Precedents and Dependents in Spreadsheets

Although OpenOffice and LibreOffice are very similar, the macros are not fully compatible. This book describes Power Detective for OpenOffice.

If you copy the formula =$A$1*B1 from cell C1 to cell C2, the formula in cell C2 will be: _____________. Many spreadsheet users may have trouble with this question. (This question is from this research paper:  McGill, T. J., and M. W. Dixon. "Spreadsheet knowledge: An exploratory study." (2001): 621-625. )

In Excel, a text is sometimes treated as a text and sometimes as a number. This can be quite confusing and can lead to wrong calculations. Users have to be aware of this and ensure that the cells in a summation are numbers. Here is an illustration. A1 and A2 contain numbers 11 and 12. A3 contains a text "13". In an addition where each cell is explicitly added, as in cell B4, "13" is treated as the number 13. But. In a sum formula, as in cell B5, "13" is treated as a text and is not added to the sum. Spreadsheet users have to be very careful that each cell in a summation is a number. Otherwise, the cell "number" will not be added. This chameleon quality applies to some other formulas also.

Conditional color formatting - that's when the cell color changes according to certain values. The changes may be done automatically or manually. While many have lauded the usefulness of this feature, some are using it as a tool of tyranny. 'They only want their spreadsheets to turn green. Their whole job is, apparently, staring at spreadsheets and just hoping – from the turrets of their ivory towers – that they will turn green.'         From:  'When apathetic and feckless students mess up their GCSEs, we teachers are accused of being lazy or ineffective' 'Highlighting is what keeps me awake at night. Specifically, the coloured highlighting on the spreadsheets that my school uses to track pupil progress: red for "underachieving"; amber for "on track" and green for "exceeding expectations".'        From:  'I am haunted by the coloured highlighting on the spreadsheets  that my school uses to track pupil progress ...

Very often, a so-called spreadsheet is only a table of values, without a single formula. That's not really a spreadsheet. Example: The so-called Trump 2018 budget spreadsheet:  Third Way Statement on the Leaked May 8 Trump Budget

What makes a spreadsheet a spreadsheet, and not a word document or a database or a calculator? What is the most basic and defining feature of a spreadsheet? "The key feature of spreadsheets is the ability for a formula to refer to the contents of other cells, which may in turn be the result of a formula."  "The ability to chain formulas together is what gives a spreadsheet its power."                                ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreadsheet ) Yes, it is this feature of chaining formulas. A formula refers to a cell that itself may be another formula. Spreadsheet users could design complex chains of formula. However, once built, there is no easy way to see the chains of formula. That is not a good situation. Imagine a city that has built a network of roads but has no map of the roads. This is where "trace precedent" and "trace dependent" come in.  If you are at o...