Creating An Excel 2007 Workbook

Right-click on the windows desktop, select New >> Microsoft Office Excel Worksheet from the menu.

The Excel icon appears on the desktop.

Type in the file name and press <Enter>. The workbook is created and saved in the desktop folder.

Results-oriented user interface

Task-oriented tabs make it easier to access commands that were often hidden in complex menus and toolbars in previous version. The use of drop-down galleries replaces the dialog boxes to display available options quickly. The descriptive tooltips and the sample previews help you to make you selection correctly.

Increased rows, columns, and other new limits

Office Excel 2007 supports up to 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns. Columns now end at XFD instead of IV.

You can now use an unlimited number of formatting (instead of 4 thousand types), in the same workbook, and the number of cell references per cell are increased from 8 thousand to limited by available memory.

Memory management has been increased from 1 GB of memory to 2 GB in Office Excel 2007 to improve the performance of Excel. Office Excel 2007 also supports up to 16 million colors.

Office themes and Excel styles

Themes and styles help you to quickly format the data in your worksheet. Themes can be shared across other 2007 Office release programs, while styles are designed to change the format of Excel-specific items, such as Excel tables, charts, PivotTables, shapes, or diagrams.

Theme - 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.

Style - predefined theme-based format that you can apply to change the look of Excel tables, charts, PivotTables, shapes, or diagrams. You can customize a style. For charts, you can choose from many predefined styles, but you cannot create your own chart styles.

Rich conditional formatting

In Excel 2007, conditional formatting can contain up to sixty-four conditions instead of three in earlier versions. Users can only see the first three conditions in earlier versions. Now, the conditional formatting ranges in cell can overlap and you can also apply it to ranges that are not adjacent.

Easy formula writing

The resizable formula bar automatically resizes to accommodate longer and more complex formulas.

The Function AutoComplete helps you to create a proper formula syntax quickly.

The Office Excel 2007 name manager helps you to organize, update, and manage multiple named ranges in a central location.

The Office Excel 2007 also provides structured references that uses named ranges and tables in a formula, in addition to cell references, such as A1 and R1C1.

New OLAP formulas and cube functions

When you work with multidimensional databases (e.g. SQL Server Analysis Services) in Office Excel 2007, you can use OLAP formulas to build complex, free form, OLAP data bound reports. The new cube functions help you to extract OLAP data (sets and values) from Analysis Services and display it in a cell.

Improved sorting and filtering

Office Excel 2007 provides more enhanced filtering and sorting features. 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.

Excel table enhancements

More new user interface to quickly create, expand, and format an Excel table (previously known as an Excel list). There are new table features as listed below.

Table header rows - can be turned on or off. 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 - automatically expands to include additional rows so that the formula is immediately extended to those rows without using the Fill or Copy commands.

AutoFiltering - enables powerful sorting and filtering of table data.

Structured references - allow you to use table column header names in formulas instead of cell references, such as A1 or R1C1.

Total rows – let you use custom formulas and text entries.

Table styles – help you to create professional-looking tables quickly.

New look for charts

More new charting tools to easily create professional-looking charts including special effects, such as 3-D, transparency, and soft shadows.

Numerous predefined chart styles and layouts are provided so that you can quickly apply a format and include the details that you want in your chart. Besides the quick layouts and quick formats, you can now use visual chart element pickers to quickly change the element of the chart such as the titles, legends, data labels, trendlines, and etc.

Almost anything you can do to an OfficeArt shape can also be done to a chart and its elements. Clear lines and fonts make the charts appear less jagged, and ClearType fonts are used for text to improve readability.

Shared charting

The new charting is shared between Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Instead of Microsoft Graph, Word and PowerPoint now incorporate the powerful charting features of Excel, including the use of formulas, filtering, sorting, and linking a chart to external data sources.

Charts can be easily copied and pasted between files of different programs like the Word document or PowerPoint presentation. This allows you have a lot more control over animating charts in PowerPoint.

Easy-to-use PivotTables

PivotTables are now much easier to use. You do not need to drag data to drop zones but simply select the fields that you want to see in a new PivotTable field list. There are more new or improved features to summarize, analyze, and format your PivotTable data. You can now undo most actions in a PivotTable.

The new plus and minus drill-down indicators expand or collapse parts of the PivotTable let you display the information you want. The sorting and filtering is now much easier to use.

You can apply conditional formatting to an Office Excel 2007 Pivot Table by cell or by intersection of cells. You can quickly apply a predefined or custom style and layout to a PivotTable.

Quick connections to external data

You can now use Quicklaunch to select the data sources that are available. A connection manager in Excel allows you to view all connections.

New file formats

The 2007 Microsoft Office system is introducing new XML-based file format for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, known as the Office Open XML formats. These new file formats offer smaller file sizes and improved data recovery and most importantly, facilitate integration with external data sources.

Office Excel 2007 XML-based file format (.xlsx).

Office Excel 2007 XML-based and macro-enabled file format (.xlsm).

Excel template (.xltx).

Macro-enabled Excel template (.xltm).

You can also save a file as a PDF or XPS file if you install an add-in.

You can check the compatibility of an Office Excel 2007 workbook with an earlier version so that you can make the necessary changes for better backward compatibility. A new file format, the Office Excel 2007 Binary (or BIFF12) file format (.xls), can be used for optimal performance and backward compatibility.

You can also install updates and converters in earlier versions of Excel to help you open, edit and save an Office Excel 2007 workbook so that you can open it again in Office Excel 2007 without losing any Office Excel 2007-specific functionality or features.

Better printing experience

In addition to the Normal view and Page Break Preview view, Office Excel 2007 now provides a Page Layout view that helps you create a worksheet while keeping track on how it will look in printed format. Here, you can work with page headers, footers, and margin settings, and etc. It also helps you to preview every page, so that you can avoid multiple printing attempts and truncated data in printouts.

Quick access to more templates

You have access to more templates that are installed with Excel, or download them from the Microsoft Office Online Web site.

New Features

Descriptions

New ways to share your work

In Office Excel 2007, you can save a workbook to Excel Services and specify the worksheet data that you want other people to see using a browser. They can then use Microsoft Office Excel Web Access to view, analyze, print, and extract this worksheet data. Office Excel Web Access also makes it easy to scroll, filter, sort, view charts, and use drill-down in PivotTables.

You can also connect the Excel Web Access Web Part to other Web Parts to display data in alternative ways. 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.

How To Start Excel 2007

SUMMARY

1. Click Start button on the taskbar. The Start menu appears.

2. Click All Programs >> Microsoft Office >> Microsoft Office Excel 2007. The Microsoft Excel application starts. Excel displays the following screen. A new blank workbook is created automatically, as shown below.

How To Create a New Default Excel Workbook

SUMMARY

TIPS

1. Click the Office Button >> New. The New Workbook dialog box appears.

2. Click Blank Workbook.

3. Click the Create button. A new blank workbook is created.

How To Create A New Excel Workbook Using A Template

SUMMARY

1. Click the Office Button >> New. The New Workbook dialog box appears.

2. On the left pane, under Templates, click Installed Templates. The installed templates appear in the center pane.

3. Click the Billing Statement template. There are seven installed templates. You can also add your own templates.

4. Click the Create button. A new Billing Statement workbook is created, as shown below.