Technology How To

• Note that the changes to MS Office are in the visual interface

• Functionality remains very similar to Office 2003

• Ribbons replace Menus
• The Ribbon brings the most popular commands to the forefront.
• The three parts of the Ribbon are tabs, groups, and commands.
• Each section of the ribbon has a dialog box launcher in the lower right corner if there is a corresponding dialog box
• Selecting an image will bring up the tab and ribbon with the corresponding commands
• When you select text and point at it, the Mini toolbar will appear faded. Point to the Mini toolbar to activate it.

• Where’s my Stuff?
• Office button
• Pin documents to most recent list
• File types (.doc/.docx)
• The new Office Open XML Formats (XML is short for Extensible Markup Language). Don’t worry, you don’t have to understand XML; it’s all behind the scenes. Just keep in mind that the new XML-based format:
• Word 2007 can open files created in all previous versions of Word, 1.0 through 2003. Word will open older documents in compatibility mode. You know this because at the top of the document "(Compatibility Mode)" appears next to the name of the file.

• Word Options
• New location of most items previously found in Tools menu under Options



• Home Tab
• Insert Tab
• Page Layout Tab
• Margins
• Page Setup
• Review Tab
• Spell Check
• Quick Access Toolbar
• Easy way to make shortcuts to common tasks
• How to customize the Quick Access Toolbar
• right-click on a command and select "Add to Quick Access Toolbar"
• Location of commonly used tools/features
• Help
• Blue circle with white question mark in top right corner of the window
• Tips
• Double-click the active tab to hide the groups for more room.
• Press ALT to display the Key Tip badges for the Ribbon tabs, the Microsoft Office Button, and the Quick Access Toolbar.
• Zoom using the slider in the lower right corner



• New Feature
• SmartArt Graphics
• Themes
• Math Equations
• New WFU PowerPoint Template

Print Less Data
Delete
Look for rows and columns you can completely delete from the document. Good candidates include blank columns and columns where the information is the same in every cell.
Hide
Hide rows and columns that you’ll need later, but don’t need to print.

1. Select the rows or columns.
2. Choose Format>Row (or Column)>Hide.

You can tell a row (or column) is hidden because the row numbers (or column letters) will skip and there will be a thick black line at the skipped spot. To undo this action…

1. Select across the hidden area.
2. Choose Format>Row (or Column)>Unhide.

Print Area
With a Print Area, data remains visible on the screen, but only the cells you designate will print. To enable, highlight the cells you want to print and choose File>Print Area>Set Print Area. You can clear the Print Area later using File>Print Area>Clear Area.

Print Area only works with a single contiguous block of cells.

Make Your Data Fit
Autofit Rows and Columns
Place your cursor on the right edge of a column or on the bottom edge of a row. Double click. The row/column will automatically adjust to the widest or tallest data item. If a few items are anomalously long consider…

• Using Format>Cells>Alignment>Wrap Text to get the item to fit.
• Making those few cells a smaller font size than the remaining text.
• If circumstances permit, just adjust the column so you don’t see the end of the data for the odd items. (This is the fastest approach, and it works well with bibliographic titles.)

Page Setup Menu
Always use the Print Preview button on your toolbar to see how your data will look when printed. Click Setup... to change the settings.
Margins Tab
If you’re not using a header or footer, change these settings to 0. This author uses 0.4 for other margins. You can experiment with even smaller margins, but if you make it too small, Excel or your printer may give warnings about printing outside of the printable area.

Sheet Tab: Rows to Repeat at top
Force your header row to print at the top of every page. You must use File>Page Setup… to use this feature. Click the red box and then highlight the row(s) you wish to repeat.

Sheet Tab:Gridlines
Check this box if you want to print the gridlines.

Sheet Tab:Row and Column Headings
Check this box to print ABC across the top and 123 along the left side. This is not the same as printing your descriptive column names.

Page Tab
Flip between portrait and landscape to see which approach gives the best results.

For most library uses, it’s important to have the horizontal data fit on a single sheet. Choose the radio button to print your data 1 page wide (you can erase the number in the “tall” blank). Excel will automatically change the percentage of text size to match (in my example 56%).

Print on Different Size Paper
Consider using Legal or Ledger (11X17) paper if that’s the only way for your data to legibly fit across one page. Take care with this approach if you’re sending your file to another person since many library printers only carry Letter size.

Set Excel Defaults to Improve Printing Performance
By using a template, you can set your favorite paper-saving tricks to be the default behavior in Excel. Here’s how:

1. Open a blank Excel Workbook.
2. Make the changes you want in the Page Setup Menu.
3. Save the file as book.xlt. In the dropdown menu, this is called “Template”. For the moment save it on your desktop.

Suggested Template Settings

• Print Gridlines
• Margins at 0.4 all around with 0 for header and footer
• Center horizontally and vertically (Margins tab)
• Delete Sheet2 and Sheet3

You can always override these settings on any individual workbook. If you ever want to eliminate the template entirely, just delete the .xlt file.

Option 1: Save in Program Files
Excel has an XLStart folder that opens every time you start Excel. On the T60 ThinkPads at WFU it’s at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\XLSTART.

Option 2: Save in Userdata

1. Make a folder in Userdata\OfficeTemplates called XLStart.
2. Save your .xlt file there.
3. Then, within Excel, go to Tools>Options.
4. Choose General tab.
5. In “At startup, open all files in”, type C:\userdata\OfficeTemplates\XLStart .

Now your template is backed up with your Userdata and will transfer from one computer to the next. Repeat steps 3-5 every time you get a new computer.

Notes on Templates

• Templates do not apply to files you export to Excel (e.g. from Access/Voyager).
• Templates do not affect pre-existing files (created by you or someone else).

Microsoft Online Training Central

Microsoft Excel 2007 Online Training

The New Ribbon for Microsoft Excel 2007

With the new Ribbon installed on Microsoft Excel 2007, many of the options have different locations than the previous versions of the program. Within these tabs, the user can still access the old Microsoft Excel dialog boxes by clicking on the boxed arrow located at the bottom right of each tab option box.

Tab Contents for Microsoft Excel 2007

Home
•Clipboard- includes cut, copy and paste
•Font- edit font size and style
•Alignment- select alignment of text in spreadsheet field
•Number- format how the numbers in the cells are displayed
•Styles- conditional formatting, tables and cell styles all allow for professional spreadsheets
•Cells- insert, delete or format cells
•Editing- find, select, group and arrange data within cells

Insert
•Tables- insert basic table or pivot table
•Illustrations- insert clip art, picture from file, shapes or NEW Smart Art
•Charts- create any type of chart to represent your data
•Links- insert hyperlink
•Text- insert text box, header, footer, Word Art, symbols, etc.

Page Layout
•Themes- select from previously installed themes for your data
•Page Setup- edit margins, size, print area, orientation, etc.
•Scale to Fit- Stretch or shrink size of data to fit printed pages
•Sheet Options- select whether gridlines and headings are visible
•Arrange- Align and arrange inserted objects

Formulas
•Function Library- insert preset functions for data inputs
•Defined Names- Name cells so you can refer to them in formulas by that name
•Formula Auditing- includes all existing formula options including cell referral
•Calculations- specify when formulas are calculated

Data
•Get external data- retrieve data from the web, from Access, or from text
•Connections- Displays all data connections for the workbook
•Sort and Filter- sort and filer data based on specific criteria
•Data Tools- separate text into columns, remove duplicates, consolidate data, etc.
•Outline- group data for collapsible cells, ungroup cells, insert subtotal cells

Review
•Proofing- use spell check, research, thesaurus, etc.
•Comments- Add new, edit and delete comments for slides
•Changes- Keep track of and protect changes within the workbook

View
•Workbook Views- select from many different viewing formats
•Show/Hide- ruler, gridlines, formula bar and headings
•Zoom- in and out
•Windows- Add more windows to compare changes to workbook
•Macros- record new and view already existing macros

Conditional Formatting
By using the Conditional Formatting tool within Microsoft Excel, you can highlight interesting or unusual cells, point out important trends within data, or place icons to make your spreadsheet look appealing. Any style of display that you desire to place within your spreadsheet is possible through Conditional Formatting.