Getting Started
Table of Contents
Orienting Yourself in Google Sheets
These are the terms that are helpful to know to get started. See the Additional Resources page for some training materials by Google.
Column: A column is a vertical collection of cells. Every column is labeled with a letter. For example, column A is highlighted in blue below.
Mnemonic Device: Think of how the columns on old buildings go up and down.
Row: A row is a horizontal grouping of cells. Every row is labeled with a for example, row 4 is highlighted in blue below.
Mnemonic Device: Think of how the rows in a field of corn go from side to side.
Cell: A cell is a single box. Each cell has a name corresponding to the column and row. For example, the cell below is “A1”.
Menu: The words and icons on the top of the screen make up the menus. In general, most of the icons immediately above the spreadsheet are used for formatting what’s in the cell. Of note, in the top left, is the spreadsheet name and where it can be renamed and in the top right is the “share” button.
Sheets & Tabs: Within one Google Sheets document, you can have multiple spreadsheets. You can toggle between sheets by clicking on the tabs on the bottom of the screen (circled in green below). You can rename and change the color of tabs if you want.
Note: To add new sheets click the + icon to the right of the tabs (circled in blue below). If you have a lot of sheets, click on the menu icon (circled in purple below) to see a list of all of your sheets and toggle between them.
Adding checkboxes in cells
Checkboxes are a handy way to record a simple yes/no for whether or not a task is done.
1. Select the cells where you want to add a checkbox. You may want to add checkboxes in an entire row or column in which case you would highlight the column letter or row number. Your selection will be highlighted in blue. In the example below cells B2 through B6 are highlighted (B2:B6).
2. From the menu on the top of the screen, select “insert” (circled in green below) then “checkbox” (circled in blue below).
3. You’re done! You can now check and uncheck the cells freely. If you ever need to remove a checkbox, select the cell(s) and hit the “delete” key (not backspace) on your keyboard.
Creating dropdown menus within a cell
This is a helpful way to streamline your sheets. Dropdown menus can be used for assigning team members to a task, updating the status of something, and more.
1. Select the cells where you want to add a dropdown menu. You may want to add dropdowns in an entire row or column in which case you would highlight the column letter or row number. Your selection will be highlighted in blue. In the example below cells B2 through B6 are highlighted (B2:B6).
2. From the menu on the top of the screen, select “insert” (circled in green below) then “dropdown” (circled in blue below).
3. A pane will appear on the right side of the screen. Type each option that you want to see in the dropdown menu where it says “Option 1” and “Option 2” (circled in green below). If you need to add more options, click “Add Another Item” (circled in blue below).
4. Optional color change: Click the gray circle (circled in green below) to the left of each option you typed to change the color of that option on the dropdown menu.
If you want to control what happens if someone types something in the cell that isn’t an option in the dropdown. Or if you have a preference for the way the dropdown looks, click “Advanced Options” near the bottom of the pane for more customizable options.
5. When you’re done, click “done” in the bottom right corner of the pane (circled in green below).
6. You’re done! You can edit the options in the dropdown at any time by selecting the cells and following these steps again to open the edit pant and make the necessary edits. If you want to remove the dropdown, highlight the relevant cells and hit the “delete” key on your keyboard.
7. For more information, see the official instructions from Google Sheets on dropdown menus above.
Hiding & unhiding columns and rows
This is a helpful way to focus on the data that is relevant at the moment.
If you want to hide rows based on a set criteria (ex. hide all rows where “Task Complete” is checked), see ‘Sorting and filtering columns’ below.
Hiding columns & rows
1. Select the row or column that you want to hide by clicking on the column letter or row number. Your selection will be highlighted in blue.
Note: The entire row/column is highlighted, not just the cells with text in them. I don’t think it’s possible to hide individual cells, so you always have to select one or more full rows or columns.
2. With your mouse, right click on the area you just highlighted. Then, select “Hide rows” (or “Hide column” if you’ve selected a column). This is circled in green below.
3. You have now hidden the row(s)/column(s). In the below example, the rows with information on the first two tasks in the list are no longer visible. The data is still there and has not been deleted, it’s just hidden from view.
Unhiding columns & rows
1. When you want to see rows or columns that you’ve hidden, you could follow the above steps for unhiding rows or columns to highlight the relevant area then select “Unhide” from the menu instead of hide. However, it’s even more straightforward to click the arrows in the row or column labels (circled in green below).
2. You’re done! The row(s) or column(s) that you hid earlier should now be visible again.
Sorting and filtering columns
This is a helpful way to choose what to display and hide based on set criteria.
1. Select the entire table that you want to sort or filter, including the headings and all columns with data. Your selection will be highlighted in blue. In the example below, I will demonstrate sorting by sorting the Staff Lead column alphabetically and I will demonstrate filtering by filtering the Staff Lead column to only show where Abby is lead. For both examples, I need to highlight the entire table (A1:C6).
Note: As long as you’ve selected the entire table, when you sort or filter one column (Staff Lead, for example), all other columns will be sorted or filtered too so your data won’t get unaligned.
2. Click the “Filter” icon on the top menu (circled in green below). It is located in the top right of the menu near the share button.
If you can’t see this icon on your screen, it likely means that you have zoomed in so the full menu won’t fit on the screen. To see the filter icon either zoom out or click on the three dots on the far right side of the menu near the share button.
3. Now, your table is ready to sort or filter. You can tell because the top row (usually used as column headings) will have green lines forming a triangle pointing down.
Note: Notice the green outline around the table, everything in that outline will be sorted or filtered and everything outside it will not be.
4. Sorting: Click on the green downward arrow (circled in green below) on the column that you want to filter, in this case I’m going to sort “Staff Lead” alphabetically. Then, click “Sort A → Z” (circled in blue below).
5. Now the table is sorted alphabetically. This also works with numbers so you could sort numbers by size, dates chronologically, and more.
6. Filtering: Click on the green downward arrow (circled in green below) on the column that you want to filter, in this case I’m going to filter “Staff Lead” to only show Abby. Then, click to uncheck the text that you don’t want to see, in this case Ben and Candace (circled in blue below). Lastly, click “OK” on the bottom right of the pop-up menu (circled in purple below.
Note: In addition to manually checking or unchecking text from the list, you could also use the search bar immediately above the list of text circled in blue below. Other useful tools on that pop-up menu are “Select All” and “Clear” which selects or unselects all of the items on the list. This is especially helpful when you are filtering a column with a lot of different values.
7. You’re done! You have now filtered the table. It is possible to filter multiple columns at once, so, for example, you could filter the “Printed packed” column too and only show phone banks where Abby is lead and the packets haven’t been printed.
8. To unfilter the data and show the full table again, click the “Filter” icon on the top menu (circled in green below). It is located in the top right of the menu near the share button.
Alternatively, you could follow the steps above and, in the pop-up menu shown in step 6, click “Select All”. This will leave the filter there, but reset it so nothing is being filtered.
9. For more information, see the official instructions from Google Sheets on sorting and filtering here.
Formatting numbers (dates, currency, etc.)
This is good to know how to do so you can keep clean spreadsheets and avoid frustration when values aren’t pasted into the spreadsheet as you expect them to.
1. In the below example, I pasted two dates into the spreadsheet: 7/4/22 and 11/8/22 and they look like this, which just looks like random numbers. Highlight the relevant cells (or the entire row or column if needed). In this case, I highlighted cells A1:A2.
2. Then, in the top menu, click “Format” (circled in green below), then “Number” (circled in blue below), then “Date” (circled in purple below)
3. You’re done! The numbers are now formatted as a date! Follow these steps to format numbers in other ways too including percent and currency.
Note: At the bottom of the menu (cropped out of the above screenshot) you can customize date, currency, and other formats if needed.
4. For more information, see the official instructions from Google Sheets on formatting numbers here.
Freezing Headers
This is helpful when you have a lot of data that takes up many rows and/or columns. Freezing the headers will make sure you can always see what the column or row is labeled and can more easily look at data way over or down on the table.
1. Highlight the row or column that has your headings, in this example I will be freezing row 1 (1:1).
2. From the menu on the top of the screen, select “View” (circled in green below) then “Freeze” (circled in blue below), then “Up to row 1” (circled in purple below).
Note: You can freeze several rows or columns (for example: up to row 10) if you have something on the top or left that you want to always be visible on the screen. Inmost cases, I usually only freeze the first couple of rows.
3. You’re done! The top row is now frozen and will be locked in the top of the screen as you scroll through the document. You can tell where rows or columns are frozen by looking for the thick gray line that appears between the frozen and unfrozen area.
4. To unfreeze a row or column, click “View” from the menu (circled in green above), then “Freeze” (circled in blue above), then select “no rows” or “no columns” accordingly.
5. For more information, see the official instructions from Google Sheets on freezing here.
Dragging cells
This is useful Google Sheets functionality to know when you are repeating the same value across multiple cells. It is especially handy for functions, but can be used in other cases.
1. The only real step here is to click on the tiny blue square in the bottom right of whichever cell(s) you have selected, then drag it in any direction to copy the values into new cells. To give a visual, below I typed “hello” in cell A1, then I clicked on the tiny blue square in the bottom right corner of the cell (circled in green below).
Then, I dragged my mouse to the right to fill cells B2 and C2.
2. Of note, another use for this dragging functionality, is when you want to number cells. For example, I typed 1, 2, 3 in cells A1, A2, and C1 (see below).
I needed to type a few numbers so Google Sheets knows which pattern to use for future numbers. If I just typed “1” and dragged it down, then I would only be dragging the number 1 into the below cells.
Then, I dragged my mouse down to continue the count from 1 to 10.
