Episode: 1475
Title: HPR1475: 25 - LibreOffice Calc What Is A Spreadsheet
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1475/hpr1475.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 03:46:43

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muffled.
Hello, this is Ahuka, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and our ongoing Libra
Office Series and we are now ready to start on Calc, which is the spreadsheet
program. I'm going to start with what may seem like a very basic question, but I
have a reason for it and that is to say what is a spreadsheet? There are different
ways to answer this question. Functionally, spreadsheets are a tool for mathematical
calculations, but they have branched out in areas like data analysis. Some people
even use them as a quick and dirty database tool. If you're in one of the financial
professions of some kind, you probably live in spreadsheets all day.
Spreadsheets are the original killer app. Early examples were implemented on
mainframe computers in the 60s, but the big step was the creation of something called
Visikalc for Apple II. In 1979, later ported to the IBM PC in 1981.
Visikalc set the conventions that guided all subsequent spreadsheets and the
essential methods have not changed since then. Visikalc was called the first killer
app because people would buy the computer just to run the program.
And the usefulness of spreadsheets is what promoted the initial entry of
personal computers into the corporate world, with all of the change that has
cost. The next major development was Lotus123, which was written specifically for the
IBM PC, and which, along with Borland's Quattro Pro, gradually replaced the
older Visikalc as the spreadsheet of choice. Lotus123 was written as a
DOS program and thrived in that environment, but with the advent of Windows, a new
competitor emerged Microsoft. They had a spreadsheet program originally developed
from Macintosh computers called Excel, which they then moved to Windows.
And with the assembly of the office suite by Microsoft, Lotus gradually dropped
from the picture. They were then bought by IBM and started working on other
challenges, some of which were interesting. But to stay on topic, one of the reasons
that Microsoft came to dominate was that they pursued a number of policies.
And there was a saying in those days, Windows isn't done until Lotus won't run.
Now, there may be some argument as to whether or not this was true, but it certainly
was the case that Microsoft had a huge advantage because they controlled the
environment. They had the operating system and the major applications that ran on it.
Prior to Microsoft Office, there were many individual programs that were excellent,
that were considered best of breed. WordPerfect was the best word processor around.
Lotus123 was the best spreadsheet. What Microsoft did that pushed all of them
into the background was to create the idea of an office suite, and that just
simplified things for IT departments and consumers and what have you.
So, many of those individual programs are still around.
WordPerfect is now owned by Corel, and you can still buy it, but its market share
is not huge. So, these things are really their shadows of what they used to be.
But because this history, we have a set of conventions that have stood the test of time
and define how spreadsheets operate no matter which one you use.
So, if you originally learned Lotus123 moving to Excel was not at all difficult because it worked the same way.
Not quite the same as in word processing. WordPerfect was significantly different from Word,
and it made switching from one to the other much harder.
In fact, I was involved in a project back in the early part of 2008 for a large legal office
where because they were employing document management software that only worked with Microsoft Word,
we had to pry WordPerfect out of their clutches and move them over.
A lot of those lawyers were not happy about it, but we had to do it.
But with spreadsheets, if you learn it properly the first time, you can sit down to any spreadsheet program
and be productive immediately.
The Libra Office Calc is using all of the same kinds of conventions,
so there's really no sort of conversion pain in moving from one to the other.
However, very few people have ever learned how to use spreadsheets properly,
and that's what we want to correct in this series of tutorials.
We're going to start at the very beginning and build up the concepts and techniques
so that you have a good idea of what spreadsheets should be used for,
and equally what they should not be used for.
To begin with, a spreadsheet is not a database.
This may surprise some people who have been using spreadsheets for their database needs.
It is true that you can do some simple database functions in a spreadsheet,
and I suspect this may be due to the fact that the Rowan column format of a spreadsheet
resembles very closely the format of a table in a database.
But this is a very limited application and runs in the problems quickly.
A spreadsheet can only function as a single table,
while a database can have many tables that are linked through key fields.
Unless your needs are very simple, you really are better off creating a database
when you need to do database functions.
What we're talking about here is a variation on the old saying,
if all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
I much prefer the idea of choosing the right tool for every job.
While a spreadsheet can do some of the simpler functions of a database,
it is not the right tool for doing database work.
If you start down the road of using a spreadsheet this way,
you will sooner or later get frustrated by its limitations.
That said, in reality, do I ever use spreadsheets for things that have nothing to do
with calculations and mathematics?
I'm a project manager. That's my career path at the moment.
One of the jokes is that the most common tool used by project managers
is the spreadsheet.
It's not the project management software, but you do spreadsheets to manage lots of things.
A lot of that has text involved and what have you.
I'm very familiar with how to do all that, and we'll talk about that too.
What should you use a spreadsheet for?
I want to make sure that we understand what a spreadsheet is really good at doing
so that we know when that's the tool to pull out of the tool kit.
I'm going to give you some functions here, some uses.
I'm not going to say that this is exhaustive, but it will set the stage
for some of the things that we want to look at in this series of tutorials.
Well, first use is mathematical calculations.
You know, it's called Calc for Reason.
Many times I open up Calc just to do some arithmetic.
I could get a calculator program, but I find Calc is convenient for my needs
and much easier when a calculation starts to get complex.
Using Calc, I can edit my calculation in case I made a mistake.
With a calculator program, if I made a mistake, I'd have to start over from the beginning.
That gets real, real fast.
So that's the first thing.
We can just use Calc to do some calculations.
Graphic.
The built in graphing capability is pretty good and certainly sufficient for most people's needs.
Now, it's not the equivalent of a high-end scientific graphing program,
but it never tried to be that.
You can, however, quickly generate bar graphs, scatter plots,
pie charts, and the like based on data in your spreadsheet.
Modeling.
Ah, this is the key use in finance.
You can create a model of a financial situation, such as paying off alone,
and then the what-if analysis proceeds if you change one variable and see how it affects the model.
For example, if I pay an additional $100 a month on my mortgage, how much sooner will I pay it off?
This kind of question is easy in spreadsheets.
Now, back when I was teaching corporate finance to college students, I would have them do a business plan in a spreadsheet,
and then investigate what happened if the price of the product or some other variable changed.
Note that this is extremely useful, but it is also critically dependent on using spreadsheets properly.
Bad habits will kill you here.
Statistical analysis.
You can do a variety of statistical tests and analyses in a spreadsheet using the built-in functions.
Now, back when I taught business statistics, I used specialized statistical software to teach the course.
Today, I could teach the exact same course using spreadsheets.
Built-in functions include things like chi-square, f-distribution, linear regression, t-test, to name just a few.
If you're not a statistician, none of those things may mean anything to you, but people who understand statistics knows that those are among the things that you do daily.
Now, this is just scratching the surface of what you can do, but you can expect that each of these will get attention in this series and probably some other topics as well.
But I will start with the most basic concepts and build from there for two very good reasons.
First, many people who have used spreadsheets have holes in their knowledge that can make things difficult when we get to more advanced topics.
I want to make sure we have a uniform base of concepts to build on.
Secondly, many people have bad habits in their use of spreadsheets.
And this will also come back to bite you when you try to do more interesting things.
We really need to get rid of bad habits and enforce proper usage if we are to become experts in spreadsheets.
So that's what we're about here, and at this point, this is a hookah, and as I always do, I'm going to sign off by encouraging you to support free software.
Bye!
