other pages welcome | course | syllabus | reports | class projects

|

The Tools: Data  (Spreadsheets and Tables) ENG 260 Business And Professional Writing Medaille College - Fall 2009 this page other Tools pages text | graphics | print documents web | style sheets | audio | presentation slides | video

Spreadsheets and Tables

what is it?

A matrix or grid of data arranged in rows and columns.

The first "killer app" for PC's. The first what-if software to process and display numbers and data sets.

how is it commonly used?

managing numerical data
making tables and charts
building numerical models, especially financial
preparing accounting working papers
simulating economic conditions via difference equations/"cellular automata"
modeling mathematical conditions
solving linear and nonlinear programs
modeling loans

quick example: Erich Neuwirth's Statistics Demonstrations with Excel: Correlation Visualized, Central Limit Theorem, and Binomial Simulation

what you should know how to do

For this course, you need to know how to

create or import, edit, and dress up a table

convert a table to a chart and dress it up

export the table and the chart to other tools

take a screenshot of the chart to use as an image

Graduating from college, it would be best if you knew how to:

use a workbook
label worksheets
formatting

adjust column and row height
change fonts etc
insert symbols
use text boxes
style (number, text, currency, %)
sorting

charts
add-ins
using formulas
referring to other cells
formula auditing

software

Microsoft's Excel

Open Office Calc

Wikipedia's List of online spreadsheets

how-to articles for Excel

MrExcel.com's Excel Tutorials and Tips

History of spreadsheets

Spreadsheet: Its First Computerization (1961-1964)
by Richard Mattessich

The term "spread sheet" (nowadays "spreadsheet") has a long tradition; reference to its non-computerized version can be found in the first edition of Eric L. Kohler's Dictionary for Accountants (1952) and refers to a worksheet providing a two way analysis of accounting data (e.g., an accounting matrix in which the columns and rows constitute either debit and credit sides respectively or reverse).

In the beginning, there were no spreadsheets ...

screen shot of Dan Bricklin's Visicalc

A Brief History of Spreadsheets
by D. J. Power

Excel (1987) was one of the first spreadsheets to use a graphical interface with pull down menus and a point and click capability using a mouse pointing device. The Excel spreadsheet with a graphical user interface was easier for most people to use than the command line interface of PC-DOS spreadsheet products. Many people bought Apple Macintoshes so that they could use Bill Gates' Excel spreadsheet program.

how to for Open Office Calc

CALC (Spreadsheet) Tutorials

OpenOffice Calc Tips

Calc information page

OpenOffice.org Spreadsheet Project

Spreadsheet FAQ

Official OpenOffice Documentation Wiki. Select any of the Calc sections

Free lessons for OpenOffice.org Calc

take a screen shot

1) display the screen you want a picture of

2) press the Print Screen key, probably along the top of your keyboard

3) open Paint

4) Edit | Paste

5) File | Save as ...

6) open saved image and edit (such as crop, resize, add text, and combine images)

7) open GIMP if it needs editing you can't do in Paint

take a screen shot of a range of cells

1) In an open spreadsheet, select the area you'd like to copy.

2) Hold down SHIFT, then click Edit | Copy Picture.

3) Select how you would prefer the data to be copied.

4) Open an image editing program like Paint and Edit | Paste.

Amazing things happen when you hold down that SHIFT key before you click.

how to import a table from the Web

1) With a new worksheet open, pull down the Data menu and select (in Calc) Insert  (in Excel) Import External Data | Web Query.

2) In the window that pops up, type in a URL and navigate to the table.

3) You should see a yellow rectangle with a black arrow on the top left corner of the table. Click it.

4) Click Import and on the next screen click OK.