Compare and Contrast Features Of Two Used Software Applications : Discuss the uses of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.

Compare and Contrast Features Of Two Used Software Applications

I am going to discuss the uses of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.

Microsoft Word is mainly used for word processing. It can be used to write anything from shopping lists to larger publications that contain additional texts such as illustrations, headers and footers, cross references, indexes, and glossaries.

Word can also check spelling and grammar, search and replace text, check text readability, sort data, import data, and provide templates for many types of documents from memos to web pages. Also Word contains a word document which is a sequence of characters that exists in a computer’s memory. Once the document has been created, there are a large number of actions that can be carried out, such as saving, printing, or sending the document as an email.

Also information put into word can be edited and formatted as required. Editing covers a variety of operations such as insert, delete, move, search and replace etc. The computer user uses this to make changes and corrections to text on the screen. Text formatting changes the layout and appearance of the computer users’ text. These include changing the margins, altering the line spacing, turning justification on and off, centring text and emboldening.

However, by contrast Microsoft Excel is designed to help you to record, analyze, manipulate, and present quantitative information. Instead of belonging to computer software applications of word ...

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However, by contrast Microsoft Excel is designed to help you to record, analyze, manipulate, and present quantitative information. Instead of belonging to computer software applications of word processing it belong to a group of computer applications known as spreadsheets. Rather than word processing excel is designed to work with numbers and figures. It is an electronic calculator which can carry out calculations, store the results in memory areas, and then recall these at a later stage. Unlike Word when entering numbers in Excel, they can form a basis of any calculation the computer user requires. Words can also be entered in Excel.

Excel spreadsheets are made up of lots of single boxes on the spreadsheet grid known as cells. The cells are arranged in rows which go across the spreadsheet and also in columns which go down the spreadsheet. Each individual row and column has a reference number or letter. Each cell can then be identified by giving its row and column reference. If columns were identified by letters and rows by numbers then the cell for example, reference D3 on the spreadsheet. This would imply it is the cell where row 3 crosses column D. This helps when collating figures.

Spreadsheets also have Formulae functions. These are instructions to the system to perform calculations. They allow the user to multiple, divide, add, and subtract any numbers on the users’ spreadsheet. Functions are instructions to the system to carry out a particular process. Each function has a word the system recognises, for example SUM (B1, B5) will add up the numeric values stored in cells B1,B2,B3,B4 and B5.

Unit 1 25/05/03

Criteria 2.4

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