1.1 What is a spreadsheet, anyway?

Excel is a Microsoft product that allows users work with spreadsheets. Before Excel became dominant, there was Lotus 1-2-3. And, before that, there was VisiCalc. Those who are interested in the history of spreadsheet programs should visit http://dsresources.com/history/sshistory.html.

So, what exactly is a spreadsheet?

The following elements characterize a spreadsheet:

• Data is organized as a table.
• A spreadsheet table can be very large. Conceptually, there should be no limit to the size of a spreadsheet table.
• Each cell in a spreadsheet table can hold text, numeric or formula data.
• Most importantly, The formula of one cell can refer to other cells.

Great. So, what is a spreadsheet? Come on!

Essentially, a spreadsheet is table. This means it can be used to store shopping lists, phone number lists, schedules and etc. However, the additional ability to define a cell by other cells makes a spreadsheet much more useful. It can be used to store invoices, analyze data from scientific experiments, compute values for tax returns and much, much more.