Office 97 Excel
Visit the Excel
Utilities Page for free downloadable wizards for
development in Excel 97
Visit our Excel 97
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Work Smarter with Excel 97
Formula AutoCorrect
Microsoft Excel automatically identifies and corrects
15 of the most common formula errors.
Natural Language Formulas
In Microsoft Excel 97, you can now build formulas
using your own row and column labels and headings without
having to first create named ranges.
Formula Palette
This feature combines the Function Wizard—which
helps you build functions—and the formula
bar—which helps you edit them—into one useful
tool that rests right on the formula bar. The Formula
Palette provides easy access to a menu with the most
popular functions (SUM, AVERAGE, IF, HYPERLINK, COUNT,
MAX, SIN, SUMIF, PMT, STDEV).
Range Finders
Microsoft Excel 97 now makes it easier to understand
your numbers at a glance by employing color to simplify
formula building and editing. The range of cells
corresponding to a formula are color-coded, along with
the cell containing the formula, so that you can quickly
see which numbers a formula pertains to.
Template Wizard with Data Tracking
New in Office 95. Create electronic forms for your
workbooks. Then use the forms to gather data from your
co-workers, and send the data to a database without
retyping.
Built-in Templates
New in Office 95. Quickly set up invoices, expense
tracking, and purchase orders by using one of the
professionally designed templates that ship with
Microsoft Excel.
Bigger Worksheets
You now have four times the number of rows available
for use in a worksheet. (65,536 rows per worksheet rather
than 16,384.)
Visual Printing
The new Page Break Preview feature shows you which
part of your sheet will print and where the page breaks
are. If they’re not quite what you want, drag and
drop the page breaks to get the exact layout you want to
print.
Beyond the Grid Formatting Options
Automatically Format Specific Cells
This feature allows you to automatically format
specific cells based on values in your spreadsheet. The
formatting can alert you when you’ve exceeded your
budget, or can notify you when a goal has been reached.
Make it easier to spot anomalies, spot changes in data
you hadn’t foreseen, or categorize results from
calculations.
Custom Format Cells
Format specific cells to highlight or organize your
data. With Microsoft Excel 97, you can rotate and indent
text within cells to show hierarchy or other
relationships among data.
Merge Cells
Create cells that exceed one row or column, great for
adding titles or notes to worksheets, or for table
layout. It’s also useful for creating forms.
Work with Your Group
Internet Features
You can add hyperlinks to cells or objects, or to
documents created in other Office 97 applications. In
Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows, you can open and save
documents stored in FTP sites on the Internet. With a few
mouse clicks, Microsoft Excel 97 will save your workbook
in HTML format for use on the Web.
Validate Data
You can set up rules for cell contents so that only
certain values can be entered, and you can create input
and error messages to help users enter correct values.
Data validation cells can also be verified by using a
button on the Auditing toolbar.
Shared Workbooks
Microsoft Excel 97 makes it easy for multiple users to
work on one workbook simultaneously. Users can highlight
their changes right on the sheet making them easily
visible. Attach comments to any cell to communicate with
co-workers about changes. Keep track of all changes made
to the workbook; identify changes to particular cells by
the person who made the changes or by the time. In
addition, users can each contribute to a workbook and not
merge changes until everyone is finished.
Analyze Your Data
Improved Charting
The Chart Wizard in Microsoft Excel 97 is redesigned
to allow you to create and modify your charts easily. In
addition, Chart Tips provide you with immediate
information about a specific chart element, and the
Office Assistant can provide step-by-step advice.
New Chart Types
Microsoft Excel 97 offers new 3-D charts—pyramid,
conical, and cylindrical—and a new bubble chart to
make data presentation clearer and more precise.
PivotTable Format Enhancements
You can now format your PivotTable data and it will
remain intact as you change the PivotTable or refresh the
data. New PivotTable options enable you to position page
fields across columns, show row items with no data, and
control the appearance of empty cells or cells containing
errors.
Calculate Fields in PivotTables
Calculate fields or items within your PivotTable. The
calculations become a part of the PivotTable, from which
you can model data or analyze it.
PivotTables Enhancements for Advanced Users
Advanced users can now sort row field items based on
data in the PivotTable, increase the security of the data
by using new PivotTable properties and methods,
dynamically sort or hide items based on values in the
PivotTable, and format or sort date fields.
Microsoft Map
New in Office 95, Microsoft Map allows you to show
your data, such as sales by region or population,
geographically.
Solver
Solver has been upgraded in Excel 97, which Microsoft
is now shipping as part of the new Office 97. The
improved Solver borrows some of the ease-of-use features
of our Premium
Solver for Microsoft Excel (though it has none of the
capacity or performance advantages of the Premium
Solver), and it also makes use of some new features of
Excel 97 itself. Preserved compatibility with your
existing Solver models, macros, and VBA code utilizing
the Solver has been preserved.
