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Last updated on 9/1/22

Take Your First Steps in Excel

Take your first steps in Excel 2019
Take your first steps in Excel 2019

Open Excel

Now let’s start at the beginning! (It’s often the best place to start…) If you want to use Excel, you first need to open the application. You can do this in one of two ways:

  • Open Excel from your desktop.

  • Open Excel from the Windows Start menu.

Open Excel From Your Desktop

Simply double-click the Excel icon  on your desktop.

Open Excel From the Windows Start Menu

Click on the Start button  in the bottom left corner of your screen.

On the Start menu that pops up, the apps you have installed on your computer will appear in alphabetical order.

Click on the Windows Start button for a list of installed apps.
Click on the Windows Start button for a list of installed apps.

Scroll down to “E” to find Excel.

Create a New Workbook

When you open Excel, this is what you’ll see:

Excel Start screen
Excel Start screen

You can now create a new workbook or use an existing template.

You can browse the available templates by clicking New in the green menu on the left. 

The “New” page showing a wide range of Excel templates.
The “New” page showing a wide range of Excel templates.

In the lower part of the window, you can choose from dozens of different templates.

Okay, but what if I don’t want to use a template? I want to create my own workbook! How do I do that?

No problem! Click on New in the upper part of the window or Blank workbook on the welcome screen.

Go back to the Excel Start screen to create a new workbook
Go back to the Excel Start screen to create a new workbook

And this is what you get!

Your very first workbook
Your very first workbook

You've just created your first workbook.

Save Your Workbook

Now that you're in your Excel workbook, you're going to save it.

To save a workbook, click on the Save icon.

Save your workbook using the Save icon
Save your workbook using the Save icon

Save your workbook using the Save icon

Once you've clicked on the Save icon, this dialog box will appear:

This name now appears in the File name section, as you can see here:

Before saving your workbook, you also need to choose where the file will be saved.

For now, let’s just save your file on your computer.

To do this, click on the Choose a Location drop-down list.

The “Save this file” dialog box.
The “Save this file” dialog box.

Then click on the Documents folder, followed by the Save button.

Good news: your file is now saved in the Documents folder on your computer. 🥳 

Now that you’ve saved your workbook for the first time, if you click on the Save icon again, you won’t see the dialogue box again. It will just update the file with anything you’ve added since the last time you saved it.

Try saving a new workbook in your Documents folder using the keyboard shortcut to see if it speeds things up for you!

Close Your Excel Workbook

Now that you've created and saved your first workbook, let’s close it.

Click on the File tab:

The File tab takes you back to the Excel Welcome page
The File tab takes you back to the Excel welcome page

Then, click Close in the green menu on the left.

The “Close” function will close the file that’s currently being used
The “Close” function will close the file that’s currently being used

Watch the Video Tutorial

Watch a step-by-step recap of everything described in this chapter in the tutorial below:

Let’s Recap!

  • To open Excel, you can:

    • double-click the Excel shortcut on your desktop.

    • click the Excel icon in the Start menu.

  • To save an Excel workbook, click on the Save  icon on the Quick Access toolbar.

  • To close a workbook, click on the File tab and then on Close.

  • By clicking on the Close button , you’ll close your workbook and exit from Excel.

Congratulations, you've just created your first workbook! Follow me to the next chapter to create your first file.

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Example of certificate of achievement
Example of certificate of achievement