Business computing
Session 7
Excel, Links, Graphics, Goal seeking
Today’s topics
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Excel
Links
Graphics
Goal seeking
P&L of a small shop
• Enter sales (per quarter)
• Purchases
• Etc.
• To have real numbers go to
• http://www.societes.com
• And enter the name and address of a shop
you know
Excel
• In an Excel sheet some data are « hard data »
and some data displayed are actually the result
of formulas
Plain pasting
• No change in Word when we change the table in Excel
Special pasting with a link
• When we change the table in Excel, this entails an
change into Word
Checks
• Within Excel it is a good idea to perform frequent
checks of our formulas
The concept of dynamic link
• We prepare a table into Excel and paste it
dynamically into Word
– Excel is the « computing » software
– Word is the « display » software
• The same applies to dynamic Web pages
– The Camif catalog in the Web displays price data
extracted from a database
– They are displayed into HTML pages
• This applies to mail order firms.
The concept of dynamic link (2)
• The Camif main page does not have the
HTML suffix but the ASP suffix (Active
server page)
• When we call http://www.camif.fr we
actually obtain the display on our
computer screen of a page constructed at
the time of our request (just like the word
page we created a minute ago)
The concept of dynamic link (3)
• The idea of separating data creation and data
display is very important in the computer
industry
• All mail order firm Web sites display pages
created « on demand » from commercial data
contained in databases
• HTML itself is an old language that mixes up
data information and display information. It has
been replaced by XML that separates the two
functions.
Excel graphics
The goal seeking tool
• The standard situation
– An excel formula is a mathematical formula
– Usually of the form
– F(A,B,C) = a computation with A, B and C
– Excel computes for us F for a set of AB and C
we enter as operands
• Sometime we decide the F value we want
to reach and « adjust » B to reach that
The goal seeking tool (2)
• Example :
• F(A,B,C) = [ (1 + A)^B ] / (1 + C)
• If A=2, B=3, and C = 5, then F = 4,5
• If A =2, and C=5 and we want F to be
equal to 6,75 what should B be ?
The goal seeking tool (3)
• Example 2
• A corridor has a width we don’t know (and
we call w)
• A ladder of length 4 meters is put in the
corridor, and another one of 3 meters (in
the other direction)
• They cross 1 meter above the ground
• What is w ?