For some time now, you've been scrolling the window back and forth across the sheet to view the figures for different months. You might be wishing for a larger screen that would display more columns at once. Type >B1® to return the cursor to coordinate B1.
Type another GLOBAL command this time for a Column width of 7 characters:
/GC7®. In an instant, the screen changes to display more columns. Each column has been narrowed from nine characters to seven characters in width.
In general, you can use the command /GC to set the "global column width"
to anywhere from 3 to 37 characters per column. Given a column width, VisiCalc will fit as many columns as it can across the screen. Note that you can only set column widths globally, not individually.
Right now, the dollars and cents figures just about fill up the available space in these 7-character columns. Type /GFI to round these numbers to integers.
Now that we have some extra space, we can narrow the columns further.
Type /GC4® That gives us even more columns of figures in the window, with each column being four characters wide and displaying three digits.
VisiCalc leaves an extra character blank to the left of each value. This "re-serv.ed" space has been included to keep the display from runnrng large values together. Labels, however, do not have this extra space.
Adjusting Column Widths Lesson Two
Look at the titles, SALES, COST, and -GROSS- in column A. SALES has been shortened to SALE and -GROSS- is now -GRO. Have we lost the rest of the labels SALES and -GROSS-? Type >A1® to move the cursor to position A1 to find out (if you. press the. key, you'll bump into column A, which we fixed as a title area).
Note that though the label at A1 still reads SALE, the entry contents line above reads A 1 (L) SALES. Press the .. twice to reach A3. The entry contents line again displays our true label
A3 (L)
-GROSS-Even though the columns have been narrowed, the full alphabetic labels are preserved.
These labels can be more than nine characters long. In fact, you can type an alphabetic label as long as you like, regardless of the current column width, and the full label will be preserved. Try this: with the cursor still at A3, type GROSS PROFIT Then press the ... key to move up to COST, and type COST OF GOODS SOLD followed by ® Next type IGC12®
Notice that the entire label G R 0 SSP R 0 FIT comes into view, and the number of columns in the window is reduced. Now type IGC18® Notice the prompts GLOBAL: COR F and CO LUM N WIDTH and the small rectangle on the edit line as you type. As usual, the BACK S key can be used for corrections as you enter the number 18. The entire label COST OF GOODS SOLD can be seen. Let's go back to IGC7®
The ability to fix titles in place and adjust column widths gives us some com-pensation for the limited size of the screen. But, suppose we'd really like to keep the wider columns and the cursor at B1, the initial sales figure, and change it, while watching what happens to the final sales and gross profit at column M. If only we had two screens ....
VisiCalc
Splitting the ScreenSplitting the Screen
Type >E1® to move the cursor to column E. Now, type the WINDOW command /W The prompt line reads
WINDOW: H V L S U
Press V (for Vertical). Your screen should look like the photo below.
You. have created two screen windows. Each one can be scrolled inde-pendently to view any portion of the electronic sheet. At present, the cursor is in the left hand window. Use the ... key to move the cursor downwards to row 21 and beyond. The left window will scroll downwards to follow the cursor, but the right window will remain still. Bring the left window back to the top of the sheet with
>
B1®You may have noticed that the column widths that we set earlier have changed in the right window. VisiCalc must sometimes narrow these widths to accom-modate the extra border that split windows add to the screen. Whether VisiCalc narrows columns or not depends on width requirements. See the WINDOW Command Reference for further details.
Press the semicolon; key to jump the cursor into the right hand window. Press the. key to scroll the right window across to column M. We now have both the beginning and ending months' sales, cost of goods and gross profit figures visible at the same time.
Press; again. The cursor jumps back to the left window. Each time you press the; keY,'the cursor jumps from one window to the other. Notice that the cursor has landed at the same position it was on when we last jumped out of the left hand window.
Now we can change the initial sales figure and watch what happens in the final month. Type 123® and let VisiCalc recalculate. Notice that during recalculation an I appears in to the right of the "C" in the upper right corner of the screen.
SALES in column M should be 351. Try typing a few more numbers with the cursor at B1. See if you can find, by trial and error, the initial sales figure that 41
Splitting the Screen
Lesson Two
yields twelfth month sales of 1000 (rounded to the nearest tnteger). Hint: You can type a number with a decimal pOint, even though it will be displayed in rounded form.
When you finish experimenting with recalculation, type the WINDOW com-mand IW and the numeral 1 for one window, the normal screen. We have seen that the idea of a split screen is useful. Can we get any more mileage out of this approach? Take a look at the screen, and notice how much of it is empty. Perhaps we can use the lower part of the screen to better advantage.
Type >B11® to move the cursor down to the middle row of the screen. Now type /WH (for horizontal). Your screen should look like the photo below.
This time the screen is split horizontally into a top and bottom window. Press the ; key to move the cursor into the bottom window. Next hold down .. to scroll the bottom window upwards until the cursor bumps into the top edge of the sheet. Both windows are now displaying the same portion of the electronic sheet!
The cursor should be at B1 in the bottom window. Change the number at B1 to 100 in the bottom window, and watch what happens. The recalculation affects both windows. Use the. to scroll the bottom window to the right until column M comes into view. Now you can see the figures for the first and the last months at the same time.