Non-Standard Spreadsheet Structures

We’ve described in detail the optimal “standard” spreadsheet structure. Again, if you plan to use a spreadsheet to create corporate data, it is ideal to use this “standard” structure as we’ve described it. However, we must consider another very common spreadsheet structure: a simple list of values, as demonstrated in Figure 5.3.

The simple list is very common – so much so that it needs to be recognized just like the “standard” format is recognized.

There is one very significant difference between the standard format and the simple list: the determination of the context of values. With the standard format, the context of value is given by a combination of the column name and row identifier. For a simple list, though, the context is often exclusively found in the row identifier. Figure 5.4 shows what a simple list looks like at the internal spreadsheet level.

An interesting...