UNIT 7 SPREADSHEETS : INTRODUCTION TO LOTUS 1-2-3 Structure 7.1 Introduction Objectives 7.2 What is a Spreadsheet 7.3 Spreadsheet in LOTUS 1-2-3 7.4 Components of Spreadsheet 7.5 Loading LOTUS 1-2-3 and Invoking Commands from Menu 7.6 Quitting LOTUS 1-2-3 7.7 Moving the Pointer to a Cell 7.8 Help Facility 7.9 Responding to Prompts 7.10 Entering Data 7.10.1 Types of Entries 7.10.2 Entering Text 7.10.3 Entering a Number 7.10.4 Entering a Formula 7.1 1 Correcting Data 7.12 Increasing or Decreasing the Column Width of a Cell 7.1 3 Saving the Worksheet 7.14 Retrieving Worksheet File . 7.1 5 Summary I ! 7.1 6 Answers to SAQs I 7.1 INTRODUCTION As we already saw computers are used in various day-to-day activities. Such computer applications are carried out using computer specific software. Spreadsheet is one such software. It is used for doing calculations on data in the form of rows and columns. We will study more about spreadsheets in this unit. Objectives After studying this unit. you will be able to : 1 explain a spreadsheet, explain LOTUS 1-2-3, identify a worksheet and a cell in the worksheet, I i describe control panel, I invoke various commands from the menu of the worksheet, move the pointer to a particular cell, use help facility effectively, ! enter data in the form of text, numbers and formula, enter edit mode, correct data and exit out of it, save the worksheet, and retrieve the worksheet for further processing. .. ... .... ........ ". .,.,.,.,.,....:. .. .X. .. A1 : :........... ... .. Spreadsheets :Introduction to LOTUS 1-23 Column Indicator Mode Indicator Highlighted Area Row Indicator Special Keys Error Message Indicator 14-May-96 03:15 Figure 7.2 :Worksheet 1) The top portion is the control panel. 2) The major portion occupying the screen is called the worksheet. 3) Column headings (designated as A, B, C, D, E, . ., Z. AA, AB, . ., AZ, BA, BB, . ., BZ and so on up to IV) appear on the upper portion and row headings (designed from 1 through 248 for release 1A of LOTUS 1-2-3 and up to 8192 in release 2) appear on the left side. You can see that columns are denoted by alphabets and rows by letters. Each location where a vertical line from a column indicator and horizontal line from row indicator meet is called a cell. The column indicator followed by the row indicator such as Al, A2, B3, B5 is called cell address. You can see only a prtion of the total number of columns and rows at a time on the computer monitor. You can move to any portion of the worksheet by using the cursor movement keys, these are the arrow keys on the right side of the keyboard of the computer or the F5 key. As and when you move along the worksheet appropriate column and row headings always appear at the top and left. Another important component of the worksheet is the pointer. This is a highlighting rectangle also called a cursor. You can move this pointer to any cell by using pointer - movement keys on the keyboard of the computer to the cell. 7.4.1 Control Panel At the top of the worksheet is the control panel. It consists of three lines. Let us study each line. First line :First line is the cell control indicator. It shows the cell at which you are currently in. In Figure 7.2, it shows the first cell which is Al. If you have already entered any information it will appear after the cell address. At the right end of the fist line is the mode indicator. In Figure 7.2, it shows 'MENU'. We will study modes shortly. Second line : When you press "I" on the keyboard, 1-2-3 displays a number of items such as , Worksheet, Range, Copy, Move and so on. This is called the menu. We may also call it main menu. It also displays other items when you work with the worksheet. You will study them as you go along. Third line : Third line displays summaries of items (commands) that you select on the" second line. You can move the highlight from one item to the other in the second line watching the summaries on the third line. To explain this point more clearly, suppose the highlight is on "WorksheetW,thefirst item on the second line. The third line would display ' ..,,,.<gpzj;c;;jj;s>z .. .. ...,.. Spreadsheets :Introduction to A1 : 3RE;ADY 3 LOTUS 1-23 2:?:.:.:.::::::::?::,:,:;........ _ .............................:.:.:.:.:. 14-May-96 03:17 PM 7NUM CAPS SCROLL I Figure 7.3 :LOTUS 1-2-3 Worksheet * You will find that there is no menu item appearing on the screen. Now press the '/' key. The menu appears (Figure 7.4). The mode indicator changes to MENU and the highlight is on "worksheet" which means that it is the item selected at this point of time. Worksheet, Range, Copy, Move, File, Print, Graph, Data, System, Quit Global, Insert, Delete, Column, Erase, Titles, Window, Status, Page 14-May-96 03:17 PM NUM . CAPS SCROLL. Figure 7.4 :LOTUS 1-2-3 Screen with Menu Press the right arrow key and the highlight moves to "Range". Now the summary line changes correspondingly. The highlight can be moved to any item in the menu and the corresponding summary line appears at the third line. Move the highlight to left by pressing the left arrow key. Bring it to first item "Worksheet" and press RETURN key. Now the summary line corresponding to the "Worksheet" moves Spreadsheets :Introduction to LOTUS 1-23 Fixed Number of Decimal places (x.xx) I Figure 7.7 :LOTUS 1-2-3Screen Press enter and you will get a worksheet shown in Figure 7.8. Figure 7.8': Entering Number of Deciinal Places The message "Enter number of decimal places (0.. .15) : 2 appears. You can enter a number to specify the number of decimal places to be retained when you enter data into the cells of the worksheet. Now, you can see the mode changed to "EDIT". Press enter and you will again see the worksheet. Spreadsheets :Introduction to 76 QUITTING LOTUS 1-2-3 LOTUS 1-23 We first learnt to invoke a few commands through the menu. Now, let us quit the LOTUS 1-2-3 program. Follow the steps given below. 1) Press "/" to go to menu. Let us hereafter call this menu as "main menu". Now, you will get the menu the second line of which has commands starting from "Worksheet" which is highlighted. 2) Press the right arrow key to move the highlight to "QUIT' and press enter. or Press Q which is the first letter of "QUIT' command. LOTUS 1-2-3 now displays on the second line as QUIT the LOTUS 1-2-3 session? No/Yes The command "No" is highlighted. If you press return it is executed and the LOTUS 1-2-3 worksheet appears again. If you press Y, we exit L(.)TUS 1-2-3. Caution : Before quitting LOTUS 1-2-3 we should save the data entered in case you need it for future use. We shall study how to save data subsequently. At present we have not yet entered any thing useful and so we quit LOTUS 1-2-3 without saving the worksheet. 7.7 MOVING THE POINTER TO A CELL When you do practical LOTUS 1-2-3 work, you will very often find that you are entering a data in a cell and you have to go to some other cell to see what it contains or change its contents. You may use the left, right, up and down arrow keys to move the pointer in the desired direction, one cell at a time. Keep any key pressed and the pointer moves in the appropriate direction very fast. But if the destination cell is far away from the current cell LOTUS 1-2-3 provides an easier way and it is the GO TO key. I To move the pointer directly to a particular cell, press the F5 key. LOTUS 1-2-3 will display I "Enter address to go to" I Enter the address of the cell to go to and press return. Now, the pointer moves to the cell entered. You may then enter a value or edit the value in the particular cell. You may sometimes go to a cell which is not in the current screen. In this case 1-2-3 automatically adjusts and displays the worksheet so that the desired cell is placed at the upper left hand side of the screen when you point to that cell. 7.8 HELPFACILITY When you select a particular command in the second line, u will find that 1-2-3 displays set of commands in the third line of the control panel. You can select any one of them next. At times you may need more information about a command. 1-2-3 helps you with the HELP facility. You may invoke this facility by pressing Fl key. 1-2-3 displays information about the particular command you select at the time of pressing the F1 key. In fact you may press Fl key even when you are entering data or doing any other operation in 1-2-3. You may read the help information 1-2-3 provides you. Press Esc key to resume the operation you have been perfonning at the time of pressing the F1 key.