Introduction to Microsoft Excel

If you already use a spreadsheet, you can skip this section. The computer spreadsheet is an essential tool for manipulating quantitative information. In analytical chemistry, spreadsheets can help us with calibration curves, statistical analysis, titration curves, and equilibrium problems. Spreadsheets allow us to conduct what if experiments such as investigating the effect of a stronger acid or a different ionic strength on a titration curve. We use Microsoft Excel in this book as a tool for solving problems in analytical chemistry. Although you can skip over spreadsheets with no loss of continuity, spreadsheets will enrich your understanding of chemistry and provide a valuable tool for use outside this course. 

This section introduces a few basic features of Excel 2000 for a PC computer. Other versions of Excel and other spreadsheets are not very different from what we describe. Excellent books are available if you want to learn much more about this software.19 

Let s prepare a spreadsheet to compute the density of water from the equation 

In cell B4, write the heading Temp (°C) . Then enter temperatures from 5 through 40 in cells B5 through B12. This is our input to the spreadsheet. The output will be computed values of density in column C. 

This equation is accurate to five decimal places over the range 4 to 40 C. 

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