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204 Part IV: Managing and Securing Data
generating form letters and mailing labels with your word processor. That way, you
are able to address the person by his or her first name (as in Dear John) in the open-
ing of the form letter you create, as well as by his or her full name and title (as in Dr.
John Smith) in the mailing label you generate.
Likewise, you split up the client’s address into separate street address, city, state, and
ZIP code fields when you intend to use the client data list in generating form letters
and you want to be able to sort the records in descending order by ZIP code or send
letters only to clients located in certain states. By keeping discrete pieces of informa-
tion in separate fields, you are assured that you can use that field in finding particular
records and retrieving information from the data list such as finding all the records
where the state is California, or the ZIP code is between 94105 and 95101.
When entering the row with the first data record, be sure to format all the cells the
way you want the entries in that field to appear in all the subsequent data records in
the data list. For example, if you have a salary field in the data list, and you want the
salaries formatted with the Currency style number format without any decimal
places, be sure to format the salary entry in the first record in this manner. That way,
all subsequent records pick up that same formatting for the salary field when you
enter them with Excel’s data form.
After entering the top row with the field names and the next row with the first data
record, you can then use the data form that Excel generates when you choose the
Data➪Form command to add the rest of the records.

Try It

Exercise 16-1: Constructing a New Data List and Adding Records with the
Data Form
If Excel is not currently running, launch the program and then use the Sheet1 work-
sheet of the new Book1 workbook to practice creating a new data list and then adding
and editing its data with the data form:

1. Enter the following field names for your new Employee Data List in the desig-
nated cells in row 1 of Sheet1. Next select these names, center them, and make
them bold:
• ID No in cell A1

• First Name in cell B1
• Last Name in cell C1
• Gender in cell D1
• Dept in cell E1
• Salary in cell F1
• Location in cell G1
• Date Hired in cell H1
• Years of Service in cell I1
• Profit Sharing in cell J1
2. Make the following data entries in the designated cells in row 2 as the first
record in your new data list:

•‘000928 in cell A2
• Joy in cell B2