Basics

A spreadsheet file is made up of pages, called "sheets". There are different types of sheets: Worksheets - which are used for storing data and doing calculations, Chart sheets - which are used for displaying graphs and charts, and Macro sheets - which are used for storing the instructions that make up custom (user-defined) functions and commands.

A worksheet consists of many boxes, called "cells", arranged in a grid. There are 65536 rows and 256 columns of these. The rows are number from 1 to 65536, and the columns are named after the letters of the alphabet, going from A to Z, then AA, AB ... AZ, BA, BB ... etc all the way up to IV, which is the 256th column.

An individual row is referred to by its row number, an individual column is referred to by its column name, and an individual cell is referred to by the column name and row number that it is in. For example the cell in the top left corner of a worksheet is referred to as cell A1, because it is in column A and row 1.

The sheets are referred to by their sheet names. When new sheets are added they are given default names such as Sheet1, Sheet2 etc. You can change these names by using the Format Sheet Rename menu option. The sheet names are displayed on tabs at the bottom of the screen. To select a particular sheet to be displayed, either tap on the sheet name tab, or use the arrow buttons in the bottom left corner.

The currently active, or 'cursor' cell is displayed with a thick black border around it. If there is a formula in this cell then it will be displayed in the formula bar at the top of the screen, and if you want to enter a formula then this is the cell where the formula will be stored. To move the cursor to a different cell you can use the up/down/left/right arrow keys on your keyboard, or use your mouse or pointer to click on a different cell.

Most operations on the spreadsheet affect the currently selected cells, called the selection. Normally there is only one cell selected, that is the cursor cell. For many operations you will want to select more than one cell. You can do this by moving the cursor to one corner of the area to be selected (see above) and then either hold down the shift key and use the arrow keys to extend the selection as far as necessary, or drag your mouse or pointer across the screen to the far corner of the area to be selected. The selected cells will be displayed with their colours reversed.