Microsoft Excel 2007 - Introduction to MS-Excel 2007, A First Look at Excel 2007
| Introduction to MS-Excel 2007 |
| Introduction |
| Microsoft Excel 2007 is the latest version of Microsoft Office's worksheet (spreadsheet) program. Technically a single document is called a worksheet inside a workbook but we often use the terms worksheet, spreadsheet and workbook interchangeably. |
| Worksheets include numerical information presented in tabular row and column format with text that labels the data. They can also contain graphics and charts. |
| Like Microsoft Word 2007, Excel 2007 takes advantage of a new, results-oriented user interface to make powerful productivity tools easily accessible. If you're worried about capacity, Excel 2007 now accommodates 1 million rows and 16,000 columns. |
| Why Use Microsoft Excel 2007? |
| With Excel 2007 you can analyze, manage and share information fast and easily to make more informed decisions. With the new user interface, rich data visualization, and PivotTable views, professional-looking charts are easier to create and use than ever before. |
| The introduction of a new technology called Excel Services (ships with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007), brings with it significant improvements to data sharing and security. By sharing a spreadsheet using Office Excel 2007 and Excel Services, you can navigate, sort, filter, input parameters, and interact with PivotTable views directly on the Web browser. |
| What's New in Excel 2007 |
| If you are a regular Excel 2003 user, you will probably have recently become aware of increasing numbers of people using Excel 2007. You may even have been sent Excel 2007 workbooks and had problems opening them. Whatever the case, it is likely that you will, at some point, consider switching to Excel 2007. But what are the main benefits of Excel 2007 vs Excel 2003, and how much effort will be involved in making the switch? |
| Number of Rows and Columns |
| One of the main developments in Excel 2007 is that it allows more columns and rows. For many users this may have never been a concern - after all, the 65,536 rows and 256 columns provided by Excel 2003 can accommodate a large amount of data. However, it isn't that unusual for users to want to handle HUGE amounts of data! Therefore Excel 2007's ability to handle over 1 million rows and over 16,000 columns of data is a great advantage for many users. |
| Conditional Formatting |
| Major changes have been introduced to Conditional Formatting in Excel 2007. These changes are: |
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. Excel 2007 allows as many different conditions as the user wishes to specify, whereas in Excel 2003, the user was limited to just 3 different conditional formats.
. Conditional formatting in Excel 2007 can even be made to work for cells that satisfy more than one condition. For example, if you set cells with values >= 10 to be formatted with bold text and cells with values and red text. . Excel 2007 offers new types of conditional formatting, such as Data Bars, Color Scales & Icon Sets, all of which apply color or symbols to a range of cells, depending upon each cell's value compared to the rest of the selected range. . Conditional formatting in Excel 2007 can be used on pivot tables. |
| At first, the Excel 2007 conditional formatting interface can appear to be fairly complicated, but the time invested in familiarizing yourself with this functionality is well worthwhile! |
| Other new functionality |
| There are a number of other really useful additions to Excel 2007. These include: |
| . Excel 2007 allows up to 64 levels of nested functions - this compares to just 7 in Excel 2003. . Excel 2007 allows you to sort and filter columns by color (either font color or cell shading) . Excel 2007, has a resizable formula bar, which extends in line with your cell contents. This prevents the inconvenience of long formulas covering up part of your spreadsheet (as happened in Excel 2003). . In Excel 2007, memory management has been increased from 1 gigabyte to 2 gigabytes and complex calculations are now faster. . Excel 2007 includes several new built-in functions. |
| How to Start Excel 2007 |
| Microsoft Office Excel 2007 provides several methods for starting and exiting the program. You can open Excel by using the Start menu or a desktop shortcut. When you want to exit Excel, you can do so by using the Office button, the Close button, or a keyboard shortcut. |
| Starting Excel 2007 from the Start menu |
| To start Excel 2007, |
| . choose Start . All Programs . Microsoft Office . Microsoft Office Excel 2007. |
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| A new, blank workbook appears, ready for you to enter data. |
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| Excel 2007 displays a new, blank workbook named Book1 when you start the program. |
| Application window of Excel 2007 |
| . Office button that when clicked opens the Office pull-down menu containing all the file-related commands, including Save, Open, Print, and Exit as well as the Excel Options button that enables you to change Excel's default settings. |
| . Quick Access toolbar that contains buttons you can click to perform common tasks such as saving your work and undoing and redoing edits and which you can customize by adding command buttons. |
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| . Ribbon that contains the bulk of the Excel commands arranged into a series of tabs from the Home tab through the View tab. |
| . Formula bar that displays the address of the current cell along with the contents of that cell. |
| . Worksheet area that contains all the cells of the current worksheet identified by column headings using letters along the top and row headings using numbers along the left edge. Tabs for selecting new worksheets appear in the lower-left of this area. You'll also find a horizontal scroll bar to move left and right through the sheet on the bottom and a vertical scroll bar to move up and down through the sheet on the right edge. |
| . Status bar that keeps you informed of the program's current mode, any special keys you engage, and enables you to select a new worksheet view and to zoom in and out on the worksheet. |
| The Excel 2007 program window that appears when you start the program. |
| Excel Help |
| 1)-Click the Microsoft Office Help button |
| 2)-In the upper right or the F1 key on your keyboard to open Help on your computer. |
| 3)-The first time you use the Help feature in Microsoft Office programs, the online Help window appears in a default location and size on your screen. |
| You can change the way the Help window is displayed. After that, when you open the Help window, the settings that you made are maintained. |
| A First Look at Excel 2007 |
| Excel 2007 Office Button |
| In the top-left corner of the Excel 2007 window, you find the Office button (the round button with the Office four-color icon), which provides access to common file-related commands. The Office button replaces the File menu from previous versions of Excel and also includes commands new to Excel 2007. |
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| Find the Office button in the upper-left corner of the Excel 2007 window. |
| When you click the Office button, a drop-down menu appears with all the commands you need for working with Excel workbook files, such as saving, opening, and closing files. If a command displays an arrow, point to the command to see a submenu of additional options. For example, the Save As command includes options for saving your Excel file in different file formats. |
| The Office menu also holds, in the lower-right, an Exit Excel button that you can click when you're ready to close the program. Next to that is an Excel Options button that you can click to change settings in Excel 2007, customize the Quick Access Toolbar, manage add-ins, and get in touch with Microsoft to keep Excel updated and running smoothly. |
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| Click the Office button to access file-related commands or change options in Excel 2007. |
| Quick Access Toolbar |
| The Quick Access toolbar in Microsoft Office Excel 2007 appears above the Ribbon, to the right of the Office button, and includes buttons for commands you use often. By default, the Quick Access toolbar contains only the Save, Undo, and Redo commands. |
| To display the Quick Access toolbar beneath the Ribbon, click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button (on the right end of the toolbar) and choose Show Below the Ribbon on the drop-down menu. |
| Add buttons to the Quick Access toolbar |
| You can click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button to easily add other common Excel 2007 commands to this toolbar. The resulting drop-down menu contains the following commands: New, Open, E-mail, Quick Print, Print Preview, Spelling, Sort Ascending, and Sort Descending. |
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| Use this menu to add common commands to the Quick Access toolbar. |
| To add any of these commands to the toolbar, simply click the option on the drop-down menu. Excel adds a button for that command to the end of the Quick Access toolbar (and a check mark to its option on the drop-down menu). |
| To add any Ribbon command to the Quick Access toolbar, right-click the command button on the Ribbon and then choose Add to Quick Access Toolbar on the shortcut menu. |
| The Title Bar |
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| Next to the Quick Access toolbar is the Title bar. On the Title bar, Microsoft Excel displays the name of the workbook you are currently using. At the top of the Excel window, you should see "Microsoft Excel - Book1" or a similar name. |
| The Ribbon |
| You use commands to tell Microsoft Excel what to do. In Microsoft Excel 2007, you use the Ribbon to issue commands. The Ribbon is located near the top of the Excel window, below the Quick Access toolbar. At the top of the Ribbon are several tabs; clicking a tab displays several related command groups. |
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| Within each group are related command buttons. You click buttons to issue commands or to access menus and dialog boxes. You may also find a dialog box launcher in the bottom-right corner of a group. When you click the dialog box launcher, a dialog box makes additional commands available. |
| Worksheets |
| Microsoft Excel consists of worksheets. Each worksheet contains columns and rows. The columns are lettered A to Z and then continuing with AA, AB, AC and so on; the rows are numbered 1 to 1,048,576. The number of columns and rows you can have in a worksheet is limited by your computer memory and your system resources. |
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| The combination of a column coordinate and a row coordinate make up a cell address. For example, the cell located in the upper-left corner of the worksheet is cell A1, meaning column A, row 1. Cell E10 is located under column E on row 10. You enter your data into the cells on the worksheet. |
| The Formula Bar |
| If the Formula bar is turned on, the cell address of the cell you are in displays in the Name box which is located on the left side of the Formula bar. Cell entries display on the right side of the Formula bar. If you do not see the Formula bar in your window, perform the following steps: |
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| 1. Choose the View tab. 2. Click Formula Bar in the Show/Hide group. The Formula bar appears. |
| The Status Bar |
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| The Status bar appears at the very bottom of the Excel window and provides such information as the sum, average, minimum, and maximum value of selected numbers. You can change what displays on the Status bar by right-clicking on the Status bar and selecting the options you want from the Customize Status Bar menu. You click a menu item to select it. You click it again to deselect it. A check mark next to an item means the item is selected. |
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