Excel 2007
Microsoft Excel 2007 has adopted the new “Ribbons” look for Office 2007.
Tabs along the top of the ribbons, allow users to access a different set of commands and expose
additional ribbons. MS Excel also features contextual ribbons which appear only when working in
specific tasks such as charting.
Users can expand groups of commands by clicking on the
in the lower right corner of the group.
The quick access toolbar is located just above the ribbon tabs in the upper left area of the screen. In
each office product the quick access toolbar can be customized. To add additional commands to the
quick access toolbar,
click on the arrow on the right side of the bar. This will display
options for adding commands to the toolbar.
Keystroke shortcuts also have a new name, they are known as “Key Tips.” There is now a new Key Tip for
every command on the ribbon. While the old keystroke shortcuts still work, these new Key Tips may
contain fewer keys to activate. To show the Key Tips in MS Excel, press Alt, to show the Key Tips for the
tabs, then press the corresponding key that matches the tab you wish to expose, “N” for Insert, then “F”
for clip art will launch the clip art task pane on the right side of the screen.
The view of the ribbons may change depending on your screen resolution and screen size.
The Office Button contains many of the most popular commands used in
MS Excel, including creating a New Excel Workbook, Opening and existing
workbook, Save and Save As commands, Printing, closing and sending a
Workbook. Items new to this button are the Prepare options which
allows users to view and edit the workbook properties, check and clear
the document for hidden metadata, restrict the permissions of the
workbook, add a digital signature, mark the document as final, removing
all tracked changes and other editing, and run a compatibility checker to
make sure the document is accessible to users who are using an older
version of MS Excel.
Also located under the Office Button is the “Excel Options” button. This button will access many of the
program options previously found under the menu option “Tools,” “Options” in earlier versions.
The Home Tab
The home tab contains the following “groups.” The Clipboard, Font, Alignment, Number, Styles, Cells
and Editing.
What’s New in Excel 2007
New commands added into these “groups” are:
Alignment:

The addition of the orientation command
within a cell.
 The Wrap Text command
Styles:
, which will allow users to quickly rotate text
which makes it easy to wrap text within a cell.

Conditional Formatting command
which contains new rules and conditional views
including color scales, icon sets and data bars.


Format as Table
allows users to apply styles to the worksheet with a simple command.
Cell Styles can be modified using a visual command with many new colorful options.
Cells:

The Format Command has many new options viewable with the down arrow.
Including row and column width and height adjustments.
Hiding and unhiding of rows, sheets and workbooks.
Renaming, moving and changing tab colors in a worksheet
Sheet and Cell protections.
Editing:


Command access for auto Fill
options.
Clear
which will allow users to clear formatting, all contents and comments.
The Insert Tab


New Features here include the addition of “Smart Art” for work flow and other process
diagrams.
Headers and Footers are relocated to this location from View in earlier versions
Teresa Lightle
Butte County Office of Education
2
What’s New in Excel 2007
The Page Layout Tab

New to 2007 is the use of “Themes” to worksheets, which will change the style of the font,
including the color, and add complimentary colors as accents.
The Formulas Tab
While the formula bar has not changed and still functions the same, as earlier versions, MS Excel has
given formulas a Ribbon of their own.
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

The formula sub sets are broken down in the group and have drop down arrows to access
additional formulas.
Auditing Tools are grouped together with easier one step access.
Calculation Options are grouped for easier access.
The Data Tab



In order to import data from an external location, use this Ribbon and group Get External Data.
Sorting and Filtering are placed here as well as on the Home Tab Ribbon.
All of the Data Tools for consolidation and Analysis are grouped.
The Review Tab



Home to all proofing tools.
Track Changes and Commenting.
Protection for Worksheet and Workbooks.
The View Tab
Teresa Lightle
Butte County Office of Education
3
What’s New in Excel 2007



A new viewing option is the Page Layout View, WYSIWYG feature for 2007 to remove extra
white spaces from this view, use CTRL+SHIFT+W. This view also allows easy access to headers
and footers.
Split and Hide Worksheets.
View and record Macros. (Also available in the Developer Tab)
The Developer Tab
If your version does not have this Tab showing, click on the Office Button, choose Excel Options. On the
Popular group, make sure you have a check mark in the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon box.



Creating, editing and running Macros.
Form Controls for both new and legacy documents.
XML controls.
The Tab for Add-Ins will only appear if you have software programs that interact with Excel such as Snag
It, Adobe Contribute or other products.
The Acrobat Tab will appear only if you have Adobe Acrobat standard or Pro installed on the machine.
Contextual Tabs
Contextual Tabs in Office 2007 only appear when certain items are being used in a program. In MS Excel
when you insert a chart or graph, a new “Context Tab” appears above the Design tab. It is titled “Chart
Tools.”
This Ribbon contains additional commands and tools to edit the chart in the worksheet and will only
appear when the chart is selected.
Format Changes
The new format for MS Excel is now “.xlsx” if the spreadsheet contains a macro, the format now changes
to “.xlsm”. A Template created in 2007 saves as an “.xltx” Files saved in the 2007 version cannot be
opened by users who only have Office 2003. In order for them to view the files, they must either have
the compatibility pack for Office 2007 or the user creating the file will have to change the format when
saving to Office 97-2003. Some of the options may not appear correctly when saved to the previous
version.
Teresa Lightle
Butte County Office of Education
4