Learning Objectives

We want to become able to:

• Describe how data are organized in a spreadsheet
• Address (refer to) cells and cell ranges
• Distinguish between absolute and relative cell addresses
• Use formulas
• Use and discuss functions
  • Term: argument
• Use charts

Notes from Snyder, Chapter 13

• Any spreadsheet software: Microsoft Office 20XX Excel, LibreOffice Calc, OpenOffice.org Calc, Gnumeric, Google Drive spreadsheets, etc.
• Arrays of cells
• Sorting
• Row, column, and cell names
• Headings are useful
• Formulas perform calculation; they begin with an = sign
  • Arithmetic expressions use +, -, *, /
• Columns can be filled by pulling down the “fill handle”
  • Repeat a cell
  • Increment a cell
  • Increment by more than one
  • Compare Haskell [1,3..20]
• Absolute and relative cell addressing
  • $ makes it absolute
  • Row or column or both can be absolute
  • Compare to absolute and relative URLs, file paths
• Formatting cell contents
  • Number formatting
  • Text formatting
• Functions perform computations
  • Example: max computes the maximum
  • Usage: f(x1, ...) where f is the function name, x1 is the first argument, and there may be more arguments, separated by commas. Parentheses enclose the arguments, even if there are none (as in =today())
• Columns can be hidden and shown again
• Charts can be made (easily?) by selecting data to be graphed and running the Chart Wizard.
• Data may come from external sources and need to be imported into the spreadsheet.
  • Tab-delimited format: TAB characters separate the fields of data

Other Comments

• I think commas are more often used than tabs for delimiting the fields of imported data (CSV = comma-separated variable format).
• Microsoft Office Excel before 2007 used a closed, binary format (.xls extension)
• OpenOffice.org came up with an open format (Open Document Format Spreadsheet, .ods extension) (also for word processor and other “office” documents)
• Microsoft, under some (government?) pressure, came up with its own “open” format (Office Open XML spreadsheet, .xlsx format) (also for word processor and other “office” documents), though some people think it’s insufficiently open; used by default since 2007.
• Nowadays, different spreadsheet programs (and office software generally, word processors, presentationware, etc.) can often import and export each other’s native document formats.
• Naming of cells and ranges
• Danger: redundant, hidden formulas
• Declarative programming
• Sorting