Spreadsheets, among the most common personal computer programs, are considered by many as tools for accountants. But on the Macintosh, these powerful programs can be customized to accomplish many useful tasks for the contractor. Using the Excel spreadsheet program by Microsoft, you can make a simple-to-use, but powerful estimator, for a Macintosh. By the way, Excel is available in a version for IBM-compatible computers too. Spreadsheet Basics A spreadsheet is very simply an electronic version of the paper columnar pad that almost everyone in business uses daily. Columnar pads are used as check registers, expense reports, job costing journals, ledgers, and virtually any paper list or table you need. Where the columnar pad uses lines, the spreadsheet uses cells to form horizontal rows and vertical columns. The
