Chapter 1. Introduction
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## Chapter 1. Introduction

You may need to enable this feature by checking "Enable the Integrated Spreadsheet Engine" in Options → Preferences, General|Features section.

An easy to use and yet extremely powerful integrated spreadsheet engine is built into XMLmind XML Editor. This engine may be described as follows:

- It does not work by embedding an external spreadsheet component in the document. The XML document is the spreadsheet. That is, a formula can address any part of the XML document using XPath. (More information in Section 6, “XPath escapes”.)

- When an XML element is rendered on screen as a table, a formula can address table cells using the usual ``A1 notation'' (example: `"table1"!$A$1:$C$3`). If the formula is itself inside a table cell, it can even use relative cell references (example: `A1:C3`).

- The formula language and the predefined functions are very similar to those found in other spreadsheet software (Microsoft Office Excel, OpenOffice.org Calc, etc). Example: `"sum is " & SUM(A1:A3)`. More than 80 predefined functions are provided.

- A formula is represented by processing instruction `<?xxe-formula>`. Using such specific processing instructions is allowed by the XML standard. `<?xxe-formula>`s are ignored by XML software other than XXE.

You'll find a demo you can play with in ``XXE_install_dir`/demo/spreadsheet-demo.xhtml`.

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