IS 171 Computing with Spreadsheets

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IS 171Computing with Spreadsheets

• Introduction to Spreadsheets
• Week 1

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Introduction

• Course Overview and Policies
• Where do spreadsheets fit?
• The history of spreadsheets
• Intro to Excel

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The Idea of a Spreadsheet

• What is a spreadsheet?
• What are its uses?
• Have you ever used a spreadsheet?

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A Brief History of Spreadsheets

• The accountants ledger
• Dan Bricklin and Visicalc
• Mitch Kapor and Lotus 1-2-3
• Bill Gates and Microsoft Excel

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The accountants paper ledger

• Big sheets of paper (spread out the sheets?)
• Permits storing figures

Fig. 1.1, p. 2 of book
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Dan Bricklin (1951-) and VisiCalc

• 1979
• Visible calculator
• Apple II
• Pushed sales of personal computers

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Mitch Kapor (1950-) and Lotus 1-2-3

• 1982
• Spreadsheets for presentation too
• Wildly successful

http//www.nb-info.co.uk
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Bill Gates and Microsoft Excel

• 1985 originally written for Apple II
• 1987 shipped with introduction of Windows
• Graphical interface

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Introduction to Excel

• Spreadsheet Excel calls it a Worksheet
• A Workbook is a collection of worksheets
• Grid of columns (labeled alphabetically) and rows
  (labeled numerically)
• Each box is called a cell
• Each cell is named by its cell reference (cell
  address) which is the column letter followed by
  the row number (such as B3)

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More on Excel

• Cells can contain
• Constants (literals)
• 1239
• Hello
• Formulas
• (B3C3)
• Electronic spreadsheet does the paper version one
  better it performs the calculations

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Advantages

• Labor Savings
• Change all salaries for an company.
• Do this for 1000 or more employees!
• Allows "what-if" analysis can play with the
  numbers
• Allows graphing and charting

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Components of a Worksheet

• Title Bar
• Menu Bar
• Toolbars
• Standard toolbar
• Formatting toolbar
• View ?Toolbars menu option to change toolbars
  displayed
• Active cell
• Formula bar
• Displayed value
• Name box
• Worksheet tabs
• Entering/replacing cell contents (Tab, Enter, or
  arrow keys)

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Dont let this happen to you!