The interface of a spreadsheet program is usually a two-dimensional table consisting of vertical columns and horizontal rows. One box in a table is called a cell. The most well-known spreadsheet programs are MS Excel and Quattro Pro.

Each cell has an address based on a column and a row. For example, the address C4 refers to a cell in the fourth row of the third column, i.e. column C.

Three types of information can be entered in the cells:

text
numbers
calculation formulas

The idea of spreadsheets is to generate result data from input data. In order for the results to be updated automatically when the input data changes, formulas are used to calculate the result data. Formulas in Excel always start with an equals sign (=). The formulas refer to the cells in the table. A selected part of the table can be printed on paper. Most spreasheet programs can also draw graphs based on the data.

Examples

Example 1

The prices and quantities of the products have been entered in the table below. The line-by-line prices for cells D2, D3, D4 and D5 have been calculated based on their formulas.

	A	B	C	D
1	Product	Price per unit	Amount	Total
2	apple juice	2 QAR	4	8 QAR
3	bread	6 QAR	2	12 QAR
4	chocolate pudding	2,40 QAR	5	12 QAR
5	comic book	14 QAR	1	14 QAR
6
7		Total price		46 QAR
8

For example, the result of cell D2, 8 QAR, is obtained by the following formula:

=B2*C2

Correspondingly, the result of cell D3, 12 QAR, is obtained using the following formula:

=B3*C3

Finally, the total price of purchases in cell D7 is calculated in the table as follows:

=D2+D3+D4+D5

The most commonly used calculations are made into ready-made calculation formulas or functions. The total price of the products can be calculated using the ready-made SUM function. Once the type of formula has been selected, use the mouse to delimit the numbers in the table whose sum you want to calculate. The program handles the rest automatically. You can select the type of formula from the menu or enter it in cell D7 as follows:

=SUM(D2:D5).

Example 2

The areas of rectangles have been calculated in the table using different dimensions for their bases and heights.

	A	B	C
1	base	altitude	surface area
2	2	5	10
3	3	7	21
4	5	12	60
5	8	9	72
6	10	17	170
7

For example, the value of cell C2 (10) is obtained with the following formula:

=A2*B2

The value of cell C3 (21) is obtained using the following formula:

=A3*B3

Note! The formula does not necessarily have to be written separately for each cell, but can be copied from cell C2 to other cells. This can be achieved by moving the mouse cursor is to the right bottom corner of the cell, which makes it turn into a plus sign. The plus sign can then be dragged over other cells, which copies the formula of the first cell to other cells.