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Another Spreadsheet Project |
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Okay, so
you've been working hard and need a break. Try this spreadsheet
problem. |
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| *This was originally
written for Appleworks on a MAC, but it also worked in Excel 97. I
have made a few changes to get it to work in Excel XP. Some formulae
will have to be modified. |
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Fig. A |
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Follow the directions below to create a pair of dice that actually work by
holding down the Ctrl + Shift keys while hitting the = sign, (On Mac:
Command + Shift), or F9 on Excel XP. |
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Open a new Spreadsheet
document.
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From the Format menu,
select Document and limit the number of columns to 7 and the
number of rows to 4
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Select Row Height and Column Widths of 72pt
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Highlight all cells and
choose a font size of 36
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In
Cell A4 type the formula: RAND(6)
In Excel XP use
=INT(RAND()*6)+1 . This will
generate the random numbers of the dice.
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In Cell A1 type
=IF(A4>1,"l","") letter L, not 1.
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Cell
C1 type
=IF(A4>3,"l","")
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Cell
A2 type =IF(A4=6,"l","")
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Cell
B2 type =IF(OR(A4=1,A4=3,A4=5),"l","")
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Cell
C2 type
=IF(A4=6,"l","")
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Cell
A3 type
=IF(A4>3,"l","")
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Cell
C3 type
=IF(A4>1,"l","")
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Cell
A4 type
=INT(RAND()*6)+1
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Select the range of 4x3
cells A1..C4 and select Copy from the Edit menu. Move the
cursor to cell E1 and select Paste from the Edit menu.
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Select the range of cells
from A1 to G3 and change the font to Wingdings (In the
Format menu select Font and Wingdings) This changes
the letter "l" to dots.
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Cell D4 type
=A4+E4 This will display the total
of the pair of dice.
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Fig. B |
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Fig. C |
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You can experiment with the colours of the dice, and the font colour and
size. Make sure you choose Center Alignment so the dots will be
centered in the squares.
To hide the Random numbers in
Cell A4 and E4 change the font colour to match the cell colour.
I added another feature.
If you type the following in any of the blank cells, such as D2, it will
display the caption "Lucky Seven" whenever the pair of dice adds up
to seven.
=IF((D4=7),"Lucky Seven","")
Under
Options choose Display and uncheck all the checkmarks. Select
all cells and Lock them (under Options) to prevent accidentally
changing them. |
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Fig. D |
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If you want to get fancy, try adding a border around the dice. Make
sure you have a backup copy saved as well. |
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Save your
file with a unique name such as tc_game1.xls (my_initials_game_1) |
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On the Macintosh, hold down the command and shift key, then
press the = sign. The two dice will change values randomly. In Windows,
hold down the CTRL and shift keys instead. (In Office XP try
F9) |
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| To finish off
add a column to the left and a row at the top. Create a visual border
around the game and shade it a distinctive colour. Change the text
colour if necessary. You can also select and hide the unneeded rows and
columns so that only the game area is displayed.
You may need to change some of the cell
references once you insert a new row and column. Do these steps
before handing in the project. |
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