Microsoft Excel: Возможности и применение табличного редактора

Spreadsheet editor, part of Microsoft 365

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and iPadOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Excel forms part of the Microsoft 365 suite of software.

Microsoft Excel has the basic features of all spreadsheets, using a grid of cells arranged in numbered rows and letter named columns to organize data manipulations like arithmetic operations. It has a battery of supplied functions to answer statistical, engineering, and financial needs. In addition, it can display data as line graphs, histograms and charts, and with a very limited three dimensional graphical display. It allows sectioning of data to view its dependencies on various factors for different perspectives (using pivot tables and the scenario manager). A PivotTable is a tool for data analysis. It does this by simplifying large data sets via PivotTable fields. It has a programming aspect, Visual Basic for Applications, allowing the user to employ a wide variety of numerical methods, for example, for solving differential equations of mathematical physics, and then reporting the results back to the spreadsheet. It also has a variety of interactive features allowing user interfaces that can completely hide the spreadsheet from the user, so the spreadsheet presents itself as a so called application, or decision support system (DSS), via a custom designed user interface, for example, a stock analyzer, or in general, as a design tool that asks the user questions and provides answers and reports. In a more elaborate realization, an Excel application can automatically poll external databases and measuring instruments using an update schedule, analyze the results, make a Word report or PowerPoint slide show, and e mail these presentations on a regular basis to a list of participants. Excel was not designed to be used as a database. Microsoft allows for a number of optional command line switches to control the manner in which Excel starts.

Excel 2016 has 484 functions. Of these, 360 existed prior to Excel 2010. Microsoft classifies these functions into 14 categories. Of the 484 current functions, 386 may be called from VBA as methods of the object "WorksheetFunction" and 44 have the same names as VBA functions. With the introduction of LAMBDA, Excel became Turing complete.

The Windows version of Excel supports programming through Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which is a dialect of Visual Basic. Programming with VBA allows spreadsheet manipulation that is awkward or impossible with standard spreadsheet techniques. Programmers may write code directly using the Visual Basic Editor (VBE), which includes a window for writing code, debugging code, and code module organization environment. The user can implement numerical methods as well as automating tasks such as formatting or data organization in VBA and guide the calculation using any desired intermediate results reported back to the spreadsheet. VBA was removed from Mac Excel 2008, as the developers did not believe that a timely release would allow porting the VBA engine natively to Mac OS X. VBA was restored in the next version, Mac Excel 2011, although the build lacks support for ActiveX objects, impacting some high level developer tools. A common and easy way to generate VBA code is by using the Macro Recorder. The Macro Recorder records actions of the user and generates VBA code in the form of a macro. These actions can then be repeated automatically by running the macro. The macros can also be linked to different trigger types like keyboard shortcuts, a command button or a graphic. The actions in the macro can be executed from these trigger types or from the generic toolbar options. The VBA code of the macro can also be edited in the VBE. Certain features such as loop functions and screen prompt by their own properties, and some graphical display items, cannot be recorded but must be entered into the VBA module directly by the programmer. Advanced users can employ user prompts to create an interactive program, or react to events such as sheets being loaded or changed. Macro Recorded code may not be compatible with Excel versions. Some code that is used in Excel 2010 cannot be used in Excel 2003. Making a Macro that changes the cell colors and making changes to other aspects of cells may not be backward compatible. VBA code interacts with the spreadsheet through the Excel Object Model, a vocabulary identifying spreadsheet objects, and a set of supplied functions or methods that enable reading and writing to the spreadsheet and interaction with its users (for example, through custom toolbars or command bars and message boxes). User created VBA subroutines execute these actions and operate like macros generated using the macro recorder, but are more flexible and efficient.

From its first version Excel supported end user programming of macros (automation of repetitive tasks) and user defined functions (extension of Excel's built in function library). In early versions of Excel, these programs were written in a macro language whose statements had formula syntax and resided in the cells of special purpose macro sheets (stored with file extension XLM in Windows.) XLM was the default macro language for Excel through Excel 4.0. Beginning with version 5.0 Excel recorded macros in VBA by default but with version 5.0 XLM recording was still allowed as an option. After version 5.0 that option was discontinued. All versions of Excel, including Excel 2021, are capable of running an XLM macro, though Microsoft discourages their use.

In 2023 Microsoft announced Excel would support the Python programming language directly. As of January 2024, Python in Excel is available in the Microsoft 365 Insider Program.

Up until the 2007 version, Microsoft Excel used a proprietary binary file format called Excel Binary File Format (. XLS) as its primary format. Excel 2007 uses Office Open XML as its primary file format, an XML based format that followed after a previous XML based format called "XML Spreadsheet" ("XMLSS"), first introduced in Excel 2002. Although supporting and encouraging the use of new XML based formats as replacements, Excel 2007 remained backwards compatible with the traditional, binary formats. In addition, most versions of Microsoft Excel can read CSV, DBF, SYLK, DIF, and other legacy formats. Support for some older file formats was removed in Excel 2007. The file formats were mainly from DOS based programs.

OpenOffice. org has created documentation of the Excel format. Two epochs of the format exist: the 97 2003 OLE format, and the older stream format. Microsoft has made the Excel binary format specification available to freely download.

FormatExtensionDescriptionSpreadsheetMain spreadsheet format which holds data in worksheets, charts, and macrosAdd in (VBA)Adds custom functionality; written in VBAToolbarThe file extension where Microsoft Excel custom toolbar settings are stored. ChartA chart created with data from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that only saves the chart. To save the chart and spreadsheet save as XLS. XLC is not supported in Excel 2007 or in any newer versions of Excel. DialogUsed in older versions of Excel. ArchiveA backup of an Excel SpreadsheetAdd in (DLL)Adds custom functionality; written in C++/C, Fortran, etc. and compiled into a special dynamic link libraryMacroA macro is created by the user or pre installed with Excel. Template. xlt A pre formatted spreadsheet created by the user or by Microsoft Excel. ModuleA module is written in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) for Microsoft ExcelLibraryCode written in VBA may access functions in a DLL, typically this is used to access the Windows APIWorkspaceArrangement of the windows of multiple Workbooks

Windows applications such as Microsoft Access and Microsoft Word, as well as Excel can communicate with each other and use each other's capabilities. The most common is Dynamic Data Exchange: although strongly deprecated by Microsoft, this is a common method to send data between applications running on Windows, with official MS publications referring to it as "the protocol from hell".

Excel users can access external data sources via Microsoft Office features such as (for example) connections built with the Office Data Connection file format. Excel files themselves may be updated using a Microsoft supplied ODBC driver. Excel can accept data in real time through several programming interfaces, which allow it to communicate with many data sources such as Bloomberg and Reuters (through addins such as Power Plus Pro). DDE: "Dynamic Data Exchange" uses the message passing mechanism in Windows to allow data to flow between Excel and other applications. Although it is easy for users to create such links, programming such links reliably is so difficult that Microsoft, the creators of the system, officially refer to it as "the protocol from hell". In spite of its many issues DDE remains the most common way for data to reach traders in financial markets. Network DDE Extended the protocol to allow spreadsheets on different computers to exchange data. Starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft no longer supports the facility. Real Time Data: RTD although in many ways technically superior to DDE, has been slow to gain acceptance, since it requires non trivial programming skills, and when first released was neither adequately documented nor supported by the major data vendors. Alternatively, Microsoft Query provides ODBC based browsing within Microsoft Excel.

Programmers have produced APIs to open Excel spreadsheets in a variety of applications and environments other than Microsoft Excel. These include opening Excel documents on the web using either ActiveX controls, or plugins like the Adobe Flash Player. The Apache POI opensource project provides Java libraries for reading and writing Excel spreadsheet files.

Excel Mobile is a spreadsheet program that can edit XLSX files. It can edit and format text in cells, calculate formulas, search within the spreadsheet, sort rows and columns, freeze panes, filter the columns, add comments, and create charts. It cannot add columns or rows except at the edge of the document, rearrange columns or rows, delete rows or columns, or add spreadsheet tabs. The 2007 version has the ability to use a full screen mode to deal with limited screen resolution, as well as split panes to view different parts of a worksheet at one time.

Excel for the web is a free lightweight version of Microsoft Excel available as part of Office on the web, which also includes web versions of Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint. Excel for the web can display most of the features available in the desktop versions of Excel, although it may not be able to insert or edit them. Certain data connections are not accessible on Excel for the web, including with charts that may use these external connections. Excel for the web also cannot display legacy features, such as Excel 4.0 macros or Excel 5.0 dialog sheets. There are also small differences between how some of the Excel functions work.

Microsoft Excel Viewer was a freeware program for Microsoft Windows for viewing and printing spreadsheet documents created by Excel. Microsoft retired the viewer in April 2018 with the last security update released in February 2019 for Excel Viewer 2007 (SP3). The first version released by Microsoft was Excel 97 Viewer. Excel 97 Viewer was supported in Windows CE for Handheld PCs. In October 2004, Microsoft released Excel Viewer 2003. In September 2007, Microsoft released Excel Viewer 2003 Service Pack 3 (SP3). In January 2008, Microsoft released Excel Viewer 2007 (featuring a non collapsible Ribbon interface). In April 2009, Microsoft released Excel Viewer 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2). In October 2011, Microsoft released Excel Viewer 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3). Microsoft advises to view and print Excel files for free to use the Excel Mobile application for Windows 10 and for Windows 7 and Windows 8 to upload the file to OneDrive and use Excel for the web with a Microsoft account to open them in a browser.

In addition to issues with spreadsheets in general, other problems specific to Excel include numeric precision, misleading statistics functions, mod function errors, date limitations and more.

Despite the use of 15 figure precision, Excel can display many more figures (up to thirty) upon user request. But the displayed figures are not those actually used in its computations, and so, for example, the difference of two numbers may differ from the difference of their displayed values. Although such departures are usually beyond the 15th decimal, exceptions do occur, especially for very large or very small numbers. Serious errors can occur if decisions are made based upon automated comparisons of numbers (for example, using the Excel If function), as equality of two numbers can be unpredictable. In the figure, the fraction 1/9000 is displayed in Excel. Although this number has a decimal representation that is an infinite string of ones, Excel displays only the leading 15 figures. In the second line, the number one is added to the fraction, and again Excel displays only 15 figures. In the third line, one is subtracted from the sum using Excel. Because the sum in the second line has only eleven 1's after the decimal, the difference when 1 is subtracted from this displayed value is three 0's followed by a string of eleven 1's. However, the difference reported by Excel in the third line is three 0's followed by a string of thirteen 1's and two extra erroneous digits. This is because Excel calculates with about half a digit more than it displays. Excel works with a modified 1985 version of the IEEE 754 specification. Excel's implementation involves conversions between binary and decimal representations, leading to accuracy that is on average better than one would expect from simple fifteen digit precision, but that can be worse. See the main article for details. Besides accuracy in user computations, the question of accuracy in Excel provided functions may be raised. Particularly in the arena of statistical functions, Excel has been criticized for sacrificing accuracy for speed of calculation. As many calculations in Excel are executed using VBA, an additional issue is the accuracy of VBA, which varies with variable type and user requested precision.

The accuracy and convenience of statistical tools in Excel has been criticized, as mishandling situations when data is missing, as returning incorrect values due to inept handling of round off and large numbers, as only selectively updating calculations on a spreadsheet when some cell values are changed, and as having a limited set of statistical tools. Microsoft has announced that some of these issues are addressed in Excel 2010.

Excel has issues with modulo operations. In the case of excessively large results, Excel will return the error warning instead of an answer.

Excel includes February 29, 1900, incorrectly treating 1900 as a leap year, even though e. g. 2100 is correctly treated as a non leap year. The bug originated from Lotus 1 2 3 (deliberately implemented to save computer memory), and was also purposely implemented in Excel, for the purpose of bug compatibility. This legacy has later been carried over into Office Open XML file format. Thus a (not necessarily whole) number greater than or equal to 61 interpreted as a date and time are the (real) number of days after December 30, 1899, 0:00, a non negative number less than 60 is the number of days after December 31, 1899, 0:00, and numbers with whole part 60 represent the fictional day.

Excel supports dates with years in the range 1900–9999, except that December 31, 1899, can be entered as 0 and is displayed as 0 jan 1900. Converting a fraction of a day into hours, minutes and days by treating it as a moment on the day January 1, 1900, does not work for a negative fraction.

If text is entered that happens to be in a form that Excel interprets as a date, the text can be unintentionally changed to a standard date format. A similar problem occurs when a text happens to be in the form of a floating point notation of a number. In these cases the original exact text cannot be recovered from the result. Formatting the cell as TEXT before entering ambiguous text prevents Excel from converting it. This issue has caused a well known problem in the analysis of DNA, for example in bioinformatics. As first reported in 2004, genetic scientists found that Excel automatically and incorrectly converts certain gene names into dates. A follow up study in 2016 found many peer reviewed scientific journal papers had been affected and that "Of the selected journals, the proportion of published articles with Excel files containing gene lists that are affected by gene name errors is 19.6 %." Excel parses the copied and pasted data and sometimes changes them depending on what it thinks they are. For example, MARCH1 (Membrane Associated Ring CH type finger 1) gets converted to the date March 1 (1 Mar) and SEPT2 (Septin 2) is converted into September 2 (2 Sep) etc. While some secondary news sources reported this as a fault with Excel, the original authors of the 2016 paper placed the blame with the researchers misusing Excel. In August 2020 the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) published new guidelines in the journal Nature regarding gene naming in order to avoid issues with "symbols that affect data handling and retrieval." So far 27 genes have been renamed, including changing MARCH1 to MARCHF1 and SEPT1 to SEPTIN1 in order to avoid accidental conversion of the gene names into dates. In October 2023, Microsoft fixed the long standing issue.

Microsoft originally marketed a spreadsheet program called Multiplan in 1982. Multiplan became very popular on CP/M systems, but on MS DOS systems it lost popularity to Lotus 1 2 3. Microsoft released the first version of Excel for the Macintosh on September 30, 1985, and the first Windows version was 2.05 (to synchronize with the Macintosh version 2.2) on November 19, 1987. Lotus was slow to bring 1 2 3 to Windows and by the early 1990s, Excel had started to outsell 1 2 3 and helped Microsoft achieve its position as a leading PC software developer. This accomplishment solidified Microsoft as a valid competitor and showed its future in developing GUI software. Microsoft maintained its advantage with regular new releases, every two years or so.

Excel 2.0 is the first version of Excel for the Intel platform. Versions prior to 2.0 were only available on the Apple Macintosh.

The first Windows version was labeled "2" to correspond to the Mac version. It was announced on October 6, 1987, and released on November 19. This included a run time version of Windows. BYTE in 1989 listed Excel for Windows as among the "Distinction" winners of the BYTE Awards. The magazine stated that the port of the "extraordinary" Macintosh version "shines", with a user interface as good as or better than the original.

Included toolbars, drawing capabilities, outlining, add in support, 3D charts, and many more new features. Also, an easter egg in Excel 4.0 reveals a hidden animation of a dancing set of numbers 1 through 3, representing Lotus 1 2 3, which is then crushed by an Excel logo.

With version 5.0, Excel included Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), a programming language based on Visual Basic which adds the ability to automate tasks in Excel and to provide user defined functions (UDF) for use in worksheets. VBA includes a fully featured integrated development environment (IDE). Macro recording can produce VBA code replicating user actions, thus allowing simple automation of regular tasks. VBA allows the creation of forms and in‑worksheet controls to communicate with the user. The language supports use (but not creation) of ActiveX (COM) DLL's; later versions add support for class modules allowing the use of basic object oriented programming techniques. The automation functionality provided by VBA made Excel a target for macro viruses. This caused serious problems until antivirus products began to detect these viruses. Microsoft belatedly took steps to prevent the misuse by adding the ability to disable macros completely, to enable macros when opening a workbook or to trust all macros signed using a trusted certificate. Versions 5.0 to 9.0 of Excel contain various Easter eggs, including a "Hall of Tortured Souls", a Doom like minigame, although since version 10 Microsoft has taken measures to eliminate such undocumented features from their products. 5.0 was released in a 16 bit x86 version for Windows 3.1 and later in a 32 bit version for NT 3.51 (x86/Alpha/PowerPC)

Released in 1995 with Microsoft Office for Windows 95, this is the first major version after Excel 5.0, as there is no Excel 6.0 with all of the Office applications standardizing on the same major version number. Internal rewrite to 32 bits. Almost no external changes, but faster and more stable. Excel 95 contained a hidden Doom like mini game called "The Hall of Tortured Souls", a series of rooms featuring the names and faces of the developers as an Easter egg.

Included in Office 97 (for x86 and Alpha). This was a major upgrade that introduced the paper clip office assistant and featured standard VBA used instead of internal Excel Basic. It introduced the now removed Natural Language labels. This version of Excel includes a flight simulator as an Easter egg.

Included in Office 2000. This was a minor upgrade but introduced an upgrade to the clipboard where it can hold multiple objects at once. The Office Assistant, whose frequent unsolicited appearance in Excel 97 had annoyed many users, became less intrusive. A small 3 D game called "Dev Hunter" (inspired by Spy Hunter) was included as an Easter egg.

Included in Office XP. Very minor enhancements.

Included in Office 2003. Minor enhancements.

Included in Office 2007. This release was a major upgrade from the previous version. Similar to other updated Office products, Excel in 2007 used the new Ribbon menu system. This was different from what users were used to, and was met with mixed reactions. One study reported fairly good acceptance by users except for highly experienced users and users of word processing applications with a classical WIMP interface, but was less convinced in terms of efficiency and organization. However, an online survey reported that a majority of respondents had a negative opinion of the change, with advanced users being "somewhat more negative" than intermediate users, and users reporting a self estimated reduction in productivity. Added functionality included Tables, and the SmartArt set of editable business diagrams. Also added was an improved management of named variables through the Name Manager, and much improved flexibility in formatting graphs, which allow (x, y) coordinate labeling and lines of arbitrary weight. Several improvements to pivot tables were introduced. Also like other office products, the Office Open XML file formats were introduced, including xlsm for a workbook with macros and xlsx for a workbook without macros. Specifically, many of the size limitations of previous versions were greatly increased. To illustrate, the number of rows was now 1,048,576 (220) and the columns was 16,384 (214; the far right column is XFD). This changes what is a valid A1 reference versus a named range. This version made more extensive use of multiple cores for the calculation of spreadsheets; however, VBA macros are not handled in parallel and XLL add‑ins were only executed in parallel if they were thread safe and this was indicated at registration.

Microsoft no longer releases Office or Excel in discrete versions. Instead, features are introduced automatically over time using Windows Update. The version number remains 16.0. Thereafter only the approximate dates when features appear can now be given. Dynamic Arrays. These are essentially Array Formulas but they "Spill" automatically into neighboring cells and do not need the ctrl shift enter to create them. Further, dynamic arrays are the default format, with new "@" and "#" operators to provide compatibility with previous versions. This is perhaps the biggest structural change since 2007, and is in response to a similar feature in Google Sheets. Dynamic arrays started appearing in pre releases about 2018, and as of March 2020 are available in published versions of Office 365 provided a user selected "Office Insiders".

1985 Excel 1.0
1988 Excel 1.5
1989 Excel 2.2
1990 Excel 3.0
1992 Excel 4.0
1993 Excel 5.0 (part of Office 4. x—Final Motorola 680x0 version and first PowerPC version)
1998 Excel 8.0 (part of Office 98)
2000 Excel 9.0 (part of Office 2001)
2001 Excel 10.0 (part of Office v. X)
2004 Excel 11.0 (part of Office 2004)
2008 Excel 12.0 (part of Office 2008)
2010 Excel 14.0 (part of Office 2011)
2015 Excel 15.0 (part of Office 2016—Office 2016 for Mac brings the Mac version much closer to parity with its Windows cousin, harmonizing many of the reporting and high level developer functions, while bringing the ribbon and styling into line with its PC counterpart.)

1989 Excel 2.2
1990 Excel 2.3
1991 Excel 3.0

+ Microsoft Excel for Windows release history Year Name VersionComments1987Excel 2Renumbered to 2 to correspond with contemporary Macintosh version. Supported macros (later known as Excel 4 macros).1990Excel 3Added 3D graphing capabilities1992Excel 4Introduced auto fill feature1993Excel 5Included Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and various object oriented options1995Excel 95Renumbered for contemporary Word version. Both programs were packaged in Microsoft Office by this time. 1997Excel 972000Excel 2000Part of Microsoft Office 20002002Excel 20022003Excel 2003Released only 1 year later to correspond better with the rest of Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, etc. ).2007Excel 20072010Excel 2010Due to superstitions surrounding the number 13, Excel 13 was skipped in version counting.2013Excel 2013Introduced 50 more mathematical functions (available as pre packaged commands, rather than typing the formula manually). 2016Excel 2016Part of Microsoft Office 2016

+ Microsoft Excel for Macintosh release history Year Name VersionComments1985Excel 1Initial version of Excel. Supported macros (later known as Excel 4 macros).1988Excel 1.51989Excel 21990Excel 31992Excel 41993Excel 5Only available on PowerPC based Macs. First PowerPC version. 1998Excel 98Excel 6 and Excel 7 were skipped to correspond with the rest of Microsoft Office at the time. 2000Excel 20002001Excel 20012004Excel 20042008Excel 20082011Excel 2011As with the Windows version, version 13 was skipped for superstitious reasons.2016Excel 2016As with the rest of Microsoft Office, so it is for Excel: Future release dates for the Macintosh version are intended to correspond better to those for the Windows version, from 2016 onward. + Microsoft Excel for OS/2 release history Year Name VersionComments1989Excel 2.2Numbered in between Windows versions at the time1990Excel 2.31991Excel 3Last OS/2 version. Discontinued subseries of Microsoft Excel, which is otherwise still an actively developed program.

Excel offers many user interface tweaks over the earliest electronic spreadsheets; however, the essence remains the same as in the original spreadsheet software, VisiCalc: the program displays cells organized in rows and columns, and each cell may contain data or a formula, with relative or absolute references to other cells. Excel 2.0 for Windows, which was modeled after its Mac GUI based counterpart, indirectly expanded the installed base of the then nascent Windows environment. Excel 2.0 was released a month before Windows 2.0, and the installed base of Windows was so low at that point in 1987 that Microsoft had to bundle a runtime version of Windows 1.0 with Excel 2.0. Unlike Microsoft Word, there never was a DOS version of Excel. Excel became the first spreadsheet to allow the user to define the appearance of spreadsheets (fonts, character attributes, and cell appearance). It also introduced intelligent cell re computation, where only cells dependent on the cell being modified are updated (previous spreadsheet programs recomputed everything all the time or waited for a specific user command). Excel introduced auto fill, the ability to drag and expand the selection box to automatically copy a cell or row contents to adjacent cells or rows, adjusting the copies intelligently by automatically incrementing cell references or contents. Excel also introduced extensive graphing capabilities.

Because Excel is widely used, it has been attacked by hackers. While Excel is not directly exposed to the Internet, if an attacker can get a victim to open a file in Excel, and there is an appropriate security bug in Excel, then the attacker can gain control of the victim's computer. UK's GCHQ has a tool named TORNADO ALLEY with this purpose.

Besides the easter eggs, numerous games have been created or recreated in Excel, such as Tetris, 2048, Scrabble, Yahtzee, Angry Birds, Pac Man, Civilization, Monopoly, Battleship, Blackjack, Space Invaders, and others. In 2020, Excel became an esport with the advent of the Financial Modeling World Cup.