Upgrading to Microsoft Excel 2000'>
- Upgrading to Microsoft Excel 2000'>
- Managing Files
- Editing and Formatting
- Formulas and Functions
- Analyzing Data
- Add-Ins
- Charts
- Workgroup Features
- Importing and Exporting Data
Upgrading to Microsoft Excel 2000
IN THIS PART, WE FOCUS ON THE CHANGES specific to Excel 2000. Among the most significant improvements are the ways you create and modify PivotTables, the introduction of PivotCharts, and enhancements to Excel charting options. The features introduced in this part are grouped by topic:
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What's New in Excel—The most significant new features are summarized in this section.
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Managing Files—Share Excel 2000 files with people using other versions of Excel. Explore the new Business Planner Templates.
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Editing and Formatting—Improve worksheet appearance by merging cells, indenting data within a cell, and rotating cell data to display at angles. Speed up entry for recurring text entries. Avoid errors by validating data as it is entered into a cell. Apply unique formats based on the contents of a cell.
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Formulas and Functions—Learn new ways for creating and editing formulas. Take advantage of several new Excel functions.
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Analyzing Data—Create PivotTables with ease and display PivotTable data in PivotCharts.
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Add-Ins—Expand Excel's functionality by exploring several add-ins: Euro Currency Tools; Analysis ToolPak; and Template Wizard with Data Tracking.
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Charts—Make charts with ease using the improved Chart Wizard. Explore the chart axis and data label improvements.
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Workgroup Features—Share workbooks with other users. Merge several copies of a workbook into one workbook. Display and review comments added by other users.
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Importing and Exporting data—Bring data into Excel from databases, the Web, and proprietary systems.
What's New in Excel
Most of the changes in Excel 2000 are in the areas of Web integration and collaboration, and international ease of use. If you are upgrading from Excel 95, many of the enhancements you will discover in Excel 2000 were available in Excel 97.
Excel 97
A number of new or enhanced features were added to Excel 97. The following list describes the most significant of these new features:
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Chart Wizard—Creating charts has never been easier than with the improved Chart Wizard. Several new chart types are available, along with added features, such as data tables and screen tips identifying each part of a chart.
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Editing and Data Entry Enhancements—Instead of being able to undo only your last action, you can undo multiple actions. You can validate data as it is entered into a cell.
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PivotTables—It's easier to select components of a pivot table. You can choose default values for empty cells, or cells that result in errors.
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Retrieve Data from External Databases—Use Microsoft Query and the new Query Wizard to set up a data source, connect to a database, select data to retrieve, and even sort or filter the data before bringing it into Excel.
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Sharing Workbooks—You now have the ability to truly share a workbook. One person can edit one worksheet in a workbook, and someone else can edit another worksheet simultaneously. When one user saves the workbook, the other users who are sharing it will see the changes made by that user. The shared workbook feature replaces the shared list feature in Microsoft Excel 95.
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Workgroup Features—Copies of a workbook can be merged to consolidate comments and editing changes. The new Comments and Review toolbar enables you to quickly view all comments made to a shared workbook.
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Worksheet Function Changes—The Paste Function Command replaces the Function Wizard. You can collapse (and expand) a dialog box to select cell ranges in your worksheets while creating function formulas.
There are some additional enhancements and minor changes made in Excel 97 that you will notice in Excel 2000:
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Increased number of worksheet rows from 16,384 to 65,536.
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The default number of worksheets in a new workbook reduced from 16 to 3.
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New cell-formatting features include the capability to merge several cells into one cell; text in a cell can be indented, providing an informal outline appearance; and data can be angled in a cell or displayed vertically.
Excel 2000
As with all of Office 2000, the improvements in Excel are primarily in the area of Web-based data sharing and collaboration (described in Part 1, "New and Enhanced Microsoft Office Features Common to All Programs,"). Excel 2000 includes all the Excel 97 enhancements listed previously, as well as several new features. The following list describes the major changes to Excel 2000:
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Enterprise Data—Large server-based enterprise data—such as data stored in Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) databases—can be summarized in Excel PivotTables.
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Graphic Charts—Several new formatting options are available to your Excel charts, including multilevel category axis labeling, timescale labeling, data-point data labels, and the ability for you to define the units on the value axis.
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PivotTables and PivotCharts—The PivotTable Wizard in Excel 2000 no longer requires you to guess where to place fields in the PivotTable layout. Instead, the PivotTable Wizard is used to identify the source of the data and the placement of the PivotTable. The layout for the PivotTable is displayed in the worksheet. Selecting and changing the fields used in the PivotTable is easier with the embedded layout. You can make layout adjustments directly in the worksheet. Additionally, a new AutoFormat feature makes it easy to format a PivotTable.
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Visual Basic for Applications—The latest version of Visual Basic for Applications, VBA 6.0, is included with Office 2000. VBA 6.0 includes features such as modeless user forms and support for additional ActiveX controls.
In addition to the major improvements discussed previously, you will encounter other new features in Excel 2000:
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See-Through View—When a group of cells is selected, a light shading is used to highlight the cells instead of reverse video. In previous versions of Excel, the reverse-video highlight made it difficult to see the data or cell formatting.
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Year 2000 Date Formats—Additional data formats have been included to make it easier to display the four digits associated with the date year.
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List AutoFill—When the first few characters you type in a cell match an existing entry in the column, Excel fills in the remaining characters for you by using a feature known as AutoComplete. Similarly, when you insert a row, the AutoFill feature extends any formatting and formulas to the newly inserted rows. Although the AutoComplete feature does not work on purely numeric or date entries, the AutoFill feature works on all types of entries.
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Euro Currency—You can format numeric data with the new Euro currency format in Excel 2000.