Exploring the Excel Environment The tabbed Ribbon menu system is how you navigate through Excel and

access the various Excel commands. If you have used previous versions of Excel, the Ribbon system replaces the traditional menus. Above the Ribbon in the upper-left corner is the Microsoft Office Button. rom here, you can access important options such as !ew, "ave, "ave As, and #rint. $y default, the Quick Access Toolbar is pinned next to the %icrosoft &ffice $utton and includes commands such as 'ndo and Redo. At the bottom-left area of the spreadsheet, you will find wor(sheet tabs. $y default, three orksheet tabs appear each time you create a new wor(boo(. &n the bottom-right area of the spreadsheet you will find page view commands, the )oom tool, and the hori)ontal scrolling bar.

To !oom "n and Out# *ocate the $oom bar in the bottom-right corner. *eft-clic( the slider and drag it to the left to )oom out and to the right to )oom in.

To %croll &ori$ontally in a 'orksheet# *ocate the hori$ontal scroll bar in the bottom-right corner. *eft-clic( the bar and move it from left to right.

To (hange )age *ie s# *ocate the )age *ie options in the bottom-right corner. The #age +iew options are !ormal, #age *ayout, and #age $rea(. *eft-clic( an option to select it.

The default is +ormal *ie . To Add (ommands to the Quick Access Toolbar# ,lic( the arro to the right of the -uic( Access toolbar. "elect the command you wish to add from the drop-down list. It will appear in the -uic( Access toolbar.

&R "elect More (ommands from the menu and a dialog box appears. "elect the command you wish to add. ,lic( the Add button. ,lic( O,.

The "ave, 'ndo, and Redo commands appear by default in the -uic( Access toolbar. .ou may wish to add other commands to ma(e using specific Excel features more convenient for you.

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application developed by %icrosoft for %icrosoft /indows and %ac &". It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called +isual $asic for Applications. It has been a very widely applied spreadsheet for these platforms, especially since version 0 in 1223, and it has replaced *otus 1-4-3 as the industry standard for spreadsheets. Excel forms part of %icrosoft &ffice.

Using other Windows applications This section re5uires expansion. (April 2010) /indows applications such as %icrosoft Access and %icrosoft /ord, as well as Excel can communicate with each other and use each other6s capabilities. The most common are 7ynamic 7ata Exchange8 although strongly deprecated by %icrosoft, this is a common method to send data between applications running on /indows, with official %" publications referring to it as 9the protocol from hell9.:40; As the name suggests, it allows applications to supply data to others for calculation and display. It is very common in financial mar(ets, being used to connect to important financial data services such as $loomberg and Reuters. &*E &b<ect *in(ing and Embedding8 allows a /indows application to control another to enable it to format or calculate data. This may ta(e on the form of 9embedding9 where an application uses another to handle a tas( that it is more suited to, for example a #owerpoint presentation may be embedded in an Excel spreadsheet or vice versa.:4=;:4>;:4?;:42; Using external data This section re5uires expansion. (February 2010) Excel users can access external data sources via %icrosoft &ffice features such as @for exampleA .odc connections built with the &ffice 7ata ,onnection file format. Excel files themselves may be updated using a %icrosoft supplied &7$, driver.

Excel can accept data in real time through several programming interfaces, which allow it to communicate with many data sources such as $loomberg and Reuters @through addins such as #ower #lus #roA. 77E 8 97ynamic 7ata Exchange9 uses the message passing mechanism in /indows to allow data to flow between Excel and other applications. Although it is easy for users to create such lin(s, programming such lin(s reliably is so difficult that %icrosoft, the creators of the system, officially refer to it as 9the protocol from hell9.:40; In spite of its many issues 77E remains the most common way for data to reach traders in financial mar(ets. !etwor( 77E Extended the protocol to allow spreadsheets on different computers to exchange data. Biven the view above, it is not surprising that in +ista, %icrosoft no longer supports the facility. :3C; Real Time 7ata 8 RT7 although in many ways technically superior to 77E, has been slow to gain acceptance, since it re5uires non-trivial programming s(ills, and when first released was neither ade5uately documented nor supported by the ma<or data vendors.:31;:34;

Export and migration of spreadsheets #rogrammers have produced A#Is to open Excel spreadsheets in a variety of applications and environments other than %icrosoft Excel. These include opening Excel documents on the web using either ActiveD controls, or plugins li(e the Adobe lash #layer. The Apache #&I opensource pro<ect provides Eava libraries for reading and writing Excel spreadsheet files. Excel#ac(age is another opensource pro<ect that provides server-side generation of %icrosoft Excel 4CC> spreadsheets. #F#Excel is a #F# library that converts Excel0, Excel 4CC3, and Excel 4CC> formats into ob<ects for reading and writing within a web application. Excel "ervices is a current .!ET developer tool that can enhance Excel6s capabilities. Excel spreadsheets can be accessed from #ython with 7ata!itro, #yD** or the ,&% interface.:3=; Excel became the first spreadsheet to allow the user to define the appearance of spreadsheets @fonts, character attributes and cell appearanceA. It also introduced intelligent cell recomputation, 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 commandA. Excel introduced auto-fill, the ability to drag and expand the selection box to automatically copy cell or row contents to ad<acent cells or rows, ad<usting the copies intelligently by automatically incrementing cell references or contentThe /indows version of Excel supports programming through %icrosoft6s +isual $asic for Applications @+$AA, which is a dialect of +isual $asic. #rogramming with +$A allows spreadsheet manipulation that is aw(ward or impossible with standard spreadsheet techni5ues. #rogrammers may write code directly using the +isual $asic Editor @+$EA, which includes a window for writing code, debugging code, and code module organi)ation environment. The user can implement numerical methods as well as automating tas(s such as formatting or data organi)ation in +$A :14; and guide the calculation using any desired intermediate results reported bac( to the spreadsheet.s. Excel also introduced extensive graphing capabilities.