Spreadsheet Software

Spreadsheet Software

1. Benefits of Spreadsheets

   • What-If investigations can be performed
     • you can make changes to the spreadsheet values to see what happens
   • Accurate Calculations can be done
     • provided that formulas are correct, so will the calculations, and therefore so will the result
   • Automatic Recalculation happens
     • when an item of data changes, all cells connected to the changed cell by a formula will also change
   • Easy to produce graphs and charts
     • once data has been entered, it is easy to produce graphs and charts

2. Components of Spreadsheets

   • Labels
     • are used for titles, headings, names, identifying rows or columns of data
   • Data
     • are the values (text or number) that you enter into the spreadsheet - data is meaningless
   • Formulas
     • are used to perform calculations on the cell contents

3. Functions

   • a function is a specialised calculation that the spreadsheet software has memorised
   • Average
     • Automatic calculations of the average of certain cells can be done e.g. =AVERAGE(A4:A6)
   • Sum
     • Cells can be added together through using a SUM in the spreadsheet e,g, SUM(A4:A6)
   • Cell Referencing
     • Relative Cell Referencing
       • the formula will move when the cells are copied
     • Absolute Cell Referencing
       • the formula will stay when cells are copied
         • fixes/locks when moved
         • e.g. $A$4

4. Formatting

   • Data
     • data
     • percentage
     • text
     • integer
     • currency
   • Spreadsheets
     • alignment - left/right/cente
     • text - color/font face/size
     • boarders
     • rotating text
     • cell merging