Microsoft Excel’s 35th birthday

Excel remains one of my most used pieces of software, and one where I feel like any education/training has re-paid for itself multiple times over. The more you learn, the more productive you are (and sometimes more informed, thanks to data visualizations).

OneNote (desktop) and Excel are the only two pieces of Microsoft Office that I regularly continue to use. They're the only reason I license it.

Microsoft Word after I graduated rarely gets used (typesetting? I don't even print!), and while I understand the value of Microsoft Access, I feel like using it is investing effort into a dead-end (i.e. people want online/real-time reports, not locked into a desktop software). PowerPoint, at least where I work, is almost a meme (as in "Power Point meeting" is a pejorative implies waste of time meeting).

As to Excel: Hopefully it won't take another 35 years for them to fix CSV opening so it doesn't auto-format long numbers into scientific notion or dates, then cause unrecoverable data loss when you save. If you don't know what the data format is DON'T GUESS!

Re: Microsoft Excel’s 35th birthday

#6

Post by mikece » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 2:28 PM UTC

The most proper way to celebrate this milestone is to publish a memo that was written in Excel itself.

Re: Microsoft Excel’s 35th birthday

#7

Post by contradictioned » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

Excel is the "database scripting language" as I like to call it. Very flexible, just do what you want and see a quick result.

Re: Microsoft Excel’s 35th birthday

#8

Post by jdsully » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

The team behind Excel is top notch. I learned so much from my boss and coworkers during my time there.

Re: Microsoft Excel’s 35th birthday

#9

Post by M4v3R » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

yssrn wrote: post #3

https://twitter.com/badnetworker/status/1311440209326866432

yeah they're in on this joke: https://twitter.com/msexcel/status/1311497468559974400

Re: Microsoft Excel’s 35th birthday

#10

Post by xnx » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 2:34 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #5

Excel remains one of my most used pieces of software, and one where I feel like any education/training has re-paid for itself multiple times over. The more you learn, the more productive you are (and sometimes more informed, thanks to data visualizations). OneNote (desktop) and Excel are the only two pieces of Microsoft Office that I regularly continue to use. They're the only reason I license it. Microsoft Word afte…

> As to Excel: Hopefully it won't take another 35 years for them to fix CSV opening so it doesn't auto-format long numbers into scientific notion or dates, then cause unrecoverable data loss when you save. If you don't know what the data format is DON'T GUESS!

Amen! Also removing the leading zeros from US ZIP codes.