About forms

Microsoft Office Excel 2003

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About forms

Example of an Excel form

Microsoft Excel works with several types of forms. You can use forms provided with Excel to enter data in ranges, lists, or other databases. You can design forms to print out or use online, including forms you open in Excel and forms you put on Web pages. To capture and organize the data on your online forms, you can use an Excel workbook or another program or database.

Built-in forms for Excel data    For ranges or lists on Excel worksheets, you can display a data form that lets you enter new data, find rows based on cell contents, update the data, and delete rows from the range or list.

Ready-made forms for common business tasks    Excel provides Spreadsheet Solutions: ready-made templates to help you create expense statements, invoices, and purchase orders. These templates also allow you to store the information entered into the forms in a database.

Designing your own form in Excel    You can create Excel forms to print out or use online. Online forms can include controls, such as option buttons and dropdown lists. You can protect an online form so that only certain cells are available for data entry, and you can validate the data to make sure users enter only the types of data the form calls for. You can make online forms available from within Excel, on Web pages, or from Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programs.