Subsection(s)

Cells

A spreadsheet is made up of lots of little boxes called *cells*. Each cell can hold a number, some text, or a formula which performs some arithmetic on numbers.

Each cell refers to a specific spot in memory.

Each cell also has a unique address; cells are addressed by a column-letter and a row-number. If you're familiar with the old game "Battleship", you'll be quite comfortable with cell addressing.

	A	B	C	D
1	A1	B1	C1	D1
2	A2	B2	C2	D2
3	A3	B3	C3	D3
4	A4	B4	C4	D4

Each cell has a particular data type, depending on what's in it. Although it looks as if there are a ton of different data types, there are really only three.

Text

A cell might contain some words, or a single word, or a single letter. All these are lumped together under the heading of simple text. All text has a numeric value of zero!

Numbers

A cell will most often contain a number. The problem is, it might not look like a number.

You can format numbers to appear as currency ($), percentages (dates and times. All these and more are represented inside the computer as a number. Dates can be especially tricky, because at first glance they look like they're text.

Q. 1

Why pretend dates are numbers? Why not just use text?

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Click here for the answer:

Formulas

A formula is a mathematical expression that refers (most often) to other parts of the spreadsheet. Using formulas, you can set up those mathematical relationships that are used to keep track of things and ask those "What if...?" questions. We'll talk a lot about formulas in a little bit.

Q. 2

Hmmm.... text, numbers, and commands (formulas). Haven't we seen all this before?

Ranges

Any rectangular group of cells is called a range. Ranges are useful in various formulas that can work on a large number of cells at a time (e.g., the sum function, which adds up the values in all the cells in a given range).

Ranges are defined by giving their upper-left-hand corner cell address followed by a colon on the lower-right-hand-corner cell address.

Sometimes you will see ranges with .. between the cells: EG (A1..A10), (B5..C9).

A1:A10

The first ten cells in column A

A1:D1

The first four cells in row 1

A1:B3

The first three cells of columns A and B (or the first two cells of each of the first three rows, depending on how you look at it).

B1:B1

A very small range -- just the one cell, B1 -- but still valid and still useful.