{"id":1286,"date":"2008-03-06T16:41:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-06T08:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vm-officeblogs.cloudapp.net\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/"},"modified":"2022-07-26T04:48:23","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T11:48:23","slug":"unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/","title":{"rendered":"Unusual (but cool!) Uses of Excel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many of you who have been using Excel for a long time\u00a0have most likely seen some\u00a0of the creative, interesting, and rather unusual uses of Excel that people have conjured up.\u00a0 I&#8217;m talking about things like <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/journals\/thumbs.ars\/2006\/10\/04\/5504\">writing the Pac-Man game completely in Excel<\/a>, stuff you wouldn&#8217;t expect to see in a critical business application like Excel, but thanks to the ingenuity of spreadsheet hackers we get to see how the power and flexibility of spreadsheets can be put to use.<\/p>\n<p>I was reminded of this today when a colleague forwarded me <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/developers.slashdot.org\/article.pl?sid=08\/03\/06\/1732220\">this Slashdot article<\/a> about someone who <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/feature\/3563\/microsoft_excel_revolutionary_3d_.php\">used Excel to create a 3D rendering engine<\/a>, and it got me wondering what other interesting uses have people come up with that I haven&#8217;t seen before.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve seen a quite a few of these in my time here on the Excel team, and I&#8217;m sure many of you have too.\u00a0 So let&#8217;s hear it!\u00a0 Tell me about the interesting, crazy, weird, unusual and cool spreadsheets you&#8217;ve come across or built that you never thought you&#8217;d see in Excel.<\/p>\n<p>This could be interesting.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many of you who have been using Excel for a long time\u00a0have most likely seen some\u00a0of the creative, interesting, and rather unusual uses of Excel that people have conjured up.\u00a0 I&#8217;m talking about things like writing the Pac-Man game completely in Excel, stuff you wouldn&#8217;t expect to see in a critical business application like Excel,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"content-type":[4035],"product":[4047,4036],"audience":[4101],"tags":[],"coauthors":[4437],"class_list":["post-1286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","content-type-tips-and-guides","product-excel","product-microsoft-365","audience-personal-and-family"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Unusual (but cool!) Uses of Excel | Microsoft 365 Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Unusual (but cool!) Uses of Excel | Microsoft 365 Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Many of you who have been using Excel for a long time\u00a0have most likely seen some\u00a0of the creative, interesting, and rather unusual uses of Excel that people have conjured up.\u00a0 I&#8217;m talking about things like writing the Pac-Man game completely in Excel, stuff you wouldn&#8217;t expect to see in a critical business application like Excel,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Microsoft 365 Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-03-06T08:41:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-07-26T11:48:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/cropped-microsoft_logo_element.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"512\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"512\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Microsoft 365 Marketing Team\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Microsoft 365 Marketing Team\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 min read\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/\"},\"author\":[{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/author\/the-microsoft-365-marketing-team\/\",\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@name\":\"The Microsoft 365 Marketing Team\"}],\"headline\":\"Unusual (but cool!) Uses of Excel\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-03-06T08:41:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-07-26T11:48:23+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/\"},\"wordCount\":195,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/\",\"name\":\"Unusual (but cool!) Uses of Excel | Microsoft 365 Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-03-06T08:41:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-07-26T11:48:23+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Unusual (but cool!) Uses of Excel\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Microsoft 365 Blog\",\"description\":\"Microsoft 365 brings together Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security. It delivers a complete, intelligent, and secure solution to empower people.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Microsoft 365 Blog\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/08\/ms-logo-amp.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/08\/ms-logo-amp.png\",\"width\":279,\"height\":60,\"caption\":\"Microsoft 365 Blog\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Unusual (but cool!) Uses of Excel | Microsoft 365 Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Unusual (but cool!) Uses of Excel | Microsoft 365 Blog","og_description":"Many of you who have been using Excel for a long time\u00a0have most likely seen some\u00a0of the creative, interesting, and rather unusual uses of Excel that people have conjured up.\u00a0 I&#8217;m talking about things like writing the Pac-Man game completely in Excel, stuff you wouldn&#8217;t expect to see in a critical business application like Excel,","og_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/","og_site_name":"Microsoft 365 Blog","article_published_time":"2008-03-06T08:41:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-07-26T11:48:23+00:00","og_image":[{"width":512,"height":512,"url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/cropped-microsoft_logo_element.webp","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"The Microsoft 365 Marketing Team","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"The Microsoft 365 Marketing Team","Est. reading time":"1 min read"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/"},"author":[{"@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/author\/the-microsoft-365-marketing-team\/","@type":"Person","@name":"The Microsoft 365 Marketing Team"}],"headline":"Unusual (but cool!) Uses of Excel","datePublished":"2008-03-06T08:41:00+00:00","dateModified":"2022-07-26T11:48:23+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/"},"wordCount":195,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#organization"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/","url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/","name":"Unusual (but cool!) Uses of Excel | Microsoft 365 Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-03-06T08:41:00+00:00","dateModified":"2022-07-26T11:48:23+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/2008\/03\/06\/unusual-but-cool-uses-of-excel\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Unusual (but cool!) Uses of Excel"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/","name":"Microsoft 365 Blog","description":"Microsoft 365 brings together Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security. It delivers a complete, intelligent, and secure solution to empower people.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#organization","name":"Microsoft 365 Blog","url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/08\/ms-logo-amp.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/08\/ms-logo-amp.png","width":279,"height":60,"caption":"Microsoft 365 Blog"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}}]}},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Microsoft 365 Blog","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"content-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-type?post=1286"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=1286"},{"taxonomy":"audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/audience?post=1286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1286"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-365\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}