Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program. It was the first of its kind to allow the user to define the appearance of spreadsheets (font, character attributes and cell appearance and graphics.) It also introduced cell computation, where only cells dependent on the cell being modified are updated.

Initially, Microsoft marketed a spreadsheet program called Multiplan in 1982, but it lost popularity to Lotus 1-2-3. As such, competition lay behind the creation of Excel as Doug Klunder, one of the program's developers stated that the new spreadsheet would "do everything 1-2-3 does, and do it better!" The first version off Excel was released for the Mac in 1985 and the first Window's version in 1987. By 1988, Excel had begun to outsell Lotus 1-2-3 and boosted Microsoft to the position of leading software developer.

Excel is undeniably a powerful tool. Although basic spreadsheet functions are understood by most users, many of Excel's capabilities are overlooked. Excel can create graphic charts from data input using the "new chart" button on the toolbar. Excel also allows the user to modify the appearance of the spreadsheet: double-clicking on the root of each column justifies the width. The user may also modify the appearance of the values, highlighting certain values (for example negative figures) above other less significant one, by clicking on “Conditional Formatting” under “Format” in the toolbar. In addition, “Autoformat” allows for various templates with regard to the spreadsheet’s layout, For more information, a helpful tutorial can be found on the University of South Dakota website: http://www.usd.edu/trio/tut/excel.

Sources:
http://www.usd.edu/trio/tut/excel

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