I’ve also included additional resources below if you want to follow up on these series.

1. A downloadable list of Excel 2007 commands covered in this series in pdf format. You can search for the commands locally.
2. Download an interactive flash command reference guide. This is a self-extracting executable. It is ideal for those who prefer a visual approach to learning.
3. Download a spreadsheet from Microsoft. The spreadsheet has both the toolbar and menu commands. Also check out this page which is an easy to follow primer on the Excel 2007 interface.
4. A search commands add-in from Microsoft Office Labs. After installing the add-in, you can type commands to search for. I’ve had limited success with this add-in. For one, it sometimes returns to many results and for another, I wasn’t able to search for commands that start with a number eg. 3-D.

Help Menu

This menu is a simple and straightforward change from Excel 2003 to Excel 2007. The commands are located under the View tab in the Window’s group.

Window Menu

Excel can recognize and autofill:

• Dates
• Times
• Numbers

The table below shows some examples of how Excel fills cells. Data has been entered in a single cell and then extended to other cells by using the autofill feature:

There are a couple of things to note here. Firstly, the left mouse button was depressed while the fill handle was dragged. It is possible to use the right mouse button instead and if you do so Excel gives you more options when filling cells. We will take a look at using the right mouse button in the next post. But for now we’ll keep it simple by considering what happens when you use the left mouse button.

The second point to note is that Excel has in some cases repeated the data that was entered and in other cases filled cells with a sequence of values. Numbers have been filled by repeating values whereas times and dates have been filled by creating sequences. If you want more control over the way in which Excel fills cells, you can enter data in two cells instead of just one. Basically you are giving Excel enough information to recgnize the pattern you want to use when filling cells. To see this, let’s take a look at what happens when data is entered in two cells and then filled using Excel’s autofill feature:

Here you can see that Excel has taken the difference between the two initial cells and added that difference to successive values to create a sequence of values. For example, the difference between 5 and 2 is 3. This has then been used as a “step value” to generate a sequence of values: 5+3=8, 8+3=11, 11+3=14 etc. Excel uses the same approach for dates and times. Take for example the two times 11:00 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. There is a difference of 45 minutes between these two times. If we add 45 minutes to 11:45 a.m. we get 12:30 p.m., and adding a further 45 minutes gives us 1:15 p.m. – this is exactly the sequence that Excel has produced.

There is one more thing that we need to talk about. Did you notice that Excel was able to increment numbers inside text? Take a look at the bottom three rows in the table above and you’ll see what I mean. This can be really handy if you need to label your spreadsheet data – adding text labels like “Observation 1”, “Observation 2”, “Observation 3”, … becomes effortless if you use Excel’s autofill feature.

Finally, let’s take a look at what happens when we enter values in three cells and then use autofill to fill a range of cells. Remember that we are dragging the fill handle while holding down the left mouse button. Here are the results of some test data sets:

The results may look a bit random but they aren’t. Excel uses the TREND worksheet function to calculate the best linear fit to the data (in the sense of least squares) and then uses the fitted line to fill the selected range. The chart below illustrates this for the data in the first row of the table above:

The examples that we’ve looked at are fairly limited. Autofill actually offers more flexibility and control than we’ve seen here. That’s something that we’ll explore in the next post.

Let’s look at the basic steps in automatic filling:

1. Enter data in one or two cells
2. Select the cells containing the data you’ve entered
3. Drag the fill handle down a column or across a row
4. Release the fill handle

Basically you need to enter sufficient for Excel to recognize what you want to fill and then tell Excel what range you want filled. Let’s make things a bit clearer by looking at an example. Suppose you want to fill a range with the months of the year. This is easy. Just enter “January” into a cell:

Select the cell containing January:

Move the cursor over the fill handle. (Note how the cursor changes to a plus sign “+” when the mouse is positioned over the fill handle.) Click and hold down the left mouse button:

Then drag the fill handle down:

Finally release the fill handle:

As you can see, Excel has filled cells with the months February through to December. In this example we clicked the left mouse button and dragged the fill handle. Excel will also let you click the right mouse button instead of the left mouse button. If you use the right mouse button then Excel will display a pop up menu that gives you more control over the way in which cells are filled. We’ll ignore this option for now for the sake of simplicity and discuss it in detail in a later post.

Excel can recognize patterns and replicate them when filling cells automatically. An example will help you see this. Let’s fill some cells with a series of months starting at March 2000 where the interval between successive elements in the series is three months. We can do this by entering “March 2000” in one cell and by entering “June 2000” directly below:

Select the cells containing “March 2000” and “June 2000”:

Move the cursor over the fill handle. Click and hold down the left mouse button:

Then drag the fill handle down:

Finally release the fill handle:

So far we’ve filled cells down columns. You can also fill cells across rows by dragging the fill handle horizontally. In this case you’ll need to make sure that you enter your initial data in the same row that you want to fill. So if you want to enter the series 5, 10, 15, 20, … in a row, you’ll need to enter 5 and 10 next to each other in the same row before you autofill. These pictures illustrate this:

Autofill is a really useful tool. But to make full use of it we need to understand the type of data and range of patterns that Excel can recognize and fill. That’s something we’ll look at in the next post.

Chart Menu

If a list command doesn’t appear to work, make sure that the table is selected and then try again.

You will have to activate the Developer’s tab to access the XML commands in Excel 2007.

Data Menu

In Excel 2007, you might be surprised to find that there isn’t a tab similar to the Tools menu. Your favorite add-ins haven’t disappeared. Instead they have been relocated to a new Add-Ins tab. The auditing, macro and protection tools have migrated to various tabs on the ribbon. Part 6 of the menu series covers the Tools menu commands in Excel 2007.

The auditing, macro and worksheet protection tools have moved to the Formula tab, Developer tab and Review tab respectively. Look for Goal Seek and Scenarios in the Data tab. The Add-ins Manager is now buried deep inside the Excel Options.

You won’t find the Developer tab unless you’ve enabled it. It isn’t enabled by default. To enable the Developer tab, open the Excel Options and navigate to the Popular category. Click on the check box that says Show Developer tab in the Ribbon and then click the OK button to exit. The Developer tab should now appear in the ribbon.

Tools Menu

=SUM(IF((A1:A1000>100)+(A1:A1000<50),A1:A1000,0))

This array formula is quite specific so we need to look for a more general array formula that acts like SUMIF but which accepts more than one criterion. What we want to come up with is a generalized array formula like the one below:

=SUM(IF(criteria, range_to_sum, 0))

At this point it’s a good idea to remember that we’re dealing with an array formula. Array formulas need to be entered by pressing the SHIFT, CTRL and ENTER keys together.

We want to be able to link criteria together using logical operators such as “and” and “or”. We do this by using addition whenever we want to do a logical “or” operation and by using multiplication whenever we want to do a logical “and” operation. This might seem strange because Excel provides the logical functions AND and OR which ought to do the job. Unfortunately both of these worksheet functions return a single value rather than an array of values when they are used inside an array formula.

So looking at the generalized array formula above we can re-write criteria as

c₁ op₁ c₂ op₂ c₃ op₃ ….

where

c_x is one of the criteria we are using to determine whether or not a cell is included in the sum (x = 1, 2, 3 …)

and

op_x is either + or * depending on whether we want an “or” operator or an “and” operator respectively (x = 1, 2, 3 …)

range_to_sum is the range over which the sum is taken.

You can use brackets to control the order in which the criteria are evaluated if you wish.

This looks rather complicated but a few examples will make things clearer:

Example 1

=SUM(IF(((A1:A1000>100)+(A1:A1000<50))*(MOD(A1:A1000,5)=0),A1:A1000,0))

This array formula sums cells in the range A1:A1000 that are either less than 50 or greater than 100 and which are also a multiple of 5. To see how this works let’s break down the first parameter in the IF function:

The MOD function divides by 5 and calculates the remainder. If the remainder is 0, the value is a multiple of 5.

So this array formula checks each cell in the range A1:A1000 to see whether it is greater than 100 or less than 50 and if so, it checks whether it is a multiple of 5. If a value satisfies these criteria, the IF function returns that value and otherwise it returns 0. The SUM function adds all values returned by the IF to get the final result.

Example 2

=SUM(IF((A1:A1000>100)+(A1:A1000<50)+(MOD(A1:A1000,5)=0),A1:A1000,0))

This array formula sums cells in the range A1:A1000 that are either less than 50 or greater than 100 or a multiple of 5.

Example 3

=SUM(IF((A1:A1000<100)*(A1:A1000>50)*(MOD(A1:A1000,5)=0),A1:A1000,0))

This array formula sums cells in the range A1:A1000 that are greater than 50 and less than 100 and a multiple of 5.

These examples apply criteria to a given range and then sum that same range. There is no reason why we can’t apply criteria to one range and then sum a different range. There is no problem using different ranges so long as the ranges have the same number of rows. Let’s look at an example. Suppose we want to sum those cells in the range A1:A1000 where cells in the same row satisfy these two conditions:

• the value of the cell in column B is greater than zero
• the text in the column C cell is “February”

We can find the answer easily by using an array formula like this:

=SUM(IF((B1:B1000>0)*(C1:C1000=”February”),A1:A1000,0))

Finally, some of you may be wondering why I haven’t mentioned the SUMIFS worksheet function. There are two main reasons why I haven’t talked about this function. The first reason is that the SUMIFS function is only available if you’re using Excel 2007. If you’re using an earlier version of Excel then this function isn’t available. The second reason is that the SUMIFS function only adds together cells when all criteria are met. You cannot, for example, use SUMIFS directly to calculate the sum of all values that satisfy two out of three criteria. In this regard using SUMIFS is not as flexible as the array formula approach.

Format Menu

Why sort by color?

Here are a couple of situations where sorting by color is useful.

Let’s say you’ve got a spreadsheet with conditional formatting and when the condition is true the cell is colored. You now want a report of all data that only meets this condition. No problem. Just sort by color and grab the data.

Another situation. UltraSleuth Gold Worksheet Compare produces a report of changed rows by coloring the rows. Want to just see the changes? No problem. Sort by color and grab the colored rows.

How to sort by color

Open spreadsheet containing data and colored cells to be sorted. Click on the data that you want to sort. Make sure you’ve clicked on at least a cell in the data that you want to sort or Excel will complain.

In the example, I’ve a spreadsheet with sales by month. I’ve set up a conditional format to highlight any sales for the month that exceeds the median of $4,425 as shown below.

From the Home tab find the Editing group and then click on the Sort & Filter button. From the drop-down menu select Custom Sort.

The Sort dialog box will open. Select Sales from the Sort by drop-down box, Cell Color from the Sort On drop-down box and select a cell color (in this case there is just one color) from the Order drop-down box. Click the OK button to sort.

The data should have been sorted with the colored cells moving up to the top rows as can be seen in the screenshot below.

To sort by font color, just select Font Color from the Sort On drop-down box when making your selection choices.

That’s it. Have fun.