{"id":9392,"date":"2021-09-02T10:19:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T08:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.sheetgo.com\/?p=9392"},"modified":"2021-09-02T10:19:00","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T08:19:00","slug":"historia-de-las-hojas-de-calculo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheetgo.com\/es\/blog\/spreadsheets-tips\/history-of-spreadsheets\/","title":{"rendered":"Historia de las hojas de c\u00e1lculo"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The use of spreadsheets is synonymous with digital software and large online databases. But the spreadsheet has been organizing various aspects of our lives for hundreds of years. Nowadays, the spreadsheet is such an integral part of any computer that you won\u2019t often find one that doesn\u2019t already have some sort of spreadsheet software pre-installed. In fact, the boom in computer usage over the years may not have been so prominent without online spreadsheets.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at the history and evolution of spreadsheets and the vital role they play in our lives today.<\/p>\n

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Why is it called the spreadsheet?<\/h3>\n

The term spreadsheet might seem strange to those who associate it with only its digital capability. However, the spreadsheet is quite a literal reference to its original form hundreds of years ago.<\/p>\n

Back then, a spreadsheet was a ledger book full of huge sheets of paper that would quite literally spread across the table. Rows and columns divided these sheets for manually entering data using a pen or pencil.<\/p>\n

The original spreadsheet looks something like this:<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/static.sheetgo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Manual-Ledger.webp” alt=”History of Spreadsheets: A Typical Ledger” title_text=”spreadsheets-history-ledger” _builder_version=”4.16″ width=”640px” max_width=”640px” height=”440px” max_height=”440px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n

Accountants would primarily use these ledger books for a variety of finance-related scenarios that handled a lot of data. A whole spreadsheet could cover aspects such as accounts receivable, investments, inventory and expenses. Everything accountants needed to know was right there in one place, so they could easily make important decisions.<\/p>\n

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The history of spreadsheets<\/h3>\n

From hundreds of years ago to now, the spreadsheet has evolved from its humble beginnings to something that\u2019s powerful enough to help organize the operations of multi-billion dollar enterprises. After the rise of the digital revolution, its digital counterpart replaced the physical spreadsheet.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s explore the transformation of this new spreadsheet form in more detail.<\/p>\n

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Where it all began<\/h4>\n

Even though in the early 70s the first computer had been created along with electronic spreadsheet software such as LANPAR<\/a>, they didn\u2019t gain as much traction. Even though LANPAR could replace paper-based spreadsheets entirely, the computers were simply too costly, bulky, and scarce to the public.<\/p>\n

Instead, it wasn\u2019t until the late 70s and early 80s when the personal computer made its way into the market that the online spreadsheet really took off. VisCalc<\/a> was the first spreadsheet program for personal computers. Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston officially created VisCalc in 1979.\u00a0<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/static.sheetgo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/VisiCalc-History-of-Spreadsheets.webp” alt=”History of Spreadsheets: Spreadsheet Program VisiCalc” title_text=”spreadsheets-history” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.16″ width=”640px” max_width=”640px” height=”440px” max_height=”440px” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n

VisCalc came pre-installed on the Apple II computer<\/a>, which ended up creating a lot of excitement amongst home users. This led to many other companies following suit, including IBM, which came up with their own product – the IBM PC<\/a>. It was the spreadsheet utility that contributed to the skyrocket of the PC market that continued to thrive over the upcoming decades.<\/p>\n

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Propelling further<\/h4>\n

Spreadsheet software on personal computers was a monumental moment for many. However, during the early 80s, computers were still command-line operating machines. Spreadsheet programs such as SuperCalc<\/a>, Multiplan<\/a> and Lotus 1-2-3<\/a> were advanced enough; they just lacked the user-friendly nature like many operating systems at the time.<\/p>\n

Then came along the graphical user interface (GUI). This made handling programs such as spreadsheets much easier. Visual components replaced the text-dominated features across the entire software. This completely transformed the user-friendly nature of the spreadsheet and exponentially increased its use among home users. Excel 1.0<\/a> was the very first GUI-based spreadsheet program that Microsoft specifically built for Macintosh. Later on, they transitioned Excel to the Windows environment, and there was no looking back. Since then, Microsoft Excel has been the most dominant spreadsheet software over the last two decades.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/static.sheetgo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/History-of-Spreadsheet.png” alt=”history of spreadsheet Excel” title_text=”History of Spreadsheet” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n

Alternatives<\/h4>\n

Although Microsoft Excel has remained the ultimate spreadsheet software even today, there remain several notable competitor spreadsheet applications on the market. These include Apple\u2019s Numbers<\/a> (part of the iWork productivity suite), NeoOffice<\/a> spreadsheet and WPS<\/a> spreadsheet. There have also been a number of non-proprietary, free, open-source alternative applications such as OpenOffice.org<\/a>, Libre Office Calc<\/a>, Calligra Sheets<\/a> and Pyspread<\/a>.[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n

What’s happening with spreadsheets now?<\/h3>\n

Spreadsheets have come a long way over the past few decades, and they are continuing to become more intuitive, flexible and powerful than ever. In just the past few years, spreadsheet software now offers powerful analytical tools to turn data into useful insights. The most notable is their visual representation, that now helps businesses project future developments for their companies. Moreover, cloud-based spreadsheets are now a key part of many organizations. Google Sheets<\/a> offers the most popular free cloud-based spreadsheet program that now ranks number 2 in the world, just behind Microsoft\u2019s Excel. This has revolutionized the way businesses can work, allowing offline collaboration anywhere, increasing productivity for many.<\/p>\n

The latest phenomenon in the spreadsheet world is the automation of spreadsheet processes. Now, there are various tools available on the market to automate the collection, input and analysis of your data into spreadsheets, so you don\u2019t have to worry about a thing. The potential of these automation tools is almost limitless, too. Now, businesses can build and scale a variety of complex systems through the simple connection of spreadsheets. Businesses now have fully functioning CRM or ERP platforms, thanks to spreadsheets. With automation tools specialized in spreadsheets such as Sheetgo<\/a>, you can build workflows that will continue to automate themselves for any period of time. With intelligence like this, almost anything will be possible in the future\u2026<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/static.sheetgo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/History-of-Spreadsheet-\u2013-1.png” alt=”history of spreadsheet Sheetgo” title_text=”History of Spreadsheet \u2013 1″ align=”center” _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n

Spreadsheets have been a vital part of the online digital experience so far, and their constant evolution proves this genius software is here to stay.<\/p>\n

Do you want to discover the powerful automation of spreadsheets through Sheetgo? Take a look at our related articles below!<\/p>\n

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Editor\u2019s note<\/strong>: This is a revised version of a previous post that has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The use of spreadsheets is synonymous with digital software and large online databases. But the spreadsheet has been organizing various aspects of our lives for hundreds of years. Nowadays, the spreadsheet is such an integral part of any computer that you won\u2019t often find one that doesn\u2019t already have some sort of spreadsheet software pre-installed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":36230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"Spreadsheets are one of the widely used software programs on the planet today without an iota of doubt. Such is the ubiquity of these programs that almost anyone who worked on a computer may have tried them at least once. And almost every computer, regardless of the operating system, will probably have a copy of a spreadsheet program installed on it. The impact of these spreadsheet applications is so deep, that probably the personal computers became so prominent because of them. In this\u00a0article, we will look into the history of spreadsheets, and their evolution over time.\n

What's in the name?<\/h3>\nToday spreadsheets are synonymous with the software applications. But even in the good old days, before the advent of computers, spreadsheets were in use for hundreds of years. In the historical context, a spreadsheet\u00a0is a\u00a0ledger book with many 'spreadable' sheets of oversized paper. Rows and columns divided these papers for manually entering\/writing data using a pen or a pencil. A typical ledger looks like this.\n\n\"Manual\n\nIt lets us spread information such as costs, income, taxes, overheads etc. on a single sheet of paper for us to examine when making a decision. Accountants were predominant users of these manual spreadsheets.\n

History of Spreadsheets: It all began here...<\/h3>\nAlthough electronic spreadsheets such as LANPAR<\/a> was capable of fully replacing paper-based spreadsheets, they didn't gain as much traction. That was because the computers in the early 70s were extremely pricey, bulky and mostly out of reach of the general public. During the late 70s and early 80s, personal computers were making their way into the market. VisiCalc<\/a> was the first spreadsheet program for personal computers.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_9409\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"560\"]\"VisiCalc VisiCalc Spreadsheet Application on Apple II [Image Source - Wikipedia][\/caption]It shipped with Apple II<\/a>, and this combination created a lot\u00a0of buzz among the home users. So much so that many other companies followed the suit including IBM, which came up with their own product offering - IBM PC<\/a>. And what followed over the years in the field of personal computing, is for everyone to see. If not for the spreadsheet utility, probably the PC market might not have seen so much light.\n

Propelling further<\/h3>\nBy the early 80s, the spreadsheets on personal computers were already making waves.\u00a0But those computers were still command-line operating machines. Though spreadsheet programs such as SuperCalc<\/a>, Multiplan<\/a>, and\u00a0Lotus 1-2-3<\/a> were advanced enough at the time, they weren't as user-friendly, given the nature of underlying operating systems. Then came along the graphical user interface. It significantly fueled the use of spreadsheet applications because handling them got a lot easier. Excel 1.0<\/a> was the first GUI based spreadsheet program, that Microsoft specifically built for Macintosh. Later on, they ported it to the Windows environment, and there was no looking back. Microsoft Excel had been the most dominant spreadsheet software over the last two decades.\n

Alternatives<\/h3>\nWhile Microsoft Excel has been the best in business, there are other notable and active competitor applications like\u00a0Numbers<\/a> (part of Apple<\/a>'s iWork<\/a> productivity suite), Quattro Pro<\/a> (usually part of Corel<\/a>'s WordPerfect Office<\/a>\u00a0suite), NeoOffice<\/a>\u00a0spreadsheet, and\u00a0WPS<\/a> spreadsheet.\u00a0There has been a multitude of non-proprietary, free and open source alternative applications such as OpenOffice.org Calc<\/a>, LibreOffice Calc<\/a>, Calligra Sheets<\/a>, Pyspread<\/a> and\u00a0Gnumeric<\/a>.\n

What's cooking now?<\/h3>\nStarting with most basic arithmetic utilities, spreadsheets have come a long way. Both technically and functionally. Charting, image editing, pivot tables, smart art, custom scripting - are among notable advances. But what has been a downside to them is that they are confined to a single machine. In a real-life setting, multiple people handle a single spreadsheet. Therefore collaborating becomes a challenge if we handled the files from individual machines.\n\nCloud is the next big thing in computing space. By milking that and the internet technology, Google Sheets<\/a> has been pioneering the efforts to make the spreadsheets more flexible and collaborative. It is a free web-based software, independent of device, platform, and location. Just an internet connection and any modern-day browser would suffice to access the files from the cloud. We can store these spreadsheets online and manage\u00a0them across the team using\u00a0appropriate access controls. The best thing about Google Sheets is that it also lets us work offline<\/a>. This is particularly helpful for somebody who travels and works in the field during the day, with no internet connection.\n\nMicrosoft's\u00a0Office Online<\/a> suite,\u00a0Zoho Office Suite<\/a> are other notable product offerings in this space. While desktop-based spreadsheets continue to evolve, the real innovation is happening with web-based spreadsheets. They might even better the desktop applications one day - and it is very close.","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-9392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spreadsheets-tips","tag-spreadsheets"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheetgo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheetgo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheetgo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheetgo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheetgo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheetgo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheetgo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheetgo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheetgo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheetgo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}