What is an Excel table

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet software written by Microsoft for computers using Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems. The intuitive interface, excellent calculation functions and charting tools, coupled with successful marketing, make Excel the most popular personal computer data processing software. In 1993, after version 5.0 was released as a component of Microsoft Office, Excel began to become the dominant spreadsheet software on applicable operating platforms.

In 1982, Microsoft launched its first spreadsheet software, Multiplan, which was a great success on the CP/M system, but it was not successful on MS-DOS. System-wise, Multiplan lost to Lotus 1-2-3. This event prompted the birth of Excel, just as Excel development codename Doug Klunder: Do what Lotus 1-2-3 can do, and do it better. In 1985, the first Excel was born, which was only used for Mac systems; in November 1987, the first Excel for Windows systems was also produced (it was directly bundled with the Windows environment, and the version number in Mac was 2.0). Lotus 1-2-3 has been unable to be applied to Windows systems. By 1988, Excel sales exceeded Lotus, making Microsoft the leading position among PC software vendors. This incident contributed to the replacement of the dominant player in the software kingdom. Microsoft consolidated its position as a strong competitor and found the direction to develop graphics software. About every two years since then, Microsoft will launch a new version to expand its advantages. The latest version of Excel is currently 16, also known as Microsoft Office Excel 2016.

Early on, Excel became a target of trademark law because it had the same name as a software called Excel sold by another company. After a trial, Microsoft was required to use the name Microsoft Excel in its official documents and legal documents. Name this software. However, as time went by, this practice gradually disappeared.

Although Excel provides a large number of user interface features, it still retains the features of VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet software: rows and columns form cells, data, data-related formulas or other cells An absolute reference to the cell is saved in the cell.

Excel is the first spreadsheet software that allows users to customize the interface (including fonts, text attributes and cell formats). It also introduces the "intelligent recalculation" function. When cell data changes, only the data related to it will be updated, while the original tabulation software can only recalculate all data or wait for the next instruction. At the same time, Excel also has powerful graphics functions.

When Excel was first bundled into Microsoft Office in 1993, Microsoft redesigned the interfaces of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint to adapt to this extremely popular application at the time.

Since 1993, Excel has supported Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). VBA is a powerful tool that enables Excel to form an independent programming environment. Using VBA and macros, you can automate manual steps, and VBA also allows you to create forms to obtain user-entered information. However, the automation function of VBA also makes Excel a target of macro viruses.

From 5.0 to 9.0, there are different Easter eggs hidden in Excel.

For more Excel-related technical articles, please visit the Excel Basic Tutorial column to learn!

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