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Lesson 1: Spreadsheet Basics

Time Saving Features of Spreadsheets

Let's add up all the sales in units over the four weeks listed. To do this you need to make C7 the active cell(click on the cell to make it active). Then what you type in cell C7 will appear in the cell and the formula bar. The formula bar basically gives you a larger canvas to work with compared to the actual size of a cell.

To mathematically manipulate numbers in Excel you use formulas. To begin a formula use ‘=’ followed by whatever mathematical operations you want to perform.

In this example - Method 1- This is an example of  an inefficient  use of Excel.  We will address the  reasons  shortly. The point here is that you can use Excel as a traditional calculator; taking numbers and applying mathematical operations to those numbers. From time to time we all use Excel in this manner but we are not really taking advantage of the tool. A slightly better formula is seen in Method 2 below.

In Method 2  instead of using numbers in the formula we are using cell references. In Excel, a cell reference identifies the location a cell or group of cells in the worksheet. The ability to use actual numbers and/or cell references is the attribute that has made spreadsheets so indispensable. Throughout the semester you will find many times when  being able to use cell references in formulas enables efficient calculations.

It turns out, adding things up is such a popular activity in the business world that Excel (and all other spreadsheets) contain a pre-programmed addition or SUM functions.

In C7 you can see that we entered =sum(c3:c7).  We begin the formula the same way  you begin every formula with an ‘=’ sign. Next we activate the Excel sum function by entering s u m. Doing this tells excel to start adding up the contents of c3 and continue to c6 using a ‘:’.

Excel will begin the calculation using the number stored in whatever cell is to the left of the ‘:’ and continue through whichever cell is to the right of the ‘:’.

Adding non adjacent cells: What if you wanted to add the contents of c1 and c4? In that case you could still use the sum function but instead of a ‘:’ We would use a ‘,’ to separate the beginning and ending cells. We would use =sum(c3,c4)

Using the SUM function as I did in Method #3 is far more efficient than either Method #1 or Method #2. By more efficient we mean that the process takes less time to program into Excel and the results will be more accurate. When properly using a spreadsheet the goal is to obtain accurate results in an efficient manner.

Imagine using Method 1 or Method 2 when you have 1000 numbers to add up? It would take a long time to manually enter such a large sum. Method 1 is further compromised because what if you make a mistake when entering one of the actual numbers in the formula? By using an appropriate cell reference instead of the actual number the range of possible mistakes is reduced. As long as the data in the cells is correct to begin with and you use the correct references in the formula then my results should be accurate.


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