As you may have heard, the next version of Microsoft's venerable Office suite recently entered “technical preview,” or public beta. While Excel 2007 introduced some dramatic changes, Excel 2010 seems to offer mostly refinements and only a few wholesale changes. Thus Excel 2007 users should have an easy time transitioning to Excel 2010, but anyone still using Excel 2003 or earlier will need to make the transition to the Ribbon-based user interface. Fortunately, this interactive guide from Microsoft will ease your pain.

Microsoft is slowly releasing information about the changes in Excel 2010, and so some new features aren't fully documented yet. I'll be posting in-depth articles about Excel 2010 in the coming months, but for now, where's what to expect when you first launch Excel 2010:

The big Office button in the left-hand corner has been replaced with a small green button, as shown in Figure 1. The resulting menu has also been reworked, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1: Presenting Excel 2010.

The Ribbon itself remains mostly unchanged, other than to introduce new Excel features and a new background look. However, you can now rework the Ribbon to suit your needs. This means you can add custom tabs or turn off any of the existing tabs, which allows you to customize Excel 2010 to meet your needs. Don't worry: it's easy to reset the Ribbon to its default state when necessary.
The Info tab shown in Figure 2 gives you a great deal of information about your document. Interestingly, the Info tab in Word 2010 lists the total editing time for the document, but Excel's Info tab does not.

Figure 2: The new Info tab provides statistics about your document.

Sparklines, shown in Figure 3, are in-cell charts that provide a new way to visualize data. Excel 2003 and 2007 users can implement this feature via a free third-party add-i.

Figure 3: Excel 2010 allows you to create in-cell charts known as Sparklines.

The Slicer is a new filtering feature provides a visual interface for filtering pivot table and other database data. Instead of using the traditional drop-down lists to limit the data shown in a pivot table, the new Slicer gives you a graphical mechanism to filter the data shown in your pivot table. Bill Jelen, aka Mr. Excel has created a three-minute video that demonstrates this feature.
Excel 2010 has a Screenshot/Screen Clipping feature that will help make it easier to document your spreadsheets by simplifying the screen capture process.
You'll have the ability to block users from opening or saving Excel files in certain data formats.
As shown in Figure 4, the Print command in Excel 2010 has been reworked to merge print preview and page setup choices into the print process.

Figure 4: Print, Preview, and certain Page Setup Elements have been merged into a single screen

If your computer reboots while you have an Excel document open, Excel 2010 automatically launches itself at start-up, and attempts to automatically recover the documents you were working on.
A new feature currently known as Project Gemini will reportedly allow Excel users to analyze millions of records from a SQL Server database in Excel. This feature was not included in the technical preview.
The right-click menu for worksheet cells contains new paste options, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: New icons eliminate the need to go to the Paste Special dialog box for common tasks.

A new feature automatically saves a copy of your unsaved documents for up to 4 days. The caveat is that Excel has to create an AutoRecover copy first. However, if you inadvertently close without saving a document that you've been working on for 10 minutes or more, you may just be able to recover your work.
There are certainly other new features in Excel 2010, but the aforementioned list shows the items that have caught my attention thus far. You can learn more by following these blogs:
Microsoft Excel Team Blog
Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering

And of course, don't miss Office 2010 The Movie.

A previous version of this article first appeared on www.accountingweb.com .

About the author:

David H. Ringstrom, CPA heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm providing training and consulting services nationwide. Contact David at david@acctadv.com or follow him on Twitter. David speaks at conferences about Microsoft Excel, and presents webcasts for several CPE providers, including AccountingWEB partner CPE Link

Jul 30

Workbook/Worksheet Navigation Tricks

Filed under Excel

Press Ctrl-Tab to switch between open workbooks. Use Ctrl-Page Up/Ctrl-Page Down to switch between worksheets.

Excel, Keyboard shortcut

Jul 29

Date Series Formula

Filed under Excel

This formula allows you to create a series of dates that alternate between the 15th and the last day of each month: =IF(B1=DATE(YEAR(B1),MONTH(B1)+1,0),DATE(YEAR(B1),MONTH(B1)+1,15),DATE(YEAR(B1),MONTH(B1)+1,0))

Dates, Excel, Formula

Jul 17

IFERROR Function

Filed under Excel

Resolve #DIV/0! errors in Excel 2007 with =IFERROR(A1/A2,0) – puts a zero in the formula cell if either A1 or A2 are blank.

Excel, Worksheet Function

Jul 16

Creating A Series Of Letters

Filed under Excel

Enter this formula in cell A1 to return the letter A: =CHAR(64+ROW()).Copy down the column to create a series of letters.

Excel, Worksheet Function

Jul 15

Formula Bar Navigation Trick

Filed under Excel

Press F2 in the formula bar to enable the arrow keys to move left and right in the formula bar without changing cell addresses.

David's Favorite Tricks, Excel

Jul 14

Adding/Removing Columns/Rows

Filed under Excel

Press Ctrl-+ (the plus sign on your keypad) to add rows or columns, use Ctrl-Minus (the – sign on your keypad) to delete.

Excel, Keyboard shortcut

Jul 13

Cell Border Trick

Filed under Excel

Apply border line to the top of SUM cell rather than the bottom of the cell above–avoids erasing border when copying formulas.

David's Favorite Tricks, Excel

Apr 17

Tricks for hiding and unhiding Excel rows and columns

Filed under AccountingWEB articles, AccountingWEB Excel articles, Excel

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA

Hiding and unhiding rows and columns are mundane tasks that many users take for granted. However, sometimes simple tasks can trip up Excel users, like unhiding just one row or column within a hidden set. Other users don't know simple keystroke commands that can streamline hiding and unhiding columns or rows. In this article, I'll explore these techniques as well as discuss two powerful alternatives to manually hide and unhide rows and columns. I'll also discuss how to re-enable an Excel keyboard shortcut that's disabled in any operating system subsequent to Windows XP.

Hiding Rows and Columns

Let's first explore the traditional approaches to hiding rows and columns. Going forward, I'll only explain rows – simply replace the word Row with Column in any menu commands that I describe if you want to hide or unhide columns. First, select the row or rows that you wish to hide or unhide, and then carry out these steps:

Excel 2007 and later: On the Home tab, choose Format in the Cells section of the ribbon, and then choose Hide & Unhide, and then either Hide Rows or Unhide Rows.

Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose Format, Row, and then either Hide or Unhide.

Tip: Remember, to unhide rows, you must select rows on either side of the hidden set. If you're trying to unhide rows at the top of the worksheet, click on the first visible row, and then move your mouse up to the top of the screen.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Alternatively, you can select a row or rows, and then press Ctrl-9. To unhide rows, press Ctrl-Shift-9. For columns, use Ctrl-0 (that's a zero) or Ctrl-Shift-0, respectively. There's a catch with the latter shortcut, though. By default, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 use Ctrl-Shift-0 (zero) as a keyboard shortcut for changing the keyboard layout. This means that when you move from Windows XP to a newer version of Windows, Ctrl-Shift-0 no longer works in Excel unless you change an arcane Windows setting shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The Switch Keyboard Layout option in Windows Vista and later blocks Ctrl-Shift-0 for unhiding columns in Excel.

Windows 8:

Click on Language within the Control Panel.
Click Advanced Settings, and then click the Change Language Bar Hot Keys link.
Click Change Key Sequence, select Not Assigned in the Switch Keyboard Layout section, and then click OK as needed.

Windows Vista or Windows 7:

Click Region and Language within the Control Panel.
Choose the Keyboards and Languages tab, and then click Change Keyboards.
Click the Advanced Key Settings tab, and then click Change Key Sequence.
Select Not Assigned in the Switch Keyboard Layout section, and then click OK as needed.

Windows XP:

No Control Panel changes are necessary.

Unhide Selectively

Sometimes you may want to unhide just a single row or column. There are two ways to do so:

1. Press Ctrl-G to display the Go To window, type in the address of a cell in the row or column that you wish to unhide, and then click OK, as shown in Figure 2. Carry out the corresponding menu command or keyboard shortcut to unhide the row or column. You can also use menu commands to display the Go To dialog box:

Excel 2007 and later: Choose Find and Select on the Home tab, and then click Go To.

Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose Edit and then Go To.

2. If you don't know the exact address of the cell you're looking for, press Ctrl-F to display the Find window and search for a word within the hidden column or row. As with the Go To command, Excel will select the hidden cell, which you can then unhide. You can also use menu commands to display the Find dialog box:

Excel 2007 and later: Choose Find and Select on the Home tab, and then click Find.

Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose Edit, and then Find.

Figure 2: The Go To dialog box allows you to navigate to a hidden cell when you need to selectively unhide a row or column.

Group Rows or Columns

Excel's Group feature is an effective alternative to manually hide or unhide rows and columns. Select the rows or columns you wish to hide, and then carry out this command:

Excel 2007 or later: Click the Group icon in the Outline section of the Data ribbon.

Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose Data, Group and Outline, and then Group.

As shown in Figure 3, Excel adds a button outside the worksheet frame that you can use to toggle the hidden or visible status of rows or columns. To remove grouping, select the group, and then issue the corresponding Ungroup command, which is adjacent to the Group commands described above.

Figure 3: The Group feature allows you to expand or collapse a set of rows or columns with a single mouse click.

Custom Views

Many Excel users overlook the Custom Views feature, which among other things, allows you to save sets of hidden rows or columns. Before you start hiding rows or columns, first create a view that displays the entire worksheet:

Excel 2007 and later: Choose Custom Views in the Workbook Views section of the View ribbon. Click Add, and then assign a name, such as All Columns. Make sure that Hidden Row, Columns, and Filter Settings is selected, and then click OK.

Excel 2003 and earlier: Choose View, and then Custom Views. From there, the commands are the same as described in Excel 2007.

Next, hide rows and/or columns as desired, and then save a second custom view. You can now toggle between views as needed. Issue the Custom Views command, select a view from the list, and then click View.

A previous version of this article first appeared on www.accountingweb.com .

About the author:

Apr 17

Tricks for opening and closing multiple Excel files

Filed under AccountingWEB articles, AccountingWEB Excel articles, Excel

By David H. Ringstrom, CPA

From time to time you may find yourself immersed in a large project that involves several related Excel workbooks. In such cases it can be tedious to manually open each Excel file when you need everything available at once. Excel has long had a helpful feature that is hidden in plain sight: the Save Workspace command. This command creates a bookmark file with an .XLW extension that you can use to automatically open a group of related spreadsheets. In this article I'll explain Excel's Workspace feature, as well as how to close all open worksheets at once while still leaving Excel open.

Workspace feature

A workspace is comprised of whatever spreadsheets are open at the time that you issue the Save Workspace command:

Excel 2007: Choose Save Workspace in the Window section of the View ribbon.
Excel 2003 or earlier: Choose Save Workspace on the File menu.

In either case, after making the menu choice, you're presented with a traditional Save dialog box from which you can choose where to save your workspace file. Excel 2007 will prompt you to save each file within the workspace, while Excel 2003 and earlier won't prompt you until you close an individual file within the workspace.

To reopen your workspace, you can either choose the .XLW file from your Recently Used file list, or open the file manually:

Excel 2007: Click the Office button, choose Open, and then select the .XLW file.
Excel 2003 or earlier: Choose File, Open, and then select the .XLW file.

You can further refine your search in any version of Excel. To do so, choose Workspaces (.XLW) from the Files of Type list, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Workspaces (.XLW files) display in the list of available files when you issue the Open command, but you can also filter the list to only show Workspace files.

Excel 2007 Trick: Click the pushpin next to your .XLW file to lock your workspace onto the Recently Used File List. It may shift down the list as you open other spreadsheets, but it won't scroll off the list as long as its pushpin is depressed.

Figure 2: Click the pushpin to lock a workspace onto your Excel 2007 Recently Used File List.

Closing All Files at Once

Sometimes during the day you need to clear the decks of all open files, but leave Excel open. You can certainly close each file individually, but versions through and including Excel 2003 had a far easier way to perform this task: Hold down the Shift command before you click on the File menu. As shown in Figure 3, the Close command changes to Close All, which enables you to close all open workbooks at once. Although the Shift key trick doesn't work in Excel 2007, you can actually create your own custom shortcut:

Right-click anywhere on the Excel 2007 ribbon, and then choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar.
Choose Commands Not in the Ribbon from the Choose Commands From List, and then add Close All to your Quick Access toolbar.
Optionally move the Close All command to the top of your Quick Access Toolbar list, as shown in Figure 4, and then click OK.

If you moved the Close All command to the top of your list, you can now press Alt-1 to issue the Close All command whenever you wish. As shown in Figure 5, the shortcut code for every button on the Excel 2007 interface is revealed when you press the Alt key.

Figure 3: Hold down the shift key before you choose the File menu in Excel 2003 or earlier to display the Close All command.

Figure 4: You can add a Close All command to your Excel 2007 Quick Access Toolbar.

Figure 5: Shortcut keys for every button on the Excel 2007 ribbon appear when you press the Alt key once.

A previous version of this article first appeared on www.accountingweb.com .

About the author:

Category: Excel

Number Formatting Trick

Removing Borders Trick

Data Entry Trick

Hiding/Unhiding Columns

Resetting Excel 2003 Color Palette

First Impressions of Excel 2010

Workbook/Worksheet Navigation Tricks

Date Series Formula

IFERROR Function

Creating A Series Of Letters

Formula Bar Navigation Trick

Adding/Removing Columns/Rows

Cell Border Trick

Tricks for hiding and unhiding Excel rows and columns

Tricks for opening and closing multiple Excel files

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