The 754 specification is a very widely adopted specification that describes how floating-point numbers should be stored in a binary computer.
IEEE is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, an international body that, among other things, determines standards for computer software and hardware. Microsoft Excel was designed around the IEEE 754 specification to determine how it stores and calculates floating-point numbers. This may affect the results of some numbers or formulas because of rounding or data truncation. This article discusses how Microsoft Excel stores and calculates floating-point numbers.
