University of South Florida

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FUNDAMENTALS OF INFORMATION The Modernization of Digital Information

TECHNOLOGY: Textbook – English Technology

1-1-2023

Chapter 09 Introduction to Spreadsheets

Shambhavi Roy

Clinton Daniel
University of South Florida, [email protected]

Manish Agrawal
University of South Florida, [email protected]

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/dit_tb_eng

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Roy, Shambhavi; Daniel, Clinton; and Agrawal, Manish, "Chapter 09 Introduction to Spreadsheets" (2023).
FUNDAMENTALS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Textbook – English. 9.
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Introduction to Spreadsheets

CHAPTER CONTENTS
Overview 170
What is a Spreadsheet? 171
Managing Spreadsheets 173
Menu Options 174
Entering Cell Data 175
Row and Column Titles 177
Formatting Cells and Worksheets 177
Styles 179
Themes 179
Merging and Splitting Cells 180
Hide and Unhide Columns and Rows 181
Page Layout Options 182
Formulas and Functions 183
Charts and Images 184
Benefits of Charts 185
Images 186
Share and Collaborate 186
Analyzing and Organizing Data 187
Filters 187
Sorting 188
Conditional Formatting 189
Pivot Tables 190
Additional Resources 190
Chapter Terms and Definitions 191
Chapter Case: Sports Tracking Spreadsheet 192

Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets 169

 Data visualization transforms data into powerful visualizations and provides
tactical, operational, and strategic insights. No longer merely a spreadsheet,
business intelligence visualizations can be used for everything from providing
analysis of cybersecurity patterns, to managing workplace efficiency for global
companies.

—Jason Beres, Sr. VP of Developer Tools at Infragistics

Overview
Spreadsheets are electronic documents that help users to manipulate data. While word processors
and email are probably the most used productivity applications, much of the world’s business runs on
spreadsheets. This is because spreadsheets are productivity applications designed to store numbers.
Spreadsheets make it easy to visualize data and identify trends in that data. Any teacher tracking
student grades will find it easiest to do so using spreadsheets. Student clubs will find it easiest to track
contributions and expenses if they use spreadsheets. You may not use spreadsheets every day of your
life, but your most valuable information is likely to be stored on spreadsheets.
For precisely this reason, spreadsheets were the killer app for computers in business. Just as email
encouraged consumers to buy computers and get Internet connectivity, spreadsheets made it
worthwhile for businesses to buy computers to track how they were doing. Steve Jobs credits the first
spreadsheet program, VisiCalc, as being the driver for early Apple sales.
Dan Bricklin came up with the idea of a visual calculator in 1978 while doing his MBA at Harvard.123
He initially visualized the user interface of spreadsheets as the cockpit display in aircraft but settled
on the current row-column format to enable human-friendly names to be applied to data elements.
Dan first called his program “Calcu-ledger” but eventually changed it to VisiCalc for Visual Calculator.
Dan’s business partner, Dan Fylstra, also an MBA from Harvard, and one of the earliest software
publishers, demonstrated the VisiCalc program to Steve Jobs.124 Almost a million copies of VisiCalc
were sold at about $100 each, driving sales for Apple, as well as the adoption of computers in business.
Subsequently, Mitch Kapor and Jonathan Sachs created Lotus 1-2-3,125 which was bought by IBM, and
Microsoft came out with Excel. VisiCalc eventually lost its lead in the market.
Of all the applications and technologies discussed in this book, the ability to use spreadsheets
productively is perhaps the most marketable skill. No one will hire you strictly because you can
write emails or documents. But there is a good chance your expertise in spreadsheets may make you
extremely valuable for some organizations.

123 See Dan’s website for his own detailed account of how he came up with the idea of a spreadsheet,
http://www.bricklin.com/ and http://www.bricklin.com/history/saiidea.htm for the initial idea
(accessed June 2023).
124 Steve Jobs’ recollection of the story, “The History of Spreadsheets, from VisiCalc to Causal &
beyond,” https://callmefred.com/the-history-of-spreadsheets/ (accessed June 2023).
125 Computer History Museum profile of Mitch Kapor, creator of Lotus 1-2-3, https://computerhistory.
org/profile/mitchell-kapor/ (accessed June 2023).

170 Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets

What is a Spreadsheet?
A spreadsheet is a computer program that represents information in rows and columns and makes
it easy to perform calculations with the data.126 In a typical spreadsheet, each column represents a
different category of data and each row represents a record. For example, a spreadsheet for a sports
club membership would have one row per student, and one column each for data such as first name,
last name, sport of preference, email address, phone number, etc.
Spreadsheets are further divided into cells, organized in rows and columns. Rows are numbered and
columns are named by alphabets, so any unique cell is defined by its row number and column letter.
For example, in Figure 100, the cell outlined in white is B6, which indicates column B and row 6. The
column letter always comes first in a cell reference.

FIGURE 100 — Spreadsheets allow users to organize data efficiently, making it a crucial aspect of businesses.

Spreadsheets are the workhorses in business for a wide range of tasks, such as budgeting, financial
forecasting, and data analysis. Spreadsheets include built-in formulas for all the data processing tasks
common in business. For example, the formula PMT(0.05/12, 60, 3000) will calculate the monthly
payment for a car costing $3,000 to be paid off in 5 years (60 months) at an annual interest rate of 5%
(monthly interest rate of 5%/12).127
When working with data, spreadsheets have capabilities that make them far more powerful compared
to tables in word processing documents. Whereas word processor tables require you to do manual
calculations on cells of data, spreadsheets allow you to type in a formula to process data from other
parts of the same spreadsheet or even other spreadsheets. An added advantage of spreadsheets is
that the results of the formulas will change automatically if any of the input data changes.
Let’s check out a couple of example spreadsheets. Say you are a real estate investor renting out
multiple properties. To help you focus on your customers and properties instead of your financials, you
can create a spreadsheet and enter your rental income and maintenance expenses, using formulas

126 Spreadsheet definition, adapted from https://www.britannica.com/technology/spreadsheet

(accessed June 2023).
127 The payment will be $56.61 per month, for a total payment of $3,396.82. In other words, the
spreadsheet calculation shows that the buyer will pay almost $400 in interest as the cost of the
car loan.

Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets 171

to have the spreadsheet automatically calculate the profit/loss from each property as well as the
overall profit/loss of your company. The spreadsheet will also easily highlight any unusual expenses
or revenues (Figure 101).

FIGURE 101 — Spreadsheets can benefit a wide range of industries and be customized depending on user needs.

As another common example, say you are a stock market investor. You can track your portfolios
by entering the names of companies in your portfolio, the number of shares in each company, the
purchase price of each share, and today’s market price. Formulas in your spreadsheet can calculate
your profile/loss for each group of shares, the total profit/loss, and the percent weight of each stock
by purchase price and by the current market price. This can help you identify winners and losers
in your portfolio and manage your investments accordingly. Figure 102 shows an example adapted
from a popular investment management spreadsheet (DR 179).128

FIGURE 102 — Users can track investments using spreadsheets.

128 DR 179 refers to episode 179 of the Dough Roller podcast. The spreadsheet was introduced
by the podcast host, Rob Berger, on his podcast in May 2015, https://www.doughroller.net/
podcast/ (accessed June 2023).

172 Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets

In addition to convenient formulas,
spreadsheets also offer a variety of
visualization tools like charts and graphs
that can be used to represent and analyze
data in intuitive and user-friendly ways.
Additionally, just like word processing
software, spreadsheets also support
collaboration and sharing to allow multiple
users to work simultaneously on the same
spreadsheet. Figure 103 shows the portfolio
distribution (column J) of the spreadsheet
in Figure 102 as a pie chart. Appropriate
visualizations can help users get a sense of
the data. FIGURE 103 — Users can visualize data in spreadsheets.

Managing Spreadsheets
Managing spreadsheets is much like managing word processing documents. To create a new
spreadsheet using Google Sheets, go to sheets.google.com and click on “Blank” to open a new sheet.

open, you could also create a new one by using the “File” → “New” → “Spreadsheet” menu option.
To open an existing worksheet, you click on the sheet among your files. Once you have a spreadsheet

You can save any open worksheet the same way you save any electronic document, by clicking on the
“File” menu and then selecting “Save.” If you would like to change the name of the spreadsheet while
saving, give the saved spreadsheet the preferred name and choose where you want to save it in your
Google Drive.
You can share the spreadsheet with colleagues by clicking on the “Share” button and entering the
email addresses of your colleagues. This will allow your colleagues and friends to access and edit the
spreadsheet from their own Google accounts.
Spreadsheets typically provide templates for common tasks like managing a monthly budget, a

formulas. Generally, these templates are available from the “File” → “New” dialog as a “Template
team roster, or weekly time sheets. These templates have a predefined look and feel and appropriate

Gallery.” Figure 104 shows the user interface for Google Sheets (top) and Microsoft Excel (bottom).

Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets 173

 FIGURE 104 — Users can create blank sheets or select a preformatted template.
(Google Sheets-top; Excel-bottom)

Menu Options
Both Excel and Google Sheets
provide many menu options to
simplify complex operations to
organize and manage data and
generate output. For example,
Google Sheets has a standard
toolbar to format cell contents,
including font size, currency
signs, indentation, and
background color. The “File”
menu in Google Sheets is used
to perform file management
operations, like creating new
files or opening existing files
(Figure 105).
The “Edit” menu in Google
Sheets is used to copy, paste,
and find and replace. “View,” as
the name suggests, is used to
manage the visible content on
the screen. “Insert” has options
to insert rows, cells, columns, FIGURE 105 — The “File” tab (left) in Google Sheets has a wide variety of
options and stores many commonly used ones. The “Insert” menu (right) in
charts, pivot tables, images, Google Sheets allows users to edit rows and columns.
and drawings in documents. A

174 Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets

common use of the insert menu is to insert charts. If you go to the “Data” menu in Google Sheets, you
can sort and filter data, set up data validation, cleanup, and perform other operations with the data
in the spreadsheet.
As in Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel is feature-rich, allowing you to manipulate data in complex ways
(Figure 106). The “Insert” tab is also used in Excel to insert images, charts, rows, columns, shapes, and
pivot tables.
The “Formula” tab in Excel has many predefined formulas that you can use to perform mathematical,
financial, and other calculations. You can use the features under the “Data” tab in Excel to import data,
sort and filter data, remove duplicate values, and set up data validation rules. Under the “View” tab,
you have options to change the grid layout and freeze different sections of the document. If your
document has macros (programs to automate spreadsheet tasks), you can view your macros from the
view menu, and also record new macros.

FIGURE 106 — In Excel the “Insert” tab (top) displays many features for editing the spreadsheet and adding elements,
while the “Formula” tab (bottom) helps users preform calculation.

Entering Cell Data

While word processing documents are
freeform, spreadsheets are structured and
divided into cells. Once you click on a cell, the
text you type will stay within the boundaries
of that cell.
The autofill handle in a highlighted cell is located in the
Spreadsheets are smart and do their best to bottom right corner.
understand what you are entering and give
appropriate suggestions. One nifty feature
that helps you copy data or generate a
series is called autofill. Autofill is the ability
of spreadsheets to extend a data series (e.g.,
numbers, dates, or text) to neighboring
cells. Autofill is accessed from the autofill
handle. If you click on a cell, you will see a
tiny square box in the lower right corner. This
is the autofill handle. If you put your mouse Users can drag the autofill handle to other cells to populate
on the autofill handle, the mouse pointer data.
will turn into a cross sign indicating that it is
ready to autofill. You can drag the cross sign
to autofill data in neighboring cells.

Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets 175

The autofill concept works across rows too. You can even autofill series across rows and columns at
the same time (Figure 107). To create an initial series, just enter the first few numbers of the series,
select the cells, then drag the autofill handle to extend the series.

FIGURE 107 — Users can autofill multiple rows and columns at the same time by creating an initial copy.

Autofill can also help you enter a series of

dates (Figure 108).
Copy/Paste is another great way to enter
data in spreadsheets. You can copy from any
location on the web, another spreadsheet,
or another section of the same spreadsheet FIGURE 108 — Users must create an initial template with
dates that the autofill feature will use (top). Then the user
and paste the data into your spreadsheet. can highlight the cells and auto fill (bottom).
When you paste data into a spreadsheet, the
software will convert the data appropriately
into cells and rows. If you copy data from
another spreadsheet, just highlight the
cells to copy and right-click to bring up the
context-sensitive menu. You can then either
cut or copy the selected data and paste it into
the desired location in your spreadsheet.
When you paste data in a spreadsheet, you
have the option to paste just the data values
or bring along the associated formulas,
references, and formatting from the source
spreadsheet. To take advantage of the
various pasting options, right-click on your
FIGURE 109 — In Google Sheets, users can access special
spreadsheet and choose “Paste Special”
pasting options depending on the formatting of the cell.
(Figure 109).
If your data is in the CSV format, you can
import it into spreadsheets by choosing

“File” → “Import” (Figure 110). Excel offers

the import option, generally accessed from

a dedicated “From Text/CSV” button in the

“Data” tab to import CSV. The spreadsheet
software will let you select any existing data
source and then walk you through a step-by-
FIGURE 110 — Users can import compatible file types into
step import process. Data import is useful
an existing spreadsheet.
when you collect data from different sources

176 Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets

to create your own unified spreadsheet. For example, to create a spreadsheet to plan club meetings,
you may import club member names from your membership directory and import meeting locations
from the county’s parks listing.

Row and Column Titles

Row and column titles, also known as labels, are the names/headers that appear at the beginning of
each column/row in a spreadsheet. These labels are very useful and you should be deliberate about
their values. Not only do labels make spreadsheets easy to understand, but they are also used to
identify and describe the rows and columns of data in charts, tables, and other outputs. For example,
in a spreadsheet containing sales data, the column titles might be different time periods, such as
“Month,” “Year,” or “Region,” or categories, such as “Sales,” “Profit,” or “Cost.”

FIGURE 111 — When creating labels, users should be concise and clear to ensure
values are properly represented and the spreadsheet is easy to understand.

The table in Figure 111 shows Planned and Actual expenses and the column titles are Planned, Actual,
and Diff. The items for which the cost is tracked, such as Food, Gifts, and Health/medical, are the row
titles. Column titles are used in conjunction with row titles to provide a complete picture of the data
in a spreadsheet. Titles can be especially useful when working with complex data sets to help readers
make sense of the information.

Formatting Cells and Worksheets

To make data easy to comprehend, spreadsheet software provides extensive formatting options. As
spreadsheets grow large, these formatting options become increasingly critical to understand the
data. Figure 112 shows some data without formatting. Even though it is a very simple spreadsheet, it
is difficult to understand what the data says without any formatting.

Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets 177

 Expenses Planned Actual Diff
Totals 0
Food 0 0 0
Gifts 0 0 0
Health/medical 0 0 0
Home 950 1000 -50
Transportation 0 0 0
Pets 0 0 0
Utilities 0 0 0
Travel 0 0 0 FIGURE 113 — When data in a spreadsheet
Debt 0 0 0 application is formatted, it becomes easy to identify
Other 0 0 0 the key features.
Custom category 1 0 0 0
Custom category 2 0 0 0
Custom category 3 0 0 0
FIGURE 112 — While the data is understandable,
formatting helps improve clarity and usability.

Now let’s use some formatting options and update the same table by adjusting the font size, text
color, background color, and header elements. You can also include currency symbols and comma
separators and have the negative numbers show up in a different color. Suddenly, the same data set
not only looks pretty but also becomes easier to digest (Figure 113).
To format cells in Google Sheets,
select the cells you want to format
and choose the “Format” menu
option. If your cells have numbers,
you can choose the “Number” option
and select any one of the available
formatting options for numeric,
financial, and date values. You can
also set the font size, alignment, and
how data should wrap in a cell.
In Microsoft Excel, you can select the
cells you want to format, right-click
to open the context menu, and select
the “Format Cells” menu option. A
window opens where you can specify
several formatting options including
number display and the look and feel
of the cells—alignment, font, border,
or fill (Figure 114).
FIGURE 114 — Excel provides users with many options to format
cells.

178 Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets

Styles
Just as in word processing software,
styles in spreadsheets are a collection
of predefined formats that give your
document a consistent look and
feel. If you want all your numbers
to have a currency symbol, two
decimal places of accuracy, and
appear in red if negative, you could
apply the formatting features one
at a time, which might turn out to
be cumbersome and error-prone.
Alternatively, if you are using Excel,
you could pick an existing “Cell/Table”
style from the “Styles” group under
the “Home” tab and apply the selected
style to cells and tables (Figure 115). FIGURE 115 — Excel offers a wide variety of cell styles.
If the existing styles don’t meet your
needs, you can create a new style by
clicking on “New Cell Style” or “New
Table Style” (Figure 116). Once you
format the new style by opening the
formatting window and selecting all
the features you want, you can give
the style a new name and reuse the
style to format any cell or table in your
sheet.
If you like the formatting of a cell
and want to copy it, click on that cell,
then go to the styles dropdown and
select “New Cell Style” (Figure 117).
All the styling features of the cell are FIGURE 116 — Users can create their own cell styles.
preselected for you. Just give the style
a name and use it wherever you want
unless it is copyrighted material.

Themes
Spreadsheets offer themes to let you
have a consistent look and feel with
respect to the choice of colors, fonts,
cell borders, and background colors.
Changing a spreadsheet’s theme will
change the fonts, colors, and effects FIGURE 117 — Excel allows users to copy formatting used in an
across the entire spreadsheet. In Excel, existing spreadsheet.

Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets 179

the “Page Layout” tab has a themes menu with many
predefined themes (Figure 118). Google Sheets has
“Themes” under the “Format” menu with a range of
themes and the ability to customize existing ones.
As with other properties of spreadsheets, you can
also change existing themes and create new ones.

Merging and Splitting Cells

Merging cells allows you to combine multiple
adjacent cells into one cell. This technique is
particularly useful when creating a header row for
a table in a spreadsheet (Figure 119).
In the “Expenses Table,” even though all the rows
have the same number of cells, the title row
appears to be a single cell because several cells
have been merged to create one cell for the title.
To merge cells in a spreadsheet, you can select
the cells that you want to merge and then use the
“Merge Cells” command. This will combine the cells
into a single cell and adjust the formatting of the
merged cell to match the formatting of the first cell FIGURE 118 — Excel offers users a wide range of
in the selection. In Google Sheets, you find “Merge themes that can be quickly applied.
cells” under the “Format” menu and Microsoft Excel
has various options to merge and unmerge cells on
the ribbon under the “Home” tab (Figure 120). Expenses Table
Planned Actual Diff
Totals $1,000 $1,050 -$50
Food $350 $375 $25
Gifts $300 $300 $0
Health/Medical $350 $375 $25
FIGURE 119 — Headers can be created by merging
cells.

180 Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets

 FIGURE 120 — In Google Sheets (top), the merge cell feature is in the format menu. In Excel (bottom), the merge cell
feature is under the home tab.

Keep in mind though that you can’t merge cells

that don’t form a proper rectangle, as in Figure 121.
If things change, you can use the “Split Cells”
command to split a merged cell back into its
original cells. This can be useful if you want to make
changes to the individual cells within the merged FIGURE 121 — These cells can’t be merged as they
cell. don’t form a rectangle or square.

Hide and Unhide Columns and Rows

Spreadsheets can easily expand to fill many
columns and rows. But your monitor typically only
allows a few rows and columns to be visible at a
time. Spreadsheets have an interesting capability
to hide rows and columns to allow you to focus on
the columns and rows of interest. To hide a column
in Google Sheets, simply click on the column letter
at the top of the spreadsheet and choose “Hide”
(Figure 122). If you are using Excel, go to the “Cells”
group under the “Home” tab and click “Format.”
In the “Visibility” section, you will see “Hide” and FIGURE 122 — Users can hide columns to better
manage large volumes of data.

Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets 181

“Unhide.” You can also click on the column
or the row header to select a column or row,
then right-click to bring the context menu
and select “Hide” or “Unhide.”
When columns or rows are hidden, you
will see a break in the sequence of column
headers or row numbers. In Figure 123,
column G is missing. Clicking on the gap will
unhide the column. In our experience, it is
far more common to need to hide columns
than to hide rows.
FIGURE 123 — Users can hide columns to better manage
Page Layout Options large volumes of data.

Users often want to print out spreadsheets

to present to managers or other decision-
makers. Spreadsheets allow you to format
and preview the spreadsheet for printing. The
page layout determines how a spreadsheet
will look when printed. As a spreadsheet
is a collection of cells organized into large
numbers of rows and columns, printing it
can be a challenge unless you set it up well.
To solve the problem, spreadsheet software
gives you page layout options that will allow
you to have a presentable look when you
print it on paper or view it as a PDF. There
are many ways to get to the “Page Layout”
option and many features to consider. In
Excel, click on the “Page Layout” tab, then
in the “Page Setup” group, click the “Dialog
Box Launcher” in the bottom right corner to
bring up the page setup dialog (Figure 124).
FIGURE 124 — In Excel users can change the page layout to
You can also make a few quick choices make their data easier to print or export. Opening the “Print
directly from the “Page Layout” menu Titles” launcher (top) allows users to specify “Page Setup”
options (Figure 125). requirements (bottom).

FIGURE 125 — Excel page layout options.

182 Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets

Here are a few things to consider to make your spreadsheet visually appealing.
Page orientation: Just like word processing software, spreadsheets can have either portrait

to set the orientation. In Google Sheets, when you select “File” → “Print,” you see a “Print Preview”
(vertical) or landscape (horizontal) orientation. In Excel, the “Page Layout” tab has menu options

of the pages and have the option to adjust the paper size, orientation, headers and footers, grid
visibility, alignment, and other properties.
Page size: You can specify whether you want to print/export your spreadsheet to PDF as a letter
sized, A4 sized, or any of the other standard or customized paper sizes.
Margins: You can adjust the size of the margins to have the look you want.
Headers and footers: You can add headers and footers to the top and bottom of each page.
In Excel, go to the “Insert” tab and click on the “Header & Footer” menu to insert headers and
footers. As mentioned earlier, in Google Sheets you can add headers and footers, page numbers,
workbook tiles, and other information when you try to print the document.
Page breaks: You can insert page breaks to control where the spreadsheet gets divided across
multiple pages when it is printed/exported.
Gridlines: If you want, you can choose to display gridlines on the printed/exported version of
the spreadsheet.
Scaling: You can adjust the scaling of the spreadsheet to fit it on a specified number of pages by
making it a percentage of its original size.

Formulas and Functions

You can supercharge your spreadsheet by employing formulas and functions to calculate values using
the data in cells. Formulas are simple. When you write a formula in a cell, you begin with the equals (=)
sign and specify the cells to use for the calculation and what operations to perform on the data. For
example, if you want to add the values in cells A1 and B1, you could type the following formula in any
cell “=A1+B1.” The result will get displayed in the cell where you type the formula.
If you have a table with your daily expenses, you can use a formula to calculate the sum of all your
expenses. The total cell in Figure 126 has the sum of expenses (=B13+B14+B15+B16). As you enter the
formula and press “Enter,” you will get the total. As you change the data in cells, the calculations change
automatically, which makes spreadsheets a
very powerful tool. If you want to calculate
the average daily expense over a month,
you can add the daily total expense for a
month and divide it by the number of days
in the month. As soon as you enter a new
set of values for the next month, you will
immediately get the new daily average.
Spreadsheets also have powerful functions
ranging from simple functions like Sum, FIGURE 126 — Spreadsheet formulas allow users to quickly
Average, Count, Max, and Min to complex perform calculations with the help of visual aids.
engineering, statistical, math, and financial

Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets 183

functions. To use the sum function to
add your expenses in Figure 126, just
type =SUM(B13:B16). To access the “SUM”

of cells and click “Insert” → “Functions”→

functions in Google Sheets, select a range

“SUM.” In Excel, functions are located under

the “Formulas” tab and are further organized
by financial, logical, text, date & time, math
& trig, and other menu options (Figure 127).

Charts and Images

Charts offer a graphical representation of
data and can help analyze data in a more
meaningful and visually appealing way.
You might not see a pattern or discrepancy
by staring at 1000s of numbers, but a chart
can bring out anomalies to the forefront
quickly. In the language of British journalist
and author David MacCandless, charts
allow you to use the language of the eyes
(pictures) along with the language of the
mind (numbers), greatly speeding up data
comprehension.129
To create a chart, select the data that you
want to include—a range of cells or a
table—then use the charting tools in the

you can use the “Insert” → “Charts” option

spreadsheet software. In Google Sheets, FIGURE 127 — Both Excel (top) and Google Sheets (bottom)
offer a range of formulas to perform calculations.
to bring up an interactive tool that lets you
pick the chart type you want (Figure 128).
Bar charts, line charts, pie charts, and scatter
plots are each suited for different types of
data and can help you visualize information
in different ways.
It is important to identify the chart type
that will be most useful for a given task.
For example, if you are trying to chart your
school expense in Figure 128, let’s consider
some options.
FIGURE 128 — Navigate to the chart menu to select a chart
type.

129 The beauty of data visualization, TED talk by David MacCandless in 2010, https://www.ted.com/
talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization. David also maintains a website
with novel visualizations at https://informationisbeautiful.net/ (accessed June 2023).

184 Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets

 Expense data can be compared using bar charts. Pie charts allow users to visualize percentages.

A line chart is a good choice for showing trends over time, and a scatter plot is good at showing the
relationship between two variables. So, if you wanted to compare your expenses against an average
student’s expenses, you may consider a scatter plot (Figure 129 and Figure 130).

FIGURE 129 — A table of expenses. FIGURE 130 — Scatter plots allow users to compare
two or more sets of data.

Once you create a chart, you can customize it by changing the appearance and layout of the chart
and adding labels, titles, and data markers.

Benefits of Charts
Charts can give users a quick visual summary of large volumes of data. A well-known example to
demonstrate the utility of charts was published in 1973 by Yale statistician Francis Anscombe and is
popular as Anscombe’s Quartet.130 The quartet consists of 4 sets of 11 numbers each, with very different
distributions but almost identical statistical properties. While the differences are not readily apparent
from the data, the differences are immediately apparent from a chart. The data and their charts are
shown below. The mean and variance of y for each series are 7.5 and 4.125. The example is meant
to show that though numerical data is considered precise, and charts are considered approximate,
charts help with analysis and detecting the underlying phenomena.

130 Anscombe, F. J. (1973). “Graphs in Statistical Analysis,” American Statistician. 27 (1): 17–21. See also
the Wikipedia page on “Anscombe’s Quartet” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anscombe%27s_
quartet (accessed June 2023).

Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets 185

 I II III IV
x y x y x y x y
10.0 8.04 10.0 9.14 10.0 7.46 8.0 6.58
8.0 6.95 8.0 8.14 8.0 6.77 8.0 5.76
13.0 7.58 13.0 8.74 13.0 12.74 8.0 7.71
9.0 8.81 9.0 8.77 9.0 7.11 8.0 8.84
11.0 8.33 11.0 9.26 11.0 7.81 8.0 8.47
14.0 9.96 14.0 8.10 14.0 8.84 8.0 7.04
6.0 7.24 6.0 6.13 6.0 6.08 8.0 5.25
4.0 4.26 4.0 3.10 4.0 5.39 19.0 12.50
12.0 10.84 12.0 9.13 12.0 8.15 8.0 5.56
7.0 4.82 7.0 7.26 7.0 6.42 8.0 7.91
5.0 5.68 5.0 4.74 5.0 5.73 8.0 6.89
Anscombe’s Quartet data series

The series is plotted in Figure 131. It becomes immediately clear that the series is describing different
phenomena and that there are outliers in some data series that merit further investigation.

FIGURE 131 — Anscombe’s Quartet showing how graphs make differences in data patterns readily apparent.

Images
While charts are graphs created based on
the data in your spreadsheet, images are
pictures you can directly insert into your
spreadsheet. In Google Sheets, you can

→ “Image.” If you choose to insert the

click on any cell and then choose “Insert”

image in a cell, then it is constrained by

the dimensions of the cell. If you choose to Google Sheets offer users the ability to insert images over
insert it over cells, then the picture floats on cells or in cells.
top of cells and can be sized independently
of the underlying cells. In Excel, you can go to the “Insert” tab and click on the pictures menu to insert
pictures in your spreadsheet. Inserting images adds organizational branding to spreadsheets.

Share and Collaborate

Just like word processing documents, you can share spreadsheets with others in your team, so more

186 Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets

than one person can view and edit the
spreadsheet in real-time. In Google Sheets,
you will see the “Share” button on the top
right side of your screen.
Clicking “Share” will open a window
where you can enter your team members’
email addresses and make them viewers,
commenters, or editors.
As the names imply, editors can edit the
content, commenters can add comments,
and viewers can see the changes.
If you use an online version of Excel
(OneDrive, SharePoint, or Excel for the
web), you can share it with teams, and the
changes made by each member will be
visible to others.
The Share button in Google Sheets allows users to send
copies or collaborate on spreadsheets. You can specify
the level of permissions shared users have regarding the
Analyzing and Organizing document.
Data

Filters
If you have a humongous spreadsheet, you may find it useful to look at a narrower set of data to
focus your attention on one or two aspects of the data. By applying a filter, you can choose which
rows are visible and which ones are hidden.
Price
Keep in mind, filtering doesn’t change the Sub- Product Number per
underlying data. Only the data set that Division Division Number of Units unit
matches the filtering criteria gets displayed. east 1 1111 140 $10
When you remove the filters, you will have west 2 1111 21 $9
the original spreadsheet with all the rows, west 3 1111 18 $12
east 3 1111 16 $8
just as before. west 1 1111 11 $10
east 4 1111 11 $9
For example, you may have your company’s west 3 2222 16 $12
sales data for every Division, Sub-Division, west 2 2222 15 $10
and product (Figure 132). If you want to east 2 2222 15 $11
focus only on the data for your Division, west 1 2222 12 $10
east 3 2222 12 $9
Sub-Division, or product, setting up a filter east 4 2222 12 $9
may be a great idea. east 1 2222 10 $9
east 2 2222 9 $13
In Google Sheets, click on the filter icon and
select “Create new filter” view. Then click on FIGURE 132 — When working with large sets of data, users
the column header of any column to filter may choose to filter specific columns.
data (Figure 133).

Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets 187

 FIGURE 133 — Google Sheets provides users the ability to filter data, making large datasets easier to use.

To create a filter on the division column,

click on the column header “Division.” If you
only want to see sales data for the West
Division, you should deselect “East” and click
“Ok” (Figure 134). When you create filters in
Google Sheets, the sidebars change in color
to indicate that a filter is in place (Figure
135).
You could create additional filters on top of
an existing one. For example, if you wanted
to only see a particular Sub-Division within
your Division, you can create a filter on
the “Sub-Division” column (Figure 136).
Removing the filters will bring the original
data and the color changes back to normal.
To filter in Excel, select any cell within the
range of data. Then go to the “Data” tab and
click on the “Filter” menu. On the column FIGURE 134 — Once in the “Create new filter” view of
headers, you will see the option to filter. Google Sheets, users can filter columns of data.

Sorting
Sorting organizes data in an ascending or
descending order and facilitates searching
for data. Some spreadsheet operations such
as VLOOKUP and Remove Duplicates also
expect data to be sorted. For example, if
you have a list of students with First Name,
Last Name, City, and GPA in a spreadsheet, FIGURE 135 — Once a filter has been established, you only
it may be useful to group all the students in see the data you are interested in.
a city together. Just sort the data by City to
reorganize the underlying data and see all
the students from one city in one place. If
mayors want to award the top-performing
students in their cities, they can sort by City
and then by GPA to figure out which students
FIGURE 136 — Users can filter multiple columns at the
will receive awards. If you choose to sort same time.
from the largest to the smallest (descending

188 Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets

order), the student with the highest GPA will be at
Sub- Product Number Price
the top. Division Division Number of Units per unit
east 1 1111 140 $10
Just like Filtering, Sorting doesn’t alter the west 2 1111 21 $9
underlying data. What you change is how rows get west 3 1111 18 $12
ordered compared to the other rows in the data east 3 1111 16 $8
west 1 1111 11 $10
set.
east 4 1111 11 $9
west 3 2222 16 $12

select the column and then do “Data” → “Sort”

To sort by Division in Google Sheets, we simply
west 2 2222 15 $10
east 2 2222 15 $11
(Figure 137). west 1 2222 12 $10
east 3 2222 12 $9
If you want to do more complex sorting (first by one east 4 2222 12 $9
column, then by another), in Google Sheets simply east 1 2222 10 $9

choose “Data” → “Sort Range” option. “Advanced

select the cells that comprise your data set and east 2 2222 9 $13

Sub- Product Number Price

range sorting options” will let you sort by as many Division Division Number of Units per Unit
columns as you like (Figure 138). east 1 1111 140 $10
east 2 1111 21 $9
east 3 1111 18 $12
In Excel, go to the “Data” tab and click “Sort” to open east 3 1111 16 $8
the “Sort” window and sort by as many columns as east 1 1111 11 $10
you like. Don’t forget to select the checkbox “My east 4 1111 11 $9
east 3 2222 16 $12
data has headers,” if your top row has headers. This east 2 2222 15 $10
will make sure only the data gets sorted, not the west 2 2222 15 $11
headers. west 1 2222 12 $10
west 3 2222 12 $9
west 4 2222 12 $9
west 1 2222 10 $9
Conditional Formatting west 2 2222 9 $13

Conditional formatting allows you to apply FIGURE 137 — Unsorted sales data of a company
formatting, such as cell shading and text color, to (top); Data sorted by Division (bottom).
cells based on conditions. This can be useful in
highlighting important information or for making
data easier to read and understand. You can use a
formula or a set of rules to determine which cells
should be formatted.
Going back to our company sales data, let’s say we
want to highlight any sales of more than 15 units
in green and those with less than 10 units in red. In

then choose “Format” → “Conditional Formatting”

Google Sheets, select the cells you want to format,

(Figure 139). In the conditional formatting window,

make sure the cells you want to format are selected,
then create rules to see the formatting results
(Figure 140).
FIGURE 138 — In Google Sheets, users can
In Excel, the “Conditional Formatting” menu is simultaneously sort multiple columns by utilizing
the “Advance range” sorting options.
under the “Home” tab. Just select “Highlight Cells
Rules” and create the conditional formatting rules
you want.

Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets 189

 FIGURE 139 — Conditional formatting helps
identify cells that meet specific requirements. Price
Sub Product Number per
Division Division Number of units unit
Pivot Tables west 2 1111 21 $9
west 3 1111 18 $12
A pivot table is a useful tool to quickly summarize and west 3 2222 16 $12
analyze large amounts of data to see patterns and west 2 2222 15 $10
west 1 2222 12 $10
trends. Manually analyzing the data in a spreadsheet west 1 1111 11 $10
with 1000s of rows spread across tens of columns east 1 1111 140 $10
east 3 1111 16 $8
can be a daunting task. If you want to see patterns, east 2 2222 15 $11
compare the impact of different columns, or group east 3 2222 12 $9
data in categories, you may need to put in months of east 4 2222 12 $9
east 4 1111 11 $9
painstaking work. Using pivot tables, you can simply east 1 2222 10 $9
select all your data, transpose it to a pivot table, select east 2 2222 9 $13
columns to categorize on, filters to apply, and choose FIGURE 140 — Users can specify colors to
the summarizations you want. The software will do represent cells that meet specific criteria.
the calculations and give you a pivot table summary
report. If you don’t like the outcome or if you want to
change your filtering, grouping, or summarization parameters, you can do so and immediately see
the outcome.

Additional Resources
Spreadsheets have a wide range of capabilities for a wide array of applications. To become proficient
at using spreadsheets, consider using them anytime you are working with numbers. Like any skill,
practice will improve your ability to leverage this highly valuable technology.
Several influencers share valuable Excel tips on social media sites, including Twitter. Some threads the
authors can recommend are below:
15 Excel tips: https://twitter.com/FluentInFinance/status/1611807041399705600
Search by hashtag for Excel: https://twitter.com/hashtag/excel.

190 Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets

 Chapter Terms and Definitions

Cell: A cell is a single element in the worksheet Formula: A feature that performs specific
that has a value, some text, or a formula calculations or other actions on the data in the
spreadsheet
Chart: A type of visualization shaped like a pie
and used to analyze data in an intuitive and user- Function: A set piece of code built into a
friendly way spreadsheet that performs certain predefined
actions; examples include SUM, AVERAGE,
Column: Represents categories of data and the COUNT, MIN, and MAX
cells are named by alphabet vertically
Pivot Table: A useful tool to quickly summarize
Conditional Formatting: A spreadsheet feature and analyze large amounts of data to see patterns
that allows you to apply formatting options, such and trends
as cell shading and text color, to cells based on
conditions Row: Represents a record of data and the cells
are numbered horizontally
Data: Information used for reasoning, discussion,
or calculation Sorting: A spreadsheet feature that organizes
data in an ascending or descending order and
Filter: A spreadsheet feature designed to narrow facilitates searching for specific data
a set of data based on specific criteria so that you
can choose which rows are visible and which Spreadsheet: A computer program that
ones are hidden represents information in rows and columns, and
makes it easy to perform calculations with the
data

Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets 191

 Chapter Case

Sports Tracking Spreadsheet

Kenny needed to take on a volunteer project to help with his future chances of
getting a college scholarship. Most of the college scholarships he was interested in
applying for required that he have a minimum number of documented volunteer
hours. Thankfully, a local non-profit youth sports management organization
needed to create a spreadsheet that would help track students who sign up for
various youth sports.
Kenny offered to help the organization create the spreadsheet in exchange for
documented volunteer hours. The manager of the organization agreed to the
project and Kenny was ready to apply his spreadsheet skills.
The spreadsheet required the tracking of the following data:
· Student First Name
· Student Last Name
· Student Age
· Student Grade
· Student School
· Telephone Number
· Sport (Volleyball, Basketball, Softball, Baseball, Soccer, or Football)

Question 1: Considering the data required in the list above, create a spreadsheet
in a spreadsheet application you have access to. Add at least 10
rows of data to your spreadsheet. Once you add all the data to the
spreadsheet, what is the average age for all the students? What
formula did you use to calculate the average age?
Question 2: Add a chart to the spreadsheet that illustrates the total number
of students for each sport. Which sport has the highest number of
students? What formula did you use to count the total number of
students for each sport?

192 Chapter 9—Introduction to Spreadsheets