Page 43 - Practical Ship Design

14 Chapter 1

- Reply by typing in the address or addresses that are to be copied: typically,
B2 if only what is in B2 is to be copied or D2..M2 if everything in line 2 from
column D to column M inclusive is to be copied to another line, or B2..B30 if
everything in column B from line 2 to line 30 inclusive is to be copied to
another column.

- After the reply to this question has been entered, a second question “to?” will
then appear. The answer to this may be a single address or two addresses
indicating a line or a column. When this is entered the required copy will
appear on the spreadsheet.

- After setting up the outline of the table in this way, the next step should be to
adjust each of the columns to the required width, from the standard 9-digit
setting. At the top of each column in turn use / to obtain the menu. On the first
menu enter “worksheet”, on the second menu enter “column”, then
“set-width”. Then give the required number and on pressing “enter”, the
column will change to the required size. For a vertical line using I the column
width should be set to 1.

- The next step should be to set the number of decimal places to be used for the
figures which will ultimately appear in each column. Position the curser at
the first line in each column in which figures are to be entered. Use / to obtain
the menu. Then enter “range”, “format”, “fixed’ and the number of decimal
places. The questions “from” and “to” will then be posed in succession. Type
the answers and press “enter”. The decimal places and column widths will
appear typically as (F2) and [W5] respectively on the sheet.
Names and symbols together with numbers not intended for use in any calcula-
tion purpose should be preceded by either or ‘.
Numbers to be used in calculations should not have any prefix.
Formulae to be used should be entered with the prefix +. They should be entered
in the first address to which they apply and the copy procedure used to apply the
same formula to the data on successive lines.
The symbols + and - are used for addition and subtraction; the symbols * and /
for multiplication and division.
In a complex equation an alternative to using / for division is to give the divisor
an exponent of (-1) and use the multiplication sign *. This sometimes seems to
work better. The sign for an exponent is A.
The only mathematical function used in this particular table is “@ATAN’
which is tan (-1) in radians, but there are a large number of other mathematical
functions available in the Lotus system, all of which should be preceded by the
symbol ‘“2’’.