History of Microsoft Excel

8/4/2019 History of Microsoft Excel

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HISTORY OFMICROSOFT

EXCEL


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MICROSOFT EXEL

is a non-free commercialspreadsheet application written and

distributed by Microsoft for

Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It

features calculation, graphing tools,

pivot tables and a macroprogramming language called Visual

Basic for Applications.


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It has been a very widely applied

spreadsheet for these platforms,

especially since version 5 in 1993.

Excel forms part of Microsoft Office.

Microsoft Excel has become a crucialtool in the international workplace,

providing basic database

functionality, along with spreadsheet

and calculation tools.


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While it is currently the market

leader for spreadsheets, thehistory of excel shows that

throughout the 1980s and 90sit faced significant competition

from rival software platforms

like Lotus Notes, Mosaic TWIN

and the Paperback VP Planner


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The original Microsoft

spreadsheet program wascalled Multiplan - which

began development in1982 - but it was never as

financially successful asLotus Notes.


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Interestingly, Excel was first

developed for the Macintoshoperating system beginning in

1984. It made use of graphicalmenus and the mouse,

innovating strongly relative to

the other major competitors at

the time.


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Drop-down menus and a point

and click interface helped tomake it more usable to non-

technical workers, and in turn

helped to influence graphical

user interfaces in other

software and operating

systems at the time.


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As such, when Windows was

launched in 1987, Excel was

one of the most important and

popular pieces of software for

it. The early exploration of the

graphical user interface for

Windows had already beenconducted and market tested

by earlier versions of Excel.


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While it was certainly not the first

spreadsheet software package, it

was the first to provide a powerfulcombination of usability andfunctionality to business clients of

all sizes. Lotus was relatively slow to bring

Lotus 123 to Windows, failing topredict the popularity of the

operating system.


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One of the major turning

points in Excel was theinclusion of Visual Basic for

Applications in 1993, whichgreatly increased the

functionality of thesoftware.


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In turn, it also encouraged a

generation of professionals tolearn the programming

language, further solidifyingthe long term demand for

Excel over other spreadsheet

suites.


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VERSIONS


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Excel 2 1987The original version of Excelfor Windows, Excel 2 first

appeared in late 1987. Itwas labeled Version 2 to

correspond to the

Macintosh version, which


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Because Windows wasnt in

widespread use at the time,this version included a

runtime version of Windows a special version with just

enough features to run Excel

and nothing else.


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Excel 3 1990This version offered a significantimprovement in both appearance

and features. It included toolbars,

drawing capabilities, worksheet

outlining, add-in support, 3-D

charts, workgroup editing, andlots more.


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Excel 4 1992Excel 4 hit the streets in thespring of 1992. This version

made quite an impacton the marketplace as

Windows increased in

popularity.


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It boasted lots of new

features and usabilityenhancements that

made it easier forbeginners to get up tospeed quickly.


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Excel 5 1994This version introduced tons of newfeatures, including multisheet

workbooks and the new Visual BasicforApplications (VBA) macrolanguage. Like its predecessor, Excel 5

took top honors in just about everyspreadsheet comparison published inthe trade magazines.


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Excel 95 1995It is also known as Excel 7. On thesurface, it resembled Excel 5. Thisversion included only a few major

new features. However, Excel 95proved to be significant because itpresented the first version to use

more advanced 32-bit code. Excel 95and Excel 5 use the same file format.


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Excel 97 1997Excel 97 is also known as Excel 8.It is probably offered the most

significant upgrade ever. Thetoolbars and menus took on a

great new look, online help

moved a dramatic step forward,

and the number of rows available

in a worksheet quadrupled.


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And if youre a macro

developer, you may havenoticed thatExcels programming

environment (VBA) moved upseveral notches on the scale.

Excel 97 also introduced a newfile format.


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Excel 2000 1999Also known as Excel 9, Excel 2000was released in June of 1999.

Excel 2000 offered several minorenhancements, but the most

significant advancement was the

ability to use HTML as an

alternative file format.


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Excel 2000 still

supported thestandard binary file

format, of course,which is compatiblewith Excel 97.


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Excel 2002 2001Excel 2002 is also known as Excel 10or Excel XP. It was released in June of

2001 and is part of Microsoft

Office XP. This version offered several

new features, most of which are fairly

minor and were designed to appeal tonovice users. Perhaps the most

significant new feature was the

capability to save your work


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when Excel crashes and also

recover corrupt workbookfiles that you may have

abandoned long ago. Excel2002 also added background

formula error checking and anew formula-debugging tool.


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Excel 2003It is also known as Excel 11. It wasreleased in the fall of 2003. This

version had very few new

features. Perhaps the most

significant new feature was the

ability to import and export XMLfiles and map the data to specific

cells in a worksheet.


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It also introduced the

concept of the List, aspecially designated

range of cells. Both ofthese features would

prove to be precursors tofuture enhancements.


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Excel 2007 - 2007

Also known as Excel 12, Excel2007 was released in early 2007.

Its official name is Microsoft Office

Excel 2007. This release representedthe most significant change since

Excel 97, including a change to Excels

default file format. The new format

was XML based although a binary

format is still available


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Another major change was

the Ribbon, a new type of UIthat replaced the Excel menu

and toolbar system. In

addition to these two major

changes, Microsoft enhanced

the List concept introduced in

Excel 2003. A List is now

known as a Table


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improved the look of

charts, significantlyincreased the number

of rows and columns,

and added some new

worksheet functions.


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Excel 2010Excel 2010, was released inearly 2010 and is also known as

Excel 14. If you think youvespotted a typo in the previous

sentence, youre wrong. Yes,even big companies can be

superstitious;


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Microsoft skipped Version 13

of Office and went fromVersion 12 to Version 14.

Excel 2010 builds on the

improvements introduced

in Excel 2007, and it offers

several new enhancements.

Documents

History of Microsoft Excel