Creating a Speadsheet with Calc

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The best way to become familiar with Calc is to create a spreadsheet to get a feel for the features and how it is all put together. Open a new Calc spreadsheet and place the cursor in A1 and type “My Budget”, to create a personal budget worksheet. Now create a row with a background color that will separate the title from the rest of the spreadsheet. Highlight the row A1-2-D1-2.

Now click on the background button from the Object Bar and choose a color. Place some subjects in the colored rows; Item, Description Budget, and Actual. One of the things you will notice is that the terms that were placed in the colored row are hard to see so, highlight the row and click on bold, which is in the Object Bar and also the align horizontally button so that it is easier to read.

Add the listed items under Item to the spreadsheet. There is a problem in that Car Payment, Car Insurance, Renter's Insurance, etc. not only fill the A column but go into the B column. Click on the line between the letters A and B and hold down your click while you move the line to the right until you have dragged the line so that this text is no longer in the B column because the A column in wider now.

Now, change the columns for Budget and Actual to reflect currency, by highlighting the columns and clicking the currency button on the Object Bar. To highlight the column click on the letter A,B,C, etc. When you click on the letter the entire column will receive the formatting change. This will make all the numbers in these columns to be reflected in currency instead of plain numbers.

Now, create a sum of all expenses, by clicking on the cell just below the numbers in column C and clicking the sum button on the Formula Bar. You will see the formula “=sum(C3:C9)” which adds the numbers in cells C3 to C9, giving you a total. You can modify the formula in the Formula Bar window if you want to make changes. Once you see the formula (=SUM(C3:C9) you can hit enter and the sum will be created.

Enter the Budget Information and enter the Actual numbers as well and then create a sum for that amount in column D under Actual.

Now find the difference between the two, Budget and Actual. Click on cell D:11 and write in this formula that is in the formula bar and click enter(=C9-D9). This will complete a simple spreadsheet that you can use. The formula in the formula bar shows you how to subtract the Actual total from the Budget.

Once you understand the basics of formulas you will be able to build a spreadsheet quickly.