Getting Started with Google Sheets

Spreadsheets are a technology that is derived from accounting ledgers called “spread sheets”. These ledgers were based on a grid of columns and rows. While the technology is based on accounting, there are many more uses for spreadsheets than just to track money. People make spreadsheets to track their fantasy sports leagues, plan trips, and assemble their meal plan for the week. Many software companies offer spreadsheet software, such as Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and Apple’s Numbers. Spreadsheet software may have different functionalities, but at the level we are going to be learning about spreadsheets, most software works very similarly. We are going to be using Google Sheets for this class because it is readily available to all of our students and makes it simple for you to share your work with your course staff and submit assignments. Spreadsheets also serve as a place where we can store smaller datasets. A dataset is a collection of data and can hold numbers, dates, text, and more.

To get started with Google Sheets, you need to first sign up for a Google account and select that you are making an account For yourself. Once you have created an account or if you were already a Google account owner, head to the home of Google Sheets .

You can then create a new spreadsheet or use one of Google’s templates. For now, we are going to focus on creating new spreadsheets so we can learn more about the underlying structures of these popular templates. Let’s set up a new spreadsheet!

  1. Click Blank Spreadsheet.
  2. Right now, in the upper left-hand corner, the workbook name is “Untitled Spreadsheet”. Click on the workbook title to change the name to “Car Info”.
  3. The columns in the spreadsheet are labeled by letters and the rows of the spreadsheet are labeled by numbers. A cell of a spreadsheet is referred to by the column number and then the row number, so the first cell in the spreadsheet in the upper left-hand corner is A1. In this cell, put the word, “Car Mileage”.
  4. Oftentimes, row 1 is referred to as the header row. The header row is where we add labels for what type of data will be stored in that column. Column A is where we might store other identifiers that help us determine what is going on with each row. If we wanted to store just one car’s information in this spreadsheet, we might need any labels in column A, but if we wanted this spreadsheet to work for multiple cars, then we would need to add some additional identifiers in column A. Let’s make it work for multiple cars by doing that next!
  5. We can move the information in a cell by cutting and pasting. Click on cell A1 and for Mac users, hit command+x at the same time. For Windows users, hit control+x at the same time. You are now ready to move this info to a different cell. We are going to move this info to cell E1 by selecting that cell and pasting with command+v for Mac users, or control+v for Windows users.
  6. Now we can add additional headers for our car information. In the following order, starting at A1, add the following labels to the header row: “Nickname”, “Year”, “Make”, and “Model”.
  7. Add the info for two cars to your spreadsheet by filling rows 2 and 3.

One of the benefits of a spreadsheet is that Google Sheets can help format our data for us. If we want to dedicate a cell to storing dates or currency values, we can click on the cell and then click on Format > Number and select the type of number we want to store. This helps us understand what is in the column and allows us to apply additional rules if necessary. For instance, if we are working on a spreadsheet about taxes, we may want to use the Rounded Currency option for the cells where we are adding the values from a W2, since all tax software rounds the numbers as well.

Now that your spreadsheet is set up, you are ready to dive deeper into all the functionalities that spreadsheets can offer.