How to Track Historical Data in Excel 2007
- 1). Open an Excel spreadsheet.
- 2). Locate the "Sheet" tabs at the bottom of the screen. Click on "Sheet 1," "Sheet 2" and "Sheet 3" individually and change the name of each tab to reflect the categories of your data. For historical data, you might have categories such as the following: "Years of the Depression," "Populations," "Census Records," "Military Enrollment" and "Mortality Rates."
- 3). Click on your first tab. Then click on cell A1. Use the A column for data by typing individual numbers in the cells of the A column. You can repeat this in columns B, C, D and so on.
- 4). Click on the first cell in any column to type notes. You can organize written data in this way by clicking on your second tab and clicking cell A1. Hit Return and type new data in A2. Repeat until you have entered all of your written data. To make the cells larger so that you can see long sentences, click on the vertical bar at the end of each column header and pull it to the right. Release your mouse when your column header is large enough.
- 5). Insert a graph representing your lists of data. To do this click on the first cell of your data. Press "Shift" and the down arrow. Continue hitting the down arrow until you have reached your final cell of data. Click "Insert" on your toolbar. Select a graph. There are several to choose from, including bar, pie and line graphs. Double-click on your style of graph. The graph representing your data will appear in your spreadsheet.
