Excel 2007 Tip o’ the Day

If you can’t find it on the Ribbon, it’s on the Insert tab. Don’t ask me why. You’re welcome.

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16 thoughts on “Excel 2007 Tip o’ the Day

  1. I’ve had 2007 installed at work for a while now, I must say I think the ribbon is a huge mistake by Microsoft. IMHO, I think that with the uprising of free apps, Google apps and Open Office, that Microsoft re-inventing the wheel is a bad idea. I have half a mind to switch to Google based on the loss of functionality with 2007. Between Vista and Office 2007 I think Microsoft is working very hard at giving away market share.

  2. I have 2007 installed for quite a while now and I still keep on using ‘old shortcuts’ and keep getting lost on the Ribbon. I’m about to roll back to 2003 but there ARE some cool new things with 2007. I guess it’s just a matter of getting used to.

  3. 99% of spreadsheet work is about inserting stuff. Insert formulas, objects, code, margins, charts, formatting, activex’es, … Everything should be on Insert tab. Except Macro-run and Save, those two should be on the Do tab.

  4. I think Microsoft should have a Tab called “…and the rest of this crap”. On that tab, would be the riff-raff that didn’t find a place on the Ribbon.

    No charge for that gem.

  5. Mike –

    They’d have to call it the Tools Options tab, and they claim that one important reason for the ribbon was to do away with the Tools – Options dialog. So they hid all the commands we used to find easily under Tools – Options.

  6. And if you can’t find it on the Insert tab, check the Data tab. Still not there? Try Review, Home, and then Formulas (in that order). As a last resort, check Page Layout. If that command still eludes you, check the Insert tab again because you probably overlooked it.

  7. I believe its generally easier to drop into VBA and code into the immediate window than use the ribbon – at least you get intellisense in the IDE.

  8. I’m using Excel a lot every day now and have pretty much adjusted to the changes. I still mostly use the shortcut keys for 2003. The ribbon seems aimed at mouse users and I wonder if users new to Excel will find the ribbon easier to pick up. There was a lot of resistance to Windows from the DOS command-line community. Change is not easy and it’s hard to know whether it is positive going in….

    On the clear plus side, the wheel mouse working within the VBA code window is probably my favorite improvement….

  9. John – Is that sequence (Insert – Data – Review – Home – Formulas – Page Layout – Insert) in the Excel 2007 Bible? I missed it.

    David – It was always easy enough to find small freeware apps to make the mouse wheel work in the IDE. So that’s not really a plus. The ribbon is no easier for me, a 65% mouse user, than it is for all these 95% keyboard jocks.

  10. John – you forgot “Developer”

    David – I’m about a 75 – 85% mouser – the only kb shortcuts I use regularly are ctrl-Insert / shift-Insert, and even then most of the time I either want to copy values or formats (but not both) so I use a paste values or paste formats icon. Anyhoo, to the extent that MS thought the Ribbon would be an improvement for me, they are dead wrong. To the extent they thought it would be an improvement for a new user, that remains to be seen – but I predict that it will be no better than the toolbar interface that they scrapped. Actually, it will be worse, since current users will not be able to help them nearly as much as they could if the interface had not been put in a mixmaster. For example, my son installed XL07 before I did – he came to me for help, since he thought that XL had an ‘undo’ function, but couldn’t find it. It took me several minutes (I think I went through John’s tab sequence – twice) until I realized that it was on that stupid thing that looked like a border up top.

  11. Excel may have changed but the people who have to use it haven’t. And nor have the handful of other apps that a home computer user or office user would use. XL07 becomes a weird experience to be avoided when it should getting more intuitive. The ribbon sounds like a step too far and it should have stayed on the testbench for a while longer.

  12. Just started using Excel 2007. I had very high hopes from Pivot Tables. First disappointment was that I could not see ‘multiple consolidation ranges’ option. I have been using this option for years to convert matrix type tables to database or list type table. I had to use excel 2003 commands to do the job.
    Second, could not find ‘Off Line Cube wizard’. Is it just to force users to look at Analysis Services.

    OR

    Is it just I am missing something in ribbon.

    -Charu

  13. So dissappointing to try to make charts in Excel 2007 with the same choices for formatting.I publish quite a few charts during the coarse of the month and have copied over from 2003 my charts because if you don’t use Excel’s pre-set formatted charts, its just plain, plain, plain! Also, if you buy any books for help check to see that they cover Excel 2007 information.

  14. Believe it or not, it is now 2010, and I am just making myself use 2007. It is pretty much like trying to relearn a whole new program.


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