We can use the column/row to address a cell (like C5), but we can also give meaningful names to individual cells, or groups of cells.

There are a number of statistical functions (see the statistics page), but here is a good set of functions to summarize a data set.

In the Data Analysis Toolpak, there is a tool that will compute the descriptive statistics for a data set. The calculations are just numbers (and not formulas) so if you change the data, you will have to rerun the tool.

The filter command allows you to take a data set and sort it using different columns and to select rows that meet your criteria (and hide the rest).

The SUBSTITUTE() function will find and replace text. There is also a REPLACE() function, but it requires you to know the position of the characters you want replace, so it is a bit less useful.

Sometimes the uppercase/lowercase format for data is not appropriate. Excel has functions to change the way text looks.

Sometimes we need to manipulate only a part of a text string, and there are Excel functions for doing that.

Excel allows for text functions to “add” text together. It also allows numbers to be converted to a string of characters, rather than a numeric value.

When you copy and paste from browsers (or other applications), often the formatting of the data is just right – you get the columns that you want. But sometimes Excel does not do create the columns correctly, and for that we have a tool for converting Text to Columns.

Cell references get a bit more complex when using cells from other sheets, but they can be created with the mouse, and formulas can be copied to access multiple cells across sheets. Named ranged become even more useful when using multiple sheets for a model.