A worksheet is an effective tool for keeping track of all sorts of data. You can track student attendance, books you have read and their authors, a check register, a list of major purchases and the amounts, or student organization trips you have gone on and their dates and costs. If students are tracking any type of data, then creating a worksheet can help those students easily manage the information.

CREATING AN ATTENDANCE WORKSHEET

This activity is easier if you have a set of data available to add to the worksheet. Any type of information works. The example worksheet is a student attendance worksheet. The data used for this worksheet includes student names, student numbers, and dates.

To Create A Worksheet And Add Text

1. Open Microsoft Excel 2000. A new workbook opens.

2. At the top of the worksheet, right-click the B (column header) and click Format Cells.

3. On the Number tab in the Category box, click Text and then click OK. This keeps the student numbers in this column exactly as you type them.

4. Click cell A3. Type High Score. Click cell A4.

5. Type a student name, last name first (for example, Jensen, Camille).

The words may not be entirely visible in the selected cell. The information is still there, and later, you will format the column so you can see all of the information.

6. Click cell B4 or press TAB.

7. Type in the student’s ID number.

8. Click cell A5.

9. Type the next student’s name, press the right arrow, and type the student ID number.

10. Continue to type each of the names and student numbers for the students in one class. For this exercise, enter in data for at least five students.

11. Double-click the Sheet 1 tab in the lower-left corner and type Attendance.

TO ADD DATES TO THE ATTENDANCE WORKSHEET

1. Click cell C2 to select it.

2. Type the first date of class in mm/dd/yyyy order.

3. With the cell still selected, place the pointer over the lower-right corner of the cell until the pointer turns into a + sign.

4. Click and drag the pointer across the next 4 cells in the row. Excel 2000 automatically fills in the next four dates.

5. Click cell H2 and repeat steps 2-4 to fill in the dates for the next week. For this exercise, two weeks will be sufficient.

6. On the left side of the worksheet, right-click the row 2 header and click Format Cells.

7. On the Number tab in the Category box, click Date.

8. In the Type list, select the date format you want and click OK. All the dates change to the selected format.

TO ADJUST COLUMN WIDTHS

When “#######” appears in a cell, the cell is too narrow for the data to be displayed.

1. Select the columns in your worksheet by clicking the A column header and dragging across to the last column in which you have dates entered.

2. Move the pointer over the border between any two-column headers until the pointer changes to a double arrow.

3. Double-click. The columns automatically adjust the width to the longest text in their respective columns.

4. On the File menu, click Save As and type Attendance in the File name box.