Hiking Gear Weights and Costs Spreadsheet Instructions Questions? Email David Anderson, at [email protected] The “Excel Hiking Gear Weights and Costs - Template.xlsx” spreadsheet was created with Microsoft Excel. To edit it, you may use Excel if you have it, or any program that can read and edit Microsoft Excel documents. If you don’t have Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/) is a good alternative for editing spreadsheets that were created in Excel and other sources as well. With Google Sheets (part of Google Docs), there is no need to download and install anything. To get started with Google Sheets, 1. 2. 3. 4.

Log into your own Google Drive account. In a separate tab or window, go to Gray Ghost’s Google Drive Open the file “Google Sheets Hiking Gear Weights and Costs – Template.gsheets” To edit the template, you’ll have to click on “File”, “Make a copy”, and then save with a name of your choosing, such as “Hiking Gear Weights and Costs – Johnny Appleseed”. It will be saved to your own Google Drive. From there, you can edit it and move it as you wish.

Alternatively, if you prefer being able to edit the “Excel Hiking Gear Weights and Costs - Template.xlsx” spreadsheet offline, on your own computer, then I recommend downloading and installing LibreOffice, a completely free and fully compatible alternative to Microsoft Office. LibreOffice URL: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-still/ When you are ready to itemize and calculate the weight of the items in your backpack, open the file “Hiking Gear Weights and Costs.pdf” to view how Gray Ghost entered his items. Once you see how his items are entered, open the template spreadsheet (see above). For each item in your pack, enter: 1. If you will carry this item on your next outing, put a “y” in the first column (in this spreadsheet, you may enter items you choose to carry only on some trips, such as binoculars or coat, and not have to re-enter the details every time). 2. In the second column, enter the general name of the item (backpack, tent, sleeping bag, shirt, etc.). 3. In the third column, enter details about the item, such as manufacturer and model. 4. In the fourth column, enter the item weight, in ounces and tenths of an ounce, such as 9.1 or 19.3 5. In the fifth column, enter the cost of the item, in dollars. 6. Ditty bag, itemized: If you itemize your ditty bag on the second page, put a “Y” in column D for each item included. Then the total of the ditty bag items will be added to cell C51. 7. Ditty bag, not itemized: If you choose to not itemize your ditty bag, simply put a single weight for it on page 2, and be sure to include a “Y” in column D, on the same line as its weight. As you enter the details of your items, the total pack weight and cost of your items should be displayed and automatically updated at the top of the first page. If automatic calculations are turned off, either update the formulas manually, or go to your Options menu in Excel, then under Formulas, and Calculation Options, turn on “Automatic”. Caution: Cells containing numbers in rows 2 and 3, as well as cells D51 and D80, are all functions. Please don’t edit those cells except to modify the functions. You will break the automatic calculations if you overwrite the functions with numbers. Before you exit the spreadsheet, save the template as a new file with your trail name: such as “Hiking Gear Weights and Costs - Johnny Appleseed”.