Other add-ins may be added to the Add-Ins tab.
After you install and activate the Euro Currency Tools, the Euro Conversion and Euro Formatting commands are displayed in the Solutions group.Īdd-Ins tab. After you install and activate the Analysis ToolPak and Solver add-ins, the Data Analysis and Solver commands are available in the Analysis group.įormulas tab. These must be installed for you to use them.Īfter you have installed or activated an add-in, the add-in and its commands may be available in one of the following locations:ĭata tab. Typically, you only need to activate these add-ins to use them.ĭownloadable add-ins Additional add-ins for Excel can be downloaded and installed from Downloads at .Ĭustom add-ins Developers and solution providers usually design custom Component Object Model (COM) add-ins, automation add-ins, VBA add-ins, and XLL add-ins. Some Excel add-ins, such as Solver and the Analysis ToolPak, may be available after you install Excel or Microsoft Office. Most add-ins can be categorized into three different types:Įxcel add-ins These typically include Excel add-in (.xlam), Excel 97-2003 add-in (.xla), or DLL add-in (.xll) files or they are automation add-ins. These add-ins must also be installed to use them. These can be Component Object Model (COM) add-ins, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) add-ins, and DLL add-ins.
Finally, there are add-ins that are created by third parties, such as a programmer in your organization or a software solution provider.
Other add-ins are available from the Download Center and must first be downloaded and installed. In fact, when you open a new file in Excel, you can search through thousands of premade templates across many categories.Some add-ins are built in to Excel, such as Solver and the Analysis ToolPak.
Then save the file with one of the Excel file extensions listed above for template format. If you find yourself creating a lot of spreadsheets that share the same formatting, formulas, or layout, a template can save you a great deal of time.Īll you have to do to create a template is set up your formatting, layouts, and other aspects of your worksheet that you don’t want to recreate every time. If you’re unfamiliar with Excel templates, it may be a good time to learn about and start using them. xltm: A macro-enabled Excel file that’s saved as a template xltx: An Excel file saved as a template to be used as a starting point for future Excel workbooks xlsb: Binary format Excel files (older version) that also support Excel macros xlsm: XML format Excel files that also support Excel macros Now that you understand the difference between XLS and XLSX, it’s a little bit easier to decipher what all of the other Excel file extensions mean. Secondly, Excel files with the XLS extension can be opened on every version of Excel, no matter how old. The first is that XLS files tend to save and open faster. You do get two advantages when you do this. If none of those advantages matter much to you, then you might be better off staying with the older default XLS Excel format. Microsoft claims XLSX files are 75 percent smaller than XLS files. Smaller: You can store more data in a smaller file when you use the XLSX format.Safer from corruption: XML formatted files are less susceptible to corruption or damage than binary files like XLS files are.Extensible: External applications or programs can manipulate the contents of the underlying XML format - this means programmers can create software to edit Excel spreadsheets without ever opening the Excel application itself.Interoperable: Office Open XML formatted files can more easily be pulled into other applications that can read Office XML formats.What were the advantages of switching to this new method of saving Excel spreadsheet information? There are many. This is a method of saving spreadsheet information in an XML file. With the release of Excel 2007, Microsoft changed the default to XLSX, which is based on the Office Open XML format. This was a proprietary file format created by Microsoft. XLS stores Excel spreadsheets in a file format known as Binary Interchange File Format. While Microsoft switching to the XLSX extension after Excel 2007 seems like a superficial naming convention change, the truth is that there was more change than just the file extension.
The following extension types are connected to the Excel versions shown here:Īs you can see, the *.xls file extension is the default legacy Excel format for all versions of excel prior to Excel 2007.įrom Excel 2007 onwards, the default file extension for any Excel file was (and remains) *.xlsx. The first group of file extensions are related primarily to which version of Excel the worksheet was saved with. As you can see, each of the file types have a descriptive name that helps with understanding what the file extension is for.