Spreadsheet software

Spreadsheet software

1. Advantages

   • You can perform 'what if' investigations - you can make changes to the spreadsheet values to see what happens
   • Automatic recalculations - when an item of data changes, all those cells that are connected to the changed call by a formula will also change.
   • Accurate calculations - provide the formulas are all correct all the numbers will be the same
   • It is easy to produce graphs and charts- once the data has been processed it will do it automatically

2. Components of spreadsheets

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

3. Functions

   • A functions is specialised calculations that the spreadsheet software has memorised
   • Average- to find the average of numbers in a range of cells
   • Sum - displays the total of the cells

4. Formating data

   • Data
   • Interger
   • Percentage
   • Currency
   • Text

5. Formatting your spreadsheet

   • Alignment - left, centre or right
   • Text - colour, font or size
   • Borders
   • Rotating text
   • Cell merging

6. Cell reference

   • Relative
     • Will move when the cells are selected
   • Absolute
     • Remains constant when a when the reference is copied to one cell to another (you have to press F4)