The Spreadsheet is a very flexible software tool which is used in many ways in commerce, administration, science and technology. Spreadsheets are used, amongst other things, for recording sales transactions, for storing and processing lists of information, for mathematical modelling and for data analysis. One particular use for school pupils is generating charts for exercises and projects in a range of subjects.
Spreadsheets consist of a grid of cells which can contain data such as numbers and characters. The location of any cell in the spreadsheet is made up of a letter for the column in the grid and a number for the row. Microsoft Excel has 256 columns and 65,536 rows.
The Excel spreadsheet has a title bar, a menu bar and toolbars like most other Windows applications. Below the toolbars is a strip which contains the current cell address and the formula bar. As you move around the spreadsheet by clicking with the mouse or pressing the arrow keys on the keyboard the address in the location box changes to match your current location.
In Excel 97 this is marked by an '=' sign on the left. Anything you type into a cell appears also in the formula bar where the contents can be edited and changed.
When using a spreadsheet you very often select a group of cells before doing something to them such as formatting, deleting their contents, copying or cutting or dragging to a new location. To select cells simply point at them, hold down the left mouse button and drag the pointer across the sheet until you have selected the ones you want. To select more than one group of cells hold down the Control key while selecting the cells.
Data can be entered in any cell in the following forms:
Text - any combinations
of letters, digits and other symbols. Align left by default.
Numbers - any sequence
of the digits 0-9. Align right by default.
Cell references - set
one cell to equal another e.g. set A2 to ‘=D40’.
Formulae - any combination of numbers and cell references with arithmetic operators in between e.g. set C6 to ‘=A6+B6’ or ‘=A6*3’.
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