Microsoft Office Excel 2010: What’s New?

Microsoft Office 2010 has revealed many outstanding features, we are continuously covering that latest additions and tips. You can read a summarized post on both Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft PowerPoint 2010. Today, we will see what new additions have been added to Microsoft Excel 2010. Although, it is a fact that Excel hasn’t been touched as much as the other major applications in Office 2010, there are still some amazing additions in it. Lets explore them:

Enhanced Ribbon Toolbar

The Ribbon tool bar is not new in Microsoft Excel 2010, it was already there in Excel 2007 as well. However in 2010 it has been enhanced to an extent that it is highly customizable now.

Compatibility of .xlsx

In Excel 2007, Microsoft introduced a new XML format (.xlsx) which was not compatible with former .xls spreadsheet formats. This problem is not there to bother you any more, meaning excel files created in Excel 2010 may easily be opened in versions of Excel prior to Excel 2007. Now Excel 2010 will save files just as safe as the former Excel 2007, and best of all the spreadsheet size is smaller than the old version .xls in order to save more space.

64-Bit Support

Microsoft provides 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Office 2010. At first you might think it to be a common news, but there is one important advantage – now you can create a spreadsheet with a size  up to 4GB.

Sparklines

Sparklines are tiny, word-sized charts that can appear in a cell. Excel 2010 makes it easy to create sparklines. In order to locate the Sparklines option, go to the Insert tab, and chose the Charts group, you will find the Sparklines group here.

Protected Mode

Every time you download some document , Microsoft Office 2010 will open it in Protected Mode. It will not allow you to edit the documents unless document editing is enabled. Click the Enable Editing option in order to enable document editing as shown in the following  screen shot.

Slicer

The Slicer feature is being considered to be one of the most prominent ones. It provides a rich visualization of your PivotTable view so you can dynamically segment and filter the data to display,  just what you need. Like the Sparklines, you can also locate this option from the Insert Tab.

Macro

Macros are not new in Excel 2010. You were able to record Macros in Excel 2007, but you might have noticed that whenever you recorded a macro while doing anything with shapes, the macro would always came out blank. This problem has been addressed and fixed in Excel 2010. You can locate the Macro’s option under the View menu.

Enhanced Chart Diagram

One of the important improvements with respect to charts is that now in Excel 2010 when you double click a chart element, its format dialogue box opens.

Named sets

Named Sets support has been provided in Microsoft Excel 2010, this feature allows you to create your own named sets. Simply locate the  Fields, Items, & Sets button under the Ribbon, and it will allow you to define your own Named Sets.

That’s it, we have covered the most note-worthy enhancements in Microsoft Excel 2010. If you think we skipped any, feel free to comment. Enjoy!