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Microsoft Excel is a
spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in ...
developed by
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
for
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...
,
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
, Android and iOS. It features
calculation A calculation is a deliberate mathematical process that transforms one or more inputs into one or more outputs or ''results''. The term is used in a variety of senses, from the very definite arithmetical calculation of using an algorithm, to t ...
or
computation Computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that follows a well-defined model (e.g., an algorithm). Mechanical or electronic devices (or, historically, people) that perform computations are known as ''computers''. An esp ...
capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called
Visual Basic for Applications Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6.0 built into most desktop Microsoft Office applications. Although based on pre-.NET Visual Basic, which is no longer support ...
(VBA). Excel forms part of the
Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
suite of software.


Features


Basic operation

Microsoft Excel has the basic features of all spreadsheets, using a grid of ''cells'' arranged in numbered ''rows'' and letter-named ''columns'' to organize data manipulations like arithmetic operations. It has a battery of supplied functions to answer statistical, engineering, and financial needs. In addition, it can display data as line graphs, histograms and charts, and with a very limited three-dimensional graphical display. It allows sectioning of data to view its dependencies on various factors for different perspectives (using '' pivot tables'' and the ''scenario manager''). A PivotTable is a tool for
data analysis Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Data analysis has multiple facets and approaches, enc ...
. It does this by simplifying large data sets via PivotTable fields. It has a programming aspect, ''Visual Basic for Applications'', allowing the user to employ a wide variety of numerical methods, for example, for solving differential equations of mathematical physics, and then reporting the results back to the spreadsheet. It also has a variety of interactive features allowing user interfaces that can completely hide the spreadsheet from the user, so the spreadsheet presents itself as a so-called ''application'', or ''decision support system'' (DSS), via a custom-designed user interface, for example, a stock analyzer, or in general, as a design tool that asks the user questions and provides answers and reports. Excellent examples are developed that show just how applications can be designed. In a more elaborate realization, an Excel application can automatically poll external databases and measuring instruments using an update schedule, Some form of
data acquisition Data acquisition is the process of sampling signals that measure real-world physical conditions and converting the resulting samples into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer. Data acquisition systems, abbreviated by the acro ...
hardware is required. See, for example,
analyze the results, make a
Word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...
report or
PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially for Macintosh computers only. Microsoft acquired Powe ...
slide show, and e-mail these presentations on a regular basis to a list of participants. Excel was not designed to be used as a database. Microsoft allows for a number of optional command-line switches to control the manner in which Excel starts.


Functions

Excel 2016 has 484 functions. Of these, 360 existed prior to Excel 2010. Microsoft classifies these functions in 14 categories. Of the 484 current functions, 386 may be called from VBA as methods of the object "WorksheetFunction" and 44 have the same names as VBA functions. With the introduction of LAMBDA, Excel will become
Turing complete Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical ...
.


Macro programming


VBA programming

The Windows version of Excel supports programming through Microsoft's
Visual Basic for Applications Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6.0 built into most desktop Microsoft Office applications. Although based on pre-.NET Visual Basic, which is no longer support ...
(VBA), which is a dialect of
Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to: * Visual Basic .NET (now simply referred to as "Visual Basic"), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET * Visual Basic ( ...
. Programming with VBA allows spreadsheet manipulation that is awkward or impossible with standard spreadsheet techniques. Programmers may write code directly using the Visual Basic Editor (VBE), which includes a window for writing code, debugging code, and code module organization environment. The user can implement numerical methods as well as automating tasks such as formatting or data organization in VBA For example, by converting to Visual Basic the recipes in Code conversion to Basic from Fortran probably is easier than from C++, so the 2nd edition () may be easier to use, or the Basic code implementation of the first edition: and guide the calculation using any desired intermediate results reported back to the spreadsheet. VBA was removed from Mac Excel 2008, as the developers did not believe that a timely release would allow porting the VBA engine natively to
Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lap ...
. VBA was restored in the next version, Mac Excel 2011, although the build lacks support for
ActiveX ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide We ...
objects, impacting some high level developer tools. A common and easy way to generate VBA code is by using the Macro Recorder.However an increasing proportion of Excel functionality is not captured by the Macro Recorder leading to largely useless macros. Compatibility among multiple versions of Excel is also a downfall of this method. A macro recorder in Excel 2010 may not work in Excel 2003 or older. This is most common when changing colors and formatting of cells. The Macro Recorder records actions of the user and generates VBA code in the form of a macro. These actions can then be repeated automatically by running the macro. The macros can also be linked to different trigger types like keyboard shortcuts, a command button or a graphic. The actions in the macro can be executed from these trigger types or from the generic toolbar options. The VBA code of the macro can also be edited in the VBE. Certain features such as loop functions and screen prompt by their own properties, and some graphical display items, cannot be recorded but must be entered into the VBA module directly by the programmer. Advanced users can employ user prompts to create an interactive program, or react to events such as sheets being loaded or changed. Macro Recorded code may not be compatible with Excel versions. Some code that is used in Excel 2010 cannot be used in Excel 2003. Making a Macro that changes the cell colors and making changes to other aspects of cells may not be backward compatible. VBA code interacts with the spreadsheet through the Excel ''Object Model'', a vocabulary identifying spreadsheet objects, and a set of supplied functions or ''methods'' that enable reading and writing to the spreadsheet and interaction with its users (for example, through custom toolbars or ''command bars'' and ''message boxes''). User-created VBA
subroutine In computer programming, a function or subroutine is a sequence of program instructions that performs a specific task, packaged as a unit. This unit can then be used in programs wherever that particular task should be performed. Functions may ...
s execute these actions and operate like macros generated using the macro recorder, but are more flexible and efficient.


History

From its first version Excel supported end-user programming of macros (automation of repetitive tasks) and user-defined functions (extension of Excel's built-in function library). In early versions of Excel, these programs were written in a macro language whose statements had formula syntax and resided in the cells of special-purpose macro sheets (stored with file extension .XLM in Windows.) XLM was the default macro language for Excel through Excel 4.0. Beginning with version 5.0 Excel recorded macros in VBA by default but with version 5.0 XLM recording was still allowed as an option. After version 5.0 that option was discontinued. All versions of Excel, including Excel 2021 are capable of running an XLM macro, though Microsoft discourages their use.


Charts

Excel supports
chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent ...
s, graphs, or
histogram A histogram is an approximate representation of the frequency distribution, distribution of numerical data. The term was first introduced by Karl Pearson. To construct a histogram, the first step is to "Data binning, bin" (or "Data binning, buck ...
s generated from specified groups of cells. It also supports Pivot Charts that allow for a chart to be linked directly to a Pivot table. This allows the chart to be refreshed with the Pivot Table. The generated graphic component can either be embedded within the current sheet or added as a separate object. These displays are dynamically updated if the content of cells changes. For example, suppose that the important design requirements are displayed visually; then, in response to a user's change in trial values for parameters, the curves describing the design change shape, and their points of intersection shift, assisting the selection of the best design.


Add-ins

Additional features are available using add-ins. Several are provided with Excel, including: * Analysis ToolPak: Provides data analysis tools for statistical and engineering analysis (includes
analysis of variance Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a collection of statistical models and their associated estimation procedures (such as the "variation" among and between groups) used to analyze the differences among means. ANOVA was developed by the statistician ...
and
regression analysis In statistical modeling, regression analysis is a set of statistical processes for estimating the relationships between a dependent variable (often called the 'outcome' or 'response' variable, or a 'label' in machine learning parlance) and one ...
) * Analysis ToolPak VBA: VBA functions for Analysis ToolPak * Euro Currency Tools: Conversion and formatting for euro currency * Solver Add-In: Tools for optimization and equation solving


Data storage and communication


Number of rows and columns

Versions of Excel up to 7.0 had a limitation in the size of their data sets of 16K (214 = ) rows. Versions 8.0 through 11.0 could handle 64K (216 = ) rows and 256 columns (28 as label 'IV'). Version 12.0 onwards, including the current Version 16.x, can handle over 1M (220 = ) rows, and (214, labeled as column 'XFD') columns.


File formats

Microsoft Excel up until 2007 version used a proprietary binary file format called Excel Binary File Format (.XLS) as its primary format. Excel 2007 uses
Office Open XML Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a ZIP (file format), zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized th ...
as its primary file format, an XML-based format that followed after a previous
XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
-based format called "XML Spreadsheet" ("XMLSS"), first introduced in Excel 2002. Although supporting and encouraging the use of new XML-based formats as replacements, Excel 2007 remained backwards-compatible with the traditional, binary formats. In addition, most versions of Microsoft Excel can read CSV, DBF, SYLK, DIF, and other legacy formats. Support for some older file formats was removed in Excel 2007. The file formats were mainly from DOS-based programs.


Binary

OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...
has created documentation of the Excel format. Two epochs of the format exist: the 97-2003 OLE format, and the older stream format. Microsoft has made the Excel binary format specification available to freely download.


XML Spreadsheet

The ''XML Spreadsheet'' format introduced in Excel 2002 is a simple,
XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
based format missing some more advanced features like storage of VBA macros. Though the intended file extension for this format is ''.xml'', the program also correctly handles XML files with ''.xls'' extension. This feature is widely used by third-party applications (e.g. ''
MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database ...
Query Browser'') to offer "export to Excel" capabilities without implementing binary file format. The following example will be correctly opened by Excel if saved either as ''Book1.xml'' or ''Book1.xls'': Name Example Value 123


Current file extensions

Microsoft Excel 2007, along with the other products in the
Microsoft Office 2007 Microsoft Office 2007 (codenamed Office 12) is an office suite for Windows, developed and published by Microsoft. It was officially revealed on March 9, 2006 and was the 12th version of Microsoft Office. It was released to manufacturing on Novem ...
suite, introduced new file formats. The first of these (.xlsx) is defined in the
Office Open XML Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a ZIP (file format), zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized th ...
(OOXML) specification.


Old file extensions


Using other Windows applications

Windows applications such as
Microsoft Access Microsoft Access is a database management system (DBMS) from Microsoft that combines the relational Access Database Engine (ACE) with a graphical user interface and software-development tools (not to be confused with the old Microsoft Access ...
and
Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor, word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other pla ...
, as well as Excel can communicate with each other and use each other's capabilities. The most common are Dynamic Data Exchange: although strongly deprecated by Microsoft, this is a common method to send data between applications running on Windows, with official MS publications referring to it as "the protocol from hell". As the name suggests, it allows applications to supply data to others for calculation and display. It is very common in financial markets, being used to connect to important financial data services such as
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...
and
Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...
. OLE Object Linking and Embedding allows a Windows application to control another to enable it to format or calculate data. This may take on the form of "embedding" where an application uses another to handle a task that it is more suited to, for example a
PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially for Macintosh computers only. Microsoft acquired Powe ...
presentation may be embedded in an Excel spreadsheet or vice versa.


Using external data

Excel users can access external
data sources In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted. ...
via Microsoft Office features such as (for example) connections built with the Office Data Connection file format. Excel files themselves may be updated using a Microsoft supplied
ODBC In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. An ...
driver. Excel can accept data in real-time through several programming interfaces, which allow it to communicate with many data sources such as Bloomberg and Reuters (through addins such as
Power Plus Pro Power Plus Pro is a piece of financial software produced by Reuters Group in the form of an add-in for Microsoft Office Excel. A real-time data engine, it pushes new data into Excel when it receives notification of updates from a Reuters TIBCO ...
). * DDE: "Dynamic Data Exchange" uses the message passing mechanism in Windows to allow data to flow between Excel and other applications. Although it is easy for users to create such links, programming such links reliably is so difficult that Microsoft, the creators of the system, officially refer to it as "the protocol from hell". In spite of its many issues DDE remains the most common way for data to reach traders in financial markets. * Network DDE Extended the protocol to allow spreadsheets on different computers to exchange data. Starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft no longer supports the facility. * Real Time Data: RTD although in many ways technically superior to DDE, has been slow to gain acceptance, since it requires non-trivial programming skills, and when first released was neither adequately documented nor supported by the major data vendors. Alternatively, Microsoft Query provides ODBC-based browsing within Microsoft Excel.


Export and migration of spreadsheets

Programmers have produced APIs to open Excel spreadsheets in a variety of applications and environments other than Microsoft Excel. These include opening Excel documents on the web using either
ActiveX ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide We ...
controls, or plugins like the
Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on ...
. The Apache POI
opensource Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized s ...
project provides
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...
libraries for reading and writing Excel spreadsheet files.


Password protection

Microsoft Excel protection offers several types of passwords: * Password to open a document * Password to modify a document * Password to unprotect the worksheet * Password to protect workbook * Password to protect the sharing workbook All passwords except ''password to open a document'' can be removed instantly regardless of the Microsoft Excel version used to create the document. These types of passwords are used primarily for shared work on a document. Such password-protected documents are not
encrypted In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can deci ...
, and a
data sources In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted. ...
from a set password is saved in a document's header. ''Password to protect workbook'' is an exception – when it is set, a document is encrypted with the standard password “''VelvetSweatshop''”, but since it is known to the public, it actually does not add any extra protection to the document. The only type of password that can prevent a trespasser from gaining access to a document is ''password to open a document''. The cryptographic strength of this kind of protection depends strongly on the Microsoft Excel version that was used to create the document. In ''Microsoft Excel 95'' and earlier versions, the password to open is converted to a 16-bit key that can be instantly cracked. In ''Excel 97/2000'' the password is converted to a 40-bit key, which can also be cracked very quickly using modern equipment. As regards services that use
rainbow tables A rainbow table is an efficient way to store data that has been computed in advance to facilitate password cracking, cracking passwords. To protect stored passwords from compromise in case of a data breach, organizations avoid storing them directl ...
(e.g. Password-Find), it takes up to several seconds to remove protection. In addition, password-cracking programs can
brute-force attack In cryptography, a brute-force attack consists of an attacker submitting many passwords or passphrases with the hope of eventually guessing correctly. The attacker systematically checks all possible passwords and passphrases until the correc ...
passwords at a rate of hundreds of thousands of passwords a second, which not only lets them decrypt a document but also find the original password. In ''Excel 2003/XP'' the encryption is slightly better – a user can choose any encryption algorithm that is available in the system (see Cryptographic Service Provider). Due to the CSP, an ''Excel'' file can't be decrypted, and thus the ''password to open'' can't be removed, though the brute-force attack speed remains quite high. Nevertheless, the older ''Excel 97/2000'' algorithm is set by the default. Therefore, users who do not change the default settings lack reliable protection of their documents. The situation changed fundamentally in ''Excel 2007'', where the modern AES algorithm with a key of 128 bits started being used for decryption, and a 50,000-fold use of the hash function
SHA1 In cryptography, SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) is a cryptographically broken but still widely used hash function which takes an input and produces a 160-bit (20-byte) hash value known as a message digest – typically rendered as 40 hexadecim ...
reduced the speed of brute-force attacks down to hundreds of passwords per second. In ''Excel 2010'', the strength of the protection by the default was increased two times due to the use of a 100,000-fold SHA1 to convert a password to a key.


Other platforms


Excel for mobile

Excel Mobile is a
spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in ...
program that can edit XLSX files. It can edit and format text in cells, calculate formulas, search within the spreadsheet, sort rows and columns, freeze panes, filter the columns, add comments, and create charts. It can't add columns or rows except at the edge of the document, rearrange columns or rows, delete rows or columns, or add spreadsheet tabs. The 2007 version has the ability to use a full-screen mode to deal with limited screen resolution, as well as split panes to view different parts of a worksheet at one time. Protection settings, zoom settings, autofilter settings, certain chart formatting, hidden sheets, and other features are not supported on Excel Mobile, and will be modified upon opening and saving a workbook. In 2015, Excel Mobile became available for Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile on
Windows Store Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform app ...
.


Excel for the web

Excel for the web is a free lightweight version of Microsoft Excel available as part of Office on the web, which also includes web versions of Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint. Excel for the web can display most of the features available in the desktop versions of Excel, although it may not be able to insert or edit them. Certain data connections are not accessible on Excel for the web, including with charts that may use these external connections. Excel for the web also cannot display legacy features, such as Excel 4.0 macros or Excel 5.0 dialog sheets. There are also small differences between how some of the Excel functions work.


Microsoft Excel Viewer

Microsoft Excel Viewer was a freeware program for
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...
for viewing and printing spreadsheet documents created by Excel. Microsoft retired the viewer in April 2018 with the last security update released in February 2019 for Excel Viewer 2007 (SP3). The first version released by Microsoft was Excel 97 Viewer. Excel 97 Viewer was supported in
Windows CE Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE, Windows Powered and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products. Unlike Windows Embedded Standard, which is base ...
for
Handheld PC A handheld personal computer (PC) is a miniature computer typically built around a clamshell form factor and is significantly smaller than any standard laptop computer, but based on the same principles. It is sometimes referred to as a ''palmto ...
s. In October 2004, Microsoft released Excel Viewer 2003. In September 2007, Microsoft released Excel Viewer 2003 Service Pack 3 (SP3). In January 2008, Microsoft released Excel Viewer 2007 (featuring a non-collapsible
Ribbon A ribbon or riband is a thin band of material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily as decorative binding and tying. Cloth ribbons are made of natural materials such as silk, cotton, and jute and of synthetic mat ...
interface). In April 2009, Microsoft released Excel Viewer 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2). In October 2011, Microsoft released Excel Viewer 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3). Microsoft advises to view and print Excel files for free to use the Excel Mobile application for
Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on ...
and for
Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...
and
Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...
to upload the file to
OneDrive Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) is a file hosting service operated by Microsoft. First launched in August 2007, it enables registered users to share and synchronize their files. OneDrive also works as the storage backend of the web vers ...
and use Excel for the web with a
Microsoft account A Microsoft account or MSA (previously known as Microsoft Passport, .NET Passport, and Windows Live ID) is a single sign-on Microsoft user account for Microsoft customers to log in to Microsoft services (like Outlook.com), devices running on ...
to open them in a browser.


Quirks

In addition to issues with spreadsheets in general, other problems specific to Excel include numeric precision, misleading statistics functions, mod function errors, date limitations and more.


Numeric precision

Despite the use of 15-figure precision, Excel can display many more figures (up to thirty) upon user request. But the displayed figures are ''not'' those actually used in its computations, and so, for example, the difference of two numbers may differ from the difference of their displayed values. Although such departures are usually beyond the 15th decimal, exceptions do occur, especially for very large or very small numbers. Serious errors can occur if decisions are made based upon automated comparisons of numbers (for example, using the Excel ''If'' function), as equality of two numbers can be unpredictable. In the figure, the fraction 1/9000 is displayed in Excel. Although this number has a decimal representation that is an infinite string of ones, Excel displays only the leading 15 figures. In the second line, the number one is added to the fraction, and again Excel displays only 15 figures. In the third line, one is subtracted from the sum using Excel. Because the sum in the second line has only eleven 1's after the decimal, the difference when 1 is subtracted from this displayed value is three 0's followed by a string of eleven 1's. However, the difference reported by Excel in the third line is three 0's followed by a string of ''thirteen'' 1's and two extra erroneous digits. This is because Excel calculates with about half a digit more than it displays. Excel works with a modified 1985 version of the IEEE 754 specification. Microsoft's overview is found at: Excel's implementation involves conversions between binary and decimal representations, leading to accuracy that is on average better than one would expect from simple fifteen digit precision, but that can be worse. See the main article for details. Besides accuracy in user computations, the question of accuracy in Excel-provided functions may be raised. Particularly in the arena of statistical functions, Excel has been criticized for sacrificing accuracy for speed of calculation. As many calculations in Excel are executed using VBA, an additional issue is the accuracy of VBA, which varies with variable type and user-requested precision.


Statistical functions

The accuracy and convenience of statistical tools in Excel has been criticized, as mishandling missing data, as returning incorrect values due to inept handling of round-off and large numbers, as only selectively updating calculations on a spreadsheet when some cell values are changed, and as having a limited set of statistical tools. Microsoft has announced some of these issues are addressed in Excel 2010.Function improvements in Excel 2010
Comments are provided from readers that may illuminate some remaining problems.


Excel MOD function error

Excel has issues with
modulo operation In computing, the modulo operation returns the remainder or signed remainder of a division, after one number is divided by another (called the '' modulus'' of the operation). Given two positive numbers and , modulo (often abbreviated as ) is ...
s. In the case of excessively large results, Excel will return the error warning instead of an answer.


Fictional leap day in the year 1900

Excel includes February 29, 1900, incorrectly treating 1900 as a
leap year A leap year (also known as an intercalary year or bissextile year) is a calendar year that contains an additional day (or, in the case of a lunisolar calendar, a month) added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical year or ...
, even though e.g. 2100 is correctly treated as a non-leap year. The bug originated from
Lotus 1-2-3 Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (later part of IBM). It was the first killer application of the IBM PC, was hugely popular in the 1980s, and significantly contributed to the success of IBM PC-compatibles i ...
(deliberately implemented to save computer memory), and was also purposely implemented in Excel, for the purpose of bug compatibility. This legacy has later been carried over into
Office Open XML Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a ZIP (file format), zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized th ...
file format. Thus a (not necessarily whole) number greater than or equal to 61 interpreted as a date and time are the (real) number of days after December 30, 1899, 0:00, a non-negative number less than 60 is the number of days after December 31, 1899, 0:00, and numbers with whole part 60 represent the fictional day.


Date range

Excel supports dates with years in the range 1900–9999, except that December 31, 1899, can be entered as 0 and is displayed as 0-jan-1900. Converting a fraction of a day into hours, minutes and days by treating it as a moment on the day January 1, 1900, does not work for a negative fraction.


Conversion problems

Entering text that happens to be in a form that is interpreted as a date, the text can be unintentionally changed to a standard date format. A similar problem occurs when a text happens to be in the form of a floating-point notation of a number. In these cases the original exact text cannot be recovered from the result. Formatting the cell as TEXT before entering ambiguous text prevents Excel from converting to a date. This issue has caused a well known problem in the analysis of DNA, for example in
bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...
. As first reported in 2004, genetic scientists found that Excel automatically and incorrectly converts certain gene names into dates. A follow-up study in 2016 found many
peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...
ed
scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such ...
papers had been affected and that "Of the selected journals, the proportion of published articles with Excel files containing gene lists that are affected by gene name errors is 19.6 %." Excel parses the copied and pasted data and sometimes changes them depending on what it thinks they are. For example, MARCH1 (Membrane Associated Ring-CH-type finger 1) gets converted to the date March 1 (1-Mar) and SEPT2 (Septin 2) is converted into September 2 (2-Sep) etc. While some secondary news sources reported this as a fault with Excel, the original authors of the 2016 paper placed the blame with the researchers misusing Excel. In August 2020 the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) published new guidelines in the journal
Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
regarding gene naming in order to avoid issues with "symbols that affect data handling and retrieval." So far 27 genes have been renamed, including changing MARCH1 to MARCHF1 and SEPT1 to SEPTIN1 in order to avoid accidental conversion of the gene names into dates.


Errors with large strings

The following functions return incorrect results when passed a string longer than 255 characters: * incorrectly returns 16, meaning "Error value" * , when called as a method of the VBA object (i.e., in VBA), incorrectly returns "false".


Filenames

Microsoft Excel will not open two documents with the same name and instead will display the following error: : A document with the name '%s' is already open. You cannot open two documents with the same name, even if the documents are in different folders. To open the second document, either close the document that is currently open, or rename one of the documents. The reason is for calculation ambiguity with linked cells. If there is a cell , and there are two books named "Book1" open, there is no way to tell which one the user means.


Versions


Early history

Microsoft originally marketed a spreadsheet program called Multiplan in 1982. Multiplan became very popular on
CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initi ...
systems, but on
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...
systems it lost popularity to
Lotus 1-2-3 Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (later part of IBM). It was the first killer application of the IBM PC, was hugely popular in the 1980s, and significantly contributed to the success of IBM PC-compatibles i ...
. 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) on November 19, 1987. Lotus was slow to bring 1-2-3 to Windows and by the early 1990s, Excel had started to outsell 1-2-3 and helped
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
achieve its position as a leading PC software developer. This accomplishment solidified Microsoft as a valid competitor and showed its future of developing
GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
software. Microsoft maintained its advantage with regular new releases, every two years or so.


Microsoft Windows

Excel 2.0 is the first version of Excel for the
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...
platform. Versions prior to 2.0 were only available on the Apple Macintosh.


Excel 2.0 (1987)

The first Windows version was labeled "2" to correspond to the Mac version. It was announced on October 6, 1987 and released on November 19. This included a run-time version of Windows. ''
BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...
'' in 1989 listed Excel for Windows as among the "Distinction" winners of the BYTE Awards. The magazine stated that the port of the "extraordinary" Macintosh version "shines", with a user interface as good as or better than the original.


Excel 3.0 (1990)

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


Excel 4.0 (1992)

Introduced auto-fill. Also, an
easter egg Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tr ...
in Excel 4.0 reveals a hidden animation of a dancing set of numbers 1 through 3, representing Lotus 1-2-3, which is then crushed by an Excel logo.


Excel 5.0 (1993)

With version 5.0, Excel has included
Visual Basic for Applications Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6.0 built into most desktop Microsoft Office applications. Although based on pre-.NET Visual Basic, which is no longer support ...
(VBA), a programming language based on
Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to: * Visual Basic .NET (now simply referred to as "Visual Basic"), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET * Visual Basic ( ...
which adds the ability to automate tasks in Excel and to provide user-defined functions (UDF) for use in worksheets. VBA 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 Component object model, ActiveX (Component object model, COM) Dynamic-Link Library, 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 Computer Virus#Macro viruses, macro viruses. This caused serious problems until antivirus products began to detect these viruses.
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
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 egg (virtual), Easter eggs, including a "Hall of Tortured Souls", a Doom (1993 video game), Doom-like minigame, although since version 10
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
has taken measures to eliminate such undocumented features from their products. 5.0 was released in a 16-bit x86 version for Windows 3.1 and later in a 32-bit version for NT 3.51 (x86/Alpha/PowerPC)


Excel 95 (v7.0)

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 with all of the Office applications standardizing on the same major version number. Internal rewrite to 32-bits. Almost no external changes, but faster and more stable.


Excel 97 (v8.0)

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 (media), Easter Egg.


Excel 2000 (v9.0)

Included in Office 2000. This was a minor upgrade but introduced an 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)

Included in Office XP. Very minor enhancements.


Excel 2003 (v11.0)

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


Excel 2007 (v12.0)

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 A ribbon or riband is a thin band of material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily as decorative binding and tying. Cloth ribbons are made of natural materials such as silk, cotton, and jute and of synthetic mat ...
menu system. This was different from what users were used to, and was met with mixed reactions. One study reported fairly good acceptance by users except highly experienced users and users of word processing applications with a classical WIMP interface, but was less convinced in terms of efficiency and organization. However, an online survey reported that a majority of respondents had a negative opinion of the change, with advanced users being "somewhat more negative" than intermediate users, and users reporting a self-estimated reduction in productivity. Added functionality included the Microsoft Office 2007#SmartArt, 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 Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a ZIP (file format), zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized th ...
file formats were introduced, including ''.xlsm'' for a workbook with macros and ''.xlsx'' for a workbook without macros. 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 safety, thread-safe and this was indicated at registration.


Excel 2010 (v14.0)

Included in Office 2010, this is the next major version after v12.0, as version Triskaidekaphobia, number 13 was skipped. Minor enhancements and 64-bit support, 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


Excel 2013 (v15.0)

Included in Office 2013, along with a lot of new tools included in this release: * Improved Multi-threading and Memory Contention * FlashFill * Power View * Power Pivot * Timeline Slicer * Windows App * Inquire * 50 new functions


Excel 2016 (v16.0)

Included in Office 2016, along with a lot of new tools included in this release: * Power Query integration * Read-only mode for Excel * Keyboard access for Pivot Tables and Slicers in Excel * New Chart Types * Quick data linking in Visio *Excel forecasting functions *Support for multi-selection of Slicer items using touch *Time grouping and Pivot Chart Drill Down *Excel data cards


Excel 2019, Excel 2021, Office 365 and subsequent (v16.0)

Microsoft no longer releases Office or Excel in discrete versions. Instead, features are introduced automatically over time using Windows Update. The version number remains 16.0. Thereafter only the approximate dates when features appear can now be given. * Dynamic Arrays. These are essentially Array Formulas but they "Spill" automatically into neighboring cells and does not need the ctrl-shift-enter to create them. Further, dynamic arrays are the default format, with new "@" and "#" operators to provide compatibility with previous versions. This is perhaps the biggest structural change since 2007, and is in response to a similar feature in Google Sheets. Dynamic arrays started appearing in pre-releases about 2018, and as of March 2020 are available in published versions of Office 365 provided a user selected "Office Insiders".


Apple Macintosh

* 1985 Excel 1.0 * 1988 Excel 1.5 * 1989 Excel 2.2 * 1990 Excel 3.0 * 1992 Excel 4.0 * 1993 Excel 5.0 (part of Office 4.x—Final Motorola 680x0 version and first PowerPC version) * 1998 Excel 8.0 (part of Microsoft Office 98 Macintosh Edition, Office 98) * 2000 Excel 9.0 (part of Microsoft Office 2001, Office 2001) * 2001 Excel 10.0 (part of Microsoft Office v. X, Office v. X) * 2004 Excel 11.0 (part of Office 2004 for Mac, Office 2004) * 2008 Excel 12.0 (part of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, Office 2008) * 2010 Excel 14.0 (part of Microsoft Office for Mac 2011, Office 2011) * 2015 Excel 15.0 (part of Office 2016 for Mac, Office 2016—Office 2016 for Mac brings the Mac version much closer to parity with its Windows cousin, harmonizing many of the reporting and high-level developer functions, while bringing the ribbon and styling into line with its PC counterpart.)


OS/2

* 1989 Excel 2.2 * 1990 Excel 2.3 * 1991 Excel 3.0


Summary


Impact

Excel offers many user interface tweaks over the earliest electronic spreadsheets; however, the essence remains the same as in the original spreadsheet software, VisiCalc: the program displays cells organized in rows and columns, and each cell may contain data or a formula, with relative or absolute references to other cells. Excel 2.0 for Windows, which was modeled after its Mac GUI-based counterpart, indirectly expanded the installed base of the then-nascent Windows environment. Excel 2.0 was released a month before Windows 2.0, and the installed base of Windows was so low at that point in 1987 that Microsoft had to bundle a runtime version of Windows 1.0 with Excel 2.0. Unlike Microsoft Word, there never was a DOS version of Excel. Excel became the first spreadsheet to allow the user to define the appearance of spreadsheets (fonts, character attributes, and cell appearance). It also introduced intelligent cell re-computation, where only cells dependent on the cell being modified are updated (previous spreadsheet programs recomputed everything all the time or waited for a specific user command). Excel introduced auto-fill, the ability to drag and expand the selection box to automatically copy a cell or row contents to adjacent cells or rows, adjusting the copies intelligently by automatically incrementing cell references or contents. Excel also introduced extensive graphing capabilities.


Security

Because Excel is widely used, it has been attacked by hackers. While Excel is not directly exposed to the Internet, if an attacker can get a victim to open a file in Excel, and there is an appropriate security bug in Excel, then the attacker can gain control of the victim's computer. UK's GCHQ has a tool named TORNADO ALLEY with this purpose.


See also

* Comparison of spreadsheet software * Numbers (spreadsheet)—the iWork equivalent * Spreadmart * Financial Modeling World Cup, online esport financial modelling competition using Excel


References


References

* * * *


External links

* – official site {{Authority control 1985 software Articles with example code Classic Mac OS software Computer-related introductions in 1985 Microsoft Office, Excel Spreadsheet software for macOS Spreadsheet software for Windows