Unit- 6

Spreadsheets and Database package

Purpose-Spreadsheets are an essential business and accounting tool. They can vary in complexity and can be
used for various reasons, but their primary purpose is to organize and categorize data into a logical format. Once
this data is entered into the spreadsheet, you can use it to help organize and grow your business.

The purpose of a database is to store and retrieve information in a way that is accurate and effective.
The purpose for a database management system is to provide a system to manage the different databases it
contains

What is MS Excel

Microsoft Excel is one of the most suitable spreadsheet programs that help us to store and represent the data in
tabular form, manage and manipulate data, create optically logical charts, and more. Excel provides you the
worksheet to create a new document in it. You can save the Excel file with .xls extension. Microsoft Excel is an
Electronic Spreadsheet Computer Program.

Microsoft Excel was first released for Macintosh systems in the year 1985, followed by the first Windows
version in 1987. Check the list to know about the Excel releases for Windows:

 Excel 2.0 (1987)

 Excel 3.0 (1990)
 Excel 4.0 (1992) – Included in Microsoft Office 3.0
 Excel 5.0 (1993) – Included in Microsoft Office 4.0
 Excel 95 (1995) – Included in Microsoft Office 95
 Excel 97 (1997) – Included in Microsoft Office 97
 Excel 2000 (2000) – Included in Microsoft Office 2000
 Excel 2002 (2002) – Included in Microsoft Office XP
 Excel 2003 (2003) – Included in Microsoft Office 2003
 Excel 2007 (2007) – Included in Microsoft Office 2007
 Excel 2010 (2010) – Included in Microsoft Office 2010
 Excel 2013 (2013) – Included in Microsoft Office 2013

Worksheet

A worksheet is made of rows and columns that intersect each other to form cells where data is entered. It is
capable of performing multiple tasks like calculations, data analysis, and integrating data.

In Excel worksheet, rows are represented by numbers and columns by alphabets.

A single Excel workbook can consist of several sheets, named Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3… SheetN. You can add
one or more sheets to your Excel document.

Microsoft Excel Features

There are several features that are available in Excel to make our task more manageable. Some of the main
features are:
 1. AutoFormat: It allows the Excel users to use predefined table formatting options.

2. AutoSum: AutoSum feature helps us to calculate the sum of a row or column automatically by inserting
an addition formula for a range of cells.

3. List AutoFill: It automatically develops cell formatting when a new component is added to the end of a
list.

4. AutoFill: This feature allows us to quickly fill cells with a repetitive or sequential record such as
chronological dates or numbers and repeated documents. AutoFill can also be used to copy functions.
We can also alter text and numbers with this feature.

5. AutoShapes: AutoShapes toolbar will allow us to draw some geometrical shapes, arrows, flowchart
items, stars, and more. With these shapes, we can draw our graphs.

6. Wizard: It guides us to work effectively while we work by displaying several helpful tips and techniques
based on what we are doing. Drag and Drop feature will help us to reposition the record and text by
simply dragging the data with the help of the mouse.

7. Charts: This feature will help you to present the data in graphical form by using Pie, Bar, Line charts,
and more.

8. PivotTable: It flips and sums data in seconds and allows us to execute data analysis and generating
documents like periodic financial statements, statistical documents, etc. We can also analyze complex
data relationships graphically.

9. Shortcut Menus: The shortcut menu helps users to make the work done through shortcut commands
that need a lengthy process.

MS Access

Microsoft Access is a Database Management System (DBMS) from Microsoft that combines the relational
Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software development tools. It is a member
of the Microsoft Office suite of applications, included in the professional and higher editions.

Microsoft Access stores information which is called a database. To use MS Access, you will need to follow
these four steps −

 Database Creation − Create your Microsoft Access database and specify what kind of data you will be
storing.
 Data Input − After your database is created, the data of every business day can be entered into the
Access database.
 Query − This is a fancy term to basically describe the process of retrieving information from the
database.
 Report (optional) − Information from the database is organized in a nice presentation that can be
printed in an Access Report.
Objects
MS Access uses “objects" to help the user list and organize information, as well as prepare specially designed
reports. Access offers you Tables, Queries, Forms, Reports, Macros, and Modules. Databases in Access are composed of
many objects but the following are the major objects −

 Tables
 Queries
 Forms
 Reports

Table

Table is an object that is used to define and store data. When you create a new table, Access asks you to
define fields which is also known as column headings.

 Each field must have a unique name, and data type.

 Tables contain fields or columns that store different kinds of data, such as a name or an address, and
records or rows that collect all the information about a particular instance of the subject, such as all
the information about a customer or employee etc.
 You can define a primary key, one or more fields that have a unique value for each record, and one or
more indexes on each table to help retrieve your data more quickly.
Query
An object that provides a custom view of data from one or more tables. Queries are a way of searching for and
compiling data from one or more tables.

 Running a query is like asking a detailed question of your database.

 When you build a query in Access, you are defining specific search conditions to find exactly the data
you want.
 In Access, you can use the graphical query by example facility or you can write Structured Query
Language (SQL) statements to create your queries.
 You can define queries to Select, Update, Insert, or Delete data.
 You can also define queries that create new tables from data in one or more existing tables.
Form
Form is an object in a desktop database designed primarily for data input or display or for control of
application execution. You use forms to customize the presentation of data that your application extracts from
queries or tables.

 Forms are used for entering, modifying, and viewing records.

 The reason forms are used so often is that they are an easy way to guide people toward entering data
correctly.
 When you enter information into a form in Access, the data goes exactly where the database designer
wants it to go in one or more related tables.
Report
Report is an object in desktop databases designed for formatting, calculating, printing, and summarizing
selected data.

 You can view a report on your screen before you print it.
 If forms are for input purposes, then reports are for output.
 Anything you plan to print deserves a report, whether it is a list of names and addresses, a financial
summary for a period, or a set of mailing labels.
 Reports are useful because they allow you to present components of your database in an easy-to-read
format.
 You can even customize a report's appearance to make it visually appealing.
 Access offers you the ability to create a report from any table or query.

Module
Module is an object in desktop databases containing custom procedures that you code using Visual Basic.
Modules provide a more discrete flow of actions and allow you to trap errors.
 Everything that can be done in a macro can also be done in a module, but you don't get the macro
interface that prompts you what is needed for each action.
 Modules are far more powerful, and are essential if you plan to write code for a multi-user
environment, because macros cannot include error handling.
 Modules can be standalone objects containing functions that can be called from anywhere in your
application, or they can be directly associated with a form or a report to respond to events on the
associated form or report.

Create Database
To create a database from a template, we first need to open MS Access and you will see the following screen
in which different Access database templates are displayed.

To view the all the possible databases, you can scroll down or you can also use the search box.
Let us enter project in the search box and press Enter. You will see the database templates related to project
management.
Select the first template. You will see more information related to this template.

After selecting a template related to your requirements, enter a name in the File name field and you can also
specify another location for your file if you want.

Now, press the Create option. Access will download that database template and open a new blank database as
shown in the following screenshot.
Now, click the Navigation pane on the left side and you will see all the other objects that come with this
database.

Click the Projects Navigation and select the Object Type in the menu.

You will now see all the objects types — tables, queries, etc.

Create Blank Database

Sometimes database requirements can be so specific that using and modifying the existing templates requires
more work than just creating a database from scratch. In such case, we make use of blank database.
Step 1 − Let us now start by opening MS Access.
Step 2 − Select Blank desktop database. Enter the name and click the Create button.

Step 3 − Access will create a new blank database and will open up the table which is also completely blank.

Data Types
Every field in a table has properties and these properties define the field's characteristics and behavior. The
most important property for a field is its data type. A field's data type determines what kind of data it can
store. MS Access supports different types of data, each with a specific purpose.
 The data type determines the kind of the values that users can store in any given field.
 Each field can store data consisting of only a single data type.
Here are some of the most common data types you will find used in a typical Microsoft Access database.
Type of Data Description Size

Text or combinations of text and numbers, Up to 255 characters.

Short Text including numbers that do not require
calculating (e.g. phone numbers).

Lengthy text or combinations of text and Up to 63, 999 characters.

Long Text
numbers.

Numeric data used in mathematical 1, 2, 4, or 8 bytes (16 bytes if set to

Number
calculations. Replication ID).

Date and time values for the years 100 8 bytes

Date/Time
through 9999.
 Currency values and numeric data used in 8 bytes
Currency mathematical calculations involving data
with one to four decimal places.

A unique sequential (incremented by 1) 4 bytes (16 bytes if set to

number or random number assigned by Replication ID).
AutoNumber
Microsoft Access whenever a new record
is added to a table.

Yes and No values and fields that contain 1 bit.

Yes/No only one of two values (Yes/No,
True/False, or On/Off).

Create Tables
Create the first table that will store the basic contact information concerning the employees as shown in the
following table −
Field Name Data Type

EmployeelD AutoNumber

FirstName Short Text

LastName Short Text

Address1 Short Text

Address2 Short Text

City Short Text

State Short Text

Zip Short Text

Phone Short Text

Phone Type Short Text

Let us now have short text as the data type for all these fields and open a blank database in Access.
This is where we left things off. We created the database and then Access automatically opened up this table-
one-datasheet view for a table.

Let us now go to the Field tab and you will see that it is also automatically created. The ID which is an
AutoNumber field acts as our unique identifier and is the primary key for this table.
The ID field has already been created and we now want to rename it to suit our conditions. This is an
Employee table and this will be the unique identifier for our employees.

Click on the Name & Caption option in the Ribbon and you will see the following dialog box.
Change the name of this field to EmployeeID to make it more specific to this table. Enter the other optional
information if you want and click Ok.

We now have our employee ID field with the caption Employee ID. This is automatically set to auto number so
we don't really need to change the data type.
Let us now add some more fields by clicking on click to add.

Choose Short Text as the field. When you choose short text, Access will then highlight that field name
automatically and all you have to do is type the field name.
Type FirstName as the field name. Similarly, add all the required fields as shown in the following screenshot.

Once all the fields are added, click the Save icon.
You will now see the Save As dialog box, where you can enter a table name for the table.

Enter the name of your table in the Table Name field. Here the tbl prefix stands for table. Let us click Ok and
you will see your table in the navigation pane.

Table Design View

As we have already created one table using Datasheet View. We will now create another table using the Table
Design View. We will be creating the following fields in this table. These tables will store some of the
information for various book projects.
 Field Name Data Type

Project ID AutoNumber

ProjectName Short Text

ManagingEditor Short Text

Author Short Text

PStatus Short Text

Contracts Attachment

ProjectStart Date/Time

ProjectEnd Date/Time

Budget Currency

ProjectNotes Long Text

Let us now go to the Create tab.

In the tables group, click on Table and you can see this looks completely different from the Datasheet View. In
this view, you can see the field name and data type side by side.
We now need to make ProjectID a primary key for this table, so let us select ProjectID and click on Primary
Key option in the ribbon.

You can now see a little key icon that will show up next to that field. This shows that the field is part of the
table’s primary key.
Let us save this table and give this table a name.

Click Ok and you can now see what this table looks like in the Datasheet View.

Let us click the datasheet view button on the top left corner of the ribbon.
If you ever want to make changes to this table or any specific field, you don't always have to go back to the
Design View to change it. You can also change it from the Datasheet View. Let us update the PStatus field as
shown in the following screenshot.

Click Ok and you will see the changes.

MS PowerPoint
MS PowerPoint is a program that is included in the Microsoft Office suite. It is used to make presentations for
personal and professional purposes.
In this article, we shall discuss in detail the functions and features of a PowerPoint presentation, followed by
some sample questions based on this topic for the upcoming competitive exams.
Features of MS PowerPoint
There are multiple features that are available in MS PowerPoint which can customise and optimise a
presentation. The same have been discussed below.
 Slide Layout
Multiple options and layouts are available based on which a presentation can be created. This option is
available under the “Home” section and one can select from the multiple layout options provided.
 Insert – Clipart, Video, Audio, etc.
Under the “Insert” category, multiple options are available where one can choose what feature they want to
insert in their presentation. This may include images, audio, video, header, footer, symbols, shapes, etc.
 Slide Design
MS PowerPoint has various themes using which background colour and designs or textures can be added to a
slide. This makes the presentation more colourful and attracts the attention of the people looking at it.
This feature can be added using the “Design” category mentioned on the homepage of MS PowerPoint.
Although there are existing design templates available, in case someone wants to add some new texture or
colour, the option to customise the design is also available.
 Animations
During the slide show, the slides appear on the screen one after the other. In case, one wants to add some
animations to the way in which a slide presents itself, they can refer to the “Animations” category.
Uses of PowerPoint Presentation
PowerPoint presentations are useful for both personal and professional usage. Given below are a few of the
major fields where PPT is extremely useful:
 Education – With e-learning and smart classes being chosen as a common mode of education today,
PowerPoint presentations can help in making education more interactive and attract students towards
the modified version of studying
 Marketing – In the field of marketing, PowerPoint presentations can be extremely important. Using
graphs and charts, numbers can be shown more evidently and clearly which may be ignored by the
viewer if being read
 Business – To invite investors or to show the increase or decrease in profits, MS PowerPoint can be
used
 Creating Resumes – Digital resumes can be formed using MS PowerPoint. Different patterns,
photograph, etc. can be added to the resume
 Depicting Growth – Since both graphics and text can be added in a presentation, depicting the growth
of a company, business, student’s marks, etc. is easier using PPT