If you have been following along with this review of Office 2013 you know that today is Excel Part 2. So we will jump in now.
The next most impressive feature to me is the new Excel start screen. When you start up Excel, on the left side you will find your most recently opened worksheets listed. They will slowly move down the list until they reach the bottom and then will "disappear" off of the list. If you want one to remain at the top you can "pin" it by hovering over the filename with your mouse (or finger with a touchscreen computer) and clicking the pin. This file will now remain at the top and never rotate off.
The default number of recent workbooks is set to 25; however, you can easily increase or decrease that amount. Edit this number by going to the File tab, then Options, Advanced, Display and change the number under, "Show this number of Recent Workbooks." Click OK and you are done. I find 25 to be too many for me and set mine at seven to ten, give it a try.
The start area also gives you a list of templates you may choose to use. For instance, there are "Receipt Tracker," "Cash Flow Projection," "Medication Schedule," calendars with holidays for any year and several more. If you cannot find a template relating to what you need, move to the top of the page and enter what you are looking for in the search area. For instance, I searched for "checkbook register" and found three types I could download and run on Excel.
If you want to skip the start screen and get into Excel slightly quicker, once it starts tap your ESC key once and you open a blank Workbook, ready to work for you. If you want to, the start screen may also be disabled under General Options.
How about "Quick Analysis" for a new feature? This is very slick. To start this one select an entire table or the data in the spreadsheet you wish to analyze. Once you select the last cell on the lower right of the data you will see a small icon there. It is the Quick Analysis button which when clicked will give you a small box with Formatting, Charts Totals Tables and Sparklines. When you click each of these links you will be presented with more choices. This really speeds up many processes in Excel. If you are a user you will appreciate this tremendously.
The last item for today is similar to "Insert Recommended Pivot Tables" from last week but it is now Charts. You may have already figured it out but select the data for which you wish to create a chart, click the Insert tab, then the "Recommended Charts" command button and you get to scroll through suggested charts from Excel. They are all formatted using your real data so you can review each. All you do is click the one you want, send it to your boss and get a big raise.
OK, that last part may be a stretch but hey, it sure could not hurt.