SOLUTION DEVELOPMENT
1.WORD PROCESSING
Mail Merge
- Word can use data from a spreadsheet, database or another Word document in a form letter,
stickers, envelopes etc. In order for Word to accomplish this, you need to link the data file to
the document you are going to use as the form/main letter.
- After the mail merge has been completed, remember to SAVE the merged document under a
new name, as to not disturb your form letter.
Used to do a Mail Merge:
- Table/Query in a database
- Spreadsheets/CSV (comma delimited) file
- Contacts file e.g. in Microsoft Outlook
- Table in a word processing document
- Text file
Track changes
Track changes is when many people working on a document and they make suggestions for the
layout, wording or spelling etc. Once changes are made, changes are tracked, and the original
owner can accept or rejecting the changes made.
- Go to the Review Ribbon
- Tracking options can be activated here
- Changes options is where you accept changes (keep changes) or reject changes (delete
changes made).
You can identify these track changes made by seeing the lines along the side of a
document, or bubbles with comments on the side.
2. SPREADSHEET (EXCEL)
Subtotal
The subtotal feature is useful when you want to summarise data quickly. It is used
typically
to determine statistics - number, sum or average, of various groups of data in
a worksheet.
Absolute cell referencing
Designated in a formula by the addition of a dollar sign ($) before the column
and row. Keep a row and/or column constant.
Cell reference
Word can use data from a spreadsheet, database or another Word
document in a form letter, stickers, envelopes etc. For Word to accomplish
this, you need to link the data file to the document you are going to use as
the form/main letter.
After the mail merge has been completed, remember to SAVE the merged
document under a new name, as to not disturb your form letter.
Error messages
• #NUM error indicating numeric values that are not valid. Enter a valid numeric
value.
• ####### error indicating that the column is too thin for data to show. Change
the column width.
• #NAME error signifies that something needs to be corrected in the syntax of a
function. Check the syntax of your function.
• #DIV/0! error indicates that no division by 0 can take place. Check your
formula.
• #REF! error indicates that function refers to a cell or range that no longer
exists.
• #VALUE! error indicates that there is something wrong with your function or
referencing inside the function.
Text functions:
Left - Extracts text from the left of a string.
Right - Extracts text from the right of a string.
Mid - Extracts text from an indicated point inside of a string.
Concatenate - Combines text.
Len - determines the length of a string.
Value - converts text to a numeric value.
Find - returns the position of specific text inside a string.
Conditional formatting
Used to apply certain formatting to data that meets one or more conditions.
Identify trends and patterns.
Improves data readability and visual analysis
Difference between file formats:
.xlsx is a typical Excel file format that saves data, graphs, pivots etc.
.txt is a text file containing no formatting.
.csv is a flat text file that uses delimiters to separate data e.g. a comma.
Types of graphs:
• Pie - to indicate percentages or proportional data.
• Line - to track changes over periods of time.
• Column/Bar - compare information/data between groups.
How to improve the readability of a chart:
• Appropriate chart title.
• Label the axis.
• Use a legend.
• Changing the scale on the axes.
• Add Minimum and maximum values.
• Use graphics.
• Add or remove gridlines.
3. ACCESS - DATABASE
Primary key
Automatically generates a unique value for each new record.
Prevent any duplicate records.
Data validity
Input mask
Validation rule
4. HTML
Images
To insert images, we use code to give it the file name we want, the height and
width of the
image as well as any alternative text which gives a description of the image.
The following tags are used:
<img> tag shows we are now working with the images.
src = to add a file name of which we MUST include the file extension as well.
alt = alternative text (message) or description of the image if image is broken
or do not
display
align = do we want to right align or left align the image
width = how wide we want the image to be
height = the height of the image.
Reasons images does not show in webpage
• Incorrect file name
• Incorrect file extension
• Image not in folder
