Spreadsheet Vocabulary
- Active Cell
- Cell into which any text or numbers that are entered will be placed.
- Cell address
- Name of cell, taken from the column letter and the row number, e.g. B4 which is column B, the 4th line.
- Cell
- A rectangle in a spreadsheet.
- Chart
- A graph based on selected cells in a spreadsheet. There are many types of charts.
- Column
- A vertical line of cells, indicated by a letter.
- Formula
- A statement that uses cell addresses and/or numbers and mathematical signs to designate a calculation. The result of the calculation is placed in the cell with the formula.
- Numbers
- Constant values in a cell. Numbers can consist only of the characters 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 _ + / . E and e. If a numerical entry is too large for the physical viewing size of a cell, or if the result of a formula is too large you may see a group of "#"symbols, e.g. ##########. Make the column larger to see the full number by dragging the right column line. Or you may see a scientific number, e.g. 23423E+11 instead of the 234234234234 that you entered.
- Numerical formats
- The way that the numbers appear in the cell(s). Formatting choices include currency (adds a $ and two decimals to all numbers), percentage (adds a % and in a formula automatically treats as part of 1, e.g. 86% will be treated as 0.86), and the number of decimal points to show.
- Range of cells
- A group of cells that you wish to treat as a group, may be contiguous as for example, cells C1 to E3 in table 7-4. Can also be noncontiguous. A range of cells can be named.
- Referenced Cell
- A cell that is included in a formula in another cell. This cell may be in the same worksheet, another worksheet in the same workbook, or in another workbook.
- Row
- A horizontal line of cells, indicated by a number.
- Text
- Any non-numerical entries (Can be numbers if their entry is preceded by an apostrophe (')). Text entries will be visible across other columns if these columns are empty.
- Workbook
- Collection of related spreadsheets that are saved as one file.
- Worksheet
- One spreadsheet in a workbook
Created June 1, 2009