CS 103 Day 4, Monday April 2, 2001

• Creating formulas:  something per something.  Homework will do differences and ratios.
• "Dimensional analysis" to develop and check on a formula, as that of pp. 52-53.

• p. 48-- A text (.txt, .dat) file contain no formatting--just keyboard characters, end-of-line markers, and sometimes Tabs. ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is the code.  A text editor like Notepad can create or read it. Most programs can import or read text files, many can save data as text. They are very compact.
• The icon is a spiral notepad.  FIND Wheat.txt, in Class material\CS103\Excel Student.
• OPEN Wheat.txt in Notepad (double click on the icon, or get it from

Start> Programs>Accessories>Notepad)
• EXAMINE its structure. Close it, and continue with importing into Excel (p. 48)
• p. 51ff, Creating Variables.  The good thing about using range names is the formulas make sense to the reader.  The bad thing is the amount of overhead in getting it right.  Remember, no spaces (underlines instead), and it has to match the label exactly!  Pasting the name from a list is much safer than typing. (Insert>Name> Paste).
• p. 52 bottom, #4 and following:  "Click the Names-drop-down arrow" doesn't work!  As soon as you start a formula, the list of recent functions overlays that name box.  Instead of #4, do this:  To get the list of names, do Insert>Names>Paste, highlight and OK from there.
• p. 53 bottom: Window>Freeze panes--very handy.  But it doesn't carry over to printing.  If you want a labeling row /column, with more than one printed page, do File>Page Setup>Sheet: Print Titles: Fill in "Rows to repeat...", "Columns to repeat...".  Check using Print Preview before committing to paper.

Print this page if you want a paper copy of Assignment 4.

Assignment 4, from Chapter 2   Due Wednesday April 11 (Day 8, Week 3) Unless otherwise noted, print out and hand in the spreadsheet showing what you created.  (FIRST Do Print Preview and check it out.  Use Page Setup, Page and try Landscape, and/or Fit to 1 page to avoid dribbling over onto 2nd, 3rd, 4th pages.)  Some questions call for written answers based on your examination of the data.  This is just as important as making the machinery produce the right tables!  You may write on the same page as the printed spreadsheet. P. 58, #8 (Wheat)            #9 (Aluminum)  P. 56-7, #2 and #3 a,b,c.  (Breweries)   Note for #3, "difference" means Yr_1989 minus Year_1981;        "ratio" means Yr_1989 divided by Year_1981         The first measures "actual change", the second measures "relative change."

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