1.1 Million Rows - A Discussion About Excel 12

[MrExcel]

There have been four instances where Microsoft has shown Office 12 to the public. Some high-level customers went out to Redmond in August. They showed it at the Professional Developers Conference in September. They showed it at the Publishers Summit in late September, and then again at the MVP Summit in late September. To get in, you had to sign an NDA saying that you wouldn't discuss what you saw. However, some facts about Office 12 have been made public on various Microsoft websites, so I feel pretty safe in talking about these items. (After I wrote this, I went back and noted the public source where someone from Microsoft talked about the feature to make sure I am not treading anywhere that I shouldn't).

1) This is the most substantial new release of Excel since '95 or '97. (Source: my opinion).

2) The grid is expanding to 2^20 rows and 10,000+ columns. The final column is column XFD. The final row is around 1.1 million. (Source: Dave Gainer Weblog)

3) Charting has been completely rewritten. There are not new chart types, but the look and feel of the charts is light-years ahead of the current charts. (Source: Julie Larsen-Green Video on Channel 9)

4) You can now natively create PDF files from all Office applications. (Source: Steve Sinofsky released us from NDA for this one fact and said we could tell about this)

5) Pivot Tables and conditional formatting have been made easier. Conditional Formatting is incredibly powerful now - you can easily create visual views of your data. (Source: Julie Larsen-Green Video). I *love* the Data Bar view as shown here in Dave Gainer's Blog

6) Keyboard-centric people will love that every single option available in the program will now be keyboard accessible. Not half, not most , but every single option. I love the keyboard, I love memorizing keyboard shortcuts for the common things (I even think, Alt-EIJ when I need to edit-fill-justify. It is hard for me not to say, "just Alt-EIJ that range"). And yes - there is a classic mode for people who know the old shortcuts. (Source: Jensen Harris blog)

7) Mouse-centric people will love that a new floating toolbar appears with the stuff usually in the right-click menu. It is the same sort of semi-transparent thing that Outlook 2003 shows when a new e-mail arrives. If you move the mouse towards the toolbar, it becomes solid, otherwise it fades away. I can see that this will be a huge timesaver - all of the good options just a few pixels from the current cell. (Julie Larsen Green Video)

8) They have completely re-thought menus and toolbars. Word 1.0 offered 20 commands. Excel 2003 has 350 commands. There is no way to effectively layer 350 commands on 9 menu options - people can not find what they are looking for. The new user interface is called "The Ribbon". It is context-sensitive like the current right-click menus. Instead of tiny toolbar icons, it has big buttons and words. The most powerful things are very evident in The Ribbon. For a lot of people blogging about the release, they all seem to have heartburn that there is not a "classic" view that will bring back the old menu system. I initially thought this was insane. However, after seeing it first-hand for a couple of days, I really think that this is a vast improvement. I think this is a small hurdle, it will annoy me for 2 days, but once I get past it, then I have the full power of 1.1 million rows and more power to analyze data with Excel. (Source: Jensen Harris blog)

9) In the MVP Excel breakout session, they showed some other features that have not been shown elsewhere. There are some gems in here, just in case #2, #3, #4, and #5 weren't enough. As soon as Dave Gainer talks about them, I will bring them up.

My take... a lot of people are still using Excel 97 or Excel 2000 and this is fine because Microsoft had not added much new stuff since Excel 97. It made it great as an author, because a screen shot from Excel 2003 looked almost like the screen shot from Excel 97 - you could write about seven years of Office releases with one book.

However, I think that this version has so much good stuff - it will be very very compelling for people to upgrade. I was talking with a casual Excel user last night, and just that day, he had been burned by the 65,536 row limit. Other people want more than 3 conditional formatting. It will be easier for regular people to find the powerful features that are currently buried.

The "gotcha" that I can see - upgrading needs to be an all-or-nothing thing for a company. If you have Excel 12 and have 350,000 rows of data and some of your co-workers are still on Excel 2000 - you won't be able to share that data.

Anyway - I've started this post for us to discuss the changes. If you hear of a new feature, feel free to post about it here.

Bill

 

[TrippyTom]

I just want to say I'm waiting for your book on Excel 12.

And I'm completely excited about this new release, even though I know my workplace won't even think about getting it until years later. I'm definitely going to buy it for home use.

 

[litrelord]

So far this all looks fantastic to me. At last some real changes that I will actually use, not just because I can, but because they will make it easier for me.

I've heard so many rumours it's difficult to weed out the truth. Made more difficult by the varying Microsoft press releases. At one time Office 12 was only going to work with Longhorn. Now they say XP as well. Surely it will work with Win2k as well though as this must be what the core of it's target audience are using in a networked office environment? Would like to hear more for certain on that one.

The only other concern I have is that if Microsoft keep on improving their products like this and adding functionality where does that leave me? I'll no longer be the "excel answers guy" because there won't be any need for all my little macros and shortcuts

And finally a release from 65536. Mind you, it will take a few years before Office 12 is common enough that we can use all of them for spreadsheet going outside of the company. I still have to save some reports as excel 95 before sending them out.

Onwards and upwards!

Nick

 

[Smitty]

The "gotcha" that I can see - upgrading needs to be an all-or-nothing thing for a company. If you have Excel 12 and have 350,000 rows of data and some of your co-workers are still on Excel 2000 - you won't be able to share that data.

Unfortunately, I don't see my company upgrading all office users anytime soon; heck, our sales reps just got PC's less than 2 years ago. So I'll have to buy a laptop/system I can use at home with O12.

From a "Power User" point of view I see a lot of advantages to the upgrades mentioned, however, I see some huge potential for wb's bloated beyond recognition and more FUBAR'd then they can be now. Especially for the majority of our users who have "bare bones" systems intended more for e-mail and on-line access to customer proofs than serious computing.

The 64 IF levels scares the crap out me; learning to read "IF" will be as complicated as Mandarin Chinese for a Texan! Fortunately, most of my users don't know anything about logic or how to express it verbally, let alone in a formula anyway.

I liken it a bit to driving in HellA: the smarter cars get, the dumber the drivers become.

It ought to be interesting, especially from an integration standpoint. A note to our Finance Department(s): are you going to have to migrate away from 1-2-3?

Smitty

 

[Zack Barresse]

Great post Bill.

I must say, as for myself I am very, very excited about O12. It sounds like Microsoft has done some fantastic things to it, and more importantly, they have listened to the users and given what was needed. Better charting? More Conditional Formats? More rows and columns? Heck yes! I can't wait.

The one thing about all this that worries me is your last statement, as I share Smitty's concern. I feel safe in assuming that you will be able to save to prior versions of Excel, which of course would be more widely used as not everybody will upgrade right away.

I think Microsoft got into a rut with their previous Office versions, from 95 to 2003. They're all pretty much the same with (imo) two major exceptions, 1) the look/graphics are different/improved, and 2) more options were available in each subsequent version. This is good because there were things you could do with Excel 2002 that you couldn't with Excel 97. This made things easier from a workbook developer's point of view; more tools in the toolbox.

I think if Microsoft does an excellent job of marketing this new Office version, they will be able to see many more users migrate to it a lot quicker than they have seen in the past. For me personally, I'm definitely going to have it. I just couldn't pass it up. Actually, I can't wait to code VBA with it.

Thanks Bill, take care.

 

[MrExcel]

There is a file compatability mode. If you are using Excel 12, you can save your files in a format readable by Excel 97-2003. However, when you then open this file in Excel 12, you are forced into a backwards compatability mode where new features may not work.

I am not sure that I want to be limited to 3 conditional format levels just because I have to save the file in the old format for Joe down the hall who won't upgrade. You certainly will enjoy the new features more if everyone in the office has the new version.

 

[XL-Dennis]

The "gotcha" that I can see - upgrading needs to be an all-or-nothing thing for a company. If you have Excel 12 and have 350,000 rows of data and some of your co-workers are still on Excel 2000 - you won't be able to share that data.

I fully agree and it's important that MSFT set up an attractive pricemodel for Office System 12 as well as single out the core business values that next version will add to the corporates.

In addition, it will also be of interest to learn what the hardware requirements will be. The new UI and the expanded capacity will surely demand more powerful computers then the present versions do and Windows Vista will be the first software that will give us a hint about it.

On a personal note I welcome this huge upgrade of Excel for many reasons but as we also know new possibilites solves many of today's issues and limitations but also create tomorrow's issues.

Anyway, since it's more then a year (?) when Office 12 will be shipped there are some other softwares in the pipeline that will be of interest such as VS.NET/VSTO, SQL Server 2005 and Windows Vista and they may give us additional input in order to view all the news in Excel 12.

 

[GorD]

So, in ball park terms, how far away is this release likely to be, 3 months, 6 months, a year, 2 years or longer. Anyone any got any information or like to have an educated guess.

 

[XL-Dennis]

AFAIK, end of 2006.

 

[just_jon]

I'm wondering if, given today's economy, how many large corporations are going to be willing to update across the board in order to take advantage of O12's capabilities?