Just as word processing softwares make our life easy when working with words and text, programs commonly called spreadsheets are used when working with figures and numbers, statistics, data and where calculations are required to be done. Spreadsheets are mainly used for accounting or data analysis, or wherever mathematical formulae are to be used.
There are several spreadsheet programs, the first well known one being VisiCalc, others are Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Excel, Numbers, OpenOffice.org Calc, Gnumeric etc. Excel and other spreadsheets are frequently used for financial planning and budgeting, data analysis, What-If scenarios, and can produce charts, graphs and pivot tables,
Like all spreadsheets, Excel opens with a blank worksheet which is actually a grid of rows and columns. The rows are serially numbered 1,2,3 .... and the columns A,B,C..... This numbering enables each space or cell to have its unique address; thus D15 represents the cell in the 4th column and the 15th row. Now by using the ‘=’ sign, simple mathematical equations or formula can be used and sums, differences, products etc. calculated. Thus typing say, ‘=23+56’ in any cell will give the result of 79. The same work can be done by typing in the numbers 23 in cell A1, 56 in A2 and ‘=A1+A2’ in cell A3. Using formula with cell references would allow you to change the value in either cell A1 or A2 to get the revised result. This has significant advantages when using a complex formula or the same formula across multiple cells.
The value in a cell may be numbers, date, time, text, currency, percentages. The formula can be arithmetical, trigonometric or statistical; functions can be logical or even related to text.
While the basic functions of Microsoft Word such as Save, Copy, Paste, Find, Replace Undo, Redo etc. are available, Excel offers several basic functions suited to working with numbers. Some which must be tried by beginners are Paste Special, Filter, Sort, Wrap Text, Autofill (my post “Speed up data entry” ), Comments, and Freeze panes.
As a fresher to this software, to start with, use it for any of the following - calculations of your income and allowances, expenses, taxes, your own monthly budget, or even your time sheets. And do try using some formula too.
