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Sidebar Lists for Excel 2007
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Journalists, feel free to use these lists as sidebars to your Office 2007 review. The "5 Reasons" article is for the general computer user. The "5 Things to Watch Out for" is for the experienced computer user and is a bit more snarky in tone. Feel free to mix and match as you see fit.
Please provide attribution at the bottom of the list and let Lora @ MrExcel.com know when the article goes to print so we can rub it in the face of our former annoying PR firm (if they ever hacked you off with their pushy tactics, I am so so sorry...).
Bill is happy to provide quotes for your interviews. He is in the studio from 9AM to 6PM on January 8 - 11, but can take your calls before or after. Call Bill at 330-715-2875 or Lora at Lora @ MrExcel.com to set something up.
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Five Reasons to Upgrade to Excel 2007
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1) The big grid. Excel 2007 now sports 1.1 million rows and 17 billion cells. That's enough space to put the name and height of every living person on earth. And that just on Sheet 1.
2) The new menu systems make it easy to find the powerful features that have been in Excel for a decade. Don't feel bad if you never figured out that you can add 10,000 subtotals at the click of a button. Excel 97-2003 hid all of those great features 18 levels deep in the menu system. They've completely replaced all the tiny little icons with big icons and words. This is a great improvement.
3) Try out the data visualization tools on the Conditional Formatting menu. Icon sets, color scales and data bars to quickly see the largest numbers in your data set.
4) Charting improvements allow you to create great looking charts in a couple clicks. Add special effects by selecting from a gallery of good looking chart samples. Gone are the antique charts that have plagued Excel 95 through Excel 2003. Plus - try out the 80 new business diagramming tools under the SmartArt button on the Insert tab.
5) Live Preview allows you to see the effects of a formatting change before you make it. Just hover your mouse over an gallery selection and Excel will show you the change in the worksheet. You will find yourself trying out many different formats - hover, hover, hover - yes that's the one. Click.
- Bill Jelen, host of MrExcel.com and author of Excel 2007 Miracles Made Easy
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Five Things to Watch Out for When Upgrading to Excel 2007
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1) The File menu is hiding behind the round Office icon in the upper left corner! Yes, all the important commands such as Save and Print are hiding behind a circle without a name. In the original beta, the circle said "File", but now it is just a circle. I am not sure if Prince is working at Microsoft, but I'll call it the "Icon formerly known as File".
2) Excel offers 1.1 million rows, but not if you open a file created in Excel 2003 or earlier. You specifically have to save the file as Excel 2007, close it, then re-open it to unlock the other 17 billion cells. Tip: Tempted to use the Convert command? Be aware that this will delete your original Excel 2003 file and replace it with an Excel 2007 file.
3) Important formatting commands are in an INVISIBLE toolbar at your mouse pointer. That's right, the Mini Toolbar starts out completely invisible until you move your mouse pointer towards it. Select some text, and then move the mouse pointer up and to the right. If you happen to select text like I do, from right to left, from top to bottom, you will go months without seeing the mini toolbar appear.
4) You can't customize toolbars. You can't make move them to the side of your screen or make them float next to your work area. The only customization you can do is add icons to the Quick Access Toolbar - a tiny bit of real estate next to the round office icon. Tip: Right-click the Quick Access Toolbar to access commands to move it below the ribbon and customize the toolbar with your favorite icons.
5) Live Preview is a great new feature that will show you the results of many formatting commands just by hovering over the command. However - don't forget that you actually have to click the command in order to make it stick.
- Bill Jelen, host of MrExcel.com and author of Special Edition Using Microsoft Excel 2007
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Contact: Bill Jelen 13386 Judy Avenue NW, Uniontown, OH 44685;
online at: www.mrexcel.com ; and by email at Bill @ mrexcel.com
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