Spreadsheet is not an easy thing, although we take the existence of such applications for granted. In those days when such programs did not exist, people used cumbersome computing machines or calculators, working for hours on tasks that today only take a few minutes to complete.

First there was VisiCalc

Briefly about the main Excel versions for Windows.

The original version of Excel for Windows, Excel 2, appeared in late 1987. This version of the program was called Excel 2 because the first version was developed for the Macintosh. At that Windows time was not yet widespread. Therefore, Excel was accompanied by an operational Windows versionoperating system, which had functions sufficient to work in Excel. By today's standards, this version of Excel seems underdeveloped.

In 1990 Microsoft company released Excel 3 for Windows. This version had more advanced tools and appearance. Excel 3 introduced panels
tools, drawing tools, workbook outline mode, add-ins, 3D diagrams, collaborative document editing, and much more.

Excel 4 was released in the spring of 1992. The appearance of this version of the program had a significant impact on the growth of the popularity of Windows. Excel 4 had many new features. In addition, this version was much more convenient to use, and now novice users could quickly master a program unfamiliar to them.

Excel 5 hit the market in early 1994. This version introduced a huge number of new features, including multi-sheet workbooks and a new macro language, Visual Basic for Application (VBA). Like its predecessor, Excel 5 received best reviews in all industry publications.

Excel 95

Excel 95 (also known as Excel 7) was released in the summer of 1995. Externally, this version resembled the previous one (Excel 95 added only a few new features). However, the introduction of this version was still significant because Excel 95 introduced the more modern 32-bit code for the first time. Excel 95 and Excel 5 use the same file format.

Excel 97

Excel 97 (also known as Excel 8) is significantly improved over previous versions. Changed appearance toolbars and menus, reference system is now organized at a qualitatively new level, the number of lines in the workbook has been increased fourfold. The Excel (VBA) programming environment has been significantly improved. In addition, the VBA help for the Russian locale was in Russian. In Excel 97 appeared new format files, and the worksheet was increased to 65536 rows and 256 columns.

Excel 2000

Excel 2000 (also known as Excel 9) was released in June 1999. This version was characterized by a slight expansion of capabilities. Important
advantage new version became an opportunity using HTML as universal format files. Excel 2000, of course, also supported a standard binary file format compatible with Excel 97.

Excel 2002

- this is actually Excel 10. You, of course, think that this is the tenth version of the program. Think carefully. Microsoft is a very successful company, but they have
There have always been problems with numbering software products. In fact, Excel 2002 is the eighth version of Excel for Windows.

This version of Excel 2002 was released in June 2001. It is part of the Microsoft Office XP suite. This version contains several new features aimed primarily at beginner Excel users. The main innovation of Excel 2002 is the ability to save your work in the event of an abnormal termination of the program and restore files from a damaged workbook that you were once working on. This version of Excel also introduces background formula checking, as well as new tools debugging Many of these versions of Excel have had multiple releases. For example, Microsoft has created two service packs for Excel 97 (SR-1 and SR-2). These releases helped solve many problems that arose during the operation of the application in question.

Excel 2003

11th version.

The most popular version of the program. The best combination of functionality and interface. It's no surprise that many people still use it today.

Excel 2007

Version 12.

This version went on sale in July 2006. The release was radically different from the Excel interface we were already familiar with. A Ribbon and a panel appeared quick access. In addition, Excel functionality has been expanded with several new functions, such as SUMIFS(). The developers' decision to increase the worksheet to 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns, as well as the use of new (four-letter) file extension notations, was also revolutionary.

Excel 2010

Superstitious MS executives decided not to assign the 13th number to the next version, but immediately jumped to the 14th. In October 2009, free distribution of beta versions of the next release began. Interesting innovations include Sparkliness (micrographs in a cell), Slies (pivot table slices) and the PowerPivot add-in for working with 100,000,000 rows.

Excel 2013

Version 15.

The test version of the program was presented on July 16, 2012. The ribbon and quick access panel have been designed completely new (Metro interface). In addition, Excel functionality has been expanded with several new functions, such as FORMULA(), F.TEXT() and SHEET().

Microsoft Excel(Mac OS X)

Microsoft Excel 2008
Type
Developer
operating system
Latest version
License
Website

Microsoft Excel(also sometimes called Microsoft Office Excel listen)) is a spreadsheet program created by Microsoft Corporation for Microsoft Windows, Windows NT and Mac OS. It provides economic-statistical capabilities, graphical tools, and, with the exception of Excel 2008 on Mac OS X, the VBA macro programming language ( Visual Basic for Application). Microsoft Excel is part of Microsoft Office and today Excel is one of the most popular applications in the world.

Story

VBA functionality made Excel an easy target for macro viruses. And this was a serious problem until antivirus products learned to detect them. Microsoft, belatedly taking measures to reduce the risk, added the ability to select a security mode:

  • completely disable macros
  • enable macros when opening document
  • trust all macros signed using trusted certificates.

Excel versions 5.0 through 9.0 contain various Easter eggs, although Microsoft began taking steps to eliminate them starting with version 10.

Versions

Windows and Windows NT versions

Excel 97 (8.0) on Windows XP

Microsoft Office Excel 2003

  • 1988 - Excel 2.0 for Windows
  • 1990 - Excel 3.0
  • 1992 - Excel 4.0
  • 1993 - Excel 5.0 (Office 4.2 and 4.3, there is also a 32-bit version for Windows NT only)
  • 1995 - Excel 7 for Windows 95 (included in Microsoft package Office 95)
  • 1997 - Excel 97 (included in Microsoft Office 97)
  • 1999 - Excel 2000 (9) - Microsoft Office 2000
  • 2001 - Excel 2002 (10) - Microsoft Office XP
  • 2003 - Excel 2003 (11) - Microsoft Office 2003
  • 2007 - Excel 2007 (12) - Microsoft Office 2007
  • 2010 - Excel 2010 (14) - Microsoft Office 2010
  • Comment: Version 1.0 was not used to avoid confusion with Apple products
  • Comment: Excel 6.0 does not exist since the Windows 95 version shipped with Word 7. All Office programs 95 and Office 4.x used OLE 2.0 (automatic data transfer between various programs), and Excel 7 should have shown that it complies with Word 7.
  • Comment: Version 13.0 has been skipped. Excel 2010 has internal version 14.0.

Macintosh versions

  • 1985 - Excel 1.0
  • 1988 - Excel 1.5
  • 1989 - Excel 2.2
  • 1990 - Excel 3.0
  • 1992 - Excel 4.0
  • 1993 - Excel 5.0
  • 1998 - Excel 8.0 (Office "98)
  • 2000 - Excel 9.0 (Office 2001)
  • 2001 - Excel 10.0 (Office v. X)
  • 2004 - Excel 11.0 (Office 2004)
  • 2008 - Excel 12.0 (Office 2008)
  • 2011 - Excel 14.0 (Office 2011)

OS/2 versions

  • 1989 - Excel 2.2
  • 1990 - Excel 2.3
  • 1991 - Excel 3.0

Excel versions prior to 7.0 were limited in data storage capabilities, holding up to 16,384 (2 14) rows. Versions 8.0-11.0 could handle 65,536 (2 16) rows and 256 columns (2 8). Versions 12.0 and 14.0 handle up to 1,048,576 (2 20) rows and 16,384 (2 14) columns.

File formats

Microsoft Excel, up to and including version 2003, used its own binary file format (BIFF) as the main one. Excel 2007 uses Microsoft Office Open XML as its primary format.

Although Excel 2007 supports and aims to use newer XML formats as its primary format, it is still compatible with traditional binary formats. Additionally, most versions of Microsoft Excel can read CSV, DBF, SYLK, DIF, and other formats.

Office Open XML

Microsoft Excel 2007, along with other Microsoft Office 2007 products, introduces many new file formats. They are part of the Office Open XML (OOXML) specification.

New Excel 2007 formats
Format Extension Notes
Working Excel workbook .xlsx Standard Excel 2007 workbook format. It is actually a compressed ZIP archive of a catalog of XML documents. It is a replacement for the former .xls binary format, although it does not support macros for security reasons.
Excel workbook with macros .xlsm Is the same workbook Excel, but with macro support.
Binary Excel workbook .xlsb The same Excel workbook with macros, but storing information in binary format, opening documents faster than XML. It is especially often used for very large documents with tens of thousands of rows and/or hundreds of columns.
Excel template with macros .xltm Template created as a basis for workbooks, macro support included. Replaces the old .xlt format.
Excel add-in .xlam Excel add-in aimed at adding additional functionality and tools.

Exporting and moving tables

API allows you to open Excel tables in a number of other applications. This includes opening Excel documents on web pages using ActiveX or plugins such as Adobe Flash Player. The Apache POI project provides Java libraries for reading and writing Excel spreadsheets. There have also been attempts to copy Excel tables into web applications using comma separated values ​​(CSV).

Programming

A valuable feature of Excel is the ability to write code using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). This code is written using an editor separate from the tables. The spreadsheet is managed through an object-oriented code and data model. With this code, the data from the input tables will be instantly processed and displayed in tables and charts (graphs). The table becomes the interface of the code, making it easy to change it and manage calculations.

MS Excel password protection

Microsoft Excel security provides several types of different passwords:

All passwords, except the password for opening a document, can be deleted instantly, regardless of the version of MS Excel in which the document was created. These types of passwords are primarily used for collaborative work on a document. When using them, the document is not encrypted, and the document stores a hash of set password. Although when using a password to protect a workbook, the document is encrypted with a known password "VelvetSweatshop", this does not add additional security to the document. The only type of password that can prevent an attacker from gaining access to a document is "password to open", but the cryptographic strength of such protection strongly depends on the version of MS Excel in which the document was created.

In MS Excel version 95 and earlier, "password to open" is converted into a 16-bit key, which is cracked instantly. In MS Excel 97/2000, the password was already converted into a 40-bit key, which modern equipment can also be hacked very quickly. In addition, password cracking programs can try hundreds of thousands of passwords per second, which allows you not only to decrypt a document, but also to find the original password. In MS Excel 2003 / XP the situation has improved a little - the user can select almost any encryption algorithm available in the system (CryptoServiceProvider). But by default, the same MS Excel 97/2000 protection remains. For users who are accustomed to trusting the default behavior of programs, this means a lack of strong protection for their documents.

The situation changed dramatically in MS Excel 2007 - it began to be used for encryption modern algorithm AES with a 128-bit key, and to obtain the key, use the SHA1 hash function 50,000 times, which reduced the search speed to hundreds of passwords per second. In MS Excel, the default security strength was increased by another 2 times, thanks to the use of a 100,000-fold SHA1 password-to-key conversion. Conclusion: on this moment strong protection is provided only by documents saved in the Office 2007\2010 format with persistent protection installed on them "password to open".

Criticism

Common criticisms of spreadsheet processors apply to Excel as well. Specific areas of criticism in Excel are accuracy, date issues, and Excel 2007 display errors.

Accuracy

Because Excel operates based on floating point calculations, Excel's statistical accuracy has been criticized. Excel proponents say in response that these errors only appear in special conditions specially selected source data that affects a relatively small number of users and is unlikely to be encountered in practice. For versions 97, 2000, 2002, errors were recorded when executing the MOD (division with remainder) function with certain arguments, where the function returns the #NUM! error instead of the result.

Date problems

In versions of Excel up to and including 2007, 1900 was incorrectly considered a leap year. The bug originated in Lotus 1-2-3 and was intentionally introduced into Excel for compatibility and maintained for backward compatibility.

Excel Display Errors

Microsoft Excel 2007 screenshot showing display error 65535

On September 22, 2007, it was reported that Excel 2007 would produce incorrect results in certain situations. Specifically, for those pairs of numbers whose product is 65535 (for example, 850 and 77.1), Excel will display 100000 as the total. This happens for about 14.5% of these pairs. Additionally, if you add one to the result, Excel will output a total of 100001. However, if you subtract one from the total, the display will show the correct result of 65534. (Also, if you multiply or divide the total by 2, it will display 131070 and 32767.5, respectively.)

Microsoft reported on the Microsoft Excel blog that an issue exists in the display of six specific floating point values ​​between 65534.99999999995 and 65535 and six values ​​between 65535.99999999995 and 65536 (not including bounds). Any calculations that result in one of the twelve values ​​will not display correctly. The actual data stored and transmitted to other cells is correct, only the display of the value is incorrect. The error appeared in Excel 2007 and does not exist in previous versions. On October 9, 2007, Microsoft released a patch that corrected the problem. It was also included in the Service Pack 1 fixes.

Notes

Links

  • Working with Excel Files Using the .NET Framework
  • List of MVP sites (English)

Microsoft Excel is a program for performing calculations and managing so-called spreadsheets.

Excel allows you to perform complex calculations that can use data located in different areas of the spreadsheet and linked together by a certain dependency. To perform such calculations in Excel, it is possible to enter various formulas into table cells. Excel performs the calculation and displays the result in the formula cell. The available formulas range from simple addition and subtraction to financial and statistical calculations.

An important feature of using a spreadsheet is the automatic recalculation of results when cell values ​​change. For example, you can use Excel to perform financial calculations, record and control the organization's personnel, etc. Excel can also build and update graphs based on entered numbers.

The file that Excel works with is called a book . A book, as a rule, consists of several worksheets, which may contain tables, texts, diagrams, and drawings.

The book is a good organizational tool. For example, you can collect all documents in one book ( worksheets), related to a specific project (task), or all documents maintained by one executor. The base of the worksheet (Fig. 1) is a grid of rows and columns. Cell formed by the intersection of a row and a column. The cell(s) selected by the mouse is called active (in Fig. 1, the active cell is highlighted with a frame).

A row in a worksheet is identified by a name (number) that appears on the left side of the worksheet.

A column in a worksheet is also identified by a name (letters of the Latin alphabet) that appears at the top of the worksheet.

An Excel worksheet can contain up to 65,536 rows and 256 columns. A cell - the main element of a table - has its own unique address, consisting of a column and row number, for example E4 .

Each cell contains one piece of information, be it a numeric value, text, or a formula.

When you open a previously created file, a workbook with the entered data appears in the Excel window.


Workbook in Excel, it is a file in which data is stored and analyzed. A workbook file consists of several worksheets that can contain tables, text, charts, or pictures. Each worksheet is identified by a name that appears on the worksheet label.

Let's look at specific elements of the Excel window (Fig. 2).

Rice. 2. Excel window

Status bar contains information about the active document, the selected menu command, and keyboard mode indicators. In it, the user receives messages on how to complete the started command and view the intermediate results of some calculations.

Formula bar shows the formula (if present in the cell) or data contained in the active cell. You can enter and edit text, numbers, and formulas in the formula bar.

IN active cell You can enter and edit data directly in a cell or in the formula bar.

Scroll buttons The windows at the bottom left are used to view sheet shortcuts and to move between sheets in a workbook containing a large number of sheets.

Microsoft Excel (also sometimes called Microsoft Office Excel) is a spreadsheet program created by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows, Windows NT and Mac OS. It provides economic-statistical capabilities, graphical tools, and, with the exception of Excel 2008 on Mac OS X, the macro programming language VBA (Visual Basic for Application). Microsoft Excel is part of Microsoft Office and today Excel is one of the most popular applications in the world" Source: Wikipedia.org

Microsoft Excel capabilities?

The areas and possibilities for using Excel are varied:

As can be seen from all of the above, the main focus of Excel is working with financial and analytical data, so ownership of this application is in demand in many types of activities related to calculations, reports, forecasting, etc. And an employee with in-depth knowledge is a gift

That's all for now! In the next lesson we will get acquainted with the MS Excel 2003 interface.

For those who want to delve into the history of the development of MS Excel, you can take a look at.

Microsoft Excel (Mac OS X)

Microsoft Excel 2008
Type
Developer
operating system
Latest version
License
Website

Microsoft Excel(also sometimes called Microsoft Office Excel listen)) is a spreadsheet program created by Microsoft Corporation for Microsoft Windows, Windows NT and Mac OS. It provides economic-statistical capabilities, graphical tools, and, with the exception of Excel 2008 on Mac OS X, the VBA macro programming language ( Visual Basic for Application). Microsoft Excel is part of Microsoft Office and today Excel is one of the most popular applications in the world.

Story

VBA functionality made Excel an easy target for macro viruses. And this was a serious problem until antivirus products learned to detect them. Microsoft, belatedly taking measures to reduce the risk, added the ability to select a security mode:

  • completely disable macros
  • enable macros when opening document
  • trust all macros signed using trusted certificates.

Excel versions 5.0 through 9.0 contain various Easter eggs, although Microsoft began taking steps to eliminate them starting with version 10.

Versions

Windows and Windows NT versions

Excel 97 (8.0) on Windows XP

Microsoft Office Excel 2003

  • 1988 - Excel 2.0 for Windows
  • 1990 - Excel 3.0
  • 1992 - Excel 4.0
  • 1993 - Excel 5.0 (Office 4.2 and 4.3, there is also a 32-bit version for Windows NT only)
  • 1995 - Excel 7 for Windows 95 (included in Microsoft Office 95)
  • 1997 - Excel 97 (included in Microsoft Office 97)
  • 1999 - Excel 2000 (9) - Microsoft Office 2000
  • 2001 - Excel 2002 (10) - Microsoft Office XP
  • 2003 - Excel 2003 (11) - Microsoft Office 2003
  • 2007 - Excel 2007 (12) - Microsoft Office 2007
  • 2010 - Excel 2010 (14) - Microsoft Office 2010
  • Comment: Version 1.0 was not used to avoid confusion with Apple products
  • Comment: Excel 6.0 does not exist because the Windows 95 version shipped with Word 7. All Office 95 and Office 4.x programs used OLE 2.0 (automatic transfer of data between different programs), and Excel 7 should have shown that it complies with Word 7.
  • Comment: Version 13.0 has been skipped. Excel 2010 has internal version 14.0.

Macintosh versions

  • 1985 - Excel 1.0
  • 1988 - Excel 1.5
  • 1989 - Excel 2.2
  • 1990 - Excel 3.0
  • 1992 - Excel 4.0
  • 1993 - Excel 5.0
  • 1998 - Excel 8.0 (Office "98)
  • 2000 - Excel 9.0 (Office 2001)
  • 2001 - Excel 10.0 (Office v. X)
  • 2004 - Excel 11.0 (Office 2004)
  • 2008 - Excel 12.0 (Office 2008)
  • 2011 - Excel 14.0 (Office 2011)

OS/2 versions

  • 1989 - Excel 2.2
  • 1990 - Excel 2.3
  • 1991 - Excel 3.0

Excel versions prior to 7.0 were limited in data storage capabilities, holding up to 16,384 (2 14) rows. Versions 8.0-11.0 could handle 65,536 (2 16) rows and 256 columns (2 8). Versions 12.0 and 14.0 handle up to 1,048,576 (2 20) rows and 16,384 (2 14) columns.

File formats

Microsoft Excel, up to and including version 2003, used its own binary file format (BIFF) as the main one. Excel 2007 uses Microsoft Office Open XML as its primary format.

Although Excel 2007 supports and aims to use newer XML formats as its primary format, it is still compatible with traditional binary formats. Additionally, most versions of Microsoft Excel can read CSV, DBF, SYLK, DIF, and other formats.

Office Open XML

Microsoft Excel 2007, along with other Microsoft Office 2007 products, introduces many new file formats. They are part of the Office Open XML (OOXML) specification.

New Excel 2007 formats
Format Extension Notes
Excel workbook .xlsx Standard Excel 2007 workbook format. It is actually a compressed ZIP archive of a catalog of XML documents. It is a replacement for the former .xls binary format, although it does not support macros for security reasons.
Excel workbook with macros .xlsm The same Excel workbook, but with macro support.
Binary Excel workbook .xlsb The same Excel workbook with macros, but storing information in binary format, opening documents faster than XML. It is especially often used for very large documents with tens of thousands of rows and/or hundreds of columns.
Excel template with macros .xltm Template created as a basis for workbooks, macro support included. Replaces the old .xlt format.
Excel add-in .xlam An Excel add-in aimed at adding additional functionality and tools.

Exporting and moving tables

The API allows you to open Excel spreadsheets in a number of other applications. This includes opening Excel documents on web pages using ActiveX or plugins such as Adobe Flash Player. The Apache POI project provides Java libraries for reading and writing Excel spreadsheets. There have also been attempts to copy Excel tables into web applications using comma separated values ​​(CSV).

Programming

A valuable feature of Excel is the ability to write code using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). This code is written using an editor separate from the tables. The spreadsheet is managed through an object-oriented code and data model. With this code, the data from the input tables will be instantly processed and displayed in tables and charts (graphs). The table becomes the interface of the code, making it easy to change it and manage calculations.

MS Excel password protection

Microsoft Excel security provides several types of different passwords:

All passwords, except the password for opening a document, can be deleted instantly, regardless of the version of MS Excel in which the document was created. These types of passwords are primarily used for collaborative work on a document. When using them, the document is not encrypted, and a hash of the set password is stored in the document. Although when using a password to protect a workbook, the document is encrypted with a known password "VelvetSweatshop", this does not add additional security to the document. The only type of password that can prevent an attacker from gaining access to a document is "password to open", but the cryptographic strength of such protection strongly depends on the version of MS Excel in which the document was created.

In MS Excel version 95 and earlier, "password to open" is converted into a 16-bit key, which is cracked instantly. In MS Excel 97/2000, the password was already converted into a 40-bit key, which on modern equipment can also be cracked very quickly. In addition, password cracking programs can try hundreds of thousands of passwords per second, which allows you not only to decrypt a document, but also to find the original password. In MS Excel 2003 / XP the situation has improved a little - the user can select almost any encryption algorithm available in the system (CryptoServiceProvider). But by default, the same MS Excel 97/2000 protection remains. For users who are accustomed to trusting the default behavior of programs, this means a lack of strong protection for their documents.

The situation changed dramatically in MS Excel 2007 - the modern AES algorithm with a 128-bit key began to be used for encryption, and to obtain the key, a 50,000-fold use of the SHA1 hash function was used, which reduced the search speed to hundreds of passwords per second. In MS Excel, the default security strength was increased by another 2 times, thanks to the use of a 100,000-fold SHA1 password-to-key conversion. Conclusion: at the moment, strong protection is provided only by documents saved in the Office 2007\2010 format with strong protection installed on them. "password to open".

Criticism

Common criticisms of spreadsheet processors apply to Excel as well. Specific areas of criticism in Excel are accuracy, date issues, and Excel 2007 display errors.

Accuracy

Because Excel operates based on floating point calculations, Excel's statistical accuracy has been criticized. Excel proponents argue in response that these errors only appear under special conditions of specially selected source data, which affect a relatively small number of users, and are unlikely to occur in practice. For versions 97, 2000, 2002, errors were recorded when executing the MOD (division with remainder) function with certain arguments, where the function returns the #NUM! error instead of the result.

Date problems

In versions of Excel up to and including 2007, 1900 was incorrectly considered a leap year. The bug originated in Lotus 1-2-3 and was intentionally introduced into Excel for compatibility and maintained for backward compatibility.

Excel Display Errors

Microsoft Excel 2007 screenshot showing display error 65535

On September 22, 2007, it was reported that Excel 2007 would produce incorrect results in certain situations. Specifically, for those pairs of numbers whose product is 65535 (for example, 850 and 77.1), Excel will display 100000 as the total. This happens for about 14.5% of these pairs. Additionally, if you add one to the result, Excel will output a total of 100001. However, if you subtract one from the total, the display will show the correct result of 65534. (Also, if you multiply or divide the total by 2, it will display 131070 and 32767.5, respectively.)

Microsoft reported on the Microsoft Excel blog that an issue exists in the display of six specific floating point values ​​between 65534.99999999995 and 65535 and six values ​​between 65535.99999999995 and 65536 (not including bounds). Any calculations that result in one of the twelve values ​​will not display correctly. The actual data stored and transmitted to other cells is correct, only the display of the value is incorrect. The error was introduced in Excel 2007 and does not exist in previous versions. On October 9, 2007, Microsoft released a patch that corrected the problem. It was also included in the Service Pack 1 fixes.

Notes

Links

  • Working with Excel Files Using the .NET Framework
  • List of MVP sites (English)