Microsoft Excel Versions

Excel has been around for 25 years. This article highlights key changes from the past decade

What our clients say

 Tim Hill
ENERGY
 Sean Murphy
CONSULTING
 Elaine Petkovsek
EDUCATION
I wanted to tell you how much I've enjoyed working on this project with you. Everyone loves this worksheet. Our pricing has never been so standardized Julie Hui, Chief Financial Officer of Pumpman Inc

If asked what spreadsheet package you use, you would probably answer Microsoft Excel. However, computers have developed a lot since Excel first launched in 1985. Our expert consultants understand the different capabilities of the different versions and are comfortable producing bespoke solutions for any of them.

Excel 2002, Excel 2003

These days, there are very few businesses who still run Excel 2000, or Excel 97. Excel 2002 is the original XP version of Excel and has very similar functionality to the latest releases. Before XP, Excel could not be fully integrated into the Windows experience e.g. you could not prompt a user to specify a file location using the regular Windows file browser.

Generally Excel 2002 is identical to 2003. Microsoft did add a few extra functions for 2003 such as "WORKDAY", although this only appeared in later releases. However, if you are trying to create spreadsheets for Excel 2003 in the more recent versions of Excel, you should save files in xls format and not the newer defaults e.g. xlsx or xlsm. The new file types can only be opened in earlier versions once a compatibility pack has been installed. Fortunately, the old xls format has very few downsides although the files tend to be slightly larger.

We also recommend not using too much color when developing files for early versions of Excel. Until Office 2007, Excel had a very limited color palette and, although it will attempt to color match, sometimes the results can be very ugly.

Excel 2007, Excel 2010

More recent versions of Excel are visually very different to the earlier versions. Instead of using a traditional menu bar, you can now select functions from a graphical ribbon at the top of the page. Despite that, under the skin, the functionality is remarkably similar to the older versions.

Perhaps the main improvement is that spreadsheets can now have more than 65536 rows and 256 columns. These days, the computing power exists to analyze a database with 100,000 names and Excel is now suitable for tackling this sort of problem.

The other key changes are in the default file formats and the color palette. Another default to have changed is the default font. Calibri replaced Arial as the default font in Office 2007. It tends to display smaller which is useful when trying to read across many columns. It also feels more modern

It is worth noting that some functions, such as show/hide sheet tabs and macro security settings, are not displayed on the ribbon so are less prominent than in earlier versions.

Excel 2007 and 2010 are very similar. The big changes to 2010 are mainly evolutionary steps as Microsoft seeks to move the entire Excel package online, especially through Sharepoint.

Excel for Mac

Excel was first developed for Macs in the mid-1980s. Unfortunately, Microsoft have since reduced their support for this competing operating system. Excel 2004 was essentially a re-packaged version of Excel 97 and so had a number of compatibility issues with the Windows version of the day.

Excel 2008 for Mac brought the user interface into line with the Vista version of the software but, crucially, Microsoft removed all Visual Basic support from their Office suite. This means that any scripts or forms developed in Windows can no longer be used on a Mac. For this reason, our consultants will often refuse to develop spreadsheets for Macs. With no way of writing macros, it becomes very difficult for an advanced user to take a spreadsheet any further than an intermediate user.


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What our clients say

 Tim Hill
ENERGY
 Sean Murphy
CONSULTING
 Elaine Petkovsek
EDUCATION
I wanted to tell you how much I've enjoyed working on this project with you. Everyone loves this worksheet. Our pricing has never been so standardized Julie Hui, Chief Financial Officer of Pumpman Inc