Microsoft Excel is a commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Pre-2007 versions of Excel use XLS as the primary format for saving files. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications. It has been a very widely applied spreadsheet for these platforms, especially since version 5 in 1993, and it has almost completely replaced Lotus 1-2-3 as the industry standard for spreadsheets. Excel forms part of Microsoft Office. The current versions are 2010 for Microsoft Windows and 2011 for Mac OS X.
Microsoft Excel up until 2007 version used a proprietary binary file format called Binary Interchange File Format (BIFF) as its primary format. Used as the basis for XLS files it is a persistence format that supports authoring and manipulating content in workbooks and workbook templates. Most versions of Microsoft Excel can read CSV, DBF, SYLK, DIF, and other legacy formats.
PNG pronounced ping is a format for storing bitmapped (raster) images on computers. It was created originally to replace the GIF file format when it was announced that the companies who created the GIF format wanted royalties. PNG uses indexed colors and lossless compression (like a .GIF file), but without those copyright limitations; it cannot be animated like a GIF image.
PNG images are in many ways better than .GIF as they also include an 8-bit transparency channel, which allows the colors in the image to fade from opaque to transparent; GIF images only support fully opaque or fully transparent pixels. PNG supports palettes of 24-bit RGB colors, RGB images or greyscale or RGB images. PNG was intended to be able to transfer images on the Internet, not professional graphics, and so does not support other colour spaces (such as CMYK).
Associated programs
Apple Preview Corel Paint Shop Pro GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program (LINUX) Microsoft Windows Photo Gallery Viewer Safari
