Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications. It has been a very widely applied spreadsheet for these platforms, especially since version 5 in 1993, and it has replaced Lotus 1-2-3as the industry standard for spreadsheets. Excel forms part of Microsoft Office.

Early History[edit]

Microsoft originally marketed a spreadsheet program called Multiplan in 1982. Multiplan became very popular on CP/M systems, but on MS-DOS systems it lost popularity to Lotus 1-2-3. Microsoft released the first version of Excel for the Macintosh on September 30, 1985, and the first Windows version was 2.05 (to synchronize with the Macintosh version 2.2) in November 1987.^[61] Lotus was slow to bring 1-2-3 to Windows and by 1988 Excel had started to outsell 1-2-3 and helped Microsoft achieve the position of leading PC software developer. This accomplishment, dethroning the king of the software world, solidified Microsoft as a valid competitor and showed its future of developing GUI software. Microsoft pushed its advantage with regular new releases, every two years or so.

Microsoft Windows[edit]

Excel 1.0 was not released for Windows or MS-DOS. As a result, Excel 2.0 for Windows is the first version of Excel for Intel platform.

Excel 2.0 for Windows (1987)[edit]

The first Windows version was labeled "2" to correspond to the Mac version. This included a run-time version of Windows. ^[62]

Excel 3.0 (1990)[edit]

Included toolbars, drawing capabilities, outlining, add-in support, 3D charts, and many more new features. ^[63]

Excel 4.0 (1992)[edit]

Introduced auto-fill.^[64]

Also, an easter egg in Excel 4.0 reveals a hidden animation of a dancing set of numbers 1 through 3, representing Lotus 1-2-3, which was then crushed by an Excel logo.^[65]

Excel 5.0 (1993)[edit]

With version 5.0, Excel has included Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), a programming language based on Visual Basic which adds the ability to automate tasks in Excel and to provide user-defined functions (UDF) for use in worksheets. VBA is a powerful addition to the application and includes a fully featured integrated development environment (IDE). Macro recording can produce VBA code replicating user actions, thus allowing simple automation of regular tasks. VBA allows the creation of forms and in‑worksheet controls to communicate with the user. The language supports use (but not creation) of ActiveX (COM) DLL's; later versions add support for class modules allowing the use of basic object-oriented programming techniques.

The automation functionality provided by VBA made Excel a target for macro viruses. This caused serious problems until antivirus products began to detect these viruses. Microsoft belatedly took steps to prevent the misuse by adding the ability to disable macros completely, to enable macros when opening a workbook or to trust all macros signed using a trusted certificate.

Versions 5.0 to 9.0 of Excel contain various Easter eggs, including a "Hall of Tortured Souls", although since version 10 Microsoft has taken measures to eliminate such undocumented features from their products.^[66]

Excel 95 (v7.0)[edit]

Microsoft Excel 95

Released in 1995 with Microsoft Office for Windows 95, this is the first major version after Excel 5.0, as there is no Excel 6.0.

Internal rewrite to 32-bits. Almost no external changes, but faster and more stable.

Excel 97 (v8.0)[edit]

Included in Office 97 (for x86 and Alpha). This was a major upgrade that introduced the paper clip office assistant and featured standard VBA used instead of internal Excel Basic. It introduced the now-removed Natural Language labels.

This version of Excel includes a flight simulator as an Easter Egg.

Excel 2000 (v9.0)[edit]

Included in Office 2000. This was a minor upgrade, but introduced the upgrade to the clipboard where it can hold multiple objects at once. The Office Assistant, whose frequent unsolicited appearance in Excel 97 had annoyed many users, became less intrusive.

Excel 2002 (v10.0)[edit]

Included in Office XP. Very minor enhancements.

Excel 2003 (v11.0)[edit]

Included in Office 2003. Minor enhancements, most significant being the new Tables.

Excel 2007 (v12.0)[edit]

Microsoft Excel 2007

Included in Office 2007. This release was a major upgrade from the previous version. Similar to other updated Office products, Excel in 2007 used the new Ribbon menu system. This was different from what users were used to, but the number of mouse-clicks needed to reach a given functionality were generally fewer (e.g., removing gridlines only required two mouse-clicks instead of five). However, most business users agreed that the replacement of the straightforward menu system with the more convoluted ribbon dramatically reduced productivity.^[67]

Added functionality included the SmartArt set of editable business diagrams. Also added was an improved management of named variables through the Name Manager, and much improved flexibility in formatting graphs, which allow (x, y) coordinate labeling and lines of arbitrary weight. Several improvements to pivot tables were introduced.

Also like other office products, the Office Open XML file formats were introduced, including .xlsm for a workbook with macros and .xlsxfor a workbook without macros.^[68]

Specifically, many of the size limitations of previous versions were greatly increased. To illustrate, the number of rows was now 1,048,576 (2²⁰) and columns was 16,384 (2¹⁴; the far-right column is XFD). This changes what is a valid A1 reference versus a named range. This version made more extensive use of multiple cores for the calculation of spreadsheets; however, VBA macros are not handled in parallel and XLL add‑ins were only executed in parallel if they were thread-safe and this was indicated at registration.

Excel 2010 (v14.0)[edit]

Microsoft Excel 2010 running on Windows 7

Included in Office 2010, this is the next major version after v12.0, as version number 13 was skipped.

Minor enhancements and 64-bit support,^[69] including the following:

• Multi-threading recalculation (MTR) for commonly used functions
• Improved pivot tables
• More conditional formatting options
• Additional image editing capabilities
• In-cell charts called sparklines
• Ability to preview before pasting
• Office 2010 backstage feature for document-related tasks
• Ability to customize the Ribbon
• Many new formulas, most highly specialized to improve accuracy^[70]

Excel 2013 (v15.0)[edit]

Included in Office 2013, along with a lot of new tools included in this release:

• Improved Multi-threading and Memory Contention
• FlashFill^[71]
• PowerView
• PowerPivot^[72]
• Timeline Slicer^[73]
• Windows App
• Inquire^[74]
• 50 new functions^[75]

Formulas are what helped make spreadsheets so popular. By creating formulas, you can have instantaneous calculations whenever changing any information in cells the formula is looking at.

The basics

• All spreadsheet formulas begin with =
• After the equal symbol either the cell or formula function is entered. The function tells the spreadsheet what kind of formula it's dealing with.
• If a function is being performed the math formula or cells being dealt with are surrounded in parentheses.
• Using the colon (:) will allow you to get a range of cells for a formula.

Formula examples

Note: The functions listed below may not be the same in all languages of Microsoft Excel. All these examples are done in the English version of Microsoft Excel.

=

= will create a cell equal to another. For example, if you were to put =A1 in B1 what ever was in A1 would automatically be put in B1. You could also create a formula that would make one cell equal to more than one value. For example, if you have a first name in cell A1 and a last name in cell B1, you could put in cell A2 =A1&" "&B1 which would put cell A1 in with B1 with a space between.

=AVERAGE(X:X)

Display the average amount between cells. For example, if you wanted to get the average for cells A1 to A30, you would type: =AVERAGE(A1:A30)

=COUNTIF(X:X,"*")

Count the cells that have a certain value. For example, if you had =COUNTIF(A1:A10,"TEST") put in cell A11 then anywhere between A1 through A10 that has the word test would be counted as 1, so if you had 5 cells that had the word test A11 would say 5.

=IF(*)

The syntax of the IF statement are =IF(CELL="VALUE" ,"PRINT OR DO THIS","ELSE PRINT OR DO THIS"). So a good example of the syntax would be =IF(A1="","BLANK","NOT BLANK"), this would make any cell besides cell A1 say "BLANK" if a1 had nothing within it, and "NOT BLANK" if any information was within it. The if statement can, of course, become a lot more complicated but can be reduced if following the above structure.

=MEDIAN(A1:A7)

Find the median of the values of cells A1 through A7. For example, four is the median for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

=MIN/MAX(X:X)

Min and Max represent the minimum or maximum amount in the cells. For example, if you wanted to get the minimum value between cells A1 and A30 you would put =MIN(A1:A30) or if you wanted to get the Maximum about =MAX(A1:A30).

=Product(X:X)

Multiples multiple cells together. For example =Product(A1:A30) would multiple all cells together, so A1 * A2 * A3, etc.

=SUM(X:X)

The most commonly used function to add, subtract, multiple, or divide values in cells. Below are some examples.

=SUM(A1+A2)

Add the cells A1 and A2.

=SUM(A1:A5)

Add cells A1 through A5.

=SUM(A1,A2,A5)

Adds cells A1, A2, and A5.

=SUM(A2-A1)

Subtract cell A2 from A1.

=SUM(A1*A2)

Multiply cells A1 and A2.

=SUM(A1/A2)

Divide cells A1 and A2.

=SUMIF(X:X,"*"X:X)

Perform the SUM function only if there is a specified value in the first selected cells. An example of this would be =SUMIF(A1:A6,"TEST",B1:B6) which only adds the values B1:B6 if the word "test" was put somewhere in between A1:A6. So if you put TEST (not case sensitive) in A1, but had numbers in B1 through B6, it would only add the value in B1 because TEST is in A1.

=TODAY()

Would print out the current date in the cell entered. This value will change to reflect the current date each time you open your spreadsheet. If you want to enter a date that doesn't change hold down CTRL and ; to enter the date.

=TREND(X:X)

To find the common value of cell. For example, if cells A1 through A6 had 2,4,6,8,10,12 and you entered formula =TREND(A1:A6) in a different cell, you would get the value of 2 because each number is going up by 2.

=VLOOKUP(X,X:X,X,X)

The lookup, hlookup, or vlookup formula allows you to search and find related values for returned results. See our lookup definition for a complete definition and full details on this formula.