Microsoft improved Excel manual calculation model to mark "obsolete" data with delete lines

CTOnews.com August 9, Microsoft announced in a recent blog post that it will improve the manual computing model in Excel spreadsheet applications.

CTOnews.com Note: manual computing is the oldest feature of spreadsheet applications, dating back to the VisiCalc app in 1979 (44 years ago), six years before Microsoft released Excel.

There are two modes of automatic calculation and manual calculation in Excel. Normally, Excel is in automatic calculation mode:

In automatic calculation mode: when the formula or calculation item changes, the recalculation of the formula is immediately triggered, and the result is always up-to-date.

In contrast to the manual mode, the change in the calculated item does not immediately trigger the formula recalculation, but only when the adjustment is publicized or the file is saved.

In manual calculation mode, the shortcut key to refresh the calculation result is: F9.

Microsoft said in its blog post:

The manual calculation mode pauses the calculation, which means that the value in the cell may be out of date, which Microsoft calls stale.

When editing cells in a spreadsheet, not all cells become obsolete, only those that depend on your changes become obsolete.

The blog added that while Excel does track these "stale" cells, users cannot visually see which cells are stale and which are not.

Microsoft then added a format called "Stale Value Formatting" to Excel, which can "delete lines" to display these "stale" cell data.