What’s New in Excel 2007?

Even if you decide not to use Excel Services, several new features in Excel 2007 make it worth the upgrade. The following are a few of the new features that make Excel 2007 an improved application for analyzing data:

• Excel 2007 takes on the new ribbon user interface (see Figure 12.2), which places commands in a tabbed view instead of the old stale menu format.

  Figure 12.2. Microsoft Excel 2007 ribbon.

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• New themes and styles are available to allow users to quickly create charts and tables that are in line with your company’s branding.

• Excel 2007 now allows for 1,048,576 rows and 16,386 columns which is an increase of 1,500 percent for rows and 6,300 percent for columns over what was available in Excel 2003.

• Formula writing is easier with an AutoComplete functionality built in.

• A robust charting engine is included that allows you to create and display charts in 3D.

• The file format (.xlsx) is now an XML-based file format. XML is an open file format that allows any application that supports XML to interact with the data from the files.