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The new Excel 2007 looks different and has been designed to place more of the options directly in front of the user. The scope of the program may have only changed marginally but many users may see context sensitive buttons linked to options which were previously unknown to them and hidden deep in the menu structure.
In common with the other Office programs such as Word and Access, Excel 2007 contains a new ribbon interface which replaces the previous menu and toolbar structures. Instead of drop down menus, each keyword changes the displayed selection of buttons.
This interface may take a little getting used to and it may be worth viewing the video clips linked to the Microsoft Office 2007 website.
The ribbon does not solve all of your problems. It can still be difficult looking for options which are hidden somewhere in the structure. Things which you have finally found in your current version of Excel may be hidden in new and unfamiliar places in the new version.
This version saves files in a completely new format which is incompatible with previous versions of Excel. If an organisation is going to upgrade its Office software, in order to allow everyone to communicate and share work there will need to be a complete change - not a piecemeal approach.
Note that there are different formats for workbooks, depending on whether you wish to save any macros within the file. 'xlsx' files should be much safer to share and receive because they cannot contain a hidden macro virus. Referring to external user defined functions which have been saved in a 'Personal workbook' is permitted within a standard 'xlsx' file.
There is a tool called the 'Trust centre' which must be visited before existing macros from earlier versions of Excel can be enabled. This controls security and other program parameters - such as whether or not the macros and visual basic options are displayed on the ribbon.
There are many new options and styles for formatting tables or cells. A range of predefined styles can be viewed on the ribbon and as you hover your mouse over the options, each one will be temporarily and instantly applied to the data in your worksheet. There are some great new Conditional Formatting options which will let you show the relative ranking of values in a range. They allow you to draw attention to the key values and the important message you wish to convey.
These exciting formatting options can be a problem in offices where staff may be tempted to format data in ever more adventurous and colourful ways. There may need to be clear rules and company policies about acceptable formatting and corporate presentation styles. A glorious array of colours may look unprofessional and quite different when printed.
On a very specific and personal note - I couldn't resist checking one or two of the charting options that regularly cause problems and many colleagues cannot find the appropriate options in current versions. Changing one data series from a column to a line becomes much easier, but changing one data series to a secondary axis is possibly an even greater pain. The new Excel help is great and correctly identifies the question you are posing. Unfortunately in this instance the program was not as it was described in the help. (Maybe that was just a problem with the beta version and things like that have been ironed out in the final release.)
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