You can either do it from scratch, which is what we'll do first, or you can create it

from a template.

Or, you may have a spreadsheet already that you want to get into Google Drive and then

open it in Sheets.

We'll go over that as well.

The way to just create a blank Google Sheet is to start out by going to drive.google.com.

This is Google Drive.

If you don't have an account, a Google account already then you'll have to create one but

let's assume that you have on and go to a blank area that's in the where that your files

and folders are I'm going to right click and Google sheets is one of the options if you

go over to the right you'll see that you can do it from a blank spreadsheet or a template

so if you wanted to do something common like maybe a budget or create an invoice for a

customer there'll be a template for that that'll get you started but right now we're just gonna

do a blank spreadsheet so you'll see it opened a new window with your Google sheets spreadsheet

in it Google Drive is still open in the background and it'll look exactly like this if you're

using Google Chrome as your browser but if you're using another one it'll still do the

multiple tabs it'll be similar the first thing that you probably want to do is name it something

that's meaningful to what it's going to be so we'll let's just assume that you're doing

inventory name an inventory you're ready to go there's a few basics about how to do this

so you're only in one cell at a time if you're entering data and it starts out in a 1 you

reference these by saying the column first and then the row and type what you want in

here maybe this will be the amount and to go down you either hit enter or you hit the

down arrow typically you would just hit enter which always bring you down but sometimes

you may want to go left or right up down and just use arrow keys so right now I'm going

to hit the down arrow and that's done you've entered your first data in a Google spreadsheet

so let's enter a few numbers in here just to show you what you might want to do next

we'll do three four and three and then and then if you want to sum them go to insert

function and it's going to have the most common functions here this is going to be what you're

using a lot of the time and just choose some left click on it and it wants the range of

the values so we're working in a two all the way through a four and you've also could have

just used your mouse left click than a two and dragged it down to a four and now hit

enter and you've done your first spreadsheet function satting up three four and three so

that's how you create a blank spreadsheet it's pretty easy the key is just remember

to go to your Google Drive great it from there give it a good name then you can find it later

I'm going to show you the steps on how to upload an existing spreadsheet so one of the

little tricks that you want to do is you want to go to your settings and make sure convert

uploads is checked if that's not checked it's going to upload it say in this case in a excel

format that's going to sit on your Google Drive in a non-native format so if you put

on Google Drive to use it in sheets just have this checked in it'll convert it for you automatically

now that you want to upload your file go to new and file upload and this is going to look

at the hard drive on your computer I happen to have put mine here so this is the sample

data this is an Excel spreadsheet select it click open and you see in the lower right

hand corner it's uploading one item it has this X here which is saying that it's in Excel

but if you see by the time it gets into my drive it's in Google sheets if you didn't

click that check mark that I showed you a minute ago this would still be an X and you

could view it but it wouldn't be in the native format if I open up sample data it'll open

up in Google Sheets and it's ready to go see but it doesn't always upload perfectly in

this example the header just looks black if I click in say example C one I can see there's

a value in there but what it did was it turned my fonts black and the background black so

let's just go and turn the text color to white and we can see what's happening here so that's

your three ways to create a new sheets make a blank sheet create one from a template or

upload existing data next we're going to go through how to format it and so hang on for

that.

If you're using Google sheets and you have some data that looks like this on the left

and you want to make it apparent that it's a table, use some nice colors, make it obvious

what the headers and the title are, that's what we're going to do in this tutorial.

We're going to start with unformatted data and work our way over to something that looks

like this.

Here we go.

If we do one cell, let's say we wanted to do A1, you hover over it with the mouse and

you left-click one time.

That selects it.

Don't double click.

If you double click, it brings you inside the cell and it thinks that you want to change

the contents of it.

The second way that we're going to select data is we're going to either select the entire

column, and I did that by left clicking on the A, or you can do the entire row.

Let's left-click on the 2 and, while that's highlighted, if you hold down the shift key,

you can go down and it selects more than one at a time.

You can also select the entire sheet by clicking here in the upper left hand corner.

That's everything.

So, when you're looking at this data, the first thing that you want to do is make it

apparent that these are dollars.

We're going to highlight all of those.

I just left clicked in F3.

I held down the shift key and I used the right and down arrows to select this entire range.

I'm going to go up and click the dollar sign in the toolbar.

That formats it as currency but then I want to go to column F because I don't really find

it to be material what the cents are on a particular item.

I kind of want it on the totals because I want to see everything down to the penny.

Let's go ahead and decrease the decimal places.

I want you to see, for example, this is $1.99, but decrease it by 2, oops wrong way.

If I decrease it by 2, it rounds for me.

Google Sheets uses a standard rounding convention and this turns $19.99 into $20.00.

The value in here is still $19.99.

If I double click, it's in there.

We've just changed how it's displayed.

Let's take this sample data.

This is the title of the entire table.

It's not a header for a particular column so we should probably merge these rows.

I left-clicked in A1, I held down the shift key, and I pressed the right arrow.

Or, you can just take your mouse left click, select all these, left click and drag.

Let's merge cells.

It's a little icon here that's merging them so you merge them together.

But, I want it centered horizontally as well so this icon gives you three options.

Center it left, center in the middle center to the right.

Let's put it in the middle and then let's make it bold.

That would be right here and we're gonna make a 24-point so you really see, "hey this is

table with sample data."

Actually, I'm gonna make it a little smaller.

It's kind of annoying.

There we go.

Now what I want to do is a really handy shortcut that was added just a few months ago to Google

Sheets.

I'm going to select what I'm considering to be the table here.

But, if you see I also selected the header which is row 2 and the footer which is row

7.

You'll see why here.

I go to format.

I'm going to say alternating colors.

Why it doesn't just say format it as a table I don't know.

But, alternating colors, and then on the right-hand side it brings up these options.

Now I have a header and it doesn't know that I have a footer you got to tell it that.

I have a footer as well.

You see the row 7 there became darker.

I'm gonna click, and click it again, and then you just choose the color and hit done.

Now when you look at this, it looks more like a table.

It's apparent that these are the types of units that we're looking at.

This is the content, the actual data.

Let's make it more apparent though that these down here are totals.

I selected A6.

I'm going to hold down my control key and select G6.

That enables you to select two individual cells at once, two or more.

What I'm going to do here is put a bottom border on.

I'm not doing an underline.

I'm doing a bottom border and I'm going to explain the difference.

First, I'll let you see it.

There's the two bottom borders.

I didn't do an underline because, if you sort this data for some reason, the underline is

going to move.

But, if you do a bottom border, it should stay with row 6.

I also don't like this font.

Let's use the trick where you select the entire worksheet by clicking in the upper left hand

corner and then we'll drop down the font and we'll change it to Calibri.

I think that it would be better if the header, the content of the cells in the header, was

Center aligned.

Let's click on the 2 to select that entire row and then go to the vertical alignment

which is here.

Line up vertically.

Let's say I want to zoom in 200% on this, but when I do, things are too wide.

So, I'm going make the unit cost without a space in here.

You'll see why in a little bit.

I'm gonna make the unit cost a lot skinnier like this and I going to make the units skinnier.

Then, maybe I could see everything.

Let's make it a little bit more skinny...a little bit more.

What happened here was I made it so skinny that this isn't fitting well.

What I have to do is, or one of the options that I can do is, to rotate it.

You can do this with all your headers if you want.

You could select row 2 and rotate.

The other option-this unit cost is also running over a little bit.

I'm going to shrink it some more so you can tell.

What I'm doing to shrink this and just changing the column width by hovering over the line

that separates the two.

Holding down the left mouse button and moving left and right.

My other option to make this fit, I could just shrink the font but a fancier option

is to wrap the text, which is this middle option you see.

That put one over the other.

If you don't like how the others are all down at the bottom of the row because now the row

is taller, let's change the horizontal alignment.

That would be, where would that be?

Vertical alignment, excuse me.

Let's change the vertical alignment.

Let's put them in the middle.

Now they're all lined up.

That should pretty much cover the basic things that you can do with your data to format it

and make it look more like a table.

This draws the users eye down to the important parts or up to the important parts like the

header or down to the footer.

Let's go ahead and make these bold.

That way it's more apparent that they're the sum.

When you're using Google Sheets, a very basic concept that you use all the time when you're

working with data is cell references.

We will go through four different types of cell references.

We will start with the most basic and work our way through to referencing cells and other

files.

The most basic type of cell reference is called a relative cell reference.

It's the type that you just type right in.

In this case, it's going to be C5.

You use uppercase.

That's the standard syntax that you are supposed to use, but lowercase works fine too.

In this case, we're going to do =C5-D5.

S few things to keep in mind here.

You always type the column letter first and then the row number.

So, we wanted column C row 5.

Then we're just going to subtract D5 which is the expenses.

We're going to try to calculate operating income.

You would say these are two relative cell references.

I'm going to press ENTER.

You will see why they're relative in this next step.

That did straight subtraction.

But, if you copy it down to these next two rows...and to do that I'm going to go in the

lower right hand corner where you see a little blue square and my cursor turns into a plus