Microsoft was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, as you probably know the company is the market leader when it comes to computer operating systems and this month marked the 30th anniversary of a milestone in the history of computing. OS/2 was written by Microsoft for IBM, in 1987 IBM had control of the personal computing industry but they lost it to Microsoft because computer users preferred Windows to OS/2. You can read more about how Microsoft Windows changed the computer industry on the register.

Microsoft Office

With the dominance of their operating systems Microsoft was able to promote a number of other products, a practice known as bundling.The way that Microsoft uses their operating system to cross-sell other products has upset a few people including the EU. One of the products that Microsoft ships their operating system with is Office, Microsoft Office includes Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Of the three Office programs Excel offers the most functionality and is probably the hardest to use, if you were considering Office training for yourself or your staff Excel training would probably offer the most benefit.

What is Microsoft Excel?

Excel is a program designed by Microsoft, aimed at the creation, modification and management of spreadsheets. It is a program designed for office work, especially in the field of administration and accounting. Thanks to the wide range of functions and tools the software has it is useful for many tasks such as the creation of databases, formulas and so on.

It is a program that has functions for word processing, various mathematical and graphical tools for accounting or administration work, the features make Excel the perfect tool to convey information in an orderly manner.

This program has a direct antecedent, to the spreadsheet program named Multiplan from the 80s. Excel has evolved to include tools and capabilities that allow the user to perform their work more efficiently. The name, “Excel” was used for both Macintosh and Windows versions simultaneously, but because of copyright issues, in 1993, the programs name was changed to “Microsoft Excel”, currently the most widely used spreadsheet program most people still refer it to as Excel.

It has a wide range of tools that facilitate the creation and modification of spreadsheets, making spreadsheet work more efficient. Features include auto sum which shortens accounting operations, the use of cells to the insertion of the data, allowing them to be ordered, formatting tools, that allow the user to align the data, to change the type of font or letter, as well as to change the color or size of text.

It also has a wide variety of pre-set templates, which make life easier avoiding the need to do all the work from scratch, so you can quickly make invoices, study schedules, merchandise classifications, etc.

But … What is Microsoft Excel Used for?
Microsoft Excel is useful for:

The development of tables

Creating charts

Making sums

Making subtractions

Performing multiplications

Making specialized calendars

Making invoices

Making schedules for work or school

Creating detailed reports (for example, accounting reports).

Preparing budgets

Excel allows you to insert links to related text or other spreadsheets

Insert images (for example graphs) in spreadsheets

Edit spreadsheets of other compatible programs and platforms, such as Open office, KOffice and Star Office among others.

Other Microsoft Excel functions:

Microsoft Excel is used to make graphs.- With Excel, we can create graphs that give a visual idea of statistics for the data that we are handling.

Create links.- This program allows you to insert links, either to web page addresses, to other spreadsheets, to special sections of the same spreadsheet, to graphics or images so that will appear when clicking on the links.

Microsoft Excel helps to keep your accounts up to date – With this application sums can be made automatically which helps to track stock, payroll, sales, etc.

The data applied in Excel can be auto-completed and added together by making use of equations, self-sums. Graphical elements such as graphs and tables can be added to visually express the movements made.

Microsoft Excel is useful in various fields of work.- Its applications are not limited to accounting and administration, it is also used as a data recorder in science and to catalog documents in humanities, the classification of living organisms, drugs, substances, chemicals and so on.

This post was written and supplied on behalf of www.microsoft-office-courses.co.uk.