# What do YOU think Excel is for? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 14, 2021, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092 "2021-05-14T17:29:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/21 "2021-05-14T20:06:45Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Office 365 Personal is $70/yr and that includes Word, Excel, Access, One Note, Power Point, a Premium [Outlook.com](http://Outlook.com) subscription, and 1TB of OneDrive storage. right, and so openoffice is $70 a year cheaper. > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > OpenOffice on the other hand was sunset in 2011 and is a no longer maintained product. > [@Max\_S](#): > > The project is still active under forks named Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffic I’ve used it since the 90’s, so I’ll probably just keep calling it OpenOffice. I also use GIMP rather than photoshop for my graphic design needs. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/22 "2021-05-14T20:06:48Z")
I generally don’t find it prudent to run no-longer supported software. But in line with the Dope on most things technology that isn’t surprising, since I know a huge % of the people here think it’s fine to continue using Windows XP and WIndows 7 years after they fell out of support as well. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/23 "2021-05-14T20:07:31Z")
You would have to be tremendously poor to consider $70/yr “a whole lot of money” as per your original comment. That’s not even dinner and drinks at a nice restaurant. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/24 "2021-05-14T20:08:14Z")
Op systems are up to date as is Virus Protections. There is no great reason to keep up with the latest version of Office (for Home Use). It isn’t the same thing as you well know. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/25 "2021-05-14T20:10:44Z")
I use Excel a lot for storing data, and in that project, I had the time series data in an Excel CSV. The modelling however was done in a custom made C++ program. I did build a micro AI in Excel using VBA to do anomalous building occupancy detection. I would not recommend it, but I had to do something that was completely self-contained and would be executable to anybody in the university, i.e. I could not simply build a program, or even use Matlab/R/etc. So… yeah, an AI in Excel. That was fun. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/26 "2021-05-14T20:10:47Z")
There’s actually security vulnerabilities that are, in fact, associated with office software. I would agree it is less important to update than Windows. Excel has added a lot of improved collaboration, cloud syncing and other options since 2010 as well which would seem silly to me to forego since I use them regularly and there is no real reason to use outdated software. But I have elderly relatives that used a version of Lotus1-2-3 running on an OS/2 machine from the 80s into the late 2000s, so it’s certainly not impossible to do, but not my cup of tea. I am not usually looking for antiques in my personal computing experience. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/27 "2021-05-14T20:11:05Z")
Originally, it and its brethren (Lotus, Visicalc, etc…) were designed to automate the functionality of the old-style paper spreadsheets that accountants and bookkeepers used for recording and calculating stuff. Over time, they’ve evolved into a sort of low-rent enviroment for handling data in tabular formats, with somewhat less emphasis on the actual spreadsheet functionality. I mean now it’s a spreadsheet, a visualization tool (graphs), and something of a low-rent development environment for manipulating tabular data. Back when I used to do more database work, I sometimes used it it to do stuff like format data- Excel’s actually surprisingly easy to use to do stuff like adding quotes and delimiters, and stripping blanks, etc… out of sketchy customer provided data, before trying to actually load it into a real database. What it _isn’t_, is a data storage tool, or a querying tool. I’ve seen WAY too many examples of people whipping and beating Excel into doing all sorts of stuff better done by a real (i.e. not MS Access) database with real queries, etc… On a small scale it’s not bad at it, but too many people don’t realize that there’s a point when they should punt and get specific software, instead of relying on 18 macros, 14 sheets in the spreadsheet, with 231 custom formulas to produce a handful of reports. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/28 "2021-05-14T20:11:14Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > It’s for costing you a whole lot more money than Open Office’s Calc. When I wrote Excel I meant to include Open Office and Libre Office’s forks in the question. Windows Office is not that expensive (as stated) but I personally do not like subscription models based on the cloud. I prefer to have the feeling that the stuff is in _my_ computer under _my_ control and will work even without internet access. I know it is an illusion, but I still like it better that way. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/29 "2021-05-14T20:11:36Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > There’s actually security vulnerabilities that are, in fact, associated with office software. Cite? > **[Microsoft Excel version 2010 : Security vulnerabilities, CVEs](https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-26/product_id-410/version_id-113875/Microsoft-Excel-2010.html)** > > Security vulnerabilities of Microsoft Excel version 2010 ~Max ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/30 "2021-05-14T20:12:09Z")
Closed on May 14, 2021, 8:12pm UTC ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/31 "2021-05-14T20:15:10Z")
**Modnote** : To a bunch of us, including myself. Any more talk of vulnerabilities and cost and cloud vs. on own machine should be moved off to its own thread if interested. We have a sidetrack going on here that is a distraction from the actual thread. Further as per the Op, he does mean all spreadsheets. So we have that covered too. Talk about what spreadsheets are used for not debate the merits of different spreadsheet and maintenance. **Will reopen in 5 minutes.** ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/32 "2021-05-14T20:17:05Z")
Opened on May 14, 2021, 8:17pm UTC ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/33 "2021-05-14T20:22:19Z")
I think Excel and similar products are some of the most diverse and impressive desktop software that you can just run and start working in with no real setup, and I think it scales up decently to fairly intensive work of a certain type. But I think part of the reason speadsheets get a bad reputation in the business world, at least sometimes, is that last part…“of a certain type.” The teams that try to replace relational database systems, professional marketing software, professional timekeeping and HR software etc with cumbersome spreadsheets end up eventually running into a lot of trouble and of course they’d have been a lot better off purchasing or building software more for those specific tasks. I’ve seen some very mission critical business processes tied into large enterprise databases that were basically being run by byzantine VBA code embedded in crazy excel sheets…and that is something you’d prefer to not see. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/34 "2021-05-14T20:31:17Z")
Excel has also proved very helpful to run Megapolls. Massive polls that use a round robin approach with 512 entries can be cumbersome to run manually. Load up the data fields and build macros and a VBA called GetURL to populate the Title and Subject portion of new threads and it becomes easy to mostly automate each competition with videos and/or hyperlinks embedded. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/35 "2021-05-14T20:33:10Z")
My husband has used it for everything from analyzing the metrics of our local school systems to tracking his action figure collection. He’s an advanced user so I’m not really sure what all he does with it, but he uses it _a lot._ I got him a mug that says _Oooh… This calls for a spreadsheet!_ I use it to plot novels. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/36 "2021-05-14T20:36:23Z")
I had completely forgotten the flight simulator! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/37 "2021-05-14T20:36:31Z")
I’ve used Excel automation to generate graphs dynamically for use on intranet pages. Feed the table of data to Excel, tell it to generate a graph, store the graph and link to it. It runs in real time, and performs perfectly well for an office intranet. There are better ways to do this technically, but excel has a lot of advantages. For example, it’s easy to edit the format of the graph for non-programmers, and you can leverage all of excel’s math power for complex calculations, regression, etc. Anyone who knows VBA and excel can maintain the system. You don’t have to buy expensive graphing tools. And it easily interoperates with other office programs so you can embed the graphs in word docs or powerpoints, etc. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/38 "2021-05-14T20:41:15Z")
Exactly. I’ve seen way too many examples of the MS Office suite tools being used for stuff WAY beyond their intended purposes, with the usually predictable results. Your example of mission-critical processes being run on spreadsheets is far too common; it’s usually cheapness that causes that. Someone would rather limp by on Excel than spend the money to get a real inventory system or whatever. But of course, when their Excel house-of-cards breaks, they’re screaming at IT to help them figure it out. From my perspective as an IT guy, the big issue is that it’s often devilishly hard to reverse engineer and as importantly, document why a monstrous and convoluted spreadsheet being used beyond Excel’s limits does what it does, and how it does what it does. Far too often, the sorts of places/departments that do that are also the sorts of places/departments that say things like “Well, Ron set that up.” Me: “Where’s Ron? I have some questions.” Them: “Oh, Ron’s been dead this past decade.” The trick is knowing when to pull the ejection handle and get to a real software package, but too few business people either let the IT people into their business workings, or know themselves when that point is. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/39 "2021-05-14T20:51:10Z")
Yeah, so? I spent most of my life on the tremendously side of poor. Do the poor not deserve spreadsheets? It may not be dinner and drinks at a nice restaurant, but I can feed 4 people for over a week on it. I don’t go to nice restaurants either. I could even make up a nice spreadsheet showing how much I save every year. I use it for a whole lot, and I’ve never encountered any lack of functionality. When I’ve used Excel, I have found that it’s not as intuitive. Maybe that’s just because I’ve used open office for 20+ years, but I don’t really see a benefit to paying to use a product that I will have to relearn. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/40 "2021-05-14T21:00:20Z")
Please see modnote above. > [@What do YOU think Excel is for?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092/31): > > Modnote: To a bunch of us, including myself. Any more talk of vulnerabilities and cost and cloud vs. on own machine should be moved off to its own thread if interested. We have a sidetrack going on here that is a distraction from the actual thread. Further as per the Op, he does mean all spreadsheets. So we have that covered too. Talk about what spreadsheets are used for not debate the merits of different spreadsheet and maintenance. Will reopen in 5 minutes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-excel-is-for/942092.md?page=3)