Embed Excel into PDF file

[RST Engineering]

I'm doing a textbook sort of a thing and I'd like to embed a working
excel file into the pdf text of the workbook. The idea is to have the
student do a few excercises with the spreadsheet and then we will
dissect the spreasheet and show how each of the cells relates to the
sheet as a whole.

Is it possible to do this with just the PDF and Excel readers without
having to have the full program on the student computer?

Thanks,

Jim

 

[GS]

I'm doing a textbook sort of a thing and I'd like to embed a working
excel file into the pdf text of the workbook. The idea is to have the
student do a few excercises with the spreadsheet and then we will
dissect the spreasheet and show how each of the cells relates to the
sheet as a whole.

Is it possible to do this with just the PDF and Excel readers without
having to have the full program on the student computer?

Thanks,

Jim

PDFs are printer output files. Excel files will result in just a
printout of the sheet when 'printed' to a PDF. The only way to get user
interaction with an Excel file is for them to open it in Excel. At
best, your PDF printout of the Excel exercises will serve as a guide
for users to duplicate in Excel what they see in the PDF.

Not sure what you mean by an 'Excel reader', but there's absolutely no
reason why you can't put textbook text into an Excel workbook along
side your exercise sheets. (I write entire manuals using only Excel)

Optionally, you can distribute your textbook PDF and the Excel workbook
that goes with it, as long as you don't mind distributing 2 files. Note
also that these 2 files could be packaged into a single ZIP file so you
only have 1 file to distribute.

 

[Salmon Egg]

PDFs are printer output files. Excel files will result in just a
printout of the sheet when 'printed' to a PDF. The only way to get user
interaction with an Excel file is for them to open it in Excel. At
best, your PDF printout of the Excel exercises will serve as a guide
for users to duplicate in Excel what they see in the PDF.

Not sure what you mean by an 'Excel reader', but there's absolutely no
reason why you can't put textbook text into an Excel workbook along
side your exercise sheets. (I write entire manuals using only Excel)

Optionally, you can distribute your textbook PDF and the Excel workbook
that goes with it, as long as you don't mind distributing 2 files. Note
also that these 2 files could be packaged into a single ZIP file so you
only have 1 file to distribute.

I enjoyed reading this response because it got me thinking in ways I
otherwise would not.

One other possibility is to have the text on a separate sheet from the
one doing spreadsheet things. That way, a student could flip between the
sheets to try understanding one without seeing the other. That is, after
trying to figure out the spreadsheet and not being able to do, the
student could get to the description with one click and another to get
back.

--

Sam

Conservatives are against Darwinism but for natural selection.
Liberals are for Darwinism but totally against any selection.

 

[GS]

Salmon Egg wrote :

I enjoyed reading this response because it got me thinking in ways I
otherwise would not.

One other possibility is to have the text on a separate sheet from the
one doing spreadsheet things. That way, a student could flip between the
sheets to try understanding one without seeing the other. That is, after
trying to figure out the spreadsheet and not being able to do, the
student could get to the description with one click and another to get
back.

Yes, that's usually how I do it. The instruction text is on the first
sheet (Left to right), which is named "UserGuide". The project sheet
are added to the right of UserGuide.