Other Useful Features of Excel n Scenario Manager n Freezing Panes n OLE

Scenario Manager n Suppose you want to see what happens as certain values are varied. n For example, as a borrower, you might be interested in how your loan payments and balances vary as the interest rate varies. n Or you might have a business and want to know what might happen if you decide to spend different amounts advertising a particular product line.

n You could always set the values a certain way, then perhaps print the resulting worksheet, then try different values, etc. n Or, you could create multiple copies of the same worksheet, each using different values of the quantity you want to vary. n Or, you could use the Scenario Manager.

n To use the Scenario Manager, go to Tools => Scenarios… n Initially, there will be no scenarios until you add them, so you should click Add in the Scenario Manager dialog box. n After you do this, you will see:

n In this particular instance, no cells on the worksheet were selected, so we next use the mouse to select cells B4:C4 on the worksheet. n Making any kind of change like this to the data in the dialog box causes it to be renamed the Edit Scenario dialog box.

n The example shown here is based on the grade book example used in the introductory presentation, where B4 and C4 contain the weightings used for Test 1 and Test 2. n (The weighting for the Final is computed using the formula =100%-B4-C4, and is therefore updated automatically when B4 or C4 change.)

n The idea is to have one scenario in which Test 1 and Test 2 have weightings of 25% each, and another where they have weightings of 30% each, to see what effect these changes have on everyone’s grade. n To create the 25% weighting scenario, we click OK on the Edit Scenario dialog box and then fill out the Scenario Values dialog box:

n After we’ve finished doing this, we then create the 30% weighting scenario similarly. n After this, when we do Tools => Scenarios… we see the following dialog box. n We can then select the name of the scenario we want to use and click Show, and the entire worksheet will show the results of applying that particular scenario.

Freezing Panes n If a worksheet is too large to fit entirely on the screen, you have to scroll to get to parts of it. n But this makes other parts disappear from view, including row and column headings. n For example:

n If we scroll to the right to enter or look at scores for HW 3 and the Final, we get this, where the students’ names are no longer visible:

n We would like rows 1 through 3 and column A to be displayed, no matter what part of the worksheet we scroll to. n To make this happen: 1. Make cell B4 the active cell 2. Do Window => Freeze Panes n All columns to the left of and all rows above the active cell are ‘frozen’ by this command.

OLE n It is handy to be able to include a worksheet or chart in a Word document. n It may be included by either embedding it (by pasting or inserting it), or linking it. n If you embed it, a copy is made and placed in the Word document.

n If you link it, no copy is made, but when you look at the Word document or print it, it looks like it’s there. n Linking saves space, and also allows any changes made in the linked file (e.g. Excel chart) to immediately be reflected in the document.