It is a tabular type structure made up of rows and columns that enables to organize and manipulate the data in tabular manner. Spreadsheet is also referred to as worksheet.
Electronic Spreadsheet
Computer based application that provides a tabular type environment to organize and manipulate the data in tabular form is known as Electronic Spreadsheet. It provides a powerful working environment to perform detailed analysis on numerical data. The analysis is done by defining formulae to perform calculation on set of data, link different sheets and present in the form of graph. One of the powerful features of electronic spreadsheet is that it recalculates the result of a mathematical formula automatically if the source data changes.
Some of the popularly used electronic spreadsheet packages are LOTUS-1-2-3, Quattro Pro, MS-EXCEL etc.
Features of Electronic Spreadsheet
¨ It is GUI – based spreadsheet package. It has toolbars, shortcut menus, auto-correct, online help and Wizards like other Windows applications that make easy and efficient use of it.
¨ It has workbook that holds number of worksheets that reduces the need to maintain different files.
¨ Its auditing feature can be used to relate formulae in different cells and locate the source of a calculation error.
¨ You can create data entry forms within a spreadsheet.
¨ It contains powerful tools that help in data analysis.
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel (Excel) is an electronic spreadsheet package developed by Microsoft Corporation. It allows us to powerful environment to calculate and manipulate numerical type data and analysis on that. It has the following features: organizing, sorting, analyzing, presenting result of tabular data in graphical symbol (i.e. pie chart, bar diagram, area chart etc.), using functions and automatic recalculation.
