New Excel 2007 Stuff
There is a lot of stuff that's new in 2007. This page is about the stuff you won't find by clicking Help and What's New. This page is for the little stuff that isn't well covered, or maybe even mentioned, by Microsoft. Some of it is stuff that is new and cool, some is stuff I miss :-(, and some is the stuff new users find confusing.
Non-breaking Characters
For the first time, Excel supports non-breaking characters for text
entries in a cell set to wrap text. You can enter them from the Insert
Tab on the ribbon. In the Text group, click Symbol and then the Special
Characters tab. You can also use Alt + the appropriate code from below.
While holding down the Alt key, enter the code from the numeric keypad
(with num lock turned on). Last but not least, you can use them in a
concatenation formula by using the CHAR() function: =A1&CHAR(160)&A2
would take the contents of cell A1, add a non-breaking space, and then the
contents of cell A2.
| Non-breaking Character | Sample | ALT Code | CHAR code |
| space | 0160 | 160 | |
| hyphen | | 0173 | 173 |
| en dash | – | 0150 | 150 |
| em dash | — | 0151 | 151 |
Sample of non-breaking characters in use:
Both columns A and B have a width of 27. Column A is using a non-breaking space between the area code and the phone number and a non-breaking hyphen within the number, column B is not. In column A the entire phone number is treated the same as a single word and wraps as such to the next line. In column B the area code appears on one line and the rest of the number on the next because it is being treated the same as separate words because of the space.
Header/Footer Options
There is some really cool new stuff with these options. If you have
been working with documents you set up a long time ago, you could be
missing out!
Different Odd & Even Pages - With this
checked, clicking Custom header or footer will open a dialog box with
two tabs - one for odd and one for even pages - so they can be set up
separately.
Different First Page - Check this to remove headers and footers
from the first printed page.
Scale with Document - Check this to specify whether the headers and
footers should use the same font size and scaling as the worksheet.
This may be the coolest option ever. In the past, if you scaled the
sheet, the header and footer scaled with it, making them look funny if
you had multiple worksheets in a workbook. To make the font size
consistent across multiple worksheets, regardless of the scaling on those
sheets, clear this check box.
Align with Page Margins - If this is checked, the header or footer
margin is aligned with the left and right margins of the worksheet.
List/Table/AutoFormat Confusion
No matter what the interactive guides, etc. tell you, AutoFormat is gone. Yes, there is a Format as Table option in the Styles group of the Home tab, but it does WAY more than format your table. What it does is convert your table to what Excel used to call an Excel List. You get list arrows and filter options and all kinds of junk you really don't need and probably don't want if your goal was just to make it pretty! If you just want the formatting, go ahead and use Format as Table and then dump all of that extra garbage by clicking Convert to Range in the Tools group of the Table Tools - Design tab (important for Subtotal users - the Subtotal dialog box (Data tab, Outline Group) is not available for a 'Table'-you must Convert to Range to use it). On the other hand, if you were missing the Excel 2003 Data>List>Create List Option, now you know where to find it! Recap just in case - Format as Table in the Styles group of the Home tab is really the former Create List option, not the former AutoFormat tool. Clear? :-)
Chart Wizard :-(
Yep. They go on and on and on about how great the new chart stuff is,
without even a moment of silence for the good ol' Wizard. I miss him. So
here is some stuff that isn't new, but that you might find helpful if
you almost always use the same chart type and want it on a new chart
sheet! Next time you have to make a chart, select your range and click
the Chart group dialog box launcher or All Chart Types...
at the bottom of any of the insert chart buttons (they all go to the
Insert Chart Dialog box). Select your favorite chart type and click the
Set as Default Chart button down at the bottom of the
dialog box. Click Cancel. On your keyboard, tap the
F11 key. Like magic! A chart sheet based on the
selected data, using your default chart type will appear! From now on,
all you have to do is select the data and hit F11. That's going to save
you about four clicks per chart! :-)
The Default Default Chart type is the 2-D Clustered Column, so if that's
your favorite you can skip the whole setting the default chart type
thing and just hit F11 after selecting your data.
Speak Cells
The easiest way to check your data entry is to have someone read you
the data while you double check that it matches your data source. In
Excel 2003, we could go to Tools>Speech>Show Text to Speech Toolbar and
use it to have Excel do the reading part, while we did the double
checking part. Most everyone says that because Vista has the new
improved fully integrated narrator, they did away with these tools in
Excel 2007. Nah, they just did away with the Toolbar! To add the speech
tools to the Quick Access Toolbar, click
the QAT list button and select More Commands. Choose Commands
from: Commands not in the Ribbon. Scroll down to the commands
starting with Speak. Add the ones you would like, though you have to
have Speak Cells for Speak Cells by Column,
Speak Cells by Row, or Speak Cells - Stop
Speaking Cells to do anything. I just added Speak Cells
on Enter*, which is a toggle command, and hit the Enter key with
one hand while I run my finger down the original column with the other.
*Just FYI, on Enter means when you hit the Enter key it speaks the cell
you just left - not the cell you just entered :-).
