You see these two guys
Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston nearly 40 years ago
They invented the spreadsheet the very first
Killer app and the personal computer was on its way to relevance. We owe these two a huge debt of gratitude
Today, we're gonna take a look at the Google iteration of the spreadsheet Google sheets on dottotech
Steve dotto here how are you doing this fine day. At Dottotech. We make technology easy so you can do more today
We are gonna be talking about spreadsheets
Specifically Google's spreadsheet called sheets
but the spreadsheet is such an
Important tool in the evolution of the personal computer and in my personal history as well as I've kind of grown up with personal computers
Back in 78 when Franklin and Brixton invented VisiCalc, which was the personal computer
spreadsheet that they invented
It became the first killer app. It was the first time that a tool a software tool was potent enough was was
vibrant enough that people wanted to purchase
computers just to use that app and much of the growth of personal computers can be tracked back to
the launch of VisiCalc now over time VisiCalc faded into the background and other
Spreadsheets took over and became far more popular
There were some fringe ones like Wings
But the ones that you will have heard of and that you will know best are Lotus 1-2-3 in Excel
those to business applications became staples and
Fueled the growth of the personal computer into all forms of business and the spreadsheet is still probably the most flexible and powerful
Single application we have we can do it's like the Swiss Army knife of applications we can do so much with it and we owe
Dan and Bob a big vote of thanks for putting us on this path. Let's take a look at Google sheets
Google sheets will allow us to use some templates that they've pre-built for different spreadsheet applications
But let's begin with just a blank spreadsheet for today. And this is something we've all faced before
is this the specter of a blank spreadsheet staring at us ready for us to input some information now all spreadsheets have
this basic structure to them
They're a series of cells that are organized by row and column
The rows are numerically indicated and the columns are alphabetically indicated and into each of these cells
We can put a variety of different data types we can put text and we can put in numerical information we can put in
Currencies we can put in all sorts of different types of data into these cells
So we can I can convert this one here say into dollars and that becomes a currency
So now the cells recognize the type of information that's stored in them
But these cells are far more powerful than just repositories of data these cells we can create
calculations within they can become
They can become little mini calculators that look at other information on the spreadsheet and creates
calculations based on those other cells and that's where the power of
Excel comes is when we start to use the different cells and calculate based on information within the cells for
Tracking or for creating what-if scenarios or for working out problems
So many different ways now spreadsheets have come so far since the word Hayes of visicalc
that today the people who create the spreadsheets in this case Google have
incorporated into the spreadsheet a certain amount of intelligence to recognize the types of data that
We are putting into the different cells so that it can react appropriately. Let me show you it's it's actually really cool
Let's say that we want to
Create a range of days. I'm just gonna put in Monday now
That's just text right but when I put in Tuesday
if I ask Google to
Extend this selection and we can see what I've done here is I've highlighted Monday and Tuesday it'll recognize
That these are days of the week
Then that chances are if I want to extend this
Information if I want to kind of fill out the spreadsheet that I want more days of the week
So when I grab on this bottom and stretch it down
extending the selection that I've made it then brings it in Auto fills the different days of the week and
same process will work for months of the year or
Any sort of repeatable calculation if I put in two four six, you know
What comes next I'll just highlight the range and it goes eight ten twelve fourteen sixteen, etc. You see how it
Recognizes the rhythm of the numbers here and then fills it in automatically
So that is the beginning of Google sheets really kind of making life easier for us
Well for the most part when you're working with a tool like Google sheets, you're going to want to be creating some sort of
information that you calculate other
Results based on so let's say that we have a small store and that we've got sales in that store and we pay Commission
We want to work out how much commission we have to pay based on the sales that we have in the store
So if we put in here on Monday
We're gonna say I'll just put in some random number 700 and seize six hundred seventy eight dollars eight hundred and fifty
three dollars and
Six hundred and eighty nine dollars. Okay, just three of them
I want to convert that into I use these tools here to choose the format that I want for the numbers
I'm gonna turn it into currency. And so here's our income. I'm
Gonna label my columns and I'm gonna say the Commission
Rate and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna say the total commission
That we have to pay so let's say that our Commission rate is 25 percent so I'm gonna put in point two five
And see how that's just a decimal number at this point here
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to choose that and I'm gonna turn it into
Formatting it as a percentage 25 percent now here's where the calculations read to happen. Here's where it really gets exciting is
We take a look at this number here and we say I want this
cell
To calculate the Commission rate 25% of this now so I in order to do that
I tell it I want you to equal I want you to do this
So you put in the commands it equals and it actually puts it into the calculation
Field right here at the top as well
But I want it to equal and then you just point and click. I want it to equal this number
times
This number and I hit return and
it puts in the correct number that it's a hundred and sixty nine dollars and fifty cents isn't that fantastic and
What here's what happens as well?
We can extend this down if we want so the commission rates twenty five percent and there are other ways to make these
Absolute, so I'm just covering the basic
Function but now watch what happens when I extend this down the calculation will extend down as well
See how it says it tells us right here that this cell is actually B 2
Times C 2 and here we have B 2 which is the income times C 2 the Commission rate
watch what happens when I stretch this down and
Extend the range is it calculates those numeric values as well? Isn't that fantastic?
But it goes beyond that. It'll also if you're using a spreadsheet properly, you're gonna want totals you're gonna want grand totals as well
So let's take this column here. And let's have a total of what our total sales are
For the period let's pretend that we have a whole month there. So I want that to go here
you see how we're creating kind of a
Multiple areas of calculation now I could sit here and go eat this equals
Now this is where we can start to see some of the alternate
formulas that we have I could say this equals this
Plus this
Oops, I have to hit plus and not equals equals this
Plus this
Plus but this is that's very
Cumbersome don't you think I don't want to do it. That way I could also say this equals
The sum of
And I put in brackets
This entire range
Closed bracket and hit return and it comes up with the same number now if you're not sure about doing yeah
You know, that was me showing that I've used spreadsheets before because I understand that calculation
I could also say that I could also use this tool here, which is the functions that I want it to sum
All of that
And it comes up with the same calculation or you know
What I might want to do is I want to know what's my average daily sales
and
Here we will say this equals
And I choose here the average you see that and I want to average out
Those days and it tells me what my average sales are
So you see we've got all of these tools that take the information and allow us to apply
Calculations against that information in order to come up with results that make sense to us
The spreadsheet is a brilliant brilliant tool now seeing this information numerically
This isn't the only way that we can view the information because spreadsheets are designed to assist us in
understanding and managing our data
So if we take a look along here
we've got all different formatting options for be able being able to make the spreadsheet look a little bit more pretty and
To make it easy to understand but most important to us. Is this one right here, which is insert a chart if I choose
this
Information this data range and click insert a chart
It will create again
It'll look at the information and determine what sort of chart is
Going to work best and here we've got the option of changing the type of chart that we have
Based on the information that we're looking at
Isn't that great now in if any numbers change within here looks like let's change this
Chart back the
There we go. If any numbers change in here watch what happens to all of the figures
I'm going to change how much money we made on Wednesday and you're gonna see the total Commission change
You're gonna see the total sales and you're gonna see the averages and the chart all change
I'm gonna say we had a great day. We have we sold thirteen hundred and forty seven dollars, but
all of the numbers change
To reflect the new data, which is in been input in the spreadsheet. You see just in this one little example. Just how powerful
Spreadsheets are and how easy they are to use
Actually, they've become so far as as being easy tools for us to apply now
There's so much more that we can do with the spreadsheets
I've just shown you basic simple calculations
But you could actually create entire macros which are very complex
Calculations that you can apply to the that you can apply to the spreadsheets
Additionally, there's a whole series of add-ons that are available for all of the Google Apps where you can find other tools that you can
Plug in and add to your spreadsheet to make it even more
Valuable a tool plus as if this isn't enough
We've done two videos in the recent past which really showcase some of the capabilities of Google sheets
We did a video on Google
Forms where we talked about gathering information from people online
Well, Google Forms will input information directly into Google sheets
as a matter of fact
You can see here that we can input information directly from a Google Form right by clicking here
We can create a form which will input information into this spreadsheet that we can then share that URL
So we'll put a link to that video in the description below as well
We just recently did a video talking about Google Docs using creating word processing documents where you can link
Spreadsheet information to a word processing document and when you update the information on the spreadsheet the word processing
Document updates as well and we'll put a link to that video as well
Google sheets is definitely the Swiss Army knife of
Office and productivity apps you can do so much with Google sheets
if you take the time to explore what it will do and
Imagine what it can do for you
I hope that you found this video today to be useful and enlightening and I'd love to hear your thoughts on Google sheets in
Reminisce with me a little bit. What was the first spreadsheet that you used? I used VisiCalc
I can remember using visicalc and programming visicalc and being amazed at
able to
To add up columns and figure out percentages for me. It was for me. It was it was the beginning of my journey
Into using personal computers and using productivity technology
So I'd love to hear your stories
Let me know in the comments below and if you found this video to be useful entertaining or enlightening
Please share it with others who might find it valuable and make sure that you've subscribed to our channel and when you subscribe
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Til the next time I'm Steve dotto
storming the castle