Copyright © 2008, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
A group of cells that falls into a line horizontally is called a row, a group
of cells in a vertical line is called a column. The rows of a spreadsheet
are numbered, starting from the top. The columns are identifi ed by letters,
starting from the left. Each cell is identifi ed by the letter of its column and
the number of its row. Figure 5.1 at the bottom of this page is an example
of a simple spreadsheet, giving the sales of the three wonderful products
offered by the InterGlobal Incredibly Useful Products Company.
A cell is identifi ed by the column and row that it falls in; usually the
column is given fi rst. For example, in this spreadsheet, A5 is the cell in
column A, row 5. A5 contains the text “Totals”. B3 is the cell in column
B, row 3, which contains the number 880. The total dollar value of all the
product sales is contained in cell D5.
It is important to understand that the contents of a cell are not always
what they appear to be. For example, cell C2 appears to contain the
text “$23.95” but in fact it only contains the number 23.95. The dollar
sign shown is not actually part of the contents of this cell. In all the
problems we have worked so far in this text, we have recognized that in
calculations the $ symbol is not important, and we have ignored it when
working through problems. We only put a “$” in front of an answer to
make it clear that the answer was an amount of money. Likewise, the
spreadsheet does not need the $ for its calculations, but, since the con-
tents of the cell are supposed to be an amount of money, we do want it
to be displayed on the screen.
How does the computer know that the contents of the cell C2 should
be shown with a dollar sign (“$23.95” not “23.95”), while the contents of
cell B2 should not be given a dollar sign (“1800” rather than “$1800.00”)?
Each cell can be given a format, instructions to the program about how
to display the information in the cell. Because the numbers in cells C2 through C4 and D2
through D5 represent money, these cells have been formatted to display their contents with
a $ sign in front. The formatting does not matter from a strictly mathematical point of view,
but it does make the spreadsheet easier to read and therefore more user-friendly. There is
a lot that can be done with formatting, such as use of different colors, fonts, highlighting,
and so on, to make a spreadsheet more attractive and user-friendly. In this text we are
mostly interested in spreadsheets as tools for calculations, and so we will not pay too much
attention to formatting. We won’t completely ignore it, though, because, without decent
formatting a spreadsheet can be diffi cult to read, and diffi cult to use as a result.
Formatting is not the only way that a cell can contain something different than what it
appears to. Cell D2 appears to contain the number 43,110, but actually that number is not
what is in that cell at all. D2 should represent the total dollar amount of sales of solar fi sh
gutters, which is $43,110. Now, if we didn’t already have this fi gure and wanted to fi gure
out just how much those sales total, we would need to multiply the number of items sold
(which is contained in B2) times the price per item (contained in C2). We could do this
ourselves on the calculator and then type the result into D2, but spreadsheets allow another
option. Since the spreadsheet contains the two values to be multiplied, we can instead put
a formula in the cell that tells the program to multiply B2 times C2. By entering formulas
like this, we allow the spreadsheet program to do the calculations for us.5.1 Using Spreadsheets: An Introduction 209Spreadsheets are widely used in the business world.
© The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc./Jill Braaten,
photographer/DIL1
2
3
4
5
A B C D
Product Units Sold Unit Price
Solar Singing Fish Gutter 1800 $23.95
Home Crash Test Kit 880 $127.95
Twelve Tone Door Chime 500 $44.99
Totals N/AProduct Sales
$43,110
$112,596
$22,495
3180 $178,201FIGURE 5.1