Application software:Spreadsheet applications

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Spreadsheet applications

Spreadsheet applications fall into two broad areas, manage­rial and clerical:

• Managerial applications are those that support the kinds of task that managers have to carry out, in particular decision-making and planning tasks. As mentioned above, spreadsheets enable you easily and quickly to investigate the effects of alternative courses of action. Cash-flow forecasting is a favourite managerial application, and others include profit forecasting, investment appraisal, manpower planning, and statistical analyses.

• Clerical applications are those that support bookkeeping and other office tasks that are normally carried out by clerks.

clip_image002Word processing and desktop publishing

Word processing (WP) software aims to make the task of creating and editing text as easy and powerful as possible. In the past, WP packages did not allow you to use a variety of fonts (typestyles) or to incorporate graphics in your docu­ments. Desktop publishing (DTP) software, in contrast, pro­ vides very weak word processing facilities, for it assumes that you will create your text using a WP package, but it does allow you to use a wide range of fonts, to control exactly the layout of your material on the page, and to include graphics.

In recent years, however, this distinction between WP and DTP has become less pronounced. Most modern WP packages now allow you to use a variety of fonts, and some will allow you to incorporate graphics in your documents. At the same time, DTP packages are improving their WP features. Nevertheless, at the time of writing the two types of software are quite different, and it is still appropriate to deal with them separately.

I'll deal with WP software in this chapter. DTP software, which is part of the graphics and multimedia revolution in computing, is covered in the next chapter.

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Word processing concepts

The main WP concepts are outline, edit, window, text enhancement, WYSIWYG,page definition, style sheet, block operation, glossary, and mailmerge.

Outline. An outline is the skeleton structure of a document, often just a list of headings, subheadings, and sub­ subheadings. Outlining software exists which enables you to draw up such a list, and then juggle the items around at will and add notes, a sort of 'ideas organizer'. Once you have outlined your document, you can start to fill in the text under the headings and subheadings. Some word processors incorporate outlining facilities, allowing you to 'collapse' text under headings, so that it disappears from view on the screen. You can then see the structure of your document more clearly, and shuffle headings (with the hidden text) around if you wish to change the order. I'll be saying more on this on page 146.

Edit. Editing refers to the process of entering and amend­ing text. Because this takes place electronically, avoiding the need to laboriously correct documents or retype pages, word processing has revolutionized the writing process. Window. As with spreadsheets, the screen is a window into the document you are editing. You can move around the window using the arrow keys, larger jumps being possible by pressing, for example, the CTRL key and an arrow key. When the cursor reaches the edge of the screen, further movements cause the document to scroll. Some WP software allows you to create two or more windows on the screen, so that you see two parts of a document at the same time, or view two different documents. You can then easily copy or move text between the two parts of the document. Text enhancement. This refers to special effects such as embolding or underlining, or selecting special fonts. You enhance individual characters or words in your document by positioning the cursor on them and pressing either a function key or the ALT key and a character key - the process varies from package to package. Some WP packages show these effects on the screen exactly as they will appear on paper, so that italics, for example, actually look that way. Other packages are only able to highlight or colour the characters that have been enhanced. How these effects will actually come out on paper depends on the printer you are usmg.

WYSIWYG. This stands for 'What You See Is What You Get'. In other words, what's on the screen shows what the document will look like when printed. Most WP packages are WYSIWYG so far as the organization of the text is concerned: they show where lines end, the spaces between paragraphs, where the page breaks are, and so on. How­ ever, few are WYSIWYG to the extent that they show both this and how the various text enhancements will look.

Page definition. This refers to the line length, margin size, number of lines per page, and other page formatting that you have set up for your document. WYSIWYG word processors show on the screen how the page definition affects the appearance of the document. When you create a new document, your WP package will provide a default page definition, with the line lengths etc. set up already. If you want your document formatted differently, you can easily change the settings. Many packages also allow you to decide the defaults, so that most of your documents are automatically formatted the way you want them.

Style sheet. Besides the overall page definition, some word processors enable you to set other aspects of layout style, such as indenting the first line of paragraphs. You can prepare a variety of page definitions and styles for different types of document, and save these as style sheets. Then, when you create a document, you can attach the appropriate style sheet to it so that the pre-defined page definition style is automatically applied, and paragraph styles are available for applying to individual paragraphs.

Block operation. This refers to the process of deleting, moving, copying, or enhancing a complete block of text, such as several sentences or paragraphs. The process involves marking the start and the end of the block in some way, then pressing a special key.

Glossary. Many organizations often use identical para­ graphs or other sections of text time and time again in many documents. An obvious example is a solicitor's office, producing legal documents for house conveyancing and other transactions. It makes sense to store all these sections of text on disk and insert them as required in documents. Such stored paragraphs and sections of text are called glossaries, and some word processors incorporate a special facility to handle them.

Mailmerge. This refers to the process of merging a document with data in a database, in order to print a number of personalized letters. A typical application is inserting auto­ matically in a standard letter the names and addresses of people on a mailing list.

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