Wikipedia microsoft excel

PNG File:Excel graph in three series. JPG File:Passvib3. The following other wikis use this file: Usage on als. Structured data Items portrayed in this file depicts. Categories : Microsoft Excel logos Microsoft Excel icons.

Namespaces File Discussion. Views View Edit History. Main page Welcome Community portal Village pump Help center. Upload file Recent changes Latest files Random file Contact us. Download as PDF Printable version. Description Microsoft Office Excel —present.

Public domain Public domain false false. Microsoft Excel 2. Early in its life Excel became the target of a trademark lawsuit by another company already selling a software package named "Excel" in the finance industry. As the result of the dispute Microsoft was required to refer to the program as "Microsoft Excel" in all of its formal press releases and legal documents.

However, over time this practice has been ignored, and Microsoft cleared up the issue permanently when they purchased the trademark of the other program. Microsoft also encouraged the use of the letters XL as shorthand for the program; while this is no longer common, the program's icon on Windows still consists of a stylized combination of the two letters, and the file extension of the default Excel format is.

Excel offers many user interface tweaks over the earliest electronic spreadsheets; however, the essence remains the same as in the original spreadsheet, VisiCalc : the cells are organized in rows and columns, and contain data or formulas with relative or absolute references to other cells. Excel was the first spreadsheet that allowed the user to define the appearance of spreadsheets fonts, character attributes and cell appearance. It also introduced intelligent cell recomputation, 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 has extensive graphing capabilities. VBA is a powerful addition to the application which, in later versions, 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 has caused Excel to become a target for macro viruses. This was a serious problem in the corporate world 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. Versions for Microsoft Windows include:.

The latter format is not able to encode VBA macros. Although supporting and encouraging the use of new XML-based formats as replacements, Excel is still backwards compatible with the traditional, binary, formats. APIs are also provided to open excel spreadsheets in a variety of other applications and environments other than Microsoft Excel. These include opening excel documents on the web using either ActiveX controls,or plugins like the Adobe Flash Player.

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Related Articles. Article Summary. Part 1. Install Microsoft Office if you don't have it. Microsoft Excel isn't available as a standalone program, but it is included in a Microsoft Office package or subscription. Open an existing Excel document. If you want to open an existing Excel document at any time, simply double-click the document in question. This will bring up the document in an Excel window. Skip this step if you want to open a new document in Excel.

Open Excel. Click or double-click the Excel app icon, which resembles a white "X" on a dark-green background. Select a template if necessary.

If you want to use an Excel template e. If you just want to open a new blank Excel document, click the Blank option in the upper-left side of the page and then skip the next step.

Click Create. It's to the right of the template's name. Wait for the Excel workbook to open. This will take a few seconds. Once you see the Excel template or blank page, you can proceed with entering your sheet's data. Part 2. Familiarize yourself with the Excel ribbon tabs. In the green "ribbon" at the top of the Excel window, you'll see a series of tabs. Each of these tabs can be used to access different Excel tools; the main ones you'll need to know include the following: Home — Contains options for formatting text, changing cell background color, and so on.

Insert — Contains options for tables, charts, graphs, and equations. Page Layout — Contains options for page margins, orientation, and themes. Formulas — Contains various formula options as well as a function menu. Consider using the top row of cells for headers. When adding data to a blank spreadsheet, you can use the top cell in each column e. This is helpful when creating graphs or tables which require labels.

Select a cell. Click the cell into which you want to enter data. For example, if you're using a budget-planning template, you might click the first empty cell to select it. Doing so adds it to the cell and moves your selection to the next available cell.

Edit your data. To go back and edit data later, click the cell you want to edit, then change whatever you need to change in the text box above the top row of cells. Format text if necessary. If you want to change the way a cell's text is formatted e. You can also use conditional formatting to cause your cells to change based on factors in the spreadsheet e.

Part 3. Select a cell for your formula. Click the cell in which you want to create a formula. Perform basic operations. Add a whole column of numbers. Select a cell for an advanced formula.

To use a more advanced formula, you'll use the Insert Function tool. Start by clicking the cell in which you want to display your formula. Click Formulas.

It's a tab at the top of the Excel window. Click Insert Function. This option is in the far-left side of the Formulas toolbar. Doing so opens a window. Select a function. Click in the window the function you want to use, then click OK. For example, to select the formula for finding the tangent of an angle, you would scroll down and click the TAN option.

Fill out the function's form.