Information Technology
Outcome 2[2]: Spreadsheet
Application
[INTERMEDIATE 1]
Windows XP Version
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5:
About this section
Understanding spreadsheets
Editing a spreadsheet
Simple charting
SAQ answers
© Learning and Teaching Scotland 2004
This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part for educational purposes by educational
establishments in Scotland provided that no profit accrues at any stage.
Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation
in the United States and/or other countries. All terms mentioned that are known to be
trademarks have been capitalised.
Screenshots reprinted by permission from Microsoft Corporation
UNDERSTANDING SPREADSHEETS
PART 1
Understanding spreadsheets
What is this section about?
This section will help you learn how to use a spreadsheet. A
spreadsheet is one of 3 applications that you will learn to use in this
unit.
What will I learn?
At the end of this section, you will be able to:
 understand how a spreadsheet is used and how it is made up
 edit and format data in a spreadsheet
 create a pie chart from a spreadsheet
 save and print an Excel spreadsheet
 close down Excel.
How long should it take to do this?
You should complete this section in about 6–8 hours.
What else do I need?
You will need access to a computer with Microsoft Excel installed.
You will need files from the disk ‘IT Core Skills - Intermediate1’. You
may have already copied these into your own folder on the hard disk.
How will I be assessed on my work in this section?
You will be assessed through a practical assignment. Th is assignment
is likely to be linked to one of your interests or to your studies in other
subjects.
Your tutor will give you this assignment when you are ready for it.
Your tutor will want to supervise you doing this assignment so that he
or she knows that it is your own work.
The assignment will test your ability to do the above tasks well.
You will get an opportunity for re-assessment if you need it.
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WHAT IS A SPREADSHEET
PART 2
What is a spreadsheet
Spreadsheets do the same kind of tasks as calculators. However,
spreadsheets can show you the result of more than one calculation at a
time. Here are examples of how a spreadsheet might be used:
 To calculate the average rainfall over a month in different parts of
the country
 To compare the rise or fall in the birth rate in different counties
 To find the total marks gained by all pupils in a range of subjects.
There are two parts to a spreadsheet:
1.
The spreadsheet application created by a software company.
This software is either bought in a shop or sold as part of an IT
system.
2.
The data entered by you into the spreadsheet.
Let’s learn the language of spreadsheets by looking at part of a
spreadsheet you will use later. It is about the costs of buying
equipment for a fitness centre.
A spreadsheet is a grid made from:
 rows numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, ….(Remember the above is only part of a
spreadsheet.)
 columns headed A, B, C, D, E, F, G ……….
Where a row and column intersect is called a cell. Each cell gets its
name from the row and column which form it.
For example, ‘Exercise bike’ is in A2. Cell D3 holds £1060.00. Cell
B1 holds ‘Number’. The letter always comes first in a cell name.
There is an online animation available entitled ‘What is a
spreadsheet’.
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WHAT IS A SPREADSHEET
Questions 1
In the screenshot above,
1. What is showing in cell D2? A1? B3?
2. In what cell does £530.00 appear?
Here is the same spreadsheet but this time with cell B2 selected. The
selected cell is always surrounded by a black box.
B2 holds the number 3.
Note that the pointer is in the form of an open cross inside the
spreadsheet.
The formula bar
When a cell is selected, the name of the cell and its contents are
shown elsewhere on the spreadsheet. Find where this happens by
comparing the screenshot on the previous page with the one above.
This area of the spreadsheet is called the formula bar.
You now know that a spreadsheet cell can hold text, usually called a
label. It can also hold a value that may take different forms –
numbers, money, date, etc.
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WHAT IS A SPREADSHEET
A cell can hold one other type of content – a formula. A formula is
just a way of setting out a calculation that has to be done. Let’s look at
how formulas are used in spreadsheets.
Formula
Formula Bar
Cell D2 is selected in this screenshot.
Look at the formula bar and you will see that this time, it actually holds
a formula. This formula says ‘Multiply the contents of B2 by the
contents of C2’. Therefore, the calculation is 3 x 495.
What you see in cell D2 is the result of carrying out the formula. The
cell holds the formula but displays the result.
Formulas can use +, -, * (for multiplication), / (for division), and other
mathematical functions.
There is an online animation available entitled ‘Formula
Bar’
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WHAT IS A SPREADSHEET
Now try the following questions to test your understanding of the terms
used in spreadsheets.
Questions 2
1. Select one of the following to complete this sentence correctly.
A spreadsheet is the correct software application if you are:
 writing a document
 doing calculations on a range of numbers
 keeping lists of data.
2. A ____ is formed by the crossing of a row and a ______. A cell’s
name is made from the name of the column and then the name
of the ___.
3. Complete the following:
A cell can hold a l_____ or a v___e or a f_____a.
This quiz is available in interactive format online entitled
‘Spreadsheets Quiz’
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EDITING A SPREADSHEET
PART 3
Editing a spreadsheet
You will need the file Gym Equipment for this part. This file is on the
floppy disk ‘IT Core Skills – Intermediate 1’ or you may have copied it
to your own folder in My Documents.
 Double click on the icon for Gym Equipment.
The computer recognises it as an Excel file. It launches Excel and
then loads the data in Gym Equipment into the Excel layout.
What you see on the screen should look something like the screenshot
below. You may already recognise some of the words in the menu bar
and icons in the tool bar.
Menu
Bar
Tool
Bar
Screenshot reprinted by permission from Microsoft Corporation
The Black Ace Fitness Centre needs to update its equipment. This
spreadsheet helps the manager to decide what he can or cannot afford
to buy.
Take a printout of this spreadsheet now. It will help you see the
changes that take place as you edit it.
 Press the printer icon in the tool bar at the top (or choose
Print from the File menu).
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EDITING A SPREADSHEET
Cell formulas
Click on cells with content to discover which five cells hold a formula.
Write down the name of the cells and the formula in each.
Hint: Watch the formula bar immediately above the spreadsheet where
the name and the contents of a selected cell appear.
Adding a row of data
The manager decides to buy two roller glides at £29.95. You must add
this data in the right places.
 Move the pointer to A12 and click the mouse button. Do not use
A11.
 Enter Roller Glide and press the Return key.
 Click on B12, enter 2 and press the Return key.
 Click on C12 and enter 29.95. Do not enter the ‘£’ sign. It will
appear automatically as the column is set up for currency.
 Press the Return key.
There is an online animation available entitled ‘Adding a
row of data’.
Now you can enter data into a cell.
 Enter Black Ace Fitness Centre into cell A1.
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EDITING A SPREADSHEET
Deleting a row of data
The manager decides not to buy scales.
 Click the pointer in the box marked 10 on the left of ‘Scales’. The
whole of row 10 will be highlighted.
 Select Edit from the menu bar.
 Select Delete from the drop-down menu when it opens. The whole
row disappears.
Roller Glide details have now moved up to row 11.
There is an online animation available entitled ‘Deleting
a row of data’’.
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EDITING A SPREADSHEET
Amending cell data
There are 2 cells showing ‘Total’. You will amend one of these cells to
avoid confusion.
 Click on C12.
 Move the cursor to the formula bar at the top where the cell
contents are shown.
 Click the button when the cursor is at the end of ‘Total’. Note that
the text cursor now appears.
 Press the Space bar and add the word ‘Cost’.
 Click anywhere in the spreadsheet.
There is an online animation available entitled ‘Amending
cell data’.
Some changes are easier than this but can have a greater impact.
The manager decides that the centre can only afford two, not three,
treadmills.
 Click on B9.
 Enter 2 at the keyboard and press the Return key.
Questions 3
Compare cell D9 on the screen and D9 in your printout.
1. What else has changed?
2. Why has this happened?
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EDITING A SPREADSHEET
Adding a formula
You should have discovered by now that cells D6 to D9 contain a
formula which means:
multiply together the values in column B and column C
in this row and put the result in column D in the same
row.
The correct form of this formula needs to be entered for the roller
glides in D11.
Questions 4
1. What is the formula that should be entered in D11? Check
your answer in Part 5: SAQ Answers before moving on.
 Click on D11. This is where the formula will be held.
 Type an equals (=) sign in the formula bar above.
Screenshot reprinted by permission from Microsoft Corporation
The computer now knows you are going to enter a formula.
 Enter the formula = B11 * C11 into the formula bar. (See above.)
 Click OK in the drop-down window. The formula result – £58.90 –
now appears in D11.
There is an online animation available entitled ‘Adding a
Formula’.
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EDITING A SPREADSHEET
Let’s try entering another formula.
You are going to enter into D12 a formula that will add up the values in
D6 to D11. This will tell the manager the total cost for all the
equipment.
The computer will enter 0 for the empty cell D10.
 Click on D12. This tells the computer where to put the formula that
you will enter.
 Click on the = sign in the formula bar.
 In the formula bar, enter D6+D7+d8+d9+D10+D11. (Note that the
use of capitals is not necessary.)
 Click OK. The result - £5,784.90 - should appear in D12.
Formatting a spreadsheet
You will have noticed that column A is not wide enough for ‘Rowing
machine’.
You can change column width in exactly the same way as you did in
the section on databases.
Changing cell width
 Move the pointer from the column heading A towards B.
 When it changes to a black cross, click and drag the mouse gently
to the right.
Column A will now be wider. You can drag it back a little if necessary.
There is an online animation available entitled ‘Changing
a column width’.
Changing font and style is also part of formatting a document.
Font is the way the letters and numbers are formed.
Style is whether the words are written in plain or bold text, italics
or underlined.
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EDITING A SPREADSHEET
Changing font
 Click on the blank square at the top left of the spreadsheet, above
row 1 and beside column A. The whole sheet will be highlighted.
 Move the pointer to the tool bar.
 Click on this down arrow.
Down arrow
A menu of fonts will appear.
 Click on a font to see what happens to the spreadsheet.
If you do not like it, click on Edit in the menu bar and select Undo.
There is an online animation available entitled
‘’Changing font’’.
Try other ones. When you find a font you like, click anywhere on the
spreadsheet to remove the highlight.
Changing style
You are going to change the style of the words in cells A1 and A3.
First you have to highlight the words that will get the change of style.
 Click on cell A3. ‘Planned Purchase of Gym Equipment’ appears in
the formula bar above.
 Move the pointer to this bar and click so that the text cursor
appears just before ‘Planned’.
 Press and hold down the Shift key on the keyboard.
 At the same time, move the pointer to just after ‘Equipment’ and
click the mouse. The whole of ‘Planned Purchase of Equipment’
should now be highlighted.
 Move the pointer to the tool bar and click on one of these style
buttons.
B is for bold, I for italics and U for underline.
 Click the mouse button on another part of the screen to see the effect.
There is an online animation available entitled ‘Changing
Style’.
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EDITING A SPREADSHEET
Try each style in turn. If you lose the highlight by mistake, the
computer will not know what text to change. If this happens, start
again at the beginning.
 Save and print out all the changes you have made to the spreadsheet.
These processes in Excel are exactly the same as in the Access
database. You will also find that they are the same in word processing
in the next section. This is because the same software company wrote
all three applications.
Let’s use the menus for these tasks this time.
Saving a file
 Click on File in the menu bar.
 Select Save from the drop-down menu that appears. Your file will
now be updated to contain all the changes you have made.
Printing a file
 Click on File in the menu bar.
 Select Print from the drop-down menu that appears. The Print
window appears.
 Click OK in this window. Your file will now be printed.
Now close all windows on the desktop.
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EDITING A SPREADSHEET
Editing the Population Change spreadsheet
You are going to carry out similar tasks on another file Population
Change from the floppy disk ‘IT Core Skills – Intermediate 1’. Look
back in these notes to find how to do any task that you may have
forgotten.
1.
Load the file Population Change.
This file records the numbers in different age groups on a remote
island in 1995.
2.
The number of Minors 10-15 was entered wrongly in 1995.
Enter the correct number which is 11.
3.
Enter the numbers for the year 2000. They are:
Adult Male:
18
Adult Female: 17
Minors 10-15: 8
Minors<5:
3
4.
Widen the A column so that all the labels in the column can be
seen.
5.
Choose your own name for the island.
Enter it into cell A1.
6.
Make bold your name for the island and ‘Record of Population
Change’.
7.
Enter a formula in B11 that finds the total population of the island
in 1995.
Check that your formula is working properly by using a calculator
to add the figures.
8.
Enter a formula to find the total population in the year 2000.
9.
Save the spreadsheet changes.
10.
Print the spreadsheet.
11.
Close all windows on the desktop.
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MAKING CHARTS
PART 4
Making Charts
Numbers make a greater impact when they are shown as a chart.
Excel can help you to create charts from the values in your
spreadsheets.
You are going to create a Pie chart from the figures in the file Gym
Equipment.
1.
Load the Excel file Gym Equipment.
2.
Click anywhere in the spreadsheet.
3.
The chart will need plenty of room so you need to make the
spreadsheet bigger.
The cursor changes to a double-headed arrow as you move it
over the bottom right corner of the spreadsheet. Click and drag
this arrowhead downwards and outwards to make the
spreadsheet bigger.
4.
Now tell the computer which cells to use in the chart.
Click and drag from A6 to A10.
Hold down the Control (Ctrl) key. It lies at the bottom left corner
of the keyboard.
Click and drag from D6 to D10.
Release the Control key.
5.
Move the cursor to the tool bar and click on the Chart
Wizard icon.
A window opens.
6.
Select Pie from the list of chart types.
7.
Click Next.
8.
Click Next on the next window.
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MAKING CHARTS
9.
You are going to enter the chart title in the narrow window for this
purpose.
Enter ‘Share of Total Spend’.
Click Next.
10.
Click Finish in the next window. The chart should appear in the
spreadsheet.
11.
Place the chart carefully by clicking and dragging it until you ca n
see both the spreadsheet figures and the chart.
12.
Save your file.
13.
Print the spreadsheet with its chart.
There is an online animation available entitled ‘Making
Charts’.
Creating a pie chart
1.
Load the spreadsheet Population Change.
2.
Enlarge the spreadsheet to make room for a chart.
3.
Create a Pie chart using cells A6 to A9 and B6 to B9.
4.
Place the chart in the spreadsheet so that the chart and the
spreadsheet figures can be seen clearly.
5.
Save the spreadsheet.
6.
Print out the spreadsheet with the chart.
7.
Close all windows on the desktop.
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SAQ ANSWERS
PART 5
Answers 1
1.
D2 = £1,485.00; A1 = Item; B3 = 2
2.
£530.00 appears in C3.
Answers 2
1.
A spreadsheet is the correct software application if you are doing
calculations on a range of numbers.
2.
A cell is formed by the crossing of a row and a column. A cell’s
name is made from the name of the column and then the name of
the row.
3.
A cell can hold a label or a value or a formula.
Cell formulas - answers
Cell with formula
D6
D7
D8
D9
D10
Formula
B6*C6
B7*C7
B8*C8
B9*C9
B10*C10
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SAQ ANSWERS
Answers 3
1.
The value in D9 has changed.
2.
This has happened because one of the values used in the formula
in D9 changed from 3 to 2.
Answers 4
The formula for D11 = B11*C11
Editing the population change spreadsheet - answers
Your file should look something like this. Note the correct formula i n
the formula bar.
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SAQ ANSWERS
Create a pie chart - answers
Your file should look something like this:
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