Pizza! Pizza! Instructions for Creating Worksheet

You are in charge of the class pizza party. You want to spend your money as wisely as possible. Your mission is as follows:

  • Create an Excel worksheet.
  • Find the cost per square inch of a medium (12"), a large (15”) and an extra- large (18”) pizza costing $8, $10, and $12 respectively.
  • Rate the pizza sizes from best to most expensive on cost per square inch comparison.

Begin with an Excel worksheet. Open Microsoft Excel. You will use Sheet 1.

  1. First, we’ll make our title.
  • Type the words Pizza! Pizza! In the cell A1.
  • Press Enter. You are now in A2. Do you see that Enter moved you downward?
  • Type your name and the date in A2.
  1. Next, we’ll make our column headings for our table. Enter to Row 3.
  2. In the first cell (A3), type the word Size. You can tab across to the next cell.
  3. In B3, type Cost.
  4. In C3, type Diameter in Inches.
  5. In D3, Type Cost Plus 9% Tax.
  6. In E3, type Radius.
  7. In G3, type Number of Square Inches.
  8. In H3, type Cost Per Square Inch.

You will notice some cells aren’t large enough to fit the words you typed into them. We could just double click on the spaces between the letters on the gray top column . The cells would automatically resize to fit the text, but the columns would be too wide, so we’ll format our headings.

  • Easy change the height of a row:
  • Rest you cursor between the 3 and 4 on the gray numbered side column all the way to the left. You will notice that your cursor changes from a wide cross to a crosshairs when you are on the divider.
  • Click and drag downward to make your row taller.
  • Select a whole row quickly: Clicking on the gray number 3. You will see the whole row turn blue with black borders.
  • Have Fun Formatting Cells: Right click inside the selected area and click Format Cells.
  • Choose the tab Alignment.
  • Under Horizontal, choose Center.
  • Under Vertical – Center.
  • Wrap Text.
  • You just told your spreadsheet to put the text in the center both horizontally and vertically and to wrap the text to make it fit.
  • Just for fun, click the back diamond at the top of Orientation. So that’s how you make the text sideways. Fun, isn’t it?
  • If you look around while you are in Format Cells, you can see how to change cells to dates and currency under Number, and change borders, shading, fonts, and protection.

Back to work.

Now, we need to enter information and make the formulas to make the worksheet interactive. We want Excel to do the work for us. I like that idea.

  1. Let’s enter the sizes. Enter Medium in A4, Large in A5, and X-large in A6.
  2. Now enter the cost for each size. The cost for Medium pizza $8, Large is $10, and X-Large is $12.
  3. Remember to format the cells for currency.

(Select the cells by clicking and dragging, right click, Format Cells, Number, Currency, 2 decimal places, and pick the way you want negative numbers to look.)

  1. Okay, think time….we need to figure tax, then add it to the cost, right?

How do we get the amount of the tax?

Multiply the amount of tax in decimals by the cost, right?

So we have a tax of 9%, so we need to multiply .09 times the cost.

The cost of the first pizza is in cell B4, so we need to make cell C4 equal the amount of (B4*.09)+B4 (tax plus the original cost).

Okay, let’s do it.

  1. Since we want the answer to be in cell C4, click in the C4 cell. Press the = (equals) key on the keyboard. This activates the cell to accept a formula.
  2. Look up in the formula box. The equals sign is there. Just click behind the = sign and type in (B4*.09)+B4 (No spaces.)
  3. Press Enter or click the green checkmark. Voila! Excel figured the tax and added just like you told it to do. This is fun, isn’t it?
  4. And now for a bit more magic….Click in the cell you just created. It should say $8.72. In the right bottom corner of the cell you should notice there is a small black square. Rest your cursor on that box. Your cursor will change from the wide cross to crosshairs. When you get the crosshairs, click and drag downward over the next two cells and then let go.

How’s that for magic? Excel applied the same formula to those cells as well.

Can you see that if you use the same formula, you could apply it to a whole page? Wonderful, wonderful!

7. Okay, so far so good. We are feeling our way around Excel and nothing scary has happened; so let’s go to the next step.

8. Now input the diameter in inches of the pizzas: Medium pizza =12. Large = 15, and X-Large = 18.

9. Next… We need to know the radius. Why? Because our formula for the area of a circle is based on the radius. How do we figure the radius if we know the diameter?

A radius is half of a diameter, so we would divide the diameter by 2.

10. Click on the E4 cell, them press = key to activate the cell.

11. Click the D4 cell, then press / on the keyboard (the divide sign), press the number 2 key, and press Enter on the keyboard. There’s your radius.

12. Okay, you know what to do now. Get your crosshairs on the radius cell you just did, and click and drag downward two cells to apply it to the other pizzas.

11. Now that we have the radius, we are ready to find the number of square inches.

Hmmm….Select F4 cell, =, then type in the formula 3.14*(E4*E4) in the formula box. Click on the green check to apply. Why did we type that? What’s the formula for the area of a circle?

12. Pull down your crosshairs to apply to the other two cells.

13. Last column, Cost Per Square Inch. How do we find that ratio? Divide the cost of the pizza (in cell C4) by the number of square inches (in cell F4). So click on G4, then click on the = sign to activate the cell. Now click C4, press the / key, then click the F4 cell. Press Enter. (That’s another way to put in a formula…just click on the cells instead of typing in the formula box.) Get your crosshairs and pull down the formula.

14. Be sure to Format the G4 – G6 cells for currency. To get more decimal places for a more careful comparison, change the number of decimal places to four.

15. So, you have your answer, but we still have to rank the order. Of course, we can just look at three prices to compare,….but what if you wanted to rank an entire page of numbers? Let’s do it the easy and fun way.

Let’s select the cells to be sorted by clicking and dragging across rows 4-6 and across columns A-G.

Now click on the word Data on the menu bar, then Sort…, and you’ll see the names of the columns for you to choose. Choose Cost Per Square Inch, then Ascending, Ok.

There you go, your figures are all ranked and ready.

16. Dress up your work by adding lines, colors, and font changes.

17. Save your work. Put it in your student portfolio files.

Now give yourself a big pat on the back. You’ve created a worksheet, input formulas two ways, formatted cells for currency and decimal places, and ranks data. I’m proud of your.

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