What is a spreadsheet and what is a database and what’s the difference? When would you use a database, and when would you use a spreadsheet? These are perplexing questions to the uninitiated.

One way to find out is to go on a general database course, then an Excel course. In the absence of that I’ll trying to explain the best I can…

The definition of a database from WhatIs.com is “A database is a collection of information that is organized so that it can easily be accessed, managed, and updated. In one view, databases can be classified according to types of content: bibliographic, full-text, numeric, and images.”

The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing has a fairly good definition of a database:
“One or more large structured sets of persistent data, usually associated with software to update and query the data. A simple database might be a single file containing many records, each of which contains the same set of fields where each field is a certain fixed width. A database is one component of a database management system.”

The main point is that a database stores data, and software is required to retrieve the data from a database. Microsoft Access 2007 is a database.

The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing also has a fairly good definition of a spreadsheet:
“A type of application program which manipulates numerical and string data in rows and columns of cells. The value in a cell can be calculated from a formula which can involve other cells. A value is recalculated automatically whenever a value on which it depends changes. Different cells may be displayed with different formats.”

Another simpler definition, from TekMom is “A spreadsheet is a document which helps you organize data in rows and columns of cells.”

So a spreadsheet contains data in columns and rows, as well as formulas which manipulate that data.