Overview

Microsoft Excel is a widely used spreadsheet program. It provides a powerful feature set for organizing, manipulating, and visualizing data. Excel includes basic features, such as data sorting and simple formula creation, as well as advanced capabilities, such as pivot table reports and VBScript macro scripting. It also provides document security and password protection for data within a workbook. Newer versions of Excel save workbooks in the Office Open XML (OOXML) .XLSX format, while older versions use the proprietary .XLS format.

User Interface

The Excel user interface is composed of the program menu, toolbars, and the spreadsheet pane. The program menu and toolbars include quick links and buttons for performing common tasks, such as cell formatting, sorting, data graphing, and formula development. Users can click on worksheet tabs to switch between worksheets within an Excel workbook.

The primary section of the spreadsheet pane contains a two-dimensional grid of cells, where the data, charts, and formulas reside. Each cell may have its own formatting or may use the formatting applied to an entire row or column. The height, width, and background color of each cell can also be adjusted. Each cell is referenced by a letter and number combination that represents the corresponding column and row.

Capabilities

Microsoft Excel supports several data types, such as integers, floating-point numbers, text, dates, and percentages. Data can be compared between cells or between worksheets. Excel also includes a formula assistant for creating formulas, which perform calculations based on the values of other cells. If a cell contains a formula, the results of the formula are displayed in the cell, rather than a static value.

Excel also allows users to easily generate charts and graphs based on the data within a spreadsheet. Users can highlight a group of cells and create graphs, such as bar charts, line graphs, pie charts, scatter plots, surface charts, radar charts, bubble charts, and histograms. Each chart can be customized with its own title, legend, scale, and colors. Charts created within Excel may also be copied and pasted into other Microsoft Office applications, such as Word and PowerPoint.

User Community

Microsoft Excel users span a wide variety of user communities, including personal users, academics, and business professionals. The program is most commonly used in business environments, particularly by financial analysts. These users rely on Excel's ability to quickly organize and manipulate data in order to perform statistical analyses and create visualizations. Excel classes are now required by some Master of Business Administration (MBA) graduate-level programs because of the program's utility for professional tasks.

Screenshots:

New Workbook	Templates	Spreadsheet View
Workbook Info	Print	Save & Send
VB Macros	Add-ins	Open File Types

Features:

• Industry-standard, widely used spreadsheet program
• Basic and advanced data manipulation
• Support for large data sets
• Can import and export data in many different formats
• Data formatting and filtering options
• Complex mathematical formula support
• Fast chart and custom graph generation
• Advanced support for VBScript scripting

System Requirements:

Mac OS

• Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later
• Intel processor
• 1GB RAM
• 2.5GB disk space
• 1280x800 display
• DVD drive

Windows

• Microsoft Windows XP with SP3 or later
• 500MHz processor
• 256MB RAM
• 2GB free disk space
• 1024x576 display
• DVD drive