Don't Spend a Dime: The Path to Low-Cost Computing

Chapter 4. Spreadsheets

After word processing (covered in Chapter 3), the next most commonly used "office" application is a spreadsheet program. Entire books have been written on the use of spreadsheets. From financial calculations to household budgets to gym workout routines, spreadsheets have a variety of uses.

While spreadsheets take care of some behind-the-scenes operations—such as averaging, summing, and calculating interest rates—if the user (you) wishes to make the spreadsheet useful in any way, you do need some knowledge of formatting and creating formulas (both demonstrated in this chapter). For a quick-and-dirty calculation, most users simply plug numbers in to cells, generate a formula or two to act on those numbers, get the results, ...