Spreadsheets: - Beyond the Basics

What is a Spreadsheet? What does the average person do with a program like this?

I'll tell you what my Dad did with Microsoft Multiplan back in the 1980s. He entered the numbers in each column, then used an adding machine (with tape!) to enter totals. Eventually, he figured out how to format the rows, columns and cells to make it look something like his bank register. I came home from the Navy and he was so proud of his accomplishment! A day later, he understood something about formulas and how to add, subtract and a lot more with that basic system.

Microsoft Multiplan grew up to become the wonderful monstrosity that is Excel. And I have grown with it, writing macros in Excel 4 Macro Language, building nested formulas, and writing a payroll program in Visual Basic for a garbage company. That payroll program is a conversation for another day.

So let's go back to the original question. What is a spreadsheet?

A  spreadsheet is an interactive  computer application for organization, analysis and storage of  data in  tabular form. (Thank you Wikipedia!)

Do you need to view numbers in columns and rows? That's tabular (like a table) form. There you go. Those are the basics. Put numbers in the cells, and visualize them.

"But I want to know how to impress my boss with Excel!"

Enter the following into cells in a spreadsheet:

A1: 14
A2: 16
A3: =A1+A2

We told the spreadsheet system that the value in A1 is 14, the value in A2 is 16 and the value in A3 is A1+A2 (or, 14+16). If we get into more complex calculations, we can change the value in a single cell and see what would happen.

"OK, so now I can add two numbers in Excel. What's the big deal?"

Enter the following into cells on a spreadsheet:

A1:  1
A2:  =A1+1
A3:  =A2+1
A4:  =A3+1
A5:  =SUM(A1:A4)

Here, we told it to set A1 to 1, increment that value three times (A2, A3, A4), then add all of the values from A1 to A4. Excel has a handy shortcut in the ribbon to automatically put the =SUM() formula into a cell. Click the ∑ button (Sigma = SUM in math).

Homework: get a simple table of 1-2 columns and 5-10 rows. Maybe it's population growth over the last century in a couple of cities. Add some formulas to calculate the difference between the cities in each decade. (Hint: =b2-a2)

For extra credit, make that value positive, and identify which city was larger!