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Microsoft Excel 2007 New Features |
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The new results-oriented user interface makes
it easy for you to work in Microsoft Office Excel. Commands
and features that were often buried in complex menus and toolbars
are now easier to find on task-oriented tabs that contain logical
groups of commands and features. Many dialog boxes are replaced
with drop-down galleries that display the available options,
and descriptive tooltips or sample previews are provided to
help you choose the right option.
No matter what activity you are performing in the new user interface
- whether it's formatting or analyzing data - Excel presents
the tools that are most useful to successfully complete that
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More Rows and Columns and new elements
- To enable you to explore massive amounts of data in worksheets,
Office Excel 2007 supports up to 1 million rows and 16 thousand
columns per worksheet. Specifically, the Office Excel 2007
grid is 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns, which provides
you with 1,500% more rows and 6,300% more columns than you
had available in Microsoft Office Excel 2003. For those
of you that are curious, columns now end at XFD instead
of IV.
- Instead of 4 thousand types of formatting, you can now
use an unlimited number in the same workbook, and the number
of cell references per cell are increased from 8 thousand
to limited by available memory.
- To improve the performance of Excel, memory management
has been increased from 1 GB of memory in Microsoft Office
You will also experience faster calculations in large, formula-intensive
worksheets because Office Excel 2007 supports dual-processors
and multithreaded chipsets.
- Office Excel 2007 also supports up to 16 million colors.
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Themes and Styles
- In Office Excel 2007, you can quickly format the data
in your worksheet by applying a theme and by using a specific
style. Themes can be shared across other 2007 Office release
applications, such as Microsoft Office Word and Microsoft
Office PowerPoint, while styles are designed to change the
format of Excel-specific items, such as Excel tables, charts,
PivotTables, shapes, or diagrams.
- Applying a theme
A theme is a predefined set of colors, fonts, lines, and
fill effects that can be applied to your entire workbook
or to specific items, such as charts or tables. They can
help you create great-looking documents. Your company may
be providing a corporate theme that you can use, or you
can choose from the predefined themes that are available
in Excel. It's also easy to create your own theme for a
uniform, professional look that can be applied to all of
your Excel workbooks and other 2007 Office release documents.
When you create a theme, the color, font, and fill effects
can be changed individually so that you can make changes
to any or all of these options.
- Using styles
A style is a predefined theme-based format that you can
apply to change the look of Excel tables, charts, PivotTables,
shapes, or diagrams. If built-in predefined stylesdon't
meet your needs, you can customize a style. For charts,
you can choose from many predefined styles, but you cannot
create your own chart styles.
- As in Excel 2003, cell styles are used to format selected
cells, but you can now quickly apply a predefined cell style.
Most cell styles are not based on the theme that is applied
to your workbook, and you can easily create your own.
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Rich conditional formatting
In 2007 Office release, you can use conditional formatting to
visually annotate your data for both analytical and presentation
purposes. To easily find exceptions and spot important trends
in your data, you can implement and manage multiple conditional
formatting rules that apply rich visual formatting in the form
of gradient colors, data bars, and icon sets to data that meets
those rules. Conditional formats are also easy to apply-in
just a few clicks, you can see relationships in your data that
you can use for your analysis purposes.
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Easy formula writing
The following improvements make formula writing much easier
in Office Excel 2007.
Resizable formula bar: The formula bar automatically
resizes to accommodate long, complex formulas, which prevents
the formulas from covering other data in your worksheet. You
can also write longer formulas with more levels of nesting than
you could in earlier versions of Excel.
Function AutoComplete: With Function AutoComplete,
you can quickly write the proper formula syntax. From easily
detecting the functions that you want to use to getting help
completing the formula arguments, you will be able to get
formulas right the first time and every time.
Structured references: In addition to cell references,
such as A1 and R1C1, Office Excel 2007 provides structured
references that reference named ranges and tables in a formula.
Easy access to named ranges: By using the Office Excel
2007 name manager, you can organize, update, and manage multiple
named ranges in a central location, which helps anyone who needs
to work on your worksheet interpret its formulas and data.
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New OLAP formulas and cube functions
When you work with multidimensional databases (such as SQL Server
Analysis Services) in Office Excel 2007, you can use OLAP formulas
to build complex, free form, OLAP data bound reports. New cube
functions are used to extract OLAP data (sets and values) from
Analysis Services and display it in a cell. OLAP formulas can
be generated when you convert PivotTable formulas to cell formulas
or when you use AutoComplete for cube function arguments when
you type formulas.
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Improved sorting and filtering
In Office Excel 2007, you can quickly arrange your worksheet
data to find the answers that you need by using enhanced filtering
and sorting. For example, you can now sort data by color and
by more than 3 (and up to 64) levels. You can also filter data
by color or by dates, display more than 1000 items in the AutoFilter
drop-down list, select multiple items to filter, and filter
data in PivotTables.
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Excel table enhancements
In Office Excel 2007, you can use the new user interface to
quickly create, format, and expand an Excel table (known as
an Excel list in Excel 2003) to organize the data on your worksheet
so that it's much easier to work with. New or improved functionality
for tables includes the following features.
Table header rows: Table headers rows can be turned
on or off. When table headers are displayed, they stay visible
with the data in the table columns by replacing the worksheet
headers when you move around in a long table.
Calculated columns: A calculated column uses a single
formula that adjusts for each row. It automatically expands
to include additional rows so that the formula is immediately
extended to those rows. All that you have to do is enter a
formula once-you don't need to use the Fill or Copy commands.
Automatic AutoFiltering: AutoFilter is turned on by
default in a table to enable powerful sorting and filtering
of table data.
Structured references: This type of references allows
you to use table column header names in formulas instead of
cell references, such as A1 or R1C1.
Total rows: In a total rows, you can now use custom
formulas and text entries.
Table styles: You can apply a table style to quickly
add designer-quality, professional formatting to tables. If
an alternate-row style is enabled on a table, Excel will maintain
the alternating style rule through actions that would have
traditionally disrupted this layout, such as filtering, hiding
rows, or manual rearranging of rows and columns.
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New look for charts
In Office Excel 2007, you can use new charting tools to easily
create professional-looking charts that communicate information
effectively. Based on the theme that is applied to your workbook,
the new, up-to-date look for charts includes special effects,
such as 3-D, transparency, and soft shadows.
The new user interface makes it easy to explore the available
chart types so that you can create the right chart for your
data. Numerous predefined chart styles and layouts are provided
so that you can quickly apply a good-looking format and include
the details that you want in your chart.
Visual chart element pickers: Besides the quick layouts
and quick formats, you can now use the new user interface
to quickly change every element of the chart to best present
your data. In a few clicks, you can add or remove titles,
legends, data labels, trendlines, and other chart elements.
A modern look with OfficeArt: Because charts in Office
Excel 2007 are drawn with OfficeArt, almost anything you can
do to an OfficeArt shape can also be done to a chart and its
elements. For example, you can add a soft shadow or bevel
effect to make an element stand out or use transparency to
make elements visible that are partially obscured in a chart
layout. You can also use realistic 3-D effects.
Clear lines and fonts: Lines in charts appear less
jagged, and ClearType fonts are used for text to improve readability.
More colors than ever: You can easily choose from
the predefined theme colors and vary their color intensity.
For more control, you can also add your own colors by choosing
from 16 million colors in the Colors dialog.
Chart templates: Saving your favorite charts as a
chart template is much easier in the new user interface.
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Shared charting
Using Excel charts in other applications: In 2007 Office
release, charting is shared between Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
Rather than using the charting features that are provided by
Microsoft Graph, Word and PowerPoint now incorporate the powerful
charting features of Excel. Because an Excel worksheet is used
as the chart data sheet for Word and PowerPoint charts, shared
charting provides the rich functionality of Excel, including
the use of formulas, filtering, sorting, and the ability to
link a chart to external data sources, such as Microsoft SQL
Server and Analysis Services (OLAP), for up-to-date information
in your chart. The Excel worksheet that contains the data of
your chart can be stored in your Word document or PowerPoint
presentation, or in a separate file to reduce the size of your
documents.
Copying charts to other applications: Charts can be
easily copied and pasted between documents or from one application
to another. When you copy a chart from Excel to Word or PowerPoint,
it automatically changes to match the Word document or PowerPoint
presentation, but you can also retain the Excel chart format.
The Excel worksheet data can be embedded in the Word document
or PowerPoint presentation, but you can also leave it in the
Excel source file.
Animating charts in PowerPoint: In PowerPoint, you
can more easily use animation to emphasize data in an Excel-based
chart. You can animate the entire chart or the legend entry
and axis labels. In a column chart, you can even animate individual
columns to better illustrate a specific point. Animation features
are easier to find and you have a lot more control. For example,
you can make changes to individual animation steps, and use
more animation effects.
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Easy-to-use PivotTables
In Office Excel 2007, PivotTables are much easier to use than
in earlier versions of Excel. By using the new PivotTable user
interface, the information that you want to view about your
data is just a few clicks away-you no longer have to drag
data to drop zones that aren't always an easy target. Instead,
you can simply select the fields that you want to see in a new
PivotTable field list.
And after you create a PivotTable, you can take advantage
of many other new or improved features to summarize, analyze,
and format your PivotTable data.
Using Undo in PivotTables: You can now undo most actions
that you take to create or rearrange a PivotTable.
Plus and minus drill-down indicators: These indicators
are used to indicate whether you can expand or collapse parts
of the PivotTable to see more or less information.
Sorting and filtering: Sorting is now as simple as
selecting an item in the column that you want to sort and
using sort buttons. You can filter data by using PivotTable
filters, such as Greater than, Equals, or Contains.
Conditional formatting: You can apply conditional
formatting to an Office Excel 2007 Pivot Table by cell or
by intersection of cells.
PivotTable style and layout: Just like you can for
Excel tables and charts, you can quickly apply a predefined
or custom style to a PivotTable. And changing the layout of
a PivotTable is also much easier to do in the new user interface.
PivotCharts: Like PivotTables, PivotCharts are much
easier to create in the new user interface. All of the filtering
improvements are also available for PivotCharts. When you
create a PivotChart, specific PivotChart tools and context
menus are available so that you can analyze the data in the
chart. You can also change the layout, style, and format of
the chart or its elements the same way that you can for a
regular chart. In Office Excel 2007, the chart formatting
that you apply is preserved when you make changes to the PivotChart,
which is an improvement over the way it worked in earlier
versions of Excel.
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Quick connections to external
data
In Office Excel 2007, you no longer need to know the server
or database names of corporate data sources. Instead, you can
use Quicklaunch to select from a list of data sources that your
administrator or workgroup expert has made available for you.
A connection manager in Excel allows you to view all connections
in a workbook and makes it easier to reuse a connection or to
substitute a connection with another one.
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New file formats
XML-based file format: In 2007 Microsoft Office system,
Microsoft is introducing new file formats for Word, Excel, and
PowerPoint, known as the Microsoft Office Open XML formats.
These new file formats facilitate integration with external
data sources, and also offer reduced file sizes and improved
data recovery. In Office Excel 2007, the default format for
an Excel workbook is the Office Excel 2007 XML-based file format
(.xlsx). Other available XML-based formats are the Office Excel
2007 XML-based and macro-enabled file format (.xlsm), the Office
Excel 2007 file format for an Excel template (.xltx), and the
Office Excel 2007 macro-enabled file format for an Excel template
(.xltm).
Office Excel 2007 binary file format: In addition
to the new XML-based file formats, Office Excel 2007 also
introduces a binary version of the segmented compressed file
format for large or complex workbooks. This file format, the
Office Excel 2007 Binary (or BIFF12) file format (.xls), can
be used for optimal performance and backward compatibility.
Compatibility with earlier versions of Excel: You
can check an Office Excel 2007 workbook to see if it contains
features or formatting that are not compatible with an earlier
version of Excel so that you can make the necessary changes
for better backward compatibility. In earlier versions of
Excel, you can install updates and converters that help you
open an Office Excel 2007 workbook so that you can edit it,
save it, and open it again in Office Excel 2007 without losing
any Office Excel 2007-specific functionality or features.
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Better printing experience
Page Layout View: In addition to the Normal view and
Page Break Preview view, Office Excel 2007 provides a Page Layout
View. You can use this view to create a worksheet while keeping
an eye on how it will look in printed format. In this view,
you can work with page headers, footers, and margin settings
right in the worksheet, and place objects, such as charts or
shapes, exactly where you want them. You also have easy access
to all page setup o ptions
on the Page Layout tab in the new user interface so that you
can quickly specify options, such as page orientation. It's
easy to see what will be printed on every page, which will help
you avoid multiple printing attempts and truncated data in printouts.
Saving to PDF and XPS format: Like other 2007 Office
release applications, Office Excel 2007 supports saving a
workbook to a high-fidelity fixed file format, such as Portable
Document Format (PDF) or XML Paper Specification (XPS) format,
that encapsulates how it will look when it is printed. This
allows you to share the content of your workbook in a format
that is easy for other people to view online or print, without
including the underlying formulas, external data queries,
or comments.
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New ways to share your work
Using Excel Services to share your work: If you have
access to Excel Services, you can use it to share your Office
Excel 2007 worksheet data with other people, such as executives
and other stakeholders in your organization. In Office Excel
2007, you can save a workbook to Excel Services and specify
the worksheet data that you want other people to see. In a browser
(browser: Software that interprets HTML files, formats them
into Web pages, and displays them. A Web browser, such as Microsoft
Internet Explorer, can follow hyperlinks, transfer files, and
play sound or video files that are embedded in Web pages.),
they can then use Microsoft Office Excel Web Access to view,
analyze, print, and extract this worksheet data. They can also
create a static snapshot of the data at regular intervals or
on demand. Office Excel Web Access makes it easy to perform
activities, such as scrolling, filtering, sorting, viewing charts,
and using drill-down in PivotTables. You can also connect the
Excel Web Access Web Part to other Web Parts to display data
in alternative ways. And with the right permissions, Excel Web
Access users can open a workbook in Office Excel 2007 so that
they can use the full power of Excel to analyze and work with
the data on their own computers if they have Excel installed.
Using this method to share your work ensures that other people
have access to one version of the data in one location, which
you can keep current with the latest details. If you need
other people, such as team members, to supply you with comments
and updated information, you may want to share a workbook
the same way that you did in earlier versions of Excel to
collect the information you need before you save it to Excel
Services.
Using Document Management Server: Excel Services can
be integrated with Document Management Server to create a
validation process around new Excel reports and workbook calculation
workflow actions, such as a cell-based notification or a workflow
process based on a complex Excel calculation. You can also
use Document Management Server to schedule nightly recalculation
of a complex workbook model.
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Quick access to more templates
In Office Excel 2007, you can base a new workbook on a variety
of templates that are installed with Excel, or you can quickly
access and download templates from the Microsoft Office Online
Web site.
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Migrating
to Microsoft Office 2007
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