Create Better Spreadsheets

Organizing and working with large amounts of data can be a challenging task. In previous versions of Excel, row and column capacity limits made it difficult to analyze large amounts of data. Some of the most advanced tools and capabilities were contained in menus and sub-menus, forcing users to find these commands on their own. Creating and working with tables is one of the most fundamental reasons people use Excel, yet using tables could be challenging. Beyond simply creating or formatting a table, there was no way to refer to the table data intelligently. Building and formatting charts was “click-intensive,” and even the most common tasks, like changing a chart’s title, could be difficult. When you were ready to print your spreadsheet, it was difficult to know what the output would look like before doing so. Furthermore, it was hard to know where a page break might occur, which led to multiple, frustrating printing attempts that wasted resources.

Office Excel 2007 addresses these challenges by helping you format business information clearly and easily. Professional-looking reports and charts are now simple to create, so you do not have to depend on an external design firm to get the look you want. When you are ready to print, the Office Excel 2007 Page Layout View helps to ensure better printed results.

Enhanced Interface with More Room to Work 

Office Excel 2007 takes advantage of the Office Fluent user interface to make powerful productivity tools easily accessible. It also offers more room to work and delivers faster performance.  

Microsoft Office Fluent User Interface

With the Office Fluent user interface of the Microsoft Office system, Office Excel 2007 presents the appropriate tools at the right time so that you can produce your best work more quickly. Important features are organized and presented in context. For example, when you are writing a formula to calculate a value, Office Excel 2007 displays the Formulae tab and toolset to help you in your selection. Or, when you are working with a table and you need help choosing the right format, the Office Excel 2007 intuitive table galleries show you how a table will look before you make your final selection. 

Increased Spreadsheet Row and Column Capacity

Office Excel 2007 delivers greater spreadsheet capacity—1 million rows by 16,000 columns—to facilitate working with massive amounts of data. You no longer have to use many different spreadsheets to support your data. 

To support a bigger grid, Office Excel 2007 increases several other limits. For example, the number of rows allowed in a PivotTable chart increased from 64,000 to over 1 million, and the amount of memory that Excel can use increased from 1 GB to the maximum allowed by Microsoft Windows®, while the limit on the number of rows of a column or columns that can be referred to in an array formula was completely eliminated.

Faster Performance

To a large number of customers, the calculation speed of Excel is extremely important—perhaps the most important “feature.” Calculations in large, formula-intensive spreadsheets are now faster than before with the Office Excel 2007 support for dual processors. Office Excel 2007 spots formulas that can be calculated concurrently, and then runs those formulas on multiple processors simultaneously (this capability is called “multithreaded calculation”). The net effect is that a given spreadsheet finishes calculating in less time, improving overall calculation performance.

Support for Tables 

Office Excel 2007 helps you quickly construct, format, and expand tables using the Ribbon and the table gallery. 

Enhanced Table Tools

It is now easier to create tables. Enhancements in Office Excel 2007 help you assemble data into a table with just a few clicks. When you need to expand the table to accommodate more data, Office Excel 2007 quickly expands the table using the proper format.

Simply click in the range of cells you want to format as a table, click Format as Table in the Ribbon (on the Home tab), and select your favorite table style. Office Excel 2007 applies the table style to your range of cells and automatically labels column headings, creates AutoFilters, and displays other relevant tools. Column headers stay in view when you scroll through large tables, making it easier for your team members, auditors, or customers to follow your analysis more easily.

Figure 22: Creating a table

You can quickly modify the format and appearance of a table by using the Table Gallery feature in Office Excel 2007. Some of the designer-quality formatting options include banded rows and columns for identifying key data or highlighting the last column of a table. You can see a live preview of your selection before making the final changes. 

Figure 23: Table tools

Office Excel 2007 in Action

Susan is one of Sylvie’s analysts. She is preparing a sales performance report for senior management. Even though she is working with a large amount of data, she can easily assemble the data into a table in just a few clicks. She can change the look of the table quickly by using the Table Gallery, previewing her selection before she chooses the final look. When she needs to write formulae on data from the table, Office Excel 2007 provides an intelligent way to reference this information by column heading name—instead of an arbitrary cell reference. This helps Susan to write her formula more easily and permits others to follow the logic of her spreadsheet when she shares it. 

New Formulas and Range Management Tools

Office Excel 2007 offers robust tools for working with formulas and ranges, including:

• A resizable formula bar that prevents long, complex formulae from spilling over onto your spreadsheet.

• Formula AutoComplete, which helps you write the proper formula syntax the first time—every time.

• Structured referencing that helps you refer to tables and ranges while writing formulas.

• Name Manager, which helps you organize, update, and manage multiple name ranges from a central location.

Professional Charting Tools

Whether you are compiling a report for auditors or charting internal business data, Office Excel 2007 simplifies the process and helps you achieve more professional-looking results. 

Quick Formatting Tools for Faster Results

The Office Fluent user interface offers charting tools to help you:

• Create professional-looking charts in just a few clicks.

• Format your chart with the Chart Layout and Chart Styles galleries, or manually format each component, such as axes, titles, and other chart labels.

Dramatic Visual Effects in Charts

Adding special effects to your charts can help you communicate your analysis more clearly. You can use stunning effects such as 3-D, soft shadowing, and anti-aliasing to help identify key data trends and create more compelling graphical summaries.

Shared Charting Engine Across the Microsoft Office System

The improved charting capabilities in Office Excel 2007 are shared across the Microsoft Office system, which means that you can create and interact with charts the same way—regardless of the program you are using. For example, if you want to add a chart to a report in Office Word 2007, you can take advantage of the same tools you would use in Office Excel 2007 to modify and format the chart. 

   

Figure 24: Charting tools

Office Excel 2007 in Action

Office Excel 2007 provides the tools to conduct sophisticated data analysis and convey that information in easy-to-read charts. When Carol Philips, Fabrikam Inc.’s senior product marketing manager, needs some charts for an important investor presentation, she works with Sylvie and Susan. Susan imports key financial data from the previous fiscal year into a spreadsheet, highlights relevant sections, and displays the results in a series of compelling, three-dimensional charts that contain shadowing and other rich effects. All of the charting tools are clearly visible from the Office Fluent user interface, so the entire process takes far less time. Susan does not need to navigate through different toolbars or dialog boxes to label her chart title or axes properly.

Custom Data Output Tools

Office Excel 2007 offers new tools for creating custom effects and styles. This feature, together with tools that you can use to view a spreadsheet exactly as it appears in print format, helps workers of all skill levels to produce professional-looking spreadsheets.

Faster Formatting with Cell Styles

Cell Styles offer visual previews of how a cell might look with format enhancements, so you can modify the look of a report with fewer clicks.

Editing Report Headers and Footers

By using the new Page Layout View that displays headers and footers in plain view, you can quickly change the title of your report or add additional details at the bottom of each page in the footer.

Improved Printing Experience

With the new Page Layout View, you can see exactly how a spreadsheet will print. By changing the spreadsheet’s orientation from Portrait to Landscape, you might prevent your spreadsheet from being truncated when you print. 

Figure 25: Page Layout View

Customization with Microsoft Office Art and Styles

Customization with Microsoft Office art, predefined styles, and integrated graphics help you quickly apply a consistent, professional look to your spreadsheets that can easily be placed in other Microsoft Office system documents. You can apply these or other predefined styles to any spreadsheet. 

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