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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.
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FEATURES COMPARISON OF EXCEL
2003 & EXCEL 2007
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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 Excel 2003 Excel 2007
Rows 65,636 1,048,576
Columns 256 16,384
Workbook Size Limited to 16 FULL Limited only by available memory.
Worksheets in any one
Workbook, or instance of
Excel.

Header/Footer Basic and limited. 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.

Formatting Cells 512 global font types
available, 4,000 unique cell
formats available, and
basic cell formatting style
options.
1,024 global font types available,
64,000 unique cell formats
available, and more advanced cell
formatting and style options such as
shadows.
 COMPARISON OF EXCEL 2003 & EXCEL 2007
Features Excel 2003 Excel 2007
Pivot Tables 32,500 unique items per 1,048,576 unique items per field
field allowed. Must format allowed. Can quickly format Pivot
Pivot Tables manually. Tables with present Themes.
Sorting Sort with up to three Sort with up to 64 conditions. Can
conditions. sort by specific formats and not just
text.
Cell Linking Limit of 65,472 workbook Limited only by available memory
arrays referring to other for the number of arrays referring
worksheets. to other worksheets.
Nesting Formulas 7 levels of nesting - i.e. 64 levels of nesting - i.e. maximum
maximum of 7 nested IF of 64 nested IF statements.
statements.
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.
Graphics Basic 'Up-to-Date' Can create charts and
graphics in much better form than
excel 2003.
 COMPARISON OF EXCEL 2003 & EXCEL 2007
Features Excel 2003 Excel 2007
Conditional Allows maximum of three Allows maximum of 64 conditions.
Formatting 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.
New N/A Colour Scales
Conditional Data bars
Formatting Icon sets
Types - Excel Top or bottom ranked values
2007 Above or below average values
Unique or duplicate values
Table column comparison to determine
which cells to format
Customization Can customize the look It is more difficult to customize Excel 2007
and feel extensively and and you are not able to add custom
it is very easy to add your buttons or toolbars to the new 'Ribbon'
own toolbars and style interface, only a quick access
buttons. toolbar.
USABILITY COMPARISON OF EXCEL 2003 & EXCEL 2007
Usability Excel 2003 Excel 2007
Editing between Cannot edit all charts and Can edit formats from previous
versions tables and graphics from excel versions. Files must be saved
Excel 2007 unless those in the 97-2003 format to make
spread sheets have been them fully editable in previous
saved in the 97-2003 versions.
format in Excel 2007.
Interface Classic, easy to use and New 'Ribbon' style interface which
standard for many years. 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.
Macros Easy to record and use More difficult to record some
whenever you want. macros. Also, macros will not work
in password protected workbooks.
Macro Buttons Very easy to customize and Very difficult to customize and
change. change.
USABILITY COMPARISON OF EXCEL 2003 & EXCEL 2007
Usability Excel 2003 Excel 2007
Large Files 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.
Stability 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.
New and Improved for 2007