# Upgrade to Excel 2007



## Domski (Jan 4, 2008)

Hi,

Excel 2007 has been about for some time now and I've still to get my hands on it. The main reason for this is we won't be getting it at work for at least another 12 months and I'm finding it hard to justify the cost for what little use I would get out of the additional features at home.

I just wondered what other Mr Excel'ers thought of the new features after using them for a while and at what stage of the upgrade process they were at.

Dom


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## SydneyGeek (Jan 4, 2008)

Upgraded a while back, but not exclusively. I have come across some compatibility issues and I need to have both old and new versions installed. My workhorse PC has Windows Vista / Office 2007 with Windows XP / Office 2003 running on Virtual PC, and I'm happy with that. 

Denis


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## Richard Schollar (Jan 4, 2008)

Howdy Denis (sorry Dom for the aside) - do you have full connectivity between the versions eg if you try and connect xl2003 on your Virtual PC with Access 2007 on your native Vista?  Can you connect from the virtual PC to webdata too?


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## Greg Truby (Jan 4, 2008)

Domski,

I think you left off what would probably be a high vote-getter:
_"Would like to give it a go, but my company's IS group has yet to approve it."_


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## Domski (Jan 4, 2008)

Greg,

Point taken. I guess I thought "I've no intention of upgrading for the time being" would cover that. It's the case for myself to be honest.

You could kind of go on forever with all the options if you weren't careful.

Dom


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## Greg Truby (Jan 4, 2008)

Domski said:


> ...I guess I thought "I've no intention of upgrading for the time being" would cover that.


Indeed, that is the option I chose because it's the best fit. But _"no intention"_ implies that it was my decision. When in fact _"as far as one can discern, IS has no intention of approving XL2007 this decade"_ is closer to the mark. 


Domski said:


> You could kind of go on forever with all the options if you weren't careful.


Understood.


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## Domski (Jan 4, 2008)

Greg Truby said:


> _"as far as one can discern, IS has no intention of approving XL2007 this decade"_ is closer to the mark.


 
 Know what you mean. Although you do realise it's 2008 now. I think you could be being a tad optimistic there if your place is anything like mine


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## Greg Truby (Jan 4, 2008)

2010 *is* being optimic!


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## SydneyGeek (Jan 4, 2008)

Hi Richard, I guess the ansewr is "mostly". 

1. I don't bother trying to move between versions -- had some bad experiences early on. It appears that VPC likes to think of itself as a silo, so I ahve mapped my main work folder to VPC as an externnal drive and when I need to work in Office 2003, I pull the files into VPC and use them locally. 

2. Connecting to the Web -- no problem. Just ran a web query to confirm, and it worked without hassles. 

From what I've been told, VMWare is better at giving you a seamless connection between virtual and "real" machines. My brother uses it for a dual Linux / XP system and can copy and paste between the two. 

Denis


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## erik.van.geit (Jan 4, 2008)

I'm happy with Office XP, it's all I need.
2007 should be available for 20 euro for everybody who already has a previous version

kind regards,
Erik


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## Domski (Jan 4, 2008)

Hi,

Excel 2007 has been about for some time now and I've still to get my hands on it. The main reason for this is we won't be getting it at work for at least another 12 months and I'm finding it hard to justify the cost for what little use I would get out of the additional features at home.

I just wondered what other Mr Excel'ers thought of the new features after using them for a while and at what stage of the upgrade process they were at.

Dom


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## Domski (Jan 6, 2008)

I just found out I can get office 2007 for £30 through my Uni course so guess I'll be upgrading sooner rather than later.

Deep joy.


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## powderider86 (Jan 7, 2008)

I use Office '07 at home on Vista, and '07 at work on XP... but some of my co-workers are still on Office '03. The only problems I have is if I forget to save files I share with co-workers in the correct formatting... and extra 2 secs to fix. It took a day to get use to the new '07 layout, but after a week with it, '07 is way better, not only with Excel, but Word, Access, and Powerpoint as well.


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## Richard Schollar (Jan 7, 2008)

powderider86 said:


> It took a day to get use to the new '07 layout



Only a day!? It's still taking me time to get to grips with


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## powderider86 (Jan 7, 2008)

I use office almost 365 days a year... I am finishing up my status as a full-time student, but have been a full-time employee for some time... as pathetic as it is I feel like I was born with office because i've been using and learning on it since i can remember


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## Domski (Jan 7, 2008)

As long as they haven't messed with the shortcut keys too much I'm pretty sure I won't have too much difficulty get used to it although I'm interested to see what 'The Ribbon' is like to work with. Generally really good at picking up new stuff so fingers crossed.


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## SydneyGeek (Jan 7, 2008)

Most of the shortcut keys work just fine. The hassle I have is when I want to build a list, using (for example) weekdays. I haven't found where some of those features have gone in the new version. 

Still, mostly I am pretty happy with it. And if you really struggle, there's a banner ad on the Board with a Classic menu for Excel 2007. (I haven't used it -- prefer to occasionally swear at Office and find it in the new layout). 

Denis


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## Domski (Jan 7, 2008)

> The hassle I have is when I want to build a list, using (for example) weekdays.


 
Do you mean the old Fill...Series command? Does the old right click and drag not still work?


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## powderider86 (Jan 7, 2008)

All you have to do is type "Monday" then click the cross in the bottom right of the cell and drag it... booyah kasha


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## erik.van.geit (Jan 7, 2008)

powderider86 said:


> All you have to do is type "Monday" then click the cross in the bottom right of the cell and drag it... booyah kasha


Hello,

To my sense the question was were these lists are stored. Do you know that?

kind regards,
Erik


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## SydneyGeek (Jan 7, 2008)

No, what I was getting at was Edit > Fill > Series. You can type in a date, select a range, Edit > Fill > Series, and select Weekdays. 
You get a list of dates that automatically _excludes_ weekends. Very useful for creating monthly timesheets, for example, without entering formulas. I don't know where to find the equivalent in 2007. 

Denis


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## Domski (Jan 4, 2008)

Hi,

Excel 2007 has been about for some time now and I've still to get my hands on it. The main reason for this is we won't be getting it at work for at least another 12 months and I'm finding it hard to justify the cost for what little use I would get out of the additional features at home.

I just wondered what other Mr Excel'ers thought of the new features after using them for a while and at what stage of the upgrade process they were at.

Dom


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## Domski (Jan 7, 2008)

I know up to Excel 2003 you could enter the day or date and then drag with the right mouse button held.

This then brought up a number of options for filling days, weekdays, months etc. Does this not work in 2007?

Dom


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## barry houdini (Jan 7, 2008)

You can still do both of those in Excel 2007, drag holding the right button or use Editing > Fill > Series

Editing section is at the far right if you're in "Home" tab


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## powderider86 (Jan 7, 2008)

Oops... no problem, easy, under the "Home" tab, far right, the edit box, click the fill button, voila!


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## powderider86 (Jan 7, 2008)

Wow, oops again, Houdini was all over it


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## SydneyGeek (Jan 7, 2008)

Aha!

Thanks -- got it now

Denis


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## Richard Schollar (Jan 8, 2008)

I'm going to increase my use of Office2007 - the only way to properly learn it is t use it and I have been resorting to Office2003 far too much.  I'm only going to load Office2007 on my new laptop and do without 2003 completely.  I do much prefer Word2007 over the 2003 version, and in fact Access 2007 over the 2003 version.  Let's see if I can persuade myself that xl2007 can be better than 2003 too ...


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## powderider86 (Jan 8, 2008)

Thats the attitude... best of luck


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## Domski (Jan 9, 2008)

Got home a bit ago and the package was waiting on the doormat. Just finished installing it.

Where have all my nice familiar buttons gone? 

Too late to start messing with it now. Will have a play about tomorrow and see how things go.


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## Domski (Jan 9, 2008)

If anyone's interested this is where I got it from:

www.software4students.co.uk

Seems kosher. You just seem to need to have a member of the household who's at school/college/uni to take advantage.

Laters,

Dom


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## Richard Schollar (Jan 10, 2008)

Hey that's pretty cool Dom - which version did you go for?


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## Domski (Jan 4, 2008)

Hi,

Excel 2007 has been about for some time now and I've still to get my hands on it. The main reason for this is we won't be getting it at work for at least another 12 months and I'm finding it hard to justify the cost for what little use I would get out of the additional features at home.

I just wondered what other Mr Excel'ers thought of the new features after using them for a while and at what stage of the upgrade process they were at.

Dom


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## Domski (Jan 10, 2008)

Not bad is it!

I'm skint at the moment due to immiment snowboarding trip and very rarely (i.e. never) use Access at home so just went for the standard version for £37 inc VAT.

Dom


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## powderider86 (Jan 10, 2008)

Wow, wish I had seen that sight sooner, would have saved me a bundle... have fun snowboarding, best thing in the world... outside excel of course


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## Domski (Jan 10, 2008)

Nope, skiing and boarding beats the lot. Just wish I lived closer to the mountains and could afford to go more often than once or twice a year.


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## njimack (Jan 15, 2008)

Our Actuarial department recently had 2007 installed on all their machines.  However, the files they use are either used by other departments, or are sent to other departments and external clients.  As a result, they were continually having to convert their files so that they could be opened in previous version of Excel.  They got so fed up of this and the fact that they couldn't make use of the additional features in 2007 that they've just downgraded to 2003.  They still have to pay for the 2007 license though, because Microsoft no longer sell 2003 licenses!


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## SydneyGeek (Jan 15, 2008)

Nasty. 

I have found that using large .xls files in 2007 is not a good idea. Hangs, freezes, etc are quite common -- but using 2003 on the same file is fine. I guess the take-home in my experience is that, if you are always using .xls format, stick with an earlier Excel version; use 2007 with the newer format. 

Denis


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