Computer Applications for Business Week 4a Intro to Spreadsheets

Business Application Packages Last Week Templates Newsletters and brochures Keeping track of changes Electronic Mail This week –Spreadsheets [Knight (1999) Ch.5] Introduction to Spreadsheets “What if” models

Spreadsheets Started off in Finance industry, as way of doing “what if” calculations to model business decisions If I charge x for each gizmo, and it costs y to build the production line, plus z for each gizmo I make What is profit at various production volumes? When will I pay for the initial investment and break even? Does it as a table of cells, each one related to another with a (usually) simple formula So cost of producing n gizmos is cost of production-line plus volume-related cost Profit is sales minus cost of production Done on paper – a pain to recalculate! Early PC application – that’s why the Apple II sold .

Simple Business Tasks Consider an Invoice For each item line, we have a quantity and a price and can derive a total cost for the items on the line Then need to add them up and usually add VAT to the total to get the invoice total Let’s lay out an invoice of that kind How do we get the computer to do the multiplication? What about doing the same on the next line? Is there a short cut to getting the total?

Using Excel Excel is the Microsoft Office Spreadsheet program You can start it from the College desktop bar Creates empty book of spreadsheets With three tabs at bottom for holding multiple sheets Usually you won’t start with an empty book, though New spreadsheet usually uses ideas from a previous one Best to load old one, Save it under a new name, then modify this to do what you want Another job for Windows Explorer

Cut, Copy and Paste The Clipboard Move/copy data via the clipboard Storage shared by all applications Each use overwrites previous contents Move/copy data via the clipboard Select data item Cut /Copy to the clipboard (Cut removes the source text) Position the Insertion Point at the target Paste Excel modifies formulae as it copies Usually does what you want The clipboard is a concept within Windows, and you can think of it as a hidden area of memory that holds whatever you choose to put on it. You transfer selected data to the clipboard with Edit Copy (or by pressing a Copy button on the toolbar). You can then Paste in the current contents of the clipboard (with Edit Paste). The clipboard is very versatile, and can hold text, graphics, and even files. That doesn’t mean that every program can interpret anything stored there by every other program, but there are defined standards to ensure that a useful subset of clipboard contents is always available. Within a collection such as Office 97, you can expect the full capabilities of the clipboard to be available. So when you store a piece of a Word table, you can expect other programs in the suite to be able to paste in not only the text, but also the font, and the fact that the clipboard contents are divided into cells. Edit Cut is similar to Copy, except that it automatically removes the selected area from the source document. Depending on application, this may happen immediately, or not until the data is pasted in to the target location. In addition, the clipboard contains hidden information about where the data was copied from, which will prove valuable later. Because there’s only one clipboard, every time you Copy or Cut, you overwrite what is there at the time. This is potentially a problem if you spot a couple of transposed words in the middle of a major move. Fortunately, most Windows applications let you drag selected text with the mouse, and drop it in a new location without needing to go through the clipboard.

Cut, Copy and Paste – Details The clipboard is a concept within Windows, and you can think of it as a hidden area of memory that holds whatever you choose to put on it. You transfer selected data to the clipboard with Edit Copy (or by pressing a Copy button on the toolbar). You can then Paste in the current contents of the clipboard (with Edit Paste). The clipboard is very versatile, and can hold text, graphics, and even files. That doesn’t mean that every program can interpret anything stored there by every other program, but there are defined standards to ensure that a useful subset of clipboard contents is always available. Within a collection such as Office 97, you can expect the full capabilities of the clipboard to be available. So when you store a piece of a Word table, you can expect other programs in the suite to be able to paste in not only the text, but also the font, and the fact that the clipboard contents are divided into cells. Edit Cut is similar to Copy, except that it automatically removes the selected area from the source document. Depending on application, this may happen immediately, or not until the data is pasted in to the target location. In addition, the clipboard contains hidden information about where the data was copied from, which will prove valuable later..

Modelling Business Problems Investment Decision often requires seeing what will happen in several possible scenarios If I charge x for each gizmo, and it costs y to build the production line, plus z for each gizmo I make What is profit at various production volumes? When will I pay for the initial investment and break even? Things not all confined to columns this time Price, overhead and input cost need to be input Then outcome computed for each production volume How do we handle data outside main table columns?

Formulae in Excel Contents of a cell are treated as literal unless you signal that they are part of a formula; thus B1 + B2 will appear exactly as you typed it Formulae identified by = sign at start =B1+B2 will produce sum of these two cells Have seen Functions like SUM and AVERAGE (remember how Ranges are written A3:C7) You can name cells in field at left of formula bar: give a helpful name like “VAT rate” instead of co-ordinates To avoid co-ordinates changing on Copy/Move, prefix the co-ordinate with $ – e.g. $A$1

More about replication Dragging to replicate the contents of a cell Place cursor in bottom right of cell Drag horizontally or vertically Excel copies your cell into the cells you’re “painting” Like Copy/Paste, it adjusts what is copied Usually what you want – but not always! Adjusts column/row references So dragging a column total right will create a correct total on the next column to the right Increments numbers Dragging 1999 produces 2000 on right Or 1998 if you drag to the left The clipboard is a concept within Windows, and you can think of it as a hidden area of memory that holds whatever you choose to put on it. You transfer selected data to the clipboard with Edit Copy (or by pressing a Copy button on the toolbar). You can then Paste in the current contents of the clipboard (with Edit Paste). The clipboard is very versatile, and can hold text, graphics, and even files. That doesn’t mean that every program can interpret anything stored there by every other program, but there are defined standards to ensure that a useful subset of clipboard contents is always available. Within a collection such as Office 97, you can expect the full capabilities of the clipboard to be available. So when you store a piece of a Word table, you can expect other programs in the suite to be able to paste in not only the text, but also the font, and the fact that the clipboard contents are divided into cells. Edit Cut is similar to Copy, except that it automatically removes the selected area from the source document. Depending on application, this may happen immediately, or not until the data is pasted in to the target location. In addition, the clipboard contains hidden information about where the data was copied from, which will prove valuable later. Because there’s only one clipboard, every time you Copy or Cut, you overwrite what is there at the time. This is potentially a problem if you spot a couple of transposed words in the middle of a major move. Fortunately, most Windows applications let you drag selected text with the mouse, and drop it in a new location without needing to go through the clipboard.

Spreadsheet Hands-on 1. Creating a Spreadsheet  Practical Exercises handout: 1. Creating a Spreadsheet  2. Changing the Look and Style 3. Adding Formulae  4. Adding a Row to the Spreadsheet

Questions ?