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elative addressing (change cell address when copied) as well as absolute addressing (don‟t change
cell address when copied). The use of the dollar sign indicates absolute addressing. When the formula
in B4 was copied to C4 through G4, the cell address of the cost of goods sold assumption cell should
remain constant—so it is in the formula as $B$21. However, the percentage should be used against the
sales numbers that are in that column. When the formula in B4 is copied, the B3 should become C3 in
column C, and D3 in column D, and so on. That‟s relative addressing. Hence, when the formula
shown in B4 ($B$21∗B3) was copied to C4 through G4, the reference to the assumption cell didn‟t
change, but the reference to the sales figure cell did.
In addition, most of the packages provide utilities for graphing results, which can be used
independently or integrated into either a word processing report or a graphics presentation.
Exhibit 19.5 presents a graph of the information in our example spreadsheet. It contrasts sales and
net profit over the six months.
The spreadsheet software currently on the market has over 50 financial functions, including net
present value, future value, present value, accrued interest, depreciation, interest rate, internal rate of
return, and yield for a Treasury bill, as well as logical functions, statistical functions, engineering
functions, and data and time functions. A wizard leads the user through the arguments for the function.
The arguments are usually cell addresses and can be indicated in the wizard by clicking on the
appropriate cell. Exhibit 19.6 is a sample of the wizard for a net present value example using
Microsoft Excel.
Presentation Software
Presentation software is used to create slide presentations. These presentations can include a variety
of media through which information can be presented to an audience, such as text, graphs, pictures,
video, and sound. Special effects are also available, such as animation that can be incorporated as the
system transitions from one slide to the next, or within a slide itself. Slides can be printed in black and
white or in color, as slides or handouts, and can be used on overhead projectors. Alternatively, a
computer can be directly connected to a projection system for projection onto a screen or a television
monitor, allowing the presenter to utilize the software‟s animation and sound features. Most of the
presentation software comes equipped with various predeveloped background formats to help simplify
the process of creating the presentation. Also, these software packages support the importing of both
graphs and text from other software packages, such as word processing and spreadsheets. A set of
slides for a presentation is often referred to as a deck. The most popular presentation graphics software
is Microsoft PowerPoint.
Exhibit 19.6 Example of net present value wizard in Microsoft Excel.