Comments on: Excel 2007 Review – 10 things that WOWed me

By: Chandoo

Chandoo — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:58:36 +0000

@John… Most of the experienced xl 2003 users have similar comments. I think MS is addressing a few with xl 2010. But Ribbon seems to take a firm position in future plans of MS Office so you might as well get on with it and try to benefit from the implementation…

@Squiggler… I have been using xl 2007 at work and home for last year and half and I must say I love the UI now. For some customer projects I use xl 2003 and it does feel a bit difficult now to search in excel 2003 menus…

By: squiggler

squiggler — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:59:45 +0000

As a long time user of Excel (since version 2) I first tried 2007 as a CTP version at first I thought the ribbon was designed for new users and was an annoyance. After daily use of it for the last 3+years I wouldnt go back (I had to use Excel2002 recently for 6 months).

2010 which I am using on my laptop now has resolved some of the niggles I had, now I can edit the ribbon quickly and create tabs which suit me! The only complaint I have about excel is the fact that Visual Basic is not improving, it would be nice to work in VBA in a more visual studio like environment (yes i know about VSTO)!

By: John

John — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:20:18 +0000

My old Laptop and I have been using another office laptop with XL 2007. What a disaster this software is – sure there is a learning curve with new things – but as many observe even after you figure out by trial and error where the functions are hidden, it takes more clicks to get to the function you need than the old version – How about a classic toobar option – why should everyone’s productivity crash so that Microsoft can roll out software that benefits only themselves with new sales and a comparatively small number of users.

By: Hui...

Hui... — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:28:14 +0000

Fear not Berferd
A lot of the issues you discussed have been addressed in 2010
But I still agree with your opening line that 2007 and even 2010 is not as effective as 2003

By: berferd

berferd — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:48:06 +0000

I am a power user of Excel and have been trying for a year to make XL2007 work as effectively as 2003. Definitely the million rows, the PDF add-on, and expanded chart types help. But the problems for serious users like me are major.
- I get frequent warnings that “data may have been lost or corrrupted.”
- Almost every workbook has “minor loss of fidelity.”
- Date records in columns that are used as chart X axes get replaced with a weird string.
- Many keyboard shortcuts like Alt E A (Edit Select All) do not work or involve an extra step. Worse, here Excel pretends to recognize what you want but does not do it.
- Some VBA macros would not work until I declared all variable types.
- XL’07 reports “invalid names” were changed to “#REF!” but then I could not find any such.
- Prompt for passwords suddenly stops appearing; workbook just opens.
- PDF writer within Excel (via MS Add-In) worked fine at first then started to produce mostly gibberish; now useless.
- As some mentioned above, the tooolbars are much less flexible and useful than before (I am surprised the backlash has not been more severe on this); that is a major step backward.
- One critical workboook suddely started to take five times longer to save. Can’t tell why.
- Print Preview button stopped working altogether.
I have nothing agains change. But this has been a real productivity killer. Takes an hour sometimes to do what used to take minutes. Again, I am surprised more people are not up in arms at the changes.

By: Chandoo

Chandoo — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:40:47 +0000

From google:

Two-bagger: An extremely unattractive person (usually female), the insinuation being that one bag covering her face would not be adequate. Within this joke, the second bag is often understood to cover the male’s head in case the female’s bag were to fall off

Jon.. are you sure you have a bag on?

On a more serious note, I found Excel 2007 pretty ok. Infact I have been using it since new year 2009 and so far I havent had any major complaints about it. It is different w/ people like Jon who make commercial tools based out of excel as several things have changed in 2007.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:55:04 +0000

“2003 was the girl you wanted to marry, 2007 is a one night stand”

I think 2007 is what Rodney Dangerfield had in mind when he coined the phrase “two-bagger”.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:37:40 +0000

I have been using 2007 for a couple months now and I am absolutey disgusted by it. Clearly Microsoft wanted to create a program that was beautiful for novice users, however, as someone who knew Excel inside out I find the new appearance and layout to be very inefficient. The way we describe it around our office is 2003 was the girl you wanted to marry, 2007 is a one night stand.

By: DrGorgeous

DrGorgeous — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:22:45 +0000

“One more point for Excel 2007 worth mention is the no. of rows;
from 65536 to 1048576. Phew! That’s great!”

Hah, wow.. how did it take soo long for this comment to appear, IMO this IS the reason to get Excel 2007.

By: Master Excel 2007 Ribbon with this Free Learning Guide | Pointy Haired Dilbert: Charting & Excel Tips - Chandoo.org

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:02:14 +0000

[...] Personally I think ribbon is a good way to explore an application. I have gotten used to it since I tested excel 2007 for first time. Now, during the rare occasions I work on excel 2003, I feel strange navigating [...]