Excel 2007 has a radical look compared to previous versions of Excel. Initial reactions to those who have used from Excel 95 to Excel 2003 is one of surprise. The only way to embrace the new look is to immerse yourself in Excel 2007 and use it frequently. Once you do this, you will get used to the new look. In this page and other related pages, we explore what's new in Excel 2007.
If you have Excel 2003 and Excel 2007 installed on your computer, and if you have desktop shortcuts for both versions, then this is how they look like:
Open Excel 2007 either from the desktop shortcut or from the Start button on the lower left hand corner of the Window. Office Button Here is the Office Button. It replaces the File menu in previous versions of Office (including Excel): Clicking the Office Button opens up a vertical menu of useful functions. Notice that it shows a list of workbooks that you have recently opened. Quick Access Toolbar Here is the Quick Access Toolbar: From left to right, it has the Save icon, the Undo and Redo icons, and the File, Open icon, plus the Controls icon. (The Quick Access Toolbar has nothing to do with Microsoft Access.) Ribbons "Ribbons" have replaced "Toolbars" in Excel 2007. The tradeoff in Excel 2007 is some vertical space where you see frequently-used icons always in view for a loss of about 4 rows. Each of the menus, "Home", "Insert", and so on, have their own ribbons with appropriate icons.
If you are in a new, empty worksheet in Excel 2007, do the keyboard short cut Crtl-down arrow. This will take you to row 1048576 - that's right - row 1,048,576! There are more than a million rows in a worksheet! The number of rows in an Excel 2003 worksheet was 65,536. To those with a mathematical eye, 65,536 = 2 raised to the 16th power, while 1,048,576 = 2 raised to the 20th power.
The rightmost column in Excel 2007 is now XFD. (To get there, do Ctrl-right arrow.) The rightmost column in Excel 2003 was IV (column 256). In Excel 2007 there are 16,384 columns per worksheet.
So, if you need to fill every cell in an Excel 2007 worksheet, you will have over 17 billion cells filled! (Actually 17,179,869,184 cells.)
Remember in Excel 2003, when you opened Excel the Task Pane would always appear? (below) And to show the Task Pane the keyboard shortcut was Ctrl-F1? Well, when you open Excel 2007 there isn't any Task Pane, and Ctrl-F1 hides or shows the ribbon. If you want to see a list of workbooks that you have recently opened, click the Office button. If you press Ctrl-F1, this is what Excel 2007 looks like:
Unfortunately, no. If you really miss the Excel 2003 menus, you will have to get an Add-In, which you will likely have to purchase. To search for vendors for this Add-In, do an Internet search for "excel 2007" + "Excel 2003 menus" (include the double-quotes).