status bar in Excel 2007 that enables you to increase the magnification in a worksheet or shrink it down to get an overall picture of the worksheet data.