Business computing Session 7 Excel, Links, Graphics, Goal seeking

Today’s topics Excel Links Graphics Goal seeking

P&L of a small shop Enter sales (per quarter) Purchases Etc. To have real numbers go to And enter the name and address of a shop you know

Excel In an Excel sheet some data are « hard data » and some data displayed are actually the result of formulas

Plain pasting No change in Word when we change the table in Excel

Special pasting with a link When we change the table in Excel, this entails an change into Word

Checks Within Excel it is a good idea to perform frequent checks of our formulas

The concept of dynamic link We prepare a table into Excel and paste it dynamically into Word –Excel is the « computing » software –Word is the « display » software The same applies to dynamic Web pages –The Camif catalog in the Web displays price data extracted from a database –They are displayed into HTML pages This applies to mail order firms.

The concept of dynamic link (2) The Camif main page does not have the HTML suffix but the ASP suffix (Active server page) When we call we actually obtain the display on our computer screen of a page constructed at the time of our request (just like the word page we created a minute ago)

The concept of dynamic link (3) The idea of separating data creation and data display is very important in the computer industry All mail order firm Web sites display pages created « on demand » from commercial data contained in databases HTML itself is an old language that mixes up data information and display information. It has been replaced by XML that separates the two functions.

Excel graphics

The goal seeking tool The standard situation –An excel formula is a mathematical formula –Usually of the form –F(A,B,C) = a computation with A, B and C –Excel computes for us F for a set of AB and C we enter as operands Sometime we decide the F value we want to reach and « adjust » B to reach that

The goal seeking tool (2) Example : F(A,B,C) = [ (1 + A)^B ] / (1 + C) If A=2, B=3, and C = 5, then F = 4,5 If A =2, and C=5 and we want F to be equal to 6,75 what should B be ?

The goal seeking tool (3) Example 2 A corridor has a width we don’t know (and we call w) A ladder of length 4 meters is put in the corridor, and another one of 3 meters (in the other direction) They cross 1 meter above the ground What is w ?