Round Robin Spreadsheet

I have created this spreadsheet to schedule games for a round robin tournament. All you have to do is enter the teams in the cells highlighted in yellow and the dates in the cells highlighted in gray. The dates are optional. I have formulas in the cells showing the schedule. They are locked so you can't accidentally type in them. If you wish to unlock them, goto Tools > Protect Document > Sheet. When the box comes up prompting you for a password, simply click OK. I did not use a password.

Here is a screen shot of the spreadsheet. You click on the image for a larger view.



If you would like a different number of teams or other features, please let me know in the comments. I will do my best to add them. You click on "Spreadsheet Files" under "Links" on the right hand side of the page to get this file. It is an Open Office Calc file. Let me know if you need an excel file and I will convert post it as soon as I can.

Sinking Fund

With gas prices so high, everyone is looking to save money. One way to save money on the purchase of a new car is by setting up a Sinking Fund. You can open up an account that earns interest and put money into this account. Here is an example.

Let's say you want to buy a car and your loan is $18,000.00. The interest rate is 8% compounded monthly for 5 years.

Let's say you can set up an account that earns interest at 1.5% compounded monthly.

Below is a screen shot of a spreadsheet I set up that compares a Sinking Fund and Amortization payments. Look on the right hand side of the screen under "Links" and click on "Spreadsheet Files" to download this spreadsheet. It is in Open Office Calc. Let me know in the comments if you would like me to post an Excel version and I will convert it.

It shows your monthly payments for each over a 5 year period and shows you how much money you can save by using a Sinking Fund.

Note: m represents the number of compounding periods per year.

• m = 2 (semiannually - two periods per year)
• m = 4 (quarterly - four periods per year)
• m = 12 (monthly - twelve periods per year)
• m = 365 (daily - 365 periods per year)

Protect Cells In Open Office Calc

For this example, we want to protect cells B2:B5. We do not want anyone to be able to enter or modify the data we already have in these cells.

First: Make sure the sheet is saved.

Second: Highlight all of the cells. You can do this by the area above row 1 and to the left of column A.


Third: On the Format menu click Cells. When the dialog box appears, click on the Cell Protection tab and make sure Protected is unchecked and click OK.

Fourth: Highlight the cells you want to protect, In this case B2:B5. Then on the Format menu, click Cells. When the dialog box appears, click on the Cell Protection tab and check Protected and click OK.


Fifth: Then goto Tools>Protect Document>Sheet. You will be asked to enter a password. Enter your password and save the file.

You are done.

Conditional Formatting In Open Office Calc.

How to use conditional formatting in calc.

First, we need a new formating style.

To do this we need to pick any cell in our sheet and apply what style we want. For this example, I chose to set the background color to yellow. Then, on the Format menu we need to click
Styles and Formatting.




The Styles and Formatting box now appears. Then click on the New Style From Selection Button.



When the Create Style box comes up, you can name your new style. I called mine yellow.



Now highlight your data that you want to apply the conditional formatting to. Then on the Format menu, click Conditional Formatting. I decided I wanted to highlight the values between $20,000 and $28,000.




After you click OK, your data is highlighted.



The data is prices on makes of different sports cars that I made up. To generate the data, I used the RANDBETWEEN() function.

How to insert a graph into a spreadsheet

Here is a great program you can use by itself or with an office suite program. It is called Graph. It is free. Here is the link to download it.

After you have installed Graph, open Calc.

Goto Insert > Object > OLE Object... and you will get a box like this.



You then need to double click Further objects. You will then get this box.



Once this box is up, you need to click on Graph System and then hit OK.

This will show on your screen. It might show you a tip of the day. You can just close that.



You can then enter the function you want to graph and then close the graph window. And there you have it. A graph.

I have a video on You Tube explaining this. The video is done with Excel 2007. Below is the link. Enjoy.

Video on You Tube