inls 461
Information Tools

Professor: Serena Fenton
School of Information and Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill

Excel Lab 1 - Create a simple address list

The first step in any project should be planning! A solid plan will save you hours of grief later.

Planning does not have to be complex or elaborate. All you need is a pencil and a scrap of paper. What you want to do is to list each type of data that you want to store in your address book. This should be a quick list. Scribble and scratch as you consider what to include.
To the right is an example ->

Some of the issues that I was considering in making this list were:

  • Do I have enough out-of-country addresses to warrant a Country category?
  • Phone is no longger just one listing - how many should I track?
  • How can I track the kids' ages? List their birthdates, or just don't bother?
  • What about spouses with a different last name?
planning
When you finally have your list ready, open Excel. It will open to a new workbook.

RIght click on the existing work sheet title and select Rename from the dropdown list.

Title the worksheet Addresses
rename

Save the workbook as yourname_addresses.xls

Enter the following titles as column headers (or you can use your categories, if you prefer):

  • LastName
  • FirstName
  • SpouseName
  • ChildrenNames
  • Address
  • City
  • State
  • ZipCode
  • Country
  • EmailAddress
  • HomePhone
  • WorkPhone
  • Notes
headers

Right-click on Worksheet 2 - > Delete

Delete Worksheet 3

delete
Enter 15 records. You can use this for your own records, so feel free to make it personal. We will convert this to a database later in the semester.

Save the spreadsheet file to your hard drive or to somewhere that you can find it when we are working on databases.

Here's my addressbook spreadsheet (.xls file)

 

revised May 30, 2006