What's New in MS Excel 2007?

The latest version of MS Excel promises plenty of updates that Microsoft refers to as their new "results-oriented user interface" - making it easier to use commands and features that were often buried in menus and toolbars in earlier versions. Dialog boxes are replaced with drop-down galleries to assist in choosing the right option. However, new users are finding it difficult, to say the least, getting used to this new and "improved" version. Some people just don't like change.

How to Get Acclimated

One way to get acclimated to the new layout of the program is to understand the grouping of commands and menus that are included under each tab heading - as you can see in the diagram below.

Number one indicates the Home tab. Number two indicates the Font task located in the Home tab. And number three represents a subtask, the Bold text, which is part of the Font group. The command buttons in each group activate a command or give you a pull-down menu to select from - this appears and functions the same as in Microsoft Excel 2003.

Another way to get acclimated, as with any program, is to use the Help feature if you have a hard time figuring out where to find a command button. It's that little blue circle with the question mark inside of it in the upper-right corner.

The Microsoft Office Button

This button has taken the place of the File menu and is located in the upper-left corner. This is where you would open, save, and print a file in MS Excel 2003.

The Home Tab

The Home tab is where you will find all your basic day-to-day formatting tasks that you would typically add to the toolbar in MS Excel 2003. Here you can cut and paste, change font color and typeset, change style headings, and select text.

More Rows and Columns

Allowing use of massive amounts of data, MS Excel 2007 supports up to 1 million rows and 16 thousand columns per worksheet. The grid is 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns, which provides you with 1,500% more rows and 6,300% more columns than what was available in MS Office Excel 2003. Columns now end at XFD instead of IV. Memory management has also been expanded from 1 GB of memory in MS Excel 2003 to 2 GB in MS Excel 2007 for performance improvement.

Themes and Styles

Data can quickly be formatted in a worksheet by applying a theme and by using a specific style. Themes can be shared across other 2007 Office release programs, such as MS Word and MS PowerPoint. Styles are designed to change the format of Excel-related items, such as tables, charts, PivotTables, shapes, or diagrams.

When you want to create a theme, the font, color, and fill effects can be changed individually so that you can make changes to any single option or all of them. They can help you create documents that look highly impressive. You can use a theme either provided by your company or one that is predefined in Excel. Likewise, you can customize a style applied to the overall look of tables, charts, PivotTables, shapes, or diagrams if predefined styles don't meet your requirements, but you won't be able to create your own chart styles.
Similar to MS Excel 2003, cell styles can be used to format selected cells, but you can now do this more efficiently by applying a predefined cell style.

Formula Writing Made Easier

The formula bar automatically readjusts to accommodate longer, complex formulas. This keeps the formulas from hiding other data in your worksheet. More levels of nesting can also be written in longer formulas than you could in earlier versions of Excel. And with the Function AutoComplete feature, you can quickly write the proper formula syntax. It easily detects the function that you want and helps to complete the formula arguments allowing you to get formulas right the first time and every time.

The Help Feature

You'll want to make sure you're familiar with this feature as it will be your best friend until you get comfortable with the new environment. The Office Assistant - the animated paper clip with the funny face to whom you could ask help questions in MS Excel 2003 - is not included in MS Excel 2007. So remember, the Help feature is that little blue circle with the question mark inside of it in the upper-right corner.