Microsoft Excel Versions

MS Excel is an exciting software, which helps to perform data entry and analysis very fast. This software was first introduced in 1985 for the Macintosh version. Since then it had undergone several developments and modifications every year. The following are the different Windows versions of MS Excel:

• Version 1: This first version of MS Excel was released in 1985 for Macintosh and it lacked many features.

• Excel 2.0: Excel 2.0 was the first Windows version, which was released in 1987.

• Excel 3.0: This was the third version of Excel, which was released in 1990. The third version was much more advanced as compared to the previous versions because it was upgraded with features like toolbars, outlining, add-in support, drawing capabilities, 3D charts etc.

• Excel 4.0: The fourth version of Excel came with another useful feature called ‘auto-fill’ that enables the user to speed up the data entry process. Excel 4.0 was also regarded as the first popular version due to the addition of its new  user friendly features. It was released in 1992.

• Excel 5.0: The fifth version of Excel came with a major upgrade that is the inclusion of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and it helped to automate various excel tasks. This version became insecure and was affected by macro viruses due to the automation functionality. Since these macro viruses was not detected by anti-virus software, it became a huge problem. But later, several measures were taken by Microsoft to solve this issue.

• Excel 95 (v7.0): This was one of the important and stable versions of MS Excel after Excel 5.0. It was released in 1995 and was much faster compared to its previous versions.

• Excel 97 (v8.0): This is a more advanced version of excel and it is used as standard VBA in place of internal excel basic. It was included in Office 98 and used flight simulator as an Easter egg.

• Excel 2000 (v9.0): Excel 2000 came with many features like HTML companion file format, web-based collaboration and data sharing options, drag and drop features etc. It also featured auto fill option  and that  facilitated quick analysis of data.

• Excel 2002 (v10.0): Excel 2002 came with some outstanding features like voice dictation and voice-activated commands. It enabled the user to perform actions and tasks through voice commands.

• Excel 2003 (v11.0): The 11th version only had some minor upgrades and the introduction of new tables was important among them.

• Excel 2007 (v12.0): Excel 2007 was the most stable and widely used version of MS Excel. It introduced more user friendly interface, advanced chart and graph, XML file format options etc.

• Excel 2010 (v14.0): Excel 2010 was more advanced and came with several features like improved pivot tables, upgraded formatting options, limited image editing options etc. Moreover, it offered 64-bit support and many new formulas.

• Excel 2013 (v15.0): This version included many advanced tools like Flash Fill, Power View, Windows App, Timeline Slicer etc, and is available with Office 2013.

• Excel 2016 (v16.0): Excel 2016 is equipped with even more exciting features like Power Query Integration, Quick data linking options, new charts etc. and is available with Office 2016.