Telling Interactive, Self-Directed Stories with Spreadsheets

Abstract

A spreadsheet storytelling engine is provided. The spreadsheet storytelling engine may run in the context of a spreadsheet application on any device, service, or general endpoint capable of running the spreadsheet application. The spreadsheet storytelling engine allows for the authoring and telling of a story. The story is a collection of operations that guide the consumer through a spreadsheet. The story allows the spreadsheet to be used to convey visualizations, data, calculations, or other objects in a spreadsheet in a way that may be simple, pleasant to look at, and/or visually engaging to help a consumer understand the information and internalize it in a way that is actionable without requiring the real time availability of the spreadsheet author. The spreadsheet storytelling engine is useful for purposes including, but not limited to, making presentations, creating tutorials, validating data, explaining how a model works, and generating interactive business intelligence dashboards.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.