CS102, Fall 2000, Day 7, Tuesday, November 7

Session 2:

• The tutorial and the homework assume you're working from a copy of the original file always.  Usually  they have you open a file and save it under a different name.This is a quick way to get the working copy to your disk.  However, in  this session you merge a letter with an Excel file that has not been renamed. SO:  Copy Customer.xls to your own disk before starting.  (One way to copy: Right click on the Start button, choose Explore.  Use the tree structure to find the file, copy it, paste it to your floppy)
• p.6.28, #11: Be sure to close the Merged Customer Letters (aka Form Letter 1).  It is a finished self-contained Word document, ready to print, and has no links with the source file of customers any more.  So the Merge menu is not available.  When you are in Customer Letter, the Merge stuff is still available (p. 6.29).
• p. 6.30, #2:  The street entry is probably already 10 Main Street, because of people changing the Customer file in the past.  Change it to 10 Green Street, being sure you're working with the copy on your disk.

Notes on Ch. 6 Homework asst's

• Be sure you're working from COPIES of the files on your disk.  In particular:
• for Tutorials 12-17, be sure to COPY MonSales.xls to your floppy before starting.  (You also use NEGHA.xls, but embedding will make the copy for you.)
• for Tutorials 1-3, be sure you have Customer.xls on your floppy, in the same subdirectory (if any) as Customer Letter 2.  (It's the same Customer file as before.)
• for Tutorials 6-11, you'll need to link to NEGHA.xls.   It's better to have copied it to your disk so the link is not to the hard drive.  I don't care if you put these files in subdirectories; it's good practice if you do.
• Tutorials 12, 14 When you link or embed the file, be sure you do it as a worksheet object!  Otherwise question 15 will not "work".  (To help you explain the difference, check out fig. 6.2, p. 6.4.)

Chapter 7   This is more for making "externally useful" spreadsheets than for personal use, but good stuff.

•  Sessions 1 and 2:  Some clever tools, more practice with functions and graphs
• Range names.  Notice range names CANNOT have spaces or hyphens.  In Ch. 5, when you were working with a list, you could use the header of a column AS IF it were a range name, for making a formula.  This chapter allows you to define range names explicitly, and in cases when you're not in a list.
• Functions:  IF is good to know.  FV (future value) is a complicated function (and concept) that you may not have met.    It can tell you how much money you will have in the bank in 10 years if the interest rate is the same for the whole time, and if you deposit regularly the same amount monthly for the ten years and don't take any out.  If you have ever participated in a bank Christmas Club, this is what they use to predict how much you will have at the end of a sequence of regular deposits.   (Other financial functions figure how much the payments should be on a fixed-interest mortgage of a given amount; depreciation costs, etc.)
• Session 3: Macros
• Macros are tiny computer programs which automate tasks in a spreadsheet, word processor, or other application package.  When you open a file containing macros, it should give you the options Disable macros, Enable macros, Do not open.  This is because attaching a destructive virus program to an application file (especially Word or Excel) as a macro is one of the most common ways to spread a virus.  You should NEVER open a file, or enable its macros, if you are not completely sure the macros are there on purpose, and that you can trust the source!  If a Word file you wrote says it has a macro, it is certainly infected.
• Lab computers scan your files for viruses whenever you open them.  If a virus gets through, it is probably too new for our protection program to know about it. (This happened last week!).  If you find one, please notify someone in the Tech Support office right away!
• p. 7.34.  The text shows you the underlying VBA code.  You do not have to get this on your screen.

If you want to see the code of a macro on the screen (recommended for people who have done some programming), do this:
• Do Tools>Macro>Macros (and select the one you want, if there are more than one).
• Choose Edit.  The programming window for VBA will open.
• Inspect the code.  When you are finished, do File>Close and return to Excel.