Recommended
functions in the Function Wizard   Type a natural language query, such as
"How do I determine the monthly payment for a car loan", and the Function
Wizard returns a list of recommended functions you can use to accomplish your
task.

Cut-and-paste function reference examples   If you've wondered how
to translate Help examples into meaningful worksheet data, you'll find the cut-and-paste
function examples in Excel Help useful and time saving.

Task-based formula help   Real-life examples for real-life numeric
problems make powerful additions to the Help you've come to count on.

Watch window   Keep track of cells and their formulas on the
Watch Window toolbar, even when the cells
are out of view. This moveable toolbar tracks cell properties including
workbook, worksheet, name, cell, value, and formula.

Expanded AutoSum functionality   The practical functionality of
AutoSum

has expanded to include a drop-down list of the most common functions. For
example, you can click Average from the list to calculate the average
of a selected range, or connect to the Function Wizard for more options.

Formula evaluator   You can see the various parts of a nested
formula evaluated in the order the formula is calculated by using a simple
dialog box on the Formula Auditing toolbar.

Trace precedent and dependent cells with Formula Auditing   Use the
Formula Auditing toolbar to
graphically display, or trace, the relationships between cells and formulas
with blue arrows. You can trace the precedent cells or the dependent cells.

Formula error checking   Like a grammar checker, Excel uses certain
rules to check for problems in formulas. These rules can help find common
mistakes. You can turn these rules on or off individually.

Control  automatic changes with smart tags   Buttons
that appear automatically on your worksheet can help you with tasks such as
automatic correction options, paste options, automatic fill options, insert
options, and formula error checking. With a click of a button you can choose
from options related to your task without leaving the worksheet or the cells
you're working on.

Unmerge on the toolbar   No more searching for a way to unmerge
cells. Now unmerge is conveniently located on the Format toolbar.

Retain column widths   If you have worksheets with specified column
widths, now you can paste information from another worksheet without losing
that formatting by clicking the Paste Options

button, and then clicking Keep Source Column Widths.

Border drawing   A new border drawing tool allows you to outline
complex borders with little effort.

Links management   Changes to the Edit Links dialog box allow
you to check the status of the links in your worksheet and make changes. A new
workbook option allows you to control whether to update links in your workbook
automatically.

Hyperlink navigation   Selecting a cell with a hyperlink is improved.
Click the hyperlink once to follow it. Click and hold to select the cell.

Sending a range   Sending out mid-month reports and summaries just
got easier. Select a range on your worksheet, click E-mail

on the Standard toolbar, type an introduction to the report, and then
send it without spending extra time on the task.

Insert and delete columns while filtering   You can insert and
delete columns with AutoFilter turned on in Excel. You can even undo the
action and preserve any applied filtering.

Speech playback   An option to have a computer voice play back data
after every cell entry or after a range of cells has been entered makes
verifying data entry convenient and practical. You can even choose the voice
the computer uses to read back your data. This feature is available in Chinese,
Japanese, and English (U.S.) only.

Printing   You've asked for the ability to insert graphics and file
names in headers and footers, and with Excel you can. You'll also find a handy
A4 paper resizing option on the International tab under Tools
menu, Options command, which will scale the worksheet you formatted for
A4 paper if you have  letter-size paper in your printer.

Smart tags   By turning on smart tags, you can type a U.S. financial
symbol and use Smart Tag Actions

to insert a stock quote in your worksheet, find out more about the company
you're doing business with, and more. You can also type the name of someone
you've recently sent an e-mail message to into a cell, and then use smart tag
options to schedule a meeting or add the name to your contacts list, all
without leaving your worksheet.

Item properties in PivotTables   Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)
is a powerful tool for aggregating numeric information, and now you can
annotate your data with item properties to make your data warehouse even more
valuable.

AutoRepublish   Anyone who frequently publishes Excel data to the
Web will appreciate additional Web publishing features that allow you to
automatically republish items to Web pages whenever you save a workbook with
previously published items.

Open and save XML   With Excel, you can open and save Extensible
Markup Language (XML) files, save entire workbooks in the XML Spreadsheet
format, and create queries to XML source data.

Digital Dashboard and Web Parts   Use Excel to create Web Parts to
include on your company's new Digital Dashboard. For example, you might create
an updateable sales chart to highlight your division's contributions to the
company's bottom line.

Worksheet protection   Excel adds power and flexibility to protect
your data from changes to worksheets and cells. You can protect cell values
and formulas, and allow the cell to be formatted. You can also ensure that
only specific users are allowed to change cells.

Multilingual editing   With Excel you can edit spreadsheets in any
language, including right-to-left language editing in Arabic and Hebrew. Excel
automatically links fonts so you don't have to figure out the language of a
particular font.

IME support   If you have an Input Method Editor (IME) installed, you
can edit Asian language spreadsheets in any language version of Excel.

Worldwide number formats   You can format numbers for a specific
location in all language versions of Excel.

New look   Microsoft Office XP has a cleaner,
simpler look to its interface. Softer colors also contribute to this updated
feel.

More convenient access to Help   Get the full power of the Answer
Wizard in an unobtrusive package. When you enter a question about an Office
program in the Ask a Question box on the menu bar, you can see a list
of choices and read a Help topic whether you are running the Office Assistant
or not.

Control paste options and automatic changes with smart tags   New
in-place buttons called "smart tags" let you immediately adjust how
information is pasted or how automatic changes occur in your Office programs.
For example, when you paste text from Microsoft Word into Microsoft
PowerPoint, a button appears next to the text. Click the button to see a list
of choices for fine-tuning the formatting of the pasted text. Smart tags and
their associated choices vary in each Office program.

Updated Clip Organizer   Hundreds of new clips, an easy task pane
interface, as well as the same abilities to organize clips and find new
digital art on the Web are part of the updated Clip Organizer (formerly Clip
Gallery).

Conceptual diagrams   Word, Excel, and PowerPoint include a new
gallery of conceptual diagrams. Choose from diagrams such as Pyramid
for showing the building blocks of a relationship, Radial for showing
items in relation to a core element, and more.

Voice commands and dictation   In addition to mouse and keyboard
methods, you can now select menu, toolbar, and dialog box items by speaking.
You can also dictate text. This feature is available in the Simplified
Chinese, English (U.S.), and Japanese language versions of Office, and has
some special hardware requirements.

Support for handwriting   You can use handwriting recognition to
enter text into an Office document. You can write by using a handwriting input
device — such as a graphics tablet or a tablet-PC — or you can write using
your mouse. Your natural handwriting is converted to typed characters. In Word
and Microsoft Outlook, you can also choose to leave text in handwritten form.

Improved fidelity of pictures and drawings   In Office XP, Word,
Excel, PowerPoint, Microsoft FrontPage, and Microsoft Publisher are using an
improved graphics system (GDI+). With this new graphics system, shapes and
WordArt have smoother outlines and adjustable levels of transparency with true
blending. Digital pictures stay sharper and clearer when you resize them.

Accessibility   Office XP programs support Microsoft Active
Accessibility 2.0. This technology makes accessibility aids, such as screen
readers or screen enlargers, more effective.

Find printers   If your organization uses Microsoft Windows 2000 and
the Active Directory directory service, you can search for printers across
your network from the Print dialog box in Office XP programs.

Storing documents with Microsoft Exchange Server 2000   You can
store Microsoft Office documents on Exchange Server 2000 and access them
through the File Open, File New, and File Save dialog
boxes, as you would any other Office document.

Share your Office documents over the
Web   From any Office program, you can save documents to Web sites on MSN.
This gives you an instant collaboration space where you can share files with
other people.

Save a Web site as a single file   A special Web archive file format
is available in Microsoft Access, Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft
Publisher, and Microsoft Word. This file format lets you save all the elements
of a Web site, including text and graphics, into a single file.

Open Office Web pages for editing from the browser   Office programs
recognize the HTML pages that they generate. You can open an Office document
that you've saved as a Web page in the program it was created in, right from
Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Office Safe Mode   Microsoft Office XP
programs can detect and isolate startup problems. You can bypass the problem,
run your Office program in safe mode, and keep doing your work.

Office crash reporting tool   Diagnostic information about program
crashes can be collected and sent to your company's information technology
department or to Microsoft, allowing Product Support Services (PSS) experts to
correct these problems so they don't interrupt you again.

Increased protection against macro viruses   Network
administrators can remove Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications, the
programming language of Microsoft Office, when deploying Office. This can
decrease the possibility of viruses spreading via Office documents.

Improvements to changing the language of the user interface and Help  
More components across Microsoft Office support changing the language of their
user interface. In addition, terms on the interface match the terms in Help,
even when the main text of Help is in a different language than the interface.
This feature is only available with the Office XP MUI Pack and a volume
licensing agreement.

Hangul/Hanja converter improvements   Over 20,000 new characters are
supported by this converter for Korean language documents. The converter
automatically uses new fonts that have the proper glyphs for the new
characters.

Full support for Windows 2000 language features   Office programs
now support all the languages that Microsoft Windows 2000 does. Office also
supports the latest extensions to Chinese character encoding via Unicode,
including support for almost 70,000 Chinese characters.

East Asian character support on non-East Asian systems   Now you can
enter characters from East Asian languages in all Office programs, even if
your system software is a non-East Asian language version. (This was
previously only supported in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook, or when
running Windows 2000.) For example, on a computer running English (U.S.)
Microsoft Windows 98, you can enter Japanese characters in Excel.