You will:

• create a spreadsheet by entering text, formulas and data

• use the spreadsheet to calculate the cost of a short list of school supplies

• modify the spreadsheet by changing data

• explore some Format tools

• use a split screen to transfer some information from the web to your spreadsheet

What to do:

You will be creating a spreadsheet that can calculate the cost of purchasing several school supplies.  Although Illinois has a sales tax, it will be omitted from the required part of the assignment.  For those who finish early, see if you can modify the spreadsheet to include the tax, which is 7.25%.

1.  Follow your teacher’s directions to open a new spreadsheet.

2.  Open Microsoft Excel and change the size so it will fit half of your screen.  Change this page to fit the other half of your screen.  You can do this by moving your mouse to the sides of the page and dragging the two sided arrow to make the page larger or smaller.

Tip:  You will have more room if you delete the "getting started" portion of Excel on the right side of your spreadsheet.

3.  Type the text and numbers shown into your spreadsheet.  Notice what happens when you press <Enter> and when you use the arrow keys.  Be sure to save often as you type.  If a column is too narrow, you can change the width by dragging the right side of the gray part of the column to the desired width.  (There are also other, more advanced methods that are not explained here.)

	A	B	C	D
1	Invoice
2	Item	Unit cost	Quantity	Cost
3	Pencils (box)	3.50	7
4	Paper pads (box)	5.95	10
5	Rulers	0.45	25
6	Protractors	0.25	25
7	Calculators	8.79	13
8			Total:

4.  Next, enter the formula to calculate Cost.  Every formula has to begin with “=”.  That is what tells the computer the difference between text and numeric information.  The cost will be the unit cost times the quantity.  In cell D3, enter an =, then click on cell B3, type * (multiplication symbol) and click on cell C3.  Your cell should look like this:  =B3*C3 before you press enter and then it will contain 24.5 after you press enter.

5.  Once the formula is in D3, copy it into D4 through D7 by using the Fill down command under Edit

6.  To compute the total bill, cells D3 through D7 will need to be totaled.  Although you could do this using repeated addition =D3+D4+D5+D6+D7, this is cumbersome if you are totaling lots of cells.  Instead, use the formula =SUM(D3:D7).  Remember, you can click on the cell names instead of typing them.  This is one of many formulas that can be accessed in the spreadsheet’s library of formulas.  If you have time, look at the library found under Insert and then Function to see if you recognize any of the formulas.

7.  Make a mental estimate of the cost of each item as well as the total cost.  The computer is very literal—it does exactly what you tell it.  A typo or the wrong cell name can give very wrong results, so it is important to make sure your answers are reasonable.

8.  The last step is to put the finishing touches using the Format tools.   Select the column with the Unit cost.  Then go to Format and choose Cells.  You will find currency, choose US and choose two decimal places.    Currency symbols can be added automatically and the number of decimal places displayed can be altered.  You can change the font, centering, size and color of the text just as you would in Word documents. You can also change the cell background colors and the gridlines.  Do some experimenting to see what you can do—be sure to save often!!

9.  Copy the spreadsheet onto Sheet 2 by selecting the cells containing information and using the Copy command found under Edit.  Notice the additional sheets are tabbed at the bottom of the screen.  Clicking on the tab will bring it to the front of the screen.  This will give you another spreadsheet to modify without retyping the entire page.  Change the quantities to 0 pencils, 5 boxes of paper, 30 rulers, 15 protractors and 35 calculators.

10.  Make a third copy on Sheet 3 and see how close you can get to spending exactly $500.  It is possible, several students before you have already done it!!  Save it once you get your quantities.