Early feedback on Excel 2010

 

As previously reported, Excel 2007 was the focus for some major changes, including the notorious Ribbon interface that is being extended to the entire Office family. As we previously reported, compared to the overhaul last time round, there’s not much new to report about in Excel 2010.

 

If you haven’t had much experience with the Office 2007 Ribbon yet, you’ll spend so much time trying to find familiar tools and commands in the 2010 edition that you are unlikely to have much time or patience for many of the new features.

 

The main user interface has been tweaked slightly, so the big Strepsil-like Office lozenge is now a small, green retangle (referred to by one US commentator as a “Chicklet”). Somewhat disconcertingly, Help is also much harder to locate - the tiny circular question mark on the Home menu ribbon is far less prominent and immediate than the old search dialogue box.

 

 

But moaning about the Ribbon doesn’t give much of an impression about what’s new and useful in Excel 2010. Migrating between old and new versions has always been a tedious chore, solved in the 2003/2007 episode by Microsoft’s free conversion tool.

 

Excel 2010 is a little smarter - if it notices you’ve opened an Excel 2003 file it will let you know, but will then default to save it back into the same format. Native 2010 files will default to .xlsx, with a multitude of other Save As options also available from the pull down menu.