Excel 2010 uncovered: 5 time-savers

Posted by David Ringstrom PM | on Fri, 11/02/2011 - 08:50 4178 2 comments

Having got to grips with Excel 2010, lecturer David Ringstrom highlights five minor changes that have improved his efficiency in the new version. Look out for more tips next week.

Like many other people, I was underwhelmed when Office 2010 was first released. This may have been a residue of the disorientation caused by the new Ribbon interface in Excel 2070.After a few weeks, and the help of Microsoft's Excel 2007 transition tool I got my confidence back and began to make headway with Excel 2007.

Anyone contemplating a move to Excel 2010 will be comforted to know similar tools are available to help with the transition to Office 2010.

After a couple of months use, I began to realise that a number of subtle changes in Excel 2010 delivered significant improvements that you might not recognise on your first few encounters. This article is the first of two in which I'll highlight how productivity-enhancing features. You can also see them in action in the accompanying video hosted on AccountingWEB.com.

1. Attention Ribbon-haters! As you may have already heard, Excel 2010 lets you tinker with the ribbon to your heart's content. Excel 2007 only allowed you to customise the Quick Access Toolbar, but if you put more than eight icons on it, you would start to wonder which icon did what. But with Excel 2010 you can change the Ribbon to include the commands you want. I was frustrated not to have a Pivot Table icon on the Data tab, but it was a simple matter to add one, as shown below.

Also covered in this introductory guide:

2. Return of the File menu

3. Recent Places added to Recently Used File list

4. Favourite files can be permanently pinned at the top of the Recent Items menu
5. New Recover Unsaved Workbooks feature.

About the author
"Either you work Excel, or it works you!" says David Ringstrom CPA, the head of Atlanta-based software and database consultancy Accounting Advisors. He presents Excel training webcasts for AccountingWEB partner CPE Link and contributes articles on Excel to Microsoft Professional Accountant's Network newsletter. He can be reached by email at david[AT]acctadv.com.

Continued...

Pivot tables

fionamcke | Thu, 24/02/2011 - 15:39 | Permalink

Some useful tips but what have they done to pivot tables? I've used them for 15 years but the 'easier use' style is incomprehensible to me, I struggled for nearly two hours making slow progress then gave up in frustration.

I used to love using pivot tables! Help.

Classic PivotTable layout

shurst | Fri, 25/02/2011 - 08:37 | Permalink

If it's the new layout that's causing the problem, you can revert to the old layout by clicking the Options button in the PivotTable Tools, Options tab, PivotTable group and in the Display tab choosing 'Classic PivotTable layout (enables draffing of fields in the grid)'. Mind you, I've found that after persevering with the new approach I've got used to it.

Hope this helps.

Simon Hurst