Spreadsheet basics
A spreadsheet is no more than a collection of cells (squares) that you can put numbers in and then other cells can do calculations on. That’s the main concept of a spreadsheet- pretty simple.
Here is sample spreadsheet figuring average corn price per bushel:
The first thing you should understand is how cells are named. You see letters at the top of the columns and numbers running down the side of the rows on the left. These are used to name the cells by taking the column label and adding the row label. For example the cell with “load #” in it is identified as B3 (B column, row 3). Knowing what the cell is called is important so you can write calculations.
I have made a calculation in F4 that will reference C4 (bushels in load 1), D4 (price for those bushels), and E4 (drying cost on those bushels). That formula appears in the formula box above the spreadsheet as =C4*(D4-E4). If you look at cell F4 you see the result of the calculation as $1,708.00. A calculation is never seen unless you click on the cell that contains it. This calculation is the number bushels times price minus drying cost.
All calculations start with the = sign. All calculations use * for multiplication, / for division, + for addition and – for subtraction. () tell the calculation to do operations inside them first. Otherwise calculations do all multiplication/division first and all addition/subtraction second. This is an important thing to remember because you can generate the wrong answer if not very careful. Using our =C4*(D4-E4) calculation we will put in the real numbers with and without parenthesis to show you the difference.
With Parentheses 854 x (2.1-0.1)= 854 x 2.0= 1708.00
Numbers inside parenthesis figured first and then multiplied by 854 bushels
Without Parentheses 854 x 2.1 –0.1=1793.4 –0.1= 1793.30
Multiplication is done first (854 x 2.1) and then the subtraction is done giving incorrect answer
Spreadsheets have predefined functions that can be used in calculations. In F7 I have used the SUM function which looks like this: =SUM(F4:F6) which is designed to add up all the amounts in cells F4 through F6. You could still get the same result by doing =F4+F5+F6 but this would get pretty tedious if you had more than 3 lines you wanted to sum.
One nice feature of calculations is that they are stored in the computer’s memory with all cell references kept in relation to the cell the calculation is in. this means that the computer looks at our =C4*(D4-E4) formula not as get number in C4, D4 and E5 but get numbers from cells 3,2, and 1 to the left of the current cell.
This would have no significance to anyone except that it allows you to make one calculation and copy and paste to other cells without rewriting the same calculation over and over again. In our example we have cells F5 and F6 essentially doing the same calculation as F4 but on their corresponding loads. You could type in a calculation for each cell but the far quicker method is to type in F4 and then copy it and paste it into F5 and F6. This will take the calculation and put it in the other cells updating the cell references to the proper row. You will like this feature a lot if you have a long column of calculations to do.
Sometimes you will not want a cell reference to change when you copy a calculation. In this case you describe the cell reference with a $ in front of the column, row or both. The $ sign tells the program to keep the reference frozen. If you used =$C$4*(D4-E4) as your formula in F4 and copied it into F5 you would get =$C$4*(D5-E5) as the calculation, C4 staying the same but the others being updated to their new row.
If you can understand the above concepts you should now have a pretty good understanding of what spreadsheets are used for about 80% of the time. Hopefully this will take quite a bit of mystery out of spreadsheets and give you the confidence to open one up and use it if your not using one already.