The outlined cell and the highlighted column and row headings make it easier for you to see that cell C5 is the active cell. Also, the cell reference of the active cell appears in the Name Box in the upper-left corner of the worksheet. By looking in the Name Box, you can see the cell reference of the active cell.
All of these indicators are not too important when you're right at the very top of the worksheet in the very first few cells. But when you work further and further down or across the worksheet, they can really help you out. Keep in mind that there are 17,179,869,184 cells to work in on each worksheet. You could get lost without the cell reference to tell you where you are.
For example, it's important to know the cell reference if you need to tell someone where specific data is located or must be entered in a worksheet.
You can enter three basic kinds of data into worksheet cells: numbers, text and dates.
In the Mass Appraisal courses, you will be using real estate data supplied to you. However, it is important for you to know how to enter and manipulate data in a worksheet. The worksheet used to create this tutorial represents actual sales data.
When you enter or import data into a worksheet, it's a good idea to enter titles at the top of each column so that anyone who shares your worksheet can understand what the data means (and so that you can understand it yourself, when you come back to it).
In the picture on the next page, the column titles are the names of data fields from a CAMA system. Each of the rows represents an individual parcel record.