Introductory Spreadsheet Principles

Module S01c

Contents of this Module

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What is a spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet program is to get the computer to compute for you...without having to write a computer program!

Origin

Major Capabilities of Spreadsheets

What do people do with spreadsheets?

 Overall organization

Spreadsheets all fairly similar .. If you learn one, you've (just about) learned them all! However, there are two "families" of spreadsheets: All spreadsheets are organized as a grid of cells in rows and columns

Figure 3: s01c_f01.gif
Figure 3

Identifying Things on the Spreadsheet

Columns are identified by letters: A...Z AA...AZ BA...BZ CA...CZ ...
Rows are identified by numbers
Cells are identified by their column-letter and row-number. For example, the home cell is identified as cell A1. In Figure 1, the active cell is B2. Every cell is the unique intersection of one row and one column.

Special Cells on the Spreadsheet

The Home position = upper left
The Active cell is where the action is: when you type, delete, or format, it applies to the active cell. It is shown with a bold border, reverse video, or other highlight.

The  Three Types of Cell Contents

When you put information into a spreadsheet cell, the spreadsheet program has to decide what sort of job you want that cell to do.
Usually the program guesses what you want by looking at the first character you type in a cell.
There are three main types of job a cell can do in a spreadsheet: Looking at a cell on the screen or a printout, you may not be able to tell what type of cell it is. To see what's really there, you may need to move the active cell highlight to that cell and look in the edit line, which shows the true contents of the cell.
Let's look at these three types in more detail...

Label Cells

When a cell is a label, it can contain anything, but it can do nothing.

Number Cells

Full number stored in spreadsheet
Cell formated to display only 2 decimal places
3.3333333333
3.33
6.6666666666
6.67

Formula Cells

Formula cells contain instructions to perform calculations.

Other Features

Here are some other things about spreadsheets that you might like to know before you use one...

Position does not affect contents

In examples, you'll often see spreadsheets with labels at the top and left, numbers and formulas in the middle. This is often convenient, but it doesn't have to be that way.

What you put in a cell can be easily deleted...

Spreadsheets are fun to work with because you don't have to be afraid of putting in something that you can't get rid of later. The other side of the coin,of course,is that you have to be a bit careful! As with just about any computer work, be sure to save your work frequently.

Contents can be easily copied or moved

Much of the power and ease of use in spreadsheets comes from being able to set up a series of numbers, labels, and formulas; then copy the whole series and paste it into several similar series. This not only saves typing, but can improve accuracy as well. Or if you don't like the position of something, you can easily move it elsewhere. You can do this...

Selecting (highlighting) multiple cells

Figure 4: s01c_f05.gifIn a word processor, you can select (highlight) multiple words, lines, and paragraphs. Likewise in a spreadsheet you can select multiple cells, rows, or columns. But unlike the word processor, in a spreadsheet the first cell you select is special. In some commands, the first cell can be used as the source of material to be copied out; in other commands it may be used for other purposes.
When you select a group of cells, most of them are shown in reverse video (white letters on a black background). But to help you see which is the first cell you selected, it is usually left white. This can be confusing at first, since unselected cells are usually white, too. The entire selected area, including the first cell you selected, has a thick border, like the active cell, and that's how you'll recognize it.

Macros can automate repetitive processes

Powerful as spreadsheets are, they often involve lots of repetitive work. In order to make life easier for the people who work with them, as well as to make the job go quicker, many spreadsheet programs have macro capabilities. A macro takes a series of commands and consolidates them into one keystroke or menu item.
For example, before printing you might want to make sure that all the figures have been recalculated and the file has been saved. You could try to remember to do this every time you print, or you could create a macro to do it for you. The macro would contain the command to recalculate, the command to save, and the command to print. You could assign this to a keystroke such as the F11 key, and invoke the macro by pressing that key whenever you needed to.
There are two ways macros can be created:

Screen Features

By now, you're almost ready to try a spreadsheet out. Let's take a look at the screen of a typical spreadsheet, so you'll know where to find your tools. We'll use Microsoft Excel 2007 as our example; you'l find similar features on most spreadsheets.

Overview

The main areas of a spreadsheet are shown and defined here:

Figure 5: s01c_f02.gif

Audience

This is for people who want to lean what spreadsheets are, what you can do with them. It helps if you have some basic computer terminology and understand the fundamental concepts. You can get this from these modules:

Objectives

When you successfully complete this lesson, you will be able to...

About this document...

Module S01c:Introductory Spreadsheet Principles

Review: Click here to see review S01cr
Author:
Laurence J. Krieg
Institution:
Department of Computer Information Systems, Washtenaw Community College

First written: 9 Feb 1988

Revised HTML version: 25 Oct 1997
This version uploaded: Monday, 17-Mar-2008 14:31:07 EDT