Using Excel to keep track of basic information

Suppose you’d like to keep a list of contacts with parents about students so that you have documentation of these conversations or emails.

Open Excel.   Create column headers such as those in the example.  Bold the column headers. Adjust the column widths by clicking between the column letters and dragging to the right until you have the width you like.

A	B	C	D
Parent Contacts
Name	Date	Email/phone	Communications

 

Click on the column which is likely to have a lot of content, in this case Email/Phone Communications.  Highlight the column by clicking on the column letter, in this case D, and then on Wrap Text (in the Home tab).   This will allow you to have lots of content without having your spreadsheet be two feet wide.  It will look something like this when the text wraps:

As you’re entering data, you’ll notice a couple of things.  Dates:  As you enter a date, Excel often changes the format.  If you prefer a different format, highlight the column by clicking on the column letter, then click on General in the number area in the Home tab.  You have many choices for date here (including More Number Formats at the bottom). 

Names:  if you enter a student’s name a second time, Excel will offer the entire name as you start to type it in. If this is the name you want, just press enter.  If this is another student, just continue typing the different student’s name. 

 

You could just use this as a way to keep notes.  However, Excel has some handy features that will make this even more helpful.  Suppose you want to see all the notes about one student together.  You can sort your data.  Here’s how:

First either highlight all your data, or click somewhere inside your spreadsheet data.  Then click on the Data tab and then on Sort.  Click on the down arrow next to Sort by and you will see a list of columns to sort by.  You’ll notice that Excel has figured out that you have column headers and has entered them here.  You can change what you want to Sort on and the Order if you wish as well.  Click on OK to actually sort.

If you forgot to bold your column headers, Excel won’t know what you want, so you may need to click on the red X and correct this before you continue. 

If you mess up, use the handy undo key.

Now you have a list sorted by student, so that all the information about one student is together,  handy if you have to speak about this student to an administrator or parent. 

Of course, you could also sort by any of the other headers.  And since you have more than 2 columns, you can even do a multi-level sort.  Simply click on Add level and determine how you want your data sorted.

To make your sheet even more useful, date stamp it.  Click on the Insert Tab, then on Header/Footer, then on Current Date.  It looks odd on the sheet, but this will give you the current date every time you print out this sheet, handy in seeing if this is the most recent one.

You have one more thing to do to make your spreadsheet useful.  So that everything prints out on one page, change the page orientation, like this.  Click on the Page Layout tab, then Orientation, then on Landscape. This changes the way your spreadsheet will print. 

If this still doesn’t put it all together you’d like, click on the Page Layout tab, then on Size, then on More Paper Sizes (at the bottom of the choices).  You’ll get this Page Setup dialog.  Click on Fit to.  If you think putting it all one one sheet will make it too tiny, then make it 1 page(s) wide by 2 (or more) page(s) tall.  (You can also get to this dialog via Print Preview.)

To see what this will look like without wasting paper, click on Microsoft Office button (where the File button used to be), then Print, then Print preview.  One of the options in the Print preview view is Page Setup so you can modify things until you’re happy with what you see.

Now you have a spreadsheet, sorted by student name, ready to use.

 

If you want the gridlines to show when you print (often gridlines makes the sheet easier to read), click on Gridlines to Print in the Page Layout tab.

 

There are many other tasks you can accomplish with Excel.  This is just one example.

 

 

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