Microsoft Excel is a member of the spreadsheet family of software. Spreadsheet software is used to store information in columns and rows which can then be organized and/or processed. Spreadsheets are designed to work well with numbers but often include text. Sometimes text in a spreadsheet is called a label, because it is labeling columns and rows of numbers. Numbers are called values sometimes, and can include numbers for counts or measurements, dates, times, and calculations from numbers. Spreadsheets can help organize information, like alphabetizing a list of names or other text or reordering records according to a numeric field. However, spreadsheets are more often used for calculating, such as totaling a column of numbers or generating a more sophisticated formula to calculate some statistical measure on a list of numbers.

Spreadsheets and databases are in competition and have similar features. Yet the way they work in the background is different. When you work in a spreadsheet, you view the data you are entering as a section. In a database, you only see the data you are entering - you have to request a report or different display to see more of the information. Other differences are:

(1) databases are more often used for applications with long textual entries,
(2) very large applications (thousands of entries) are more often handled in databases; and
(3) spreadsheets are easier to learn to use and get calculations from than a database program.

List of applications that can be done in spreadsheets are for example: budgeting displays, checkbook registers, enrollment records, inventories, coded surveys, field and laboratory research data, and financial and accounting applications.
The capacities of Excel are as follows: you can have 256 columns of information. You can have up to 16,384 rows. That comes out to over 4,194,000,000 cells of information and that's only on the first sheet! You can have 16 sheets of information in one workbook, and the number of sheets can be increased, if needed. Excel refers to each file as a workbook, because there can be multiple sheets (pages) in one file.

Tools and Features of Excel's
Application Window

The application window area contains five rows or lines of command menus which can be used to act upon the information found in the document window. These command menus display command words and graphic icons. These menus include the title bar (at the very top) followed by the menu bar, the Standard toolbar, the Formatting toolbar, the Formula bar, and the Status bar. The function of each of these is as follows:
Title Bar

Displays the name of the application "Microsoft Excel." The control menu box is on the far left and the minimize/maximize or restore buttons on the far right. These are standard Windows features, and you can consult the Windows manual for additional information.
Menu Bar

Displays the main level commands. These commands can be executed with a click of the left mouse button; then additional command options are presented in pull-down menus. The commands FILE, EDIT, VIEW, WINDOW and HELP are common menu options found in other Windows applications.
Toolbars

There are two toolbars which normally display--the Standard toolbar and the Formatting toolbar. The toolbars have graphic icon buttons which can be mouse clicked to perform an action or bring up another set of menus. The actions performed by the toolbar buttons are also found in the menu bar/pull-down menus. Buttons are popular with Excel users because they give a quick way to perform an action but it is not necessary to use them. Because the buttons duplicate menu items, there are often several ways to "perform an action."

Examples of tool bars:
New Workbook (results in a blank document)
Open (workbook/file)
Save (workbook/file)
Print
AutoSum (to add up numbers in a row or column)
Undo (un-does the last editing action)
Formula/Address/ Bar