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Microsoft Excel

Classic Microsoft Office program that allows users to create and edit spreadsheets

5.8

3193 Votes

  • Category Office Suites
  • Program license Paid
  • Version 2021
  • Works under: Windows 11
  • Program available in English
  • Program by Microsoft

Microsoft Excel 2013 is an updated version of Excel from earlier versions of Microsoft Office, and it provides powerful spreadsheet utility and database processing tools.

Microsoft Excel 2013 might be the most robust application in the Office 2013 suite, and Excel has famously been one of the primary reasons for businesses to invest in the software set. Those that understand the full breadth of the app can use it to its full potential, and there is a lot of potential hiding deep in the program. Excel 2013 is a big step forward from older versions that were wildly unintuitive and difficult to manage. The goal for Excel 2013 was to make the software easier to use without sacrificing any of the powerful utility, and while there is still room for advancement on the ease-of-use front, it is certainly a step in the right direction.

As a user enters data into the app, Excel 2013 instantly starts to detect what sort of data is being given. By focusing on the type of data, the app can then make suggestions for ways to showcase the information in a comprehensive and understandable way. In many cases, the information collected by the app is enough to allow for an automatically generated PivotTable, if the user so chooses.

Another new feature that is meant to help with the overall complexity of the app is Flash Fill, which is a tool for reformatting data into a more understandable format. Using Flash Fill, all entered data will be sorted into columns automatically. This makes it dramatically easier to organize data, and it may very well be the feature that draws new users from older versions of Excel.

Something else that users with experience using older versions of Excel will notice is that Excel 2013 is much more smooth and organic than traditional Microsoft programs. The software takes advantage of tiny animations to make tools feel more relatable, and the idea seems to have sprung from the Windows Phone 8, which uses similar animations. These tiny transitions might not seem like a huge difference, but they have the ability to make the app feel more accessible and less structured. None of the animations are distracting in any way, but instead they help the user focus on the task at hand.

Unfortunately for users who don't like the Ribbon Interface introduced in 2008, it is still present in Excel 2013, but it has been updated tremendously and is now much more usable. Every icon has been given an aesthetic upgrade so they are easier to differentiate, and they have been regrouped into more intuitive bunches. Excel 2013 can even use web services linked to a Microsoft account to fetch photos from the internet. There is little hassle in setting up Excel to do this, and it will automatically populate the app with data from a Microsoft account selected by the user.

Pros
  • Comprehensive Error Messages
  • Intuitive, Redesigned Interface
  • Data Presentation Suggestions
  • Online Photo Insertion
  • Automatic PivotTables
Cons
  • Intimidating Number of Features
  • Difficult for Novice Users
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