Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

Formula field

Sanja — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 10:47:40 GMT

One important thing for me:

will the input field for the formula be expandable? I mean will I be able to drag its corner to make it bigger when I type in something complicated? Will I be able to type multi-line formula to make it easier to understand (without it it is very hard to debug something complicated, for example, nested IFs - even with bracket highlighting)

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

Harlan Grove — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:04:36 GMT

Since you circled back to past topics, i.e., the number of rows and columns, a question came up in the Excel newsgroups in the past two days that dealt with VLOOKUP when the lookup value and column contain some text values of > 255 characters. In XL10,

=VLOOKUP(REPT("#",254)&"a",LEFT(REPT({"$";"#"},254)&"a",{255,0})&{"","1";"","2"},2,0)

returns 2 while

=VLOOKUP(REPT("#",255)&"a",LEFT(REPT({"$";"#"},255)&"a",{255,0})&{"","1";"","2"},2,0)

returns #VALUE!. Will this restriction on VLOOKUP (and presumably also HLOOKUP and MATCH) be addressed in XL12? BTW, OpenOffice Calc's VLOOKUP handles lookup values > 255 chars.

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

Joku — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:44:29 GMT

Hate to rain on your parade, but I hope there is something more pro than these two. I loved how the Beta 1 looked under the XP-Silver theme and just taking a tiny bit of blue out and changing the low res icons out would have made it perfect! It very well matched the Silver theme but without the over the top gradients and looked more professional than either of the above or anything I've previously seen in MS applications.

In the first skin presented the icon backgrounds are almost the color of the gradient background under the icons. Not nearly as pro-looking as the lighter, two color background button icons over the hazy gray-blue that was in Beta 1.

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

Marc — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 19:48:12 GMT

I don't know man... this new UI just isn't catching me. I just hope the UI team did a good job researching this new approach - maybe we just have to see and get used to it. But until now: I just don't really like it.

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

Harlan Grove — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 21:21:41 GMT

To the point of this topic, any way to turn off 'skins' completely? Or are we doomed to have Office apps resemble Media Player? For those of us for whom the CURRENT, XL11 & Prior menu is second nature so for whom the New! And! Improved! UI will *REDUCE* our productivity (at least in the short term), will there be an old-style menu? Does XL12 support Toolbars? If so, is there a way to completely hide the Ribbon?

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

anon ymous — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 01:04:30 GMT

i can't wait to try to explain to someone over the phone that the "chunk" they are looking for is in a different "ribbon" in order to do something that used to be directly on the edit or view menus.

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

Simon Murphy — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 02:44:14 GMT

Sorry - I have to agree with the nay sayers - I think the new UI alone is a bad move.
I think MS should provide a 'classic' interface to save all the third party developers creating one. That would allow those of us with 'legacy' skills to remain productive.
cheers
Simon

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

Jean Martineau — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 03:07:23 GMT

Is there anyway to used the free space at the top of the UI ? For example, it would be nice if we could have an OPTION to combine the first 2 rows of the RIBBON:
1- The save, undo and redo button could stay at the top left
2- Tabs could move up one row at the right of point 1
3- Application name at the top could be aligned at the complete right

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

David Gainer — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 08:38:25 GMT

Everyone, thanks for your commments and candid feedback, as always.

Sanja, the formula bar will be expandable. Please see this post for details: http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2005/10/18/482471.aspx

Harlan, no, this restriction has not been changed I am afraid to report.

Marc, Simon, Jean, no off switch. You can collapse the ribbon with two clicks on a tab or a shortcut key. You can customize the toolbar that contains a few buttons in the screenshot, and you can move it if you want more room for buttons.

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

Biff — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 10:45:29 GMT

In general, I don't like ANY GUI. I'd rather see "word commands" versus icons and the cute little pictures.

Icons remind me of video games. I don't play video games!

Bring back DOS.

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

Niklas — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 21:00:17 GMT

Dont respond to Biff's trolling please. He should google the word "lexi-visual".

Anyway... Why does it still look ugly?

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

Harlan Grove — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 01:56:18 GMT

Re Biff's comments . . .

I agree, bring back DOS. At least you could run it on machines with < 1MB RAM.

Seriously, GUIs are unavoidable, but the question needs to be asked: what does the average user WHO HAS THE *CURRENT* SKILLS TO RESPOND TO QUESTIONS IN THE EXCEL NEWSGROUPS want and need to see? My own parochial response would be *WORKSHEET CELLS*! (Duh!) The old menu had the advantage of being present but taking up minumal screen area most of the time. The new ribbon wastes screen area.

Yes, I know change happens, and some change is good, and the benefit the rubbon might give to the bulk of unsophisticated users might more than offset the hassle it'll impose on more experienced current users. But it won't be pleasant getting used to the new interface. Microsoft didn't have the lion's share of the market back when Excel 5 came out with it's New! And! Improved! menu relative to Excel 4, so Microsoft may not have learned any lessons from that rollout. This time around, Microsoft is likely to have many millions (out of tens of millions) of pissed off customers. I stand by my previous prediction: Office 12 will be the upgrade from Hell for most IT shops.

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

Biff — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 05:14:42 GMT

"Dont respond to Biff's trolling please. He should google the word "lexi-visual"."

Trolling?

You should google my name and see the "trolling" I'm capable of.

Biff?

Biff — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:08:28 GMT

Biff's trolling? Of course it does. It's not even the real Biff, but a puny impostor. Don't feed it and it will go away.

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

Bruce — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 17:46:15 GMT

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic but the previous question went unanswered. Will Excel 2007 handle dates prior to 1900 like Acess?
Thanks

404 Not Really Found » Change for change’s sake

404 Not Really Found » Change for change’s sake — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 07:39:57 GMT

PingBack from http://www.the1degree.com/blog/2006/03/13/change-for-changes-sake/

re: Excel 2007 – The Final Look, and more rows and columns

David Gainer — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 07:50:56 GMT

Bruce, sorry if I missed an earlier question. No, we have not changed this area in Excel 2007.

Snakes on a Plane | db.rambleschmack.net

Snakes on a Plane | db.rambleschmack.net — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 08:06:12 GMT

PingBack from http://db.rambleschmack.net/blog/2006/03/19/snakes-on-a-plane/

Excel 2007 con 1 milione di righe

Marco Russo — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 02:47:23 GMT

Ho appena letto che Excel 2007 supererà il limite di 65535 righe: il nuovo limite sarà di 1.048.576 righe....

Excel 2007 charting UX design

Alex Barnett blog — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:31:45 GMT

Sander Viegers is a user experience (UX) designer in the Office Design Group who contributed to Excel...

Excel 2007 charting UX design

Alex Barnett blog — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:36:13 GMT

Sander Viegers is a user experience (UX) designer in the Office Design Group who contributed to Excel...