INTRODUCTION TO

SPREADSHEETS

Microsoft Excel
WHAT IS A SPREADSHEET?
 An agreement of cells in columns and rows used to
organize, analyze, calculate, and report information,
usually in numerical form.
 USE OF SPREADSHEET
 Spreadsheet software is very versatile and can be used for both very
simple and very complete tasks. Lists such as vocabulary, project
can be easily composed in a spreadsheet.
 Adding or deleting items from a list like is also simple.
 It is also used in management of more complex data such as
earnings, expenses, budget and other accounting,
 Spreadsheet program used to calculate complicated maths includes
from basic + and – to percentage, taxes and multi-steps programs.
Spreadsheet is essential for business, self employed
individuals.
Spreadsheet programs also include software that
creates graphs and charts from the data provided
within the table.
This is good for presentation such as business
meeting and research projects.
 WHAT IS A WORKBOOK?
 A file which contains one or more spreadsheets.
WHAT COMPUTER PROGRAM
CREATES SPREADSHEETS?

Microsoft Excel, in the Microsoft office

Sun star office calc
Open calc
IBM
 PARTS OF SPREADSHEETS
 Row – Horizontal lines for
data in a spreadsheet.
Identified with numbers.
 Columns – Vertical lines for
data in a spreadsheet.
Identified with Letters.
 Cell – The individual
intersections between rows
and columns labeled by the
row number and column
letter.
 Active Cell – The cell is currently being edited. Marked by a
thick black boarder around the cell.
UNDERSTANDING
SPREADSHEETS
In each cell, there may be the following data types:
• Labels – text with no numerical value
• Number data – constant value
• Formulas – mathematical equation used to calculate

Data types Examples Descriptions

LABEL Name or Wage or Anything that is
Days just text
CONSTANT 5 or 3.75 ot -7.4 Any number
FORMULA =5+3 or =8*5+3 Math equation
 LABELS
Labels are text entries
Labels do not have a
value associated with
them.
It is also sometimes
called ‘headers’.
 CONSTANTS
 Constants are FIXED
number data.
 Constants may refer to
dollars, percentages, or
number of items (in case this
number of hours worked
within a certain pay period)
 FORMULAS
 Formulas are math equations that
calculate a value to be displayed.
 Do not type in the numbers; type in the
equation.
 It is BEST to Reference as much as
possible as opposed to typing data into
equations.
 The way when other information
changes, we do not have to change the
equations or type in the information
again.
 BASIC FORMULAS AND
FUNCTIONS
 Math functions built into them. The most basic operations are the
standard addition, subtraction, multiplication and divide.
 SUM FUNCTION
Definition: Tips:
The most popular function in any Blank cells will return a value of zero to be
spreadsheet is the SUM function. The SUM added to the total.
function takes all the values in each of the
specified cells and totals their values.
The syntax is: =SUM(first value, second Text cells cannot be added to a number and
value, etc.) will produce an error.
SUM FUNCTION
 AVERAGE FUNCTION
 The average function finds the average of the specified
data. It simplifies adding all of the indicated cells together
and dividing by the total number of cells.
 MAX & MIN FUNCTIONS
 Max function will return the largest (max) value in the selected
range of cells. The Min function will display the smallest value in a
selected set of cells.
SORTING
 Arranging data so it’s easy to analyze.
 You can sort the data alphabetically, from highest to lowest, or by a
number of additional criteria.
 FILTERS
Filter is a quick and
easy way to find and
work with a subset of
data in a range of
cells.