Editing Spreadsheet (section)

== Basics ==
[[File:Python demo - spreadsheet.png|thumb]]
LANPAR, available in 1969,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ms--K3jipt4C&q=LANPAR&pg=PT149|title=The Grid Book|last=Higgins|first=Hannah|date=2009-01-01|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=9780262512404|language=en}}</ref> was the first electronic spreadsheet on mainframe and time sharing computers. LANPAR was an acronym: LANguage for Programming Arrays at Random.<ref name=":0" /> [[VisiCalc]] (1979) was the first electronic spreadsheet on a microcomputer,<ref>[http://www.informationweek.com/whats-the-greatest-software-ever-written/d/d-id/1046033? Charles Babcock, "What's The Greatest Software Ever Written?", ''Information Week'', 11 Aug 2006] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170625181757/http://www.informationweek.com/whats-the-greatest-software-ever-written/d/d-id/1046033 |date=25 June 2017 }}. Accessed 25 June 2014</ref> and it helped turn the [[Apple II]] into a popular and widely used personal computer. [[Lotus 1-2-3]] was the leading spreadsheet when [[DOS]] was the dominant operating system.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Executive computer; Lotus 1-2-3 Faces Up to the Upstarts |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/13/business/the-executive-computer-lotus-1-2-3-faces-up-to-the-upstarts.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm | access-date=2012-10-14| website=[[NYTimes.com]] |publisher=[[The New York Times Company]] | date= 1988-03-13 | first=Peter H. | last=Lewis |quote=Release 3.0 is being written in the computer language known as C, to provide easy transportability among PCs, Macs and mainframes.}}</ref> [[Microsoft Excel]] now has the largest market share on the [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]] and [[macOS|Macintosh]] platforms.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1795 |title=Rivals Set Their Sights on Microsoft Office: Can They Topple the Giant?&nbsp;–Knowledge@Wharton |publisher=Wharton, University of Pennsylvania |access-date=2010-08-20}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.utdallas.edu/%7Eliebowit/book/sheets/sheet.html |title=spreadsheet analysis from winners, losers, and Microsoft |website=Utdallas.edu |access-date=2010-08-20 |archive-date=2010-07-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100723125259/http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/book/sheets/sheet.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.utdallas.edu/%7Eliebowit/book/wordprocessor/word.html |title=A |website=Utdallas.edu |access-date=2010-08-20 |archive-date=2010-08-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100805133621/http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/book/wordprocessor/word.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> A spreadsheet program is a standard feature of an [[Productivity software|office productivity suite]]. In 2006 Google launched a beta release spreadsheet  [[web application]], this is currently known as [[Google Sheets]] and one of the applications provided in [[Google Drive]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Arrington |first=Michael |date=11 Oct 2006 |title=Google "Docs & Spreadsheets" Launches |url=https://techcrunch.com/2006/10/10/google-docs-spreadsheets-launches/ |access-date=8 July 2023 |website=TechCrunch}}</ref>

A spreadsheet consists of a table of ''cells'' arranged into rows and columns and referred to by the X and Y locations. X locations, the columns, are normally represented by letters, "A," "B," "C," etc., while rows are normally represented by numbers, 1, 2, 3, etc. A single cell can be referred to by addressing its row and column, "C10". This electronic concept of cell references was first introduced in LANPAR (Language for Programming Arrays at Random) (co-invented by Rene Pardo and Remy Landau) and a variant used in VisiCalc and known as "A1 notation". 
Additionally, spreadsheets have the concept of a ''range'', a group of cells, normally contiguous. For instance, one can refer to the first ten cells in the first column with the range "A1:A10". LANPAR innovated forward referencing/natural order calculation which didn't re-appear until Lotus 123 and Microsoft's MultiPlan Version 2.

In modern spreadsheet applications, several spreadsheets, often known as ''worksheets'' or simply ''sheets'', are gathered together to form a ''workbook''. A workbook is physically represented by a file containing all the data for the book, the sheets, and the cells with the sheets. Worksheets are normally represented by tabs that flip between pages, each one containing one of the sheets, although [[Numbers (spreadsheet)|Numbers]] changes this model significantly. Cells in a multi-sheet book add the sheet name to their reference, for instance, "Sheet 1!C10". Some systems extend this syntax to allow cell references to different workbooks.

Users interact with sheets primarily through the cells. A given cell can hold data by simply entering it in, or a formula, which is normally created by preceding the text with an equals sign. Data might include the string of text <code>hello world</code>, the number <code>5</code> or the date <code>10-Sep-97</code>. A formula would begin with the equals sign, <code>=5*3</code>, but this would normally be invisible because the display shows the ''result'' of the calculation, <code>15</code> in this case, not the formula itself. This may lead to confusion in some cases.

The key feature of spreadsheets is the ability for a formula to refer to the contents of other cells, which may, in turn, be the result of a formula. To make such a formula, one replaces a number with a cell reference. For instance, the formula <code>=5*C10</code> would produce the result of multiplying the value in cell C10 by the number 5. If C10 holds the value <code>3</code> the result will be <code>15</code>. But C10 might also hold its formula referring to other cells, and so on.

[[File:20241229 Using concatenate function in spreadsheet to create SVG code - demo.svg|thumb|upright=2| A spreadsheet's [[concatenation]] ("&") function can be used to assemble complex text strings in a single cell (in this example, [[XML]] code for an [[SVG]] "circle" element). This concatenation is a variation of the chaining of formulas, for which spreadsheets are commonly used.]]
The ability to chain formulas together is what gives a spreadsheet its power. Many problems can be broken down into a series of individual mathematical steps, and these can be assigned to individual formulas in cells. Some of these formulas can apply to ranges as well, like the <code>SUM</code> function that adds up all the numbers within a range.

Spreadsheets share many principles and traits of [[database]]s, but spreadsheets and databases are not the same things. A spreadsheet is essentially just one table, whereas a database is a collection of many tables with [[Machine-readable medium|machine-readable]] semantic relationships. While it is true that a workbook that contains three sheets is indeed a file containing multiple tables that can interact with each other, it lacks the [[relational model|relational structure]] of a database. Spreadsheets and databases are interoperable—sheets can be [[import and export of data|imported]] into databases to become tables within them, and database queries can be exported into spreadsheets for further analysis.

A spreadsheet program is one of the main components of an [[office suite|office productivity suite]], which usually also contains a [[word processor]], a [[presentation program]], and a [[database]] management system. Programs within a suite use similar commands for similar functions. Usually, sharing data between the components is easier than with a non-integrated collection of functionally equivalent programs. This was particularly an advantage at a time when many personal computer systems used text-mode displays and commands instead of a [[graphical user interface]].