MS Excel and Google Sheets

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Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets Interview Questions

1) What is Microsoft Excel?

Microsoft Excel is an electronic spreadsheet application that enables users to store, organize, calculate and manipulate the data with formulas using a spreadsheet system broken up by rows and columns. It also provides the flexibility to use an external database to do analysis, make reports, etc. thus saving lots of time.
 

2) What is ribbon? 

Ribbon refers to the topmost area of the application that contains menu items and toolbars available in MS-Excel. Ribbon can be shown/hidden using CTRL+F1. The ribbon runs on the top of the application and is the replacement for the toolbars and menus. The ribbons have various tabs on the top, and each tab has its own group of commands.
 

3) Explain Spreadsheet and its Basics. 

Spreadsheet can be compared to a paper ledger sheet. It consists of rows and columns and their intersection called cells.
 

4) How many data formats are available in Excel? Name some of them. 

Eleven data formats are available in Microsoft Excel for data Storage. Example:

• Number – Stores data as a number
• Currency – Stores data in the form of currency
• Date – Data is stored as dates
• Percentage – Stores numbers as a percentage
• Text Formats – Stores data as string of texts

 
5) Specify the order of operations used for evaluating formulas in Excel. 

The order of operations in Microsoft Excel is same as in standard mathematics. It's defined by the term "PEMDAS" or "BEDMAS".

• Parentheses or Brackets
• Exponent
• Multiplication
• Division
• Addition
• Subtraction

 
6) How can you wrap the text within a cell? 

You must select the text you want to wrap, and then click wrap text from the home tab and you can wrap the text within a cell.

7) Explain Macro in MS Excel. 

Macros are used for iterating over a group of tasks. Users can create macros for their customized repetitive functions and instructions. Macros can be either written or recorded depending on the user.
 

8) Which are the two macro languages in MS Excel? 

XLM and VBA (Visual Basic Applications). Earlier versions of Excel used XLM. VBA was introduced in Excel 5 and mostly used now.
 

9) Is it possible to prevent someone from copying the cell from your worksheet?

Yes, it is possible. To protect your worksheet from getting copied, you need to go into Menu bar >Review > Protect Sheet > Password. By entering a password, you can secure your sheet from getting copied by others.
 

10) What are charts in MS Excel? 

To enable graphical representation of the data in Excel, charts are provided. A user can use any chart type, including column, bar, line, pie, scatter, etc. by selecting an option from Insert tab's Chart group.
 

11) How can you sum up the Rows and Column number quickly in the Excel sheet? 

By using SUM function, you can get the total sum of the rows and columns, in an Excel worksheet.
 

12) Explain few useful functions in Excel. 

Following are the functions available in Excel for manipulating the data:

• Math and Financial Functions – SQRT, DEGREE, RAND(), GCD
• Logical Functions – IF, AND, FALSE, TRUE
• Date and Time functions – NOW(), DATEVALUE(), WEEKDAY(NOW())
• Index Match – VLOOKUP and INDEX MATCH
• Pivot tables 

13) What does a red triangle at the top right of a cell indicate? 

The red triangle indicates that some comment is associated with the cell. Hover the mouse over it, and you can read the full comment.

 
14) How can you add a new Excel worksheet?

To add a new Excel worksheet, you should insert worksheet tab at the bottom of the screen.
 

15) What is the use of NameBox in MS Excel? 

Name Box is used to return to a particular area of the worksheet by typing the range name or cell address in the name box.
 

16) How can you resize the column? 

To resize the column, you should change the width of one column and then drag the boundary on the right side of the column heading till the width you want. The other way of doing it is to select the Format from the home tab, and in Format you have to select AUTOFIT COLUMN WIDTH under cell section. On clicking on this, the cell size will get formatted.
 

17) Explain pivot tables and its uses. 

A pivot table is a tool that allows for quick summarization of large data. It automatically performs a sort, count, total or average of the data stored in the spreadsheet and displays result in another spreadsheet. It saves a lot of time. Allows to link external data sources to our Excel.
 

18) What are three report formats that are available in Excel? 

Following are the types of report formats

• Compact
• Report
• Tabular

 
19) How would you provide a Dynamic range in "Data Source" of Pivot Tables? 

To provide a dynamic range in "Data Source" of Pivot tables, first, create a named range using offset function and base the pivot table using a named range created in the first step.
 

20) Is it possible to make Pivot table using multiple sources of data? 

If the multiple sources are different worksheets, from the same workbook, then it is possible to make Pivot table using multiple sources of data.
 

21) What is Google Sheets?

Google Sheets is a free, cloud-based spreadsheet application. That means you open it in your browser window like a regular webpage, but you have all the functionality of a full spreadsheet application for doing powerful data analysis. It really is the best of both worlds.
 

22) How is Google Sheets different to Excel? 

No doubt you’ve heard of Microsoft Excel, the long established heavyweight of the spreadsheet world. It’s an incredibly powerful, versatile piece of software, used by approximately 750 million – 1 billion people worldwide. So yeah, a tough act to follow.

Google Sheets is similar in many ways, but also distinctly different in other areas. It has (mostly) the same set of functions and tools for working with data. In fact, some people mistakenly call it “Google Excel” or “Google spreadsheets.”
 

23) Why use Google Sheets? 

• It’s free!
• It’s collaborative, so teams can all see and work with the same spreadsheet in real-time.
• It has enough features to do complex analysis, but…
• It’s also really easy to use.

 
24) Can Google Sheets do advanced stuff? 

Absolutely! You can build dashboards, write formulas that make your head spin and even build applications to automate your job. The sky’s the limit!

 
25) Does each cell have unique address? 

Yes, each cell has a unique address depends on the row and column value of the cell.

 
26) How would you format a cell? What are the options?                                        

A cell can be formatted by using the format cells options. There are 6 format cells options:

• Number
• Alignment
• Font
• Border
• Fill
• Protection

 
27) What is the use of comment? How to add comments to a cell? 

Comments are used for a lot of reasons:

• Comments are used to clarify the purpose of the cells.
• Comments are used to clarify a formula used in the cell.
• Comments are used to leave notes for others users about a cell.

To add a comment: Right click the cell and choose insert comment from the cell menu. Type your comment.

 
28) What is Freeze Panes in MS Excel? 

Freeze Panes are used to lock any row or column. The locked row or column will be visible on the screen even after we scroll the sheet vertically or horizontally.
 

29) Which are the different workbook protection types in Excel? 

There are three ways to protect a workbook in Excel:

• Password protection for opening a workbook
• Protection for adding, deleting, hiding and unhiding sheets
• Protection from changing size or position of windows.

 
30) What is the difference among COUNT, COUNTA, COUNTIF and COUNTBLANK in MS Excel? 

COUNT is used to count cells containing numbers, dates, etc. any value stored as number excluding blanks.

COUNTA or Count All is used to count any cell value containing numbers, text, logical values, etc. any type of value excluding blanks.

COUNTBLANK count blank cells or cells with an empty string.

COUNTIF and COUNTIFS count cells matching a certain criteria.
 

31) Is it possible to hide or show the ribbon? 

You can hide or show (minimize or maximize) the ribbon by pressing CNTRL F1.
 

32) How to prevent someone from copying the cell from your worksheet? 

If you want to protect your worksheet from being copied, go into Menu bar > Review > Protect sheet > Password.

By entering password you can prevent your worksheet from getting copied.
 

33) How can you check whether the Pivot table is modified or not?

To check whether the Pivot table is modified or not, you should use the "PivotTableUpdate" in worksheet containing the pivot table.
 

34) What does the IF function in Excel? 

IF function is used in Excel to check whether certain conditions are true or false. If the condition is true then it will give the result accordingly and if the condition is false the result or output will be different.
 

35) What filter should we use, if you want more than two conditions or if you want to analyze the list using database function? 

You should use "Advanced Criteria Filter" to analyze the list or test more than two conditions.
 

36) What are the advantages of using formula in Excel sheet? 

Formula makes it easy to calculate the numbers in Excel sheet. It also calculates automatically the number replaced by another number or digit. It is used to make complex calculations easy.
 

37) What is the use of LOOK UP function in MS Excel? 

The LOOK UP function is used to return a value from an array.
 

38) How would you reduce the file size? What is the easiest way to reduce the file size? 

You can use the following steps to reduce the file size:

• Find the last cell that contains data in the sheet. Delete all rows and columns after this cell.
• To delete the rows, press the key Shift+Space then press Ctrl+Shift+Down on your keyboard.
• Rows will get selected till the last row. Press Ctrl+- on the keyboard to delete the blank rows.
• To delete the column, Press the key Ctrl+Space then press Ctrl+Shift+Right Arrow key on your keyboard.
• Columns will get selected till the last row.
• Press Ctrl+- on the keyboard to delete the blank columns.

 
39) What is the syntax of Vlookup?

Vlookup Syntax:

VLOOKUP(lookup_value,table_array,col_index_num,[range_lookup])
 

40) What is a Macro in Excel? How to create an Excel Macro? 

Excel Macro is the set of instructions that is recorded by users for repetition purposes. It is created by the users for repetitive instructions and functions they perform on a regular basis.