This unit will introduce you to a Spreadsheet application called Microsoft Excel. You will learn about rows, columns and creating basic formulas. You will learn how to read and understand the information on a spreadsheet.

Firstly, let's look at the keywords that you will need to know when working with a spreadsheet:

A spreadsheet is made up of thousands of boxes called cells.

Columns	Rows

The cells are divided into columns and rows. Columns go from top to bottom and they each have a letter. Rows go from left to right and they each have a number.

We can find a specific cell by using a column letter and a row number together. In the above example we have selected cell B3. This is called a cell reference.

Spreadsheets are very good at working with numbers. However, we need to know what all of the numbers will mean before we start entering them on the spreadsheet. This is why we should start by adding labels. Labels make the numbers have meaning.

Numbers on their own are known as numeric data.

In Mathematics, you learn how to add, subtract, divide and multiply. If you know how to tell the computer what sum you want to work out, it can do all of the hard work for you. We tell the computer by writing a formula.

Formulas always start with equals =. This tells the computer that you are writing a formula.

Now let's say that we want to add cell B2 to cell B3, which will be 5 + 15. We can work this out in our heads and type in the number but if the contents of cell B2 or B3 changed, we would need to work it out again. So let's use a formula. The formula is =B2+B3. Press enter / return and you shall see the answer.

Try changing cell B2 and B3 to another two different numbers. Look what happens to cell B4 - it updates automatically.

If you look on your keyboard for the divide key, you will find that there is no divide key. So instead we use the forward slash key as shown below.

The computer does not know the difference between multiply and the letter X so we must use another key for multiply. This key is the Asterix, which some people call the 'star' key. See below for how to use it.

Tip: If you have trouble remembering the symbols for multiply and divide, you can find them together with the add and subtract keys on the numberpad of your keyboard.

If you want to add many numbers together to create a total, your formula might look like =B2+B3+B4+B5+B6+B7. That can take quite a long time to type in so instead we can use a much shorter formula using SUM.

Think of SUM as meaning total. If you want the SUM of cell B2 to B7, you can type =SUM(B2:B7).