Microsoft Excel 2007 Training Options

Upgrading to Excel 2007 may be something of a shock to you and your staff. The initial reaction of most people is: "where is everything?" Bearing this in mind, you may well find that a training course on Excel 2007 is a good investment. The training should first of all get you past the initial state of confusion caused by the fact that 2007 looks so different from previous versions. Then it should give you some guidance on the new features in Excel 2007 such as the enhancements to charting and graphics, functions and conditional formatting.

One of the first things you should look for in having training on Excel 2007 is a full explanation of how the new interface works. You should be shown the new way of working and learn useful tips and shortcuts which will enable you to become at least as productive in Excel 2007 as you were in 2003.

However, naturally, your training should not simply return you to the same level of knowledge that you had in version 2003 or 2003. On the contrary, you should be looking to get some guidance on what else Excel 2007 has to offer: the new features and the enhanced features.

The Excel 2007 worksheet is much bigger than its 2003 counterpart; about a thousand times bigger in fact. Your Excel 2007 training should show you how you can exploit this huge area when designing your spreadsheets. Some decent navigation tips would also be helpful.

Pivot tables are a key area where Excel 2007 has made improvements. Ensure that any Excel 2007 training that you book includes first of all an explanation of pivot table essentials (pivot tables often confuse users) and then moves on to the new ways of creating and manipulating pivot tables offered in Excel 2007.

Charts and graphics are a great way to add impact to your Excel reports. Does your organisation use them? If so, make sure that your Excel 2007 training course incorporates gives you plenty of practice examples in using Excel 2007's new features to create and manipulate charts and graphics. You should become a dab hand at using the new charting ribbons: the format ribbon, the design ribbon and the layout ribbon. Do you need advanced features too? If so, you should also be looking to learn about pivot charts, scatter charts and adding trendlines to your charts.

Your Excel 2007 training course should also cover conditional formatting. This is a feature that has been much enhanced in Excel 2007 and your training should show you how to exploit the new features available. Make sure you will come away from the training knowing all about Data Bars and Color Scale.

The ability to enter formulas and functions into the cells of an Excel spreadsheet is the key feature that has made the program so essential to so many organisations. Excel 2007 has added several new features relating to functions and several new functions. You should insist that any training course you book on Excel 2007 demonstrates these new features and functions such as IfError, SumIfs and AverageIf.

By: Andrew Whiteman

The The writer of this article is a training consultant with Macresource Computer Solutions, a UK IT training company offering QuarkXPress training courses at their central London training centre.

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