Computer Tutorials for Beginners

The Excel SumIF Function  - Another useful Excel function is SumIF. This function is like CountIf, except it adds one more argument: SUMIF( range ,  criteria ,  sum_range ) Range and criteria are the same as with  CountIF  - the range of cells to search, and what you want Excel to look for. The Sum_Range is like range, but it searches a new range of cells. To clarify all that, here's what we'll use SumIF for. (Start a new spreadsheet for this.) Five people have ordered goods from us. Some have paid us, but some haven't. The five people are Elisa, Kelly, Steven, Euan, and Holly. We'll use SumIF to calculate how much in total has been paid to us, and how much is still owed. So in Column A, enter the names: In Column B enter how much each person owes: In Column C, enter TRUE or FALSE values. TRUE means they have paid up, and FALSE means they haven't: Add two more labels: Total Paid, and Still Owed. Your spreadsheet should look something li...

A Budget Spreadsheet  - In the small town of Evercrease, the Council managed to collect half a million pounds from its citizens. Unfortunately, the Council spent all of this, and another 69 thousand besides. Naturally, the good people of Evercrease objected to being asked for another 69 thousand pounds. So they got rid of the council and appointed a new one. Have a look at last year's budget, and see if you can do better. Here's the budget where the previous council overspent by 69 thousand pounds: The final budget figure is in cell B33. It says minus £69 000. Your job is to construct the same budget as above, but making sure that you do not have a minus figure in cell B33. Otherwise, the people will fire you as well! The first thing to do is to create the budget exactly as you see it above. When you have exactly the same figures as in the image, you can then start to amend things. For example, do you really need all those ducks and swans? What happens to your budget ...

Review Two  - You've seen a spreadsheet on chocolate addiction. The finished version looked like this: Time now to reveal your addiction! Create a spreadsheet like the one above, but substitute Chocolate Addiction for something else. Examples might be: smoking, drinking, eating out, clothes, makeup - in fact, anything that someone might be spending too much money on. (It doesn't have to be you doing the spending: it can be entirely made up.) Your spreadsheet should include the following: Daily totals Individual totals Weekly total Columns for Prices Columns for Number and Cost Weekly cost Annual cost You can format the spreadsheet any way you like. The colour scheme is entirely up to you. Just make sure that your spreadsheet is easy to follow. In the next section, we'll make start on Charts in Excel. Before that, you'll learn how to sort data.

Review One  - Reproduce the simple spreadsheet below, from a junk-food addict! You can pick your own colours for the cells and data, but try to include everything that's in the image. As well as centred text and numbers, you need to widen the columns. To get the currency symbol, see a   previous section . Also in a previous section , you can see   how to merge cells   for the "Shopping Bill" heading. This should be one cell, and not three. When you have produced the same spreadsheet as ours, you can move on to the next section, which is all about basic formulas in Excel.

Search With Cortana  - If you can't find a file or a program on your computer, you can use the Cortana search box at the bottom of Windows 10. You can even use the search box to open up programs, if you use voice search. You can simply click inside of the box and type whatever you're searching for. In the image below we're searching for Windows 10: Notice the various categories: Best Match, Settings, Web, Store. These categories help you narrow down your search. Click the   More   arrow at the top to see more categories: So, for example, if you were searching for an image, you could click the Photos category to narrow down your search. Cortana would then only search for images. Click the X in the top right to go back to the first list of categories. If you have a look at the top of the first list, you'll see three icons: These are shortcuts to search the Web, search the Documents folder on your computer, and search for Apps. Click one of these, if ...

Create your own Stationery in Outlook Express  - You can create your own stationery in Outlook Express, and add any images you like. Your new stationery will then be available any time you need it. From a new email, click   Format > Apply Stationery > More Stationery   from the menu bar. This will bring up the Select Stationery dialogue box: Click the button   Create New . You'll then get a Wizard popping up. Click next to see the following screen: From this screen, you can select an image to use as your stationery, and specify where it should go on the page. Click the Browse button to select the image you want to use for your stationery. (You don't want to select images that are very large, because the size of the file would be too big. Aim for an image that's no more than 10 to 15 kilobytes in size.) In the images below, we've clicked the Browse button to navigate to an image we want to use: In the two images above, we've chosen a p...

Outlook Express Stationery - Brighten up your Emails  - You can brighten up your emails with the use Outlook Express Stationery. This usually consists of a background image, and formatted font. It's very easy to add Stationery to your emails. Try the following. Open up Outlook Express, and click the icon for " Create Mail ". This will open up a new email, with its own menu bar From the   New Message   menu bar, click   Format   and make sure that "Rich Text (HTML)" is selected: NOTE: If you use Rich Text, it means your emails will be sent using HTML. This means you can do all the fancy formatting you want (bulltes, italics, Bold, etc). However, a lot of people don't like to receive emails that have been formatted using HTML, because there are some security issues involved. For example, some dangerous JavaScript can be executed in the background, if you receive HTML emails. If you use Plain Text, then potential for harm is greatly reduced. You can...

How to backup an Outlook Express Email Account - When you create a new email account in Outlook Express, the process can be quite tricky - especially if you don't know the pop and smtp details, and have had to phone up your ISP to find out! Now that you've set up the email account, it's worth backing up these details, just in case something happens to your PC. Here how to do it. Open up Outlook Express From the menu bar, click on   Tools From the tools menu, select   Accounts From the   Internet Accounts   dialogue box, click on the   Mail   tab at the top From the list of available account, select the account you want to backup Then click the Export button on the right, as in the image below: In the Image above, we've clicked on the Home and Learn email account to select it. The Export button is on the right hand side, near the bottom. When you click the Export button, you'll get the follow dialogue box popping up: The f...

How to Restore Outlook Express Emails - In a previous tutorial, you learn how to backup your Outlook Express emails . In this tutorial, we'll see how to restore them if anything goes wrong with your PC. The process is not quite as long as it was for saving them. Here's how to do it. How to Restore Outlook Express backups Open up Outlook Express Click on the   File   menu From the File menu, select   Import > Messages , as in the image below: When you click   Import > Messages , you get a Wizard popping up. The first screen looks like this: Select   Microsoft Outlook Express 6   from the list, then click   Next . You'll then get this screen: Select "Import mail from and OE6 store directory", as in the image above. Then click OK. You'll then be taken to the next step of the wizard: You now need to select the folder where you saved your Outlook Express backups. So click the Browse button. You can then navigate to ...

Setting up an Outlook Express Email Account (part 2)  - In the   last part , we left it at the point where the Email Account Wizard pops up. We'll continue right now. When the Wizard first starts, it will look like this: Type in a name you want for display purposes. You can type in anything you like here. It doesn't really matter because Outlook Express will completely ignore the name you pick! Click the "Next" button when you're done. The screen will change: You need to type in an email address. Type in the email address you got from your Internet Service Provider. Once you have entered the email address, click Next. You'll get the following screen It looks a very daunting screen, so let's break it down. Your   Incoming mail server is   probably a POP3 one, so leave the drop down box as it is. The first text box is   Incoming mail (POP3, IMAP or HTTP) server . You can usually get these details from your Service Provider...

How to Set up an Outlook Express Email Account - Your Internet Service Provider has probably given you the option to set up more than one email address. Most come with at least five. So you're not limited to just the one. If somebody else in your household wants his/her own address, you should be able to do it. You'll learn how to configure a new address right now (We're using Outllook Express, the most popular Email software.) To set up an email address, make sure you are looking at an Outlook Express screen and not a New email screen. Then do the following. From the menu bar, click on Tools From the drop down menu that appears, click on Accounts (one click, left mouse button) When you click on Accounts, you get the Internet Accounts dialogue box popping up. Click the Mail tab at the top to see the following: The Mail tab shows you all the email accounts that you have set up. In the image above, there are no email accounts set up yet. To se...