Google Sheets Basics: An Introduction to Google Sheets

Access Google Drive to open Google Sheets, name a new sheet, and use the toolbar for formatting and data manipulation while building a family recipe book.

Explore using cells in Google Sheets to build a recipe book with headers for title, ingredients, directions, course, and protein; master copy-paste and merging for clean data.

Explore adding and moving rows and columns in Google Sheets, merging cells, and using keyboard shortcuts to insert and delete in a recipe book.

Learn to resize, hide, group, and freeze rows and columns in Google Sheets, using drag and drop, pixel sizing, and keeping the top row and first column as headings.

Apply and customize themes and alternating colors in Google Sheets, adjust fonts, text colors, and hyperlink color, and apply formatting across the entire sheet.

Explore Google Sheets formatting tools across the toolbar and format dropdown, apply currency and date formats, and customize font, colors, borders, alignment, and keyboard shortcuts for clean data.

Master Google Sheets formatting by aligning text, wrapping and rotating, resizing columns, and then paste values with shortcuts; use clear formatting and the paint roller trick for clean, readable spreadsheets.

Apply a theme and craft an engaging title for the Google Sheets dataset from data.gov; format headings, resize columns, convert data to percentages, add borders, and freeze panes.

Learn how to insert and cleanly display hyperlinks in Google Sheets, including copying links, using shortcuts like command K or control K, and displaying clean link text for recipe titles.

Insert images in Google Sheets by cells or over cells, using upload, URL, Google Photos, Drive, or image search, and align, resize, and group to fit the sheet.

Explore how to insert Google drawings into Google Sheets to create draggable shapes, text boxes, and images over cells, with word art and video integration for enhanced presentations.

Learn how to insert checkboxes in Google Sheets, configure data validation options for true/false or yes/no values, and customize appearance and range settings for clean, interactive data.

Discover how to insert notes and comments in Google Sheets using the insert menu, right-click, or keyboard shortcuts, and understand their differences for solo versus collaborative work.

Apply Google Sheets skills to plan a landscaping project by compiling 5–10 plants with title, image, description, link, price, location, growing zone, height, width, sunlight, evergreen or deciduous, and checkboxes.

Learn to clean up data in Google Sheets by removing duplicates and trimming whitespace. Use cleanup suggestions to fix inconsistencies and prepare data before analysis or graphing.

Apply conditional formatting in Google Sheets to color cells, highlight based on text, numbers, or dates, and quickly identify issues for clean, organized data.

Learn to apply conditional formatting in Google Sheets using color scales and min and max rules, with paint format or copy-paste extending formats to new columns as data changes.

Master how to add drop-down menus via data validation in Google Sheets to keep course and protein columns consistent, prevent formula errors, and enable clean collaboration.

Learn how to use data validation in Google Sheets to enforce numeric constraints, text and email rules, URLs, dates, and custom formulas, improving data quality and collaboration.

Clean up the U.S. agriculture trade data with data cleanup, trim whitespace, remove duplicates, apply decade-based color formatting, color scales for imports, exports, and trade balance, convert months to dropdowns.

Explore sorting and filtering in Google Sheets, including sort sheet vs sort range, multi-column sorts, and filter views to refine data like time, ingredients, and meal types.

Master basic formulas and functions in Google Sheets by working with the USDA trade dataset, learning cell references, absolute locking with dollar signs, and dragging formulas across rows.

Explore the basics of Google Sheets functions, learning syntax, arguments, and how to combine and nest functions like max, sum, translate, and vlookup to analyze data efficiently.

Learn the basics of the google sheets query function, including syntax, named ranges, select and where clauses, and how to pull a condensed, text-only data subset into separate tabs.

Learn to add, rename, organize, duplicate, and copy tabs in Google Sheets, color code and hide sheets, and view comments to manage data efficiently.

Turn on filters, sort the landscaping data alphabetically, and answer questions; then calculate item totals with a simple formula and sum to compute the grand total.

Explore the full range of Google Sheets chart types, learn how to insert and customize charts, and understand which type best fits your data.

Edit and customize charts in Google Sheets using chart type suggestions, stacking, range updates, and switching rows and columns to compare weekly work across designers.

Explore editing and customizing charts in Google Sheets, covering chart style, theme colors, axis labels, and fonts. Learn to adjust legends, grid lines, scales, and chart placement for professional visuals.

Create a line chart of U.S. agriculture exports and imports by year using the USDA data, then tailor setup and customize settings, titles, units, and axis labeling.

Learn to share and collaborate on Google Sheets, selecting access levels from viewer to editor and sharing via link. Manage notifications and view edit history to safeguard your work.

Learn to safeguard shared Google Sheets by protecting ranges and sheets, setting precise edit permissions, and inviting collaborators with targeted access, while using comments and action items to assign tasks.

Download, print, or publish your Google Sheets workbook. Export as Excel or PDF, preview prints, and publish selected tabs or the entire sheet to the web.

Share your completed recipe book, protect ranges, add comments and assign action items, enable notifications, and print or publish your sheet.

Celebrate completing Google Sheets basics by building a sheet from scratch, grouping columns and rows, applying formatting, data cleanup, filters, formulas, charts, and sharing.