Datasheet

18
Part I: Statistics and Excel: A Marriage Made in Heaven
What’s New in Excel?
The big news in Excel 2007 — throughout Microsoft Office 2007, in fact — is
the user interface. Where a bar of menus once ruled, you now find a tabbed
band. Appearing near the top of the worksheet window, this band is called
the Ribbon. Figure 1-2 shows the appearance of the Ribbon after I select the
Insert tab.
Figure 1-2:
The Insert
Tab in the
Ribbon in
Excel 2007.
The Ribbon exposes Excel’s capabilities in a way that’s much easier to under-
stand than in previous versions. Each tab presents groups of icon-labeled
command buttons rather than menu choices. Mouseover help adds still
more information when you’re trying to figure out the capability a particular
button activates.
Clicking a button typically opens up a whole category of possibilities. Buttons
that do this are called category buttons.
Microsoft has developed shorthand for describing a mouse-click on a com-
mand button in the Ribbon, and I use that shorthand throughout this book.
The shorthand is
Tab | Command Button
To indicate clicking on the Insert tab’s Other Charts category button, for
example, I write
Insert | Other Charts
By the way, when I click that button, the gallery in Figure 1-3 appears.
I can extend the shorthand. To select the first chart in that gallery (it’s called
High-Low-Close, as mouseover help would tell you), I write
Insert | Other Charts | High-Low-Close
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