The Excel Ribbon is the most important aspect of the Excel interface and contains the great majority of the program’s commands. The Ribbon is arranged into a series of Tabs, each of which contains a series of related commands. Tabs are accessed simply by simply clicking on the name of each Tab. Within each Tab, commands are organised in groups: the name of each group is displayed at the bottom of the group.

The Home Tab contains the most often used commands. Here you’ll find the commands which one uses all the time; clipboard such as Cut Copy and Paste; commands for formatting the data within your cells; choosing the font; changing the alignment and the format of numbers; commands for chopping and changing cells such as inserting rows and columns; and finally you will also find commands for sorting and editing your data.

As the name suggests, the Insert Tab is used to insert or add items into your worksheets. Some of these items are built into Excel such as charts; other items are inserted from outside the program such as pictures; for example, inserting a company logo.

The Page Layout Tab contains options for controlling the appearance of your worksheets as a whole. Here, you’ll find settings relating to margins, orientation, size of paper and the area of the worksheet to be printed. You will usually go to the page layout Tab before printing worksheets.

The Formulas Tab contains those controls relating to the most powerful aspect of Excel: formulas and functions. Here you can insert functions, look for errors in formulas and control the way in which Excel handles formulas and carries out calculations.

In the Data Tab you will find commands for importing information into Excel from sources such as databases; sorting information and also filtering (in other words returning data which matches certain criteria).

Here you’ll also find advanced tools for validating data, consolidation, performing “What if?” analysis. Also, in the outline section, you will find commands for assigning different levels to different parts of the worksheet. Excel’s outlining commands make large worksheet easier to navigate and to manage.

The principal theme of the Review Tab is checking and protection. It is here that you will find Excel’s spell-checker, commands enabling users to add comments to a worksheet and options for protecting both worksheets and workbooks.

The View Tab contains commands relating to the way in which your worksheets and workbooks are viewed. Here you’ll find commands for zooming in and out on your work and for viewing multiple workbooks and worksheets simultaneously.

The Developer Tab relates to automation. It is here that you’ll find commands for creating macros. Macros enable you to write Visual Basic code which can automate just about every aspect of Microsoft Excel.

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