INTRODUCTION TO EXCEL

Microsoft Excel has been around since 1985, so it's no surprise that the basic spread sheet elements of the program have remained fairly constant for quite some time. That said, there is always room for improvement, and Microsoft Office Excel has a bunch of new features in every new version

INTRODUCTION TO EXCEL 2003

INTRODUCTION TO EXCEL 2007

The latest version of Microsoft Office Excel 2007 brings with it some of the most notable enhancements to this popular suite of applications in years.

FEATURES COMPARISON OF EXCEL 2003 & EXCEL 2007

USABILITY COMPARISON OF EXCEL 2003 & EXCEL 2007

BUSINESS OR BUSINESS USER

Unless you seriously require the new features that Excel 2007 offers, do not upgrade yet! Excell 2007 is great, but in terms of usability, it is very hard for someone who has been using Excel 2003 for years to work at the same level of efficiency in Excel 2007 as in Excel 2003 for at least a few weeks to a month or longer. Simply speaking, there is a big learning curve when upgrading. The 'Ribbon' style interface will throw most people off almost immediately and it will hurt productivity. That, in addition to the fact that Excel 2007 is not yet as stable as its predecessors, should signal that it is better to wait for a newer version of Excel to come out, when all the bugs have been fixed, and then think about upgrading. When you or your business does inevitably make the transition from Excel 2003 to Excel 2007(or later) it is a good recommendation to install the newer version of Excel while still keeping the older version. This can be achieved simply by do doing a custom install and then opting to keep all previous version of Excel. This way, you will be able to slowly transition into the new Excel and learn how to do everything with a minimal loss of productivity.

EXCEL 2007

COMPARISON OF EXCEL 2003 & EXCEL 2007

Features Rows Columns Workbook Size 65,636 256 Limited to 16 FULL Worksheets in any one Workbook, or instance of Excel. Basic and limited. Excel 2003 1,048,576 16,384 Limited only by available memory. Excel 2007

Header/Footer

Allows colour formatting to text in Headers and Footers. Also allows you to display different headers and footers on even and odd pages as well as the first page. 1,024 global font types available, 64,000 unique cell formats available, and more advanced cell formatting and style options such as shadows.

Formatting Cells

512 global font types available, 4,000 unique cell formats available, and basic cell formatting style options.

COMPARISON OF EXCEL 2003 & EXCEL 2007

Features Pivot Tables Excel 2003 32,500 unique items per field allowed. Must format Pivot Tables manually. Sort with up to three conditions. Limit of 65,472 workbook arrays referring to other worksheets. 7 levels of nesting - i.e. maximum of 7 nested IF statements. Excel 2007 1,048,576 unique items per field allowed. Can quickly format Pivot Tables with present Themes. Sort with up to 64 conditions. Can sort by specific formats and not just text. Limited only by available memory for the number of arrays referring to other worksheets. 64 levels of nesting - i.e. maximum of 64 nested IF statements.

Sorting

Cell Linking

Nesting Formulas

Formulas

Formulas can contain up to Formulas can contain up to 255 30 arguments. Formulas arguments. Formulas can contain can contain 40 operands. up to 1,024 operands. Basic 'Up-to-Date' Can create charts and graphics in much better form than excel 2003.

Graphics

COMPARISON OF EXCEL 2003 & EXCEL 2007

Features Conditional Formatting Excel 2003 Excel 2007 Allows maximum of three Allows maximum of 64 conditions. conditions. Conditional formatting ranges in cells can overlap. Conditional formatting can continue after the condition has been met. Conditional formatting can be applied to non-adjacent ranges. N/A Colour Scales Data bars Icon sets Top or bottom ranked values Above or below average values Unique or duplicate values Table column comparison to determine which cells to format It is more difficult to customize Excel 2007 and you are not able to add custom buttons or toolbars to the new 'Ribbon' style interface, only a quick access toolbar.

New Conditional Formatting Types - Excel 2007

Customization

Can customize the look and feel extensively and it is very easy to add your own toolbars and buttons.

USABILITY COMPARISON OF EXCEL 2003 & EXCEL 2007

Usability Editing between versions Excel 2003 Cannot edit all charts and tables and graphics from Excel 2007 unless those spread sheets have been saved in the 97-2003 format in Excel 2007. Classic, easy to use and standard for many years. Excel 2007 Can edit formats from previous excel versions. Files must be saved in the 97-2003 format to make them fully editable in previous versions. New 'Ribbon' style interface which is very confusing at first. Everything which was previously text based is now graphical. It will therefore eat up more memory to run but, in theory, shouldn't be too noticeable for most users. More difficult to record some macros. Also, macros will not work in password protected workbooks.

Interface

Macros

Easy to record and use whenever you want.

Macro Buttons

Very easy to customize and Very difficult to customize and change. change.

USABILITY COMPARISON OF EXCEL 2003 & EXCEL 2007

Usability Large Files Excel 2003 Excel 2007 Will open quickly and Takes a long time to open large handle relatively efficiently. files. However, will run large numbers of formulas faster than in Excel 2003. Very stable; Tried and true. A number of issues have been reported with Excel 2007 not opening files, not saving files, and basically just going through the process of gradually improving due to it being a new program.

Stability

New and Improved for 2007