The most common spreadsheet program, by a wide margin, is Microsoft Excel (MS Excel). There have been several releases of MS Excel that run on the Windows operating system and on the Macintosh operating system. Versions of MS Excel released prior to 2007 save files in a proprietary format. The format is indicated by a period and a three-letter extension—.xls—that is automatically attached to the file when it is saved. Beginning with MS Excel 2007 for Windows and MS Excel 2008 for Macintosh, files are saved using a different format that is indicated by a period and a four-letter extension—.xlsx—that identifies the newer format.
Almost all spreadsheet programs have the ability to save files in the .xls file format, and it is a common standard for spreadsheet files. Newer versions of spreadsheet programs, including MS Excel 2007 and MS Excel for Mac 2008 can save files in the older .xls format. There are a few new basic features in MS Excel 2007 that would be lost by saving files to the older file format.
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