Obviously, the color illustrations are more informative than black and white, and dynamic – more effective than static. Is it possible to have dynamic visual effects in a spreadsheet when neither the GIF-animations or Flash-format not supported? Nevertheless, MS Excel is the most dynamic application of the entire MS Office because of the basic property of the spreadsheet: change the numeric value in a cell leads to instantaneous recalculation of formulas containing the name of this cell.
Using MS Excel for calculations, mathematical modeling, preparation of documents or as a database is widely known. However, this application has the potential, which apparently is not completely known even by its developers, which allows effective use of this software product for didactic purposes in elementary school.
You can create dynamic effects in MS Excel using conditional formatting, macros, timers or combining these methods.
For the purposes it’s possible to use:
- cell formatting: changing colors, sizes, borders, and a breakdown of the association, insertion and removal, concealment, and allocation;
- character formatting (change color, size, style, modifications and alignment);
- modified vector objects created with the drawing panel or imported (primitives, AutoShapes, inscriptions, objects, WordArt), which can be used for wrapping, rotation and formatting (shading, transparency, changing contours, shadows, and adjusts the volume);
- modification of raster graphics: size, crop, brightness and contrast, as well as displacement, rotation and change of slides;
- variety of effects with charts and diagrams (dynamic construction and modification);
- removal and insertion of various objects;
- gradual transition from one sheet to another;
- change of scale for the worksheet;
- scrolling of a window vertically, horizontally or both.
Almost in all MS Office applications it is possible to record a sequence of all user's actions while working with document in the form of macros - the instructions in the programming language Visual Basic for Application (VBA), which is integrated into the programs. Typically, macros are used to automate common repetitive sequences of action. There’s no need to know the language as a pro.
It is enough that it’s understood by the interpreter of your application. The user only performs actions, and the application monitors and fixes in the form of a sequence of commands and operators.
However, this does not mean that a basic knowledge of VBA no needed by you in the future, as far as your skill improving. But the process of entering into this environment will be going more smoothly and naturally, moreover one of the advantages of this technology is the availability of macros for the analysis and experiments. It is important that you got the idea and desire.
However, this technology is not able for self-declaring of the array to loop, branching or transfer data from one macro to another. But you do not have to be "a genius".
Despite of the fact that this article deals only with the spreadsheet Microsoft Excel, many of the proposed ideas can be used in other office applications.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
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