Most biologists, if given the choice of using only one piece of application software, would pick a word-processing program. The same biologists might not agree on a second application, but almost all biologists find uses for spreadsheets, once they know what spreadsheets can do. Virtually all spreadsheets consist of places to put data called cells . The cells are arranged in columns and rows, so that every cell has a unique address specified by its column and row identifiers. Thus, cell C14 is at the intersection of column C and row 14.
Values are simply numbers.
The value or label that is produced by a formula appears in the cell where it is entered, and the formula itself appears in a separate edit line. Just these simple functions allow you do do useful things with a spreadsheet. You can make tables that automatically calculate values, you can store any information that consists of long columns of data, you can even prepare templates , spreadsheets that have all the calculations for such things as statistics or enzyme kinetics, and all you have to do is plug in the values. But that is not all spreadsheets can do. They can also make graphs, alphabetize or sort numerically, and search for data in long files.