Apple IIe - Manual (Page 19)

Page 19 of 74 IIe
Printed: Tuesday, March 4, 2003 10:40:15 AM
at the bottom line. If any number changed, or if they wanted to try out a different pricing
strategy, it sent a ripple effect through the whole spreadsheet (which is why an eraser was as
critical to using a spreadsheet as a pencil and a calculator).
With electronic spreadsheets, you still have to fill in your assets and liabilities, but by
filling in formulas that define the interrelationships of all the assets and liabilities, you
can try out different pricing scenarios and let the program do all the recalculating for you.
With electronic spreadsheets you can play what if... until the cows come home, or at least
until your budget deadline rolls around.
Spreadsheet programs take the drudgery out of
financial planning and leave you more time for creative financing.
Templates:
If you don't know how to figure out formulas for depreciation and such, you can get templates
that furnish the formulas so all you do is fill in a form.
Word Processing
They say that everyone is working on a screenplay or a novel these days, but even if you never
write anything longer than a memo, a book report, or the minutes from a PTA meeting, you'll
never use your typewriter again after you experience the ease of word processing.
Because it's so painless to edit with a word processing program, it encourages your best
writing efforts.
(So, if you aren't working on your novel now, you'll probably start one once
you discover word processing.)
Here are just a few of the things you can do with a word processor:
Change letters, words, and sentences without retyping those parts of the document that haven't
changed.
Delete words and sentences, and the document will rearrange itself to fill up the holes in the
page.
Move paragraphs if you think your report would work better that way.
Change the margins of your document (after you've written it!) to make it look better or
longer.
Need Help With Spelling?
Some word processors come with companion programs that check and correct your spelling.
Integrated Software
Integrated software is a group of application programs (usually on one disk) designed to work
together and share data.
A typical integrated software package includes word processing, data
base, and spreadsheet programs.
With integrated software, you can combine information created with different applications into
one document.
For example, you can write a report with a word processing program, and add a
statistics section from a data base program and a budget section created with a spreadsheet
program.