Just in case you leapfrogged a software upgrade and missed the last big Microsoft Office release, here is a brief description of a few features that are essentially new to you but were introduced in the previous release:
Results-oriented user interface The old toolbars and menu bar have been replaced by a single toolbar and a new “dashboard” called the ribbon, which has a task-oriented structure and easily recognizable tools. Most of the old menus have been reborn as tabs. For more information, see Chapter 3.
Graphics enhancements Excel has improved greatly over the years as a platform for graphics and design, and the 2007 release incorporated a few subtle enhancements, including a robust SmartArt feature; improvements to conditional formatting, shapes, and charting; and new document themes and cell styles. For more information about graphics tools, including SmartArt, see Chapter 10.
Improved formatting Microsoft built a lot more intelligence into the formatting features of Excel 2007—including themes, cell styles, galleries, and live previews—that allow you to rest the pointer on an item in a palette of options to see what will happen when and if you click. For more information about themes, cell styles, and other formatting features, see Chapter 9.
Page Layout view Really more than a view, Page Layout view became a working mode with rulers and page previews in which you have full editing functionality and control over the appearance of your documents. For more about output options, including Page Layout view, see Chapter 11.
New templates Excel 2007 shipped with more built-in templates for popular uses, such as balance sheets and expense reports, and provided direct dialog-box access to a vast template library at Microsoft Office Online. For more information about using templates, see Chapter 9.
Updated conditional-formatting features Conditional formatting has been around for a while, but recent enhancements have made it more accessible and compelling—with gradients and data bars, conditionally triggered icon sets, and more. For detailed information, see Formatting Conditionally on page 309.
Increased capacity and speed The new XML file format and other internal improvements gave Excel 2007 greatly increased capacities in just about every specification—for example, spreadsheets that can hold more than one million rows of data, 64 levels of nesting in formulas, and built-in support for multicore processors and multithreaded chipsets. Other major specification changes included:
The total number of available columns: 16,384 (was 256).
The total number of available rows: 1,048,576 (was 65,536).
The total amount of computer memory: Excel can now use the maximum allowed by Windows (was 1 gigabyte).
The number of unique colors allowed in a single workbook: 4.3 billion (was 56).
The number of conditional format conditions on a cell: Limited only by available memory (was 3).
The number of levels of sorting you can perform on a range or table: 64 (was 3).
The number of items allowed in the Filter drop-down list: 10,000 (was 1,000).
The total number of unique cell formats in a workbook: 64,000 (was 4,000)
The maximum number of characters allowed in formulas: 8,000 (was 1,000).
The number of levels of nesting that Excel allows in formulas: 64 (was 7).
The maximum number of arguments allowed to a function: 255 (was 30).
The maximum number of items returned by the Find command: 2 billion (was 64,000).
The number of rows allowed in a PivotTable: 1 million (was 64,000).
The number of columns allowed in a PivotTable: 16,000 (was 255).
The maximum number of unique items within a single PivotTable field: 1 million (was 32,000).
The maximum length of the MDX name for a PivotTable item, the string length for a relational Pivot Table, the caption length, and field label length: 32,000 (was 255).
The number of fields that a single PivotTable can have: 16,000 (was 255).
The number of array formulas that can refer to another worksheet: Limited only by available memory (was 65,000).
Limit to the number of rows that you can refer to in an array formula: None (was 64,000).
The number of categories allowed for custom functions: 255 (was 32).
Excel now supports multicore processors and multithreaded chipsets.
Better and easier tables Excel 2007 introduced a more robust table feature, incorporating PivotTable-like intelligence with easier formatting and editing. New features included the Table Styles gallery, structured referencing, the Remove Duplicates feature, and more. For more information about tables, see Chapter 22.
Improved PivotTables and PivotCharts Excel 2007 added a few key improvements to PivotTable filtering, design, and layout. The greatly improved appearance of the charting features enabled more compelling PivotCharts. For more information about PivotTables and PivotCharts, see Chapter 23.
Better database connectivity Along with better PivotTables, Excel 2007 provided built-in access to SQL Server Analysis Services and included support for the Unified Dimensional Model (UDM) as well as for online analytical processing (OLAP) browsers and key performance indicators (KPIs). For more information about connectivity issues, see Chapter 24.
Formula AutoComplete Typing functions in formulas became a little easier in Excel 2007. When you type an equal sign followed by any letter, you get a drop-down list of functions that start with that letter, along with a ScreenTip description of the highlighted function. Type another letter, and the list is filtered again. If you have defined cell range names in your workbook, these appear in the list as well. For more information about functions and AutoComplete, see Chapter 13.
Tools for creating formulas In Excel 2007, the formula bar became manually resizable to let you display or hide lengthy formulas. This allowed you to enter longer formulas than before, with more levels of nesting (parenthetical expressions within expressions). The Name Manager dialog box provided greater organization and editing possibilities. In addition, Excel 2007 included many small improvements in the way it works internally, including improvements in subtotals and regression formulas. See Chapter 12.
Built-in Analysis Toolpak functions The trusty statistical functions of the venerable Analysis Toolpak were fully integrated into the program in 2007. For more information about using formulas and functions, see Chapter 12.
Enhanced charting features Excel 2007 included lots of new chart types, updated graphics, and a new set of Chart Tools contextual tabs, all of which made experimentation and modification a whole lot easier. Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 and Office Word 2007 started using the same charting engine as Excel. The shared charting capabilities made creating charts much easier and more powerful within those applications, and generally made charts in all 2007 Microsoft Office system documents more consistent and easier to share, link, copy, and update. For more information about charts, see Part 6, Part 6.
XLSX file format The Microsoft Office Open XML file formats (with the extension .xlsx in Excel) provided better integration with external data sources and resulted in significantly smaller file sizes. For more information about file formats, see Exploring File Management Fundamentals on page 42.
Improved sorting and filtering The Sort command, which previously allowed only 3 levels of sorting at a time, was improved to allow 64 levels in Excel 2007. The Filter feature was improved, and the Remove Duplicates button helped make managing database information easier, letting you specify in which columns to look for duplicate information. For more information about sorting and filtering, see Chapter 22.
Enhanced security features Microsoft added a number of new features in Excel 2007, including the Trust Center and a digital signatures interface to help secure documents you share with others. For more information, see Chapter 4.