M
Mary
between Windows Excel 2000 and 2002 XP. Any ideas?
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J
Jim Rech
From the Excel 2002 Help file:
==================================
What's New in Excel 2002
Key new features in Microsoft Excel
Importing data
Querying data from Web pages Now it's even easier to get refreshable data
from the Web into Excel for viewing and analysis. Use the new browser-like
interface to visually select tables on Web pages for import into Excel, or
copy data from a Web page and create a refreshable query. Web queries
included with Excel provide fast, accurate information such as stock quotes
for your spreadsheets. You can also create Web queries to Extensible Markup
Language (XML) files.
Importing data Getting data where you need it and when you need it is as
easy as choosing an option and finding your data source in the Select Data
Source dialog box. If you want to import data from a remote data source, use
the Data Connection Wizard to locate and import data from sources as varied
as Microsoft SQL Server, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), and Online
Analytical Processing (OLAP) data sources. Microsoft Office data connection
(.odc) files are shareable.
Formulas and functions
ScreenTips for function arguments Type a function in a cell and a
convenient screen tip appears showing all of the arguments for the function,
along with a link to the Help topic for the function.
Recommended functions in the Function Wizard Type a natural language
query, such as "How do I determine the monthly payment for a car loan", and
the Function Wizard returns a list of recommended functions you can use to
accomplish your task.
Cut-and-paste function reference examples If you've wondered how to
translate Help examples into meaningful worksheet data, you'll find the
cut-and-paste function examples in Excel Help useful and time saving.
Task-based formula help Real-life examples for real-life numeric problems
make powerful additions to the Help you've come to count on.
Watch window Keep track of cells and their formulas on the Watch Window
toolbar, even when the cells are out of view. This moveable toolbar tracks
cell properties including workbook, worksheet, name, cell, value, and
formula.
Expanded AutoSum functionality The practical functionality of AutoSum has
expanded to include a drop-down list of the most common functions. For
example, you can click Average from the list to calculate the average of a
selected range, or connect to the Function Wizard for more options.
Formula evaluator You can see the various parts of a nested formula
evaluated in the order the formula is calculated by using a simple dialog
box on the Formula Auditing toolbar.
Trace precedent and dependent cells with Formula Auditing Use the Formula
Auditing toolbar to graphically display, or trace, the relationships between
cells and formulas with blue arrows. You can trace the precedent cells or
the dependent cells.
Formula error checking Like a grammar checker, Excel uses certain rules to
check for problems in formulas. These rules can help find common mistakes.
You can turn these rules on or off individually.
Worksheet and workbook formatting
Color-coded worksheet tabs Organize your work by adding color to your
worksheet tabs.
Control automatic changes with smart tags Buttons that appear
automatically on your worksheet can help you with tasks such as automatic
correction options, paste options, automatic fill options, insert options,
and formula error checking. With a click of a button you can choose from
options related to your task without leaving the worksheet or the cells
you're working on.
Unmerge on the toolbar No more searching for a way to unmerge cells. Now
unmerge is conveniently located on the Format toolbar.
Retain column widths If you have worksheets with specified column widths,
now you can paste information from another worksheet without losing that
formatting by clicking the Paste Options button, and then clicking Keep
Source Column Widths.
Border drawing A new border drawing tool allows you to outline complex
borders with little effort.
More new features in Excel
Everyday tasks
Find and replace Finding and replacing data in Excel includes great new
options to match formats and search an entire workbook or worksheets.
Links management Changes to the Edit Links dialog box allow you to check
the status of the links in your worksheet and make changes. A new workbook
option allows you to control whether to update links in your workbook
automatically.
Hyperlink navigation Selecting a cell with a hyperlink is improved. Click
the hyperlink once to follow it. Click and hold to select the cell.
Sending a range Sending out mid-month reports and summaries just got
easier. Select a range on your worksheet, click E-mail on the Standard
toolbar, type an introduction to the report, and then send it without
spending extra time on the task.
Insert and delete columns while filtering You can insert and delete
columns with AutoFilter turned on in Excel. You can even undo the action and
preserve any applied filtering.
Speech playback An option to have a computer voice play back data after
every cell entry or after a range of cells has been entered makes verifying
data entry convenient and practical. You can even choose the voice the
computer uses to read back your data. This feature is available in Chinese,
Japanese, and English (U.S.) only.
Printing You've asked for the ability to insert graphics and file names in
headers and footers, and with Excel you can. You'll also find a handy A4
paper resizing option on the International tab under Tools menu, Options
command, which will scale the worksheet you formatted for A4 paper if you
have letter-size paper in your printer.
Smart tags By turning on smart tags, you can type a U.S. financial symbol
and use Smart Tag Actions to insert a stock quote in your worksheet, find
out more about the company you're doing business with, and more. You can
also type the name of someone you've recently sent an e-mail message to into
a cell, and then use smart tag options to schedule a meeting or add the name
to your contacts list, all without leaving your worksheet.
Item properties in PivotTables Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) is a
powerful tool for aggregating numeric information, and now you can annotate
your data with item properties to make your data warehouse even more
valuable.
AutoRepublish Anyone who frequently publishes Excel data to the Web will
appreciate additional Web publishing features that allow you to
automatically republish items to Web pages whenever you save a workbook with
previously published items.
Open and save XML With Excel, you can open and save Extensible Markup
Language (XML) files, save entire workbooks in the XML Spreadsheet format,
and create queries to XML source data.
Digital Dashboard and Web Parts Use Excel to create Web Parts to include
on your company's new Digital Dashboard. For example, you might create an
updateable sales chart to highlight your division's contributions to the
company's bottom line.
Worksheet protection Excel adds power and flexibility to protect your data
from changes to worksheets and cells. You can protect cell values and
formulas, and allow the cell to be formatted. You can also ensure that only
specific users are allowed to change cells.
Language-specific features
If you are not using the specific language version of Microsoft Office for
which one of these features is designed, then the feature is only available
if you have installed the Microsoft Office XP Multilingual User Interface
Pack or Microsoft Office XP Proofing Tools for that language. In addition,
you must enable support for the language through Microsoft Office XP
Language Settings.
Multilingual editing With Excel you can edit spreadsheets in any language,
including right-to-left language editing in Arabic and Hebrew. Excel
automatically links fonts so you don't have to figure out the language of a
particular font.
IME support If you have an Input Method Editor (IME) installed, you can
edit Asian language spreadsheets in any language version of Excel.
Worldwide number formats You can format numbers for a specific location in
all language versions of Excel.
New Microsoft Office features
Everyday tasks
Office task panes The most common tasks in Office are now organized in
panes that display in place with your Office document. Continue working
while you search for a file using the Search task pane, pick from a gallery
of items to paste in the Office Clipboard task pane, and quickly create new
documents or open files using the New File task pane that appears when you
start an Office program. Other task panes vary in each Office program.
New look Microsoft Office XP has a cleaner, simpler look to its interface.
Softer colors also contribute to this updated feel.
More convenient access to Help Get the full power of the Answer Wizard in
an unobtrusive package. When you enter a question about an Office program in
the Ask a Question box on the menu bar, you can see a list of choices and
read a Help topic whether you are running the Office Assistant or not.
Control paste options and automatic changes with smart tags New in-place
buttons called "smart tags" let you immediately adjust how information is
pasted or how automatic changes occur in your Office programs. For example,
when you paste text from Microsoft Word into Microsoft PowerPoint, a button
appears next to the text. Click the button to see a list of choices for
fine-tuning the formatting of the pasted text. Smart tags and their
associated choices vary in each Office program.
Updated Clip Organizer Hundreds of new clips, an easy task pane interface,
as well as the same abilities to organize clips and find new digital art on
the Web are part of the updated Clip Organizer (formerly Clip Gallery).
Conceptual diagrams Word, Excel, and PowerPoint include a new gallery of
conceptual diagrams. Choose from diagrams such as Pyramid for showing the
building blocks of a relationship, Radial for showing items in relation to a
core element, and more.
Voice commands and dictation In addition to mouse and keyboard methods,
you can now select menu, toolbar, and dialog box items by speaking. You can
also dictate text. This feature is available in the Simplified Chinese,
English (U.S.), and Japanese language versions of Office, and has some
special hardware requirements.
Support for handwriting You can use handwriting recognition to enter text
into an Office document. You can write by using a handwriting input device -
such as a graphics tablet or a tablet-PC - or you can write using your
mouse. Your natural handwriting is converted to typed characters. In Word
and Microsoft Outlook, you can also choose to leave text in handwritten
form.
Improved fidelity of pictures and drawings In Office XP, Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, Microsoft FrontPage, and Microsoft Publisher are using an
improved graphics system (GDI+). With this new graphics system, shapes and
WordArt have smoother outlines and adjustable levels of transparency with
true blending. Digital pictures stay sharper and clearer when you resize
them.
Accessibility Office XP programs support Microsoft Active Accessibility
2.0. This technology makes accessibility aids, such as screen readers or
screen enlargers, more effective.
Find printers If your organization uses Microsoft Windows 2000 and the
Active Directory directory service, you can search for printers across your
network from the Print dialog box in Office XP programs.
Storing documents with Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 You can store
Microsoft Office documents on Exchange Server 2000 and access them through
the File Open, File New, and File Save dialog boxes, as you would any other
Office document.
Web documents and Web sites
Target your Web publishing efforts Save your Office documents as Web pages
for versions 3.0 - 6.0 of various Web browsers and give your readers the
best possible viewing experience.
Share your Office documents over the Web From any Office program, you can
save documents to Web sites on MSN. This gives you an instant collaboration
space where you can share files with other people.
Save a Web site as a single file A special Web archive file format is
available in Microsoft Access, Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft
Publisher, and Microsoft Word. This file format lets you save all the
elements of a Web site, including text and graphics, into a single file.
Open Office Web pages for editing from the browser Office programs
recognize the HTML pages that they generate. You can open an Office document
that you've saved as a Web page in the program it was created in, right from
Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Error prevention and recovery
Document recovery and safer shutdown Documents you are working on can be
recovered if the Office program encounters an error or stops responding. The
documents are displayed in the Document Recovery task pane the next time you
open the program.
Office Safe Mode Microsoft Office XP programs can detect and isolate
startup problems. You can bypass the problem, run your Office program in
safe mode, and keep doing your work.
Office crash reporting tool Diagnostic information about program crashes
can be collected and sent to your company's information technology
department or to Microsoft, allowing Product Support Services (PSS) experts
to correct these problems so they don't interrupt you again.
Security
Digital signatures You can apply a digital signature to Microsoft Word,
Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint files to confirm that the file has not been
altered.
Increased protection against macro viruses Network administrators can
remove Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications, the programming language of
Microsoft Office, when deploying Office. This can decrease the possibility
of viruses spreading via Office documents.
Language-specific features
If you are not using the specific language version of Microsoft Office for
which one of these features is designed, then the feature is only available
if you have installed the Microsoft Office XP Multilingual User Interface
Pack or Microsoft Office XP Proofing Tools for that language. In addition,
you must enable support for the language through Microsoft Office XP
Language Settings.
Improvements to changing the language of the user interface and Help More
components across Microsoft Office support changing the language of their
user interface. In addition, terms on the interface match the terms in Help,
even when the main text of Help is in a different language than the
interface. This feature is only available with the Office XP MUI Pack and a
volume licensing agreement.
Hangul/Hanja converter improvements Over 20,000 new characters are
supported by this converter for Korean language documents. The converter
automatically uses new fonts that have the proper glyphs for the new
characters.
Full support for Windows 2000 language features Office programs now
support all the languages that Microsoft Windows 2000 does. Office also
supports the latest extensions to Chinese character encoding via Unicode,
including support for almost 70,000 Chinese characters.
East Asian character support on non-East Asian systems Now you can enter
characters from East Asian languages in all Office programs, even if your
system software is a non-East Asian language version. (This was previously
only supported in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook, or when running
Windows 2000.) For example, on a computer running English (U.S.) Microsoft
Windows 98, you can enter Japanese characters in Excel.
==================================
What's New in Excel 2002
Key new features in Microsoft Excel
Importing data
Querying data from Web pages Now it's even easier to get refreshable data
from the Web into Excel for viewing and analysis. Use the new browser-like
interface to visually select tables on Web pages for import into Excel, or
copy data from a Web page and create a refreshable query. Web queries
included with Excel provide fast, accurate information such as stock quotes
for your spreadsheets. You can also create Web queries to Extensible Markup
Language (XML) files.
Importing data Getting data where you need it and when you need it is as
easy as choosing an option and finding your data source in the Select Data
Source dialog box. If you want to import data from a remote data source, use
the Data Connection Wizard to locate and import data from sources as varied
as Microsoft SQL Server, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), and Online
Analytical Processing (OLAP) data sources. Microsoft Office data connection
(.odc) files are shareable.
Formulas and functions
ScreenTips for function arguments Type a function in a cell and a
convenient screen tip appears showing all of the arguments for the function,
along with a link to the Help topic for the function.
Recommended functions in the Function Wizard Type a natural language
query, such as "How do I determine the monthly payment for a car loan", and
the Function Wizard returns a list of recommended functions you can use to
accomplish your task.
Cut-and-paste function reference examples If you've wondered how to
translate Help examples into meaningful worksheet data, you'll find the
cut-and-paste function examples in Excel Help useful and time saving.
Task-based formula help Real-life examples for real-life numeric problems
make powerful additions to the Help you've come to count on.
Watch window Keep track of cells and their formulas on the Watch Window
toolbar, even when the cells are out of view. This moveable toolbar tracks
cell properties including workbook, worksheet, name, cell, value, and
formula.
Expanded AutoSum functionality The practical functionality of AutoSum has
expanded to include a drop-down list of the most common functions. For
example, you can click Average from the list to calculate the average of a
selected range, or connect to the Function Wizard for more options.
Formula evaluator You can see the various parts of a nested formula
evaluated in the order the formula is calculated by using a simple dialog
box on the Formula Auditing toolbar.
Trace precedent and dependent cells with Formula Auditing Use the Formula
Auditing toolbar to graphically display, or trace, the relationships between
cells and formulas with blue arrows. You can trace the precedent cells or
the dependent cells.
Formula error checking Like a grammar checker, Excel uses certain rules to
check for problems in formulas. These rules can help find common mistakes.
You can turn these rules on or off individually.
Worksheet and workbook formatting
Color-coded worksheet tabs Organize your work by adding color to your
worksheet tabs.
Control automatic changes with smart tags Buttons that appear
automatically on your worksheet can help you with tasks such as automatic
correction options, paste options, automatic fill options, insert options,
and formula error checking. With a click of a button you can choose from
options related to your task without leaving the worksheet or the cells
you're working on.
Unmerge on the toolbar No more searching for a way to unmerge cells. Now
unmerge is conveniently located on the Format toolbar.
Retain column widths If you have worksheets with specified column widths,
now you can paste information from another worksheet without losing that
formatting by clicking the Paste Options button, and then clicking Keep
Source Column Widths.
Border drawing A new border drawing tool allows you to outline complex
borders with little effort.
More new features in Excel
Everyday tasks
Find and replace Finding and replacing data in Excel includes great new
options to match formats and search an entire workbook or worksheets.
Links management Changes to the Edit Links dialog box allow you to check
the status of the links in your worksheet and make changes. A new workbook
option allows you to control whether to update links in your workbook
automatically.
Hyperlink navigation Selecting a cell with a hyperlink is improved. Click
the hyperlink once to follow it. Click and hold to select the cell.
Sending a range Sending out mid-month reports and summaries just got
easier. Select a range on your worksheet, click E-mail on the Standard
toolbar, type an introduction to the report, and then send it without
spending extra time on the task.
Insert and delete columns while filtering You can insert and delete
columns with AutoFilter turned on in Excel. You can even undo the action and
preserve any applied filtering.
Speech playback An option to have a computer voice play back data after
every cell entry or after a range of cells has been entered makes verifying
data entry convenient and practical. You can even choose the voice the
computer uses to read back your data. This feature is available in Chinese,
Japanese, and English (U.S.) only.
Printing You've asked for the ability to insert graphics and file names in
headers and footers, and with Excel you can. You'll also find a handy A4
paper resizing option on the International tab under Tools menu, Options
command, which will scale the worksheet you formatted for A4 paper if you
have letter-size paper in your printer.
Smart tags By turning on smart tags, you can type a U.S. financial symbol
and use Smart Tag Actions to insert a stock quote in your worksheet, find
out more about the company you're doing business with, and more. You can
also type the name of someone you've recently sent an e-mail message to into
a cell, and then use smart tag options to schedule a meeting or add the name
to your contacts list, all without leaving your worksheet.
Item properties in PivotTables Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) is a
powerful tool for aggregating numeric information, and now you can annotate
your data with item properties to make your data warehouse even more
valuable.
AutoRepublish Anyone who frequently publishes Excel data to the Web will
appreciate additional Web publishing features that allow you to
automatically republish items to Web pages whenever you save a workbook with
previously published items.
Open and save XML With Excel, you can open and save Extensible Markup
Language (XML) files, save entire workbooks in the XML Spreadsheet format,
and create queries to XML source data.
Digital Dashboard and Web Parts Use Excel to create Web Parts to include
on your company's new Digital Dashboard. For example, you might create an
updateable sales chart to highlight your division's contributions to the
company's bottom line.
Worksheet protection Excel adds power and flexibility to protect your data
from changes to worksheets and cells. You can protect cell values and
formulas, and allow the cell to be formatted. You can also ensure that only
specific users are allowed to change cells.
Language-specific features
If you are not using the specific language version of Microsoft Office for
which one of these features is designed, then the feature is only available
if you have installed the Microsoft Office XP Multilingual User Interface
Pack or Microsoft Office XP Proofing Tools for that language. In addition,
you must enable support for the language through Microsoft Office XP
Language Settings.
Multilingual editing With Excel you can edit spreadsheets in any language,
including right-to-left language editing in Arabic and Hebrew. Excel
automatically links fonts so you don't have to figure out the language of a
particular font.
IME support If you have an Input Method Editor (IME) installed, you can
edit Asian language spreadsheets in any language version of Excel.
Worldwide number formats You can format numbers for a specific location in
all language versions of Excel.
New Microsoft Office features
Everyday tasks
Office task panes The most common tasks in Office are now organized in
panes that display in place with your Office document. Continue working
while you search for a file using the Search task pane, pick from a gallery
of items to paste in the Office Clipboard task pane, and quickly create new
documents or open files using the New File task pane that appears when you
start an Office program. Other task panes vary in each Office program.
New look Microsoft Office XP has a cleaner, simpler look to its interface.
Softer colors also contribute to this updated feel.
More convenient access to Help Get the full power of the Answer Wizard in
an unobtrusive package. When you enter a question about an Office program in
the Ask a Question box on the menu bar, you can see a list of choices and
read a Help topic whether you are running the Office Assistant or not.
Control paste options and automatic changes with smart tags New in-place
buttons called "smart tags" let you immediately adjust how information is
pasted or how automatic changes occur in your Office programs. For example,
when you paste text from Microsoft Word into Microsoft PowerPoint, a button
appears next to the text. Click the button to see a list of choices for
fine-tuning the formatting of the pasted text. Smart tags and their
associated choices vary in each Office program.
Updated Clip Organizer Hundreds of new clips, an easy task pane interface,
as well as the same abilities to organize clips and find new digital art on
the Web are part of the updated Clip Organizer (formerly Clip Gallery).
Conceptual diagrams Word, Excel, and PowerPoint include a new gallery of
conceptual diagrams. Choose from diagrams such as Pyramid for showing the
building blocks of a relationship, Radial for showing items in relation to a
core element, and more.
Voice commands and dictation In addition to mouse and keyboard methods,
you can now select menu, toolbar, and dialog box items by speaking. You can
also dictate text. This feature is available in the Simplified Chinese,
English (U.S.), and Japanese language versions of Office, and has some
special hardware requirements.
Support for handwriting You can use handwriting recognition to enter text
into an Office document. You can write by using a handwriting input device -
such as a graphics tablet or a tablet-PC - or you can write using your
mouse. Your natural handwriting is converted to typed characters. In Word
and Microsoft Outlook, you can also choose to leave text in handwritten
form.
Improved fidelity of pictures and drawings In Office XP, Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, Microsoft FrontPage, and Microsoft Publisher are using an
improved graphics system (GDI+). With this new graphics system, shapes and
WordArt have smoother outlines and adjustable levels of transparency with
true blending. Digital pictures stay sharper and clearer when you resize
them.
Accessibility Office XP programs support Microsoft Active Accessibility
2.0. This technology makes accessibility aids, such as screen readers or
screen enlargers, more effective.
Find printers If your organization uses Microsoft Windows 2000 and the
Active Directory directory service, you can search for printers across your
network from the Print dialog box in Office XP programs.
Storing documents with Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 You can store
Microsoft Office documents on Exchange Server 2000 and access them through
the File Open, File New, and File Save dialog boxes, as you would any other
Office document.
Web documents and Web sites
Target your Web publishing efforts Save your Office documents as Web pages
for versions 3.0 - 6.0 of various Web browsers and give your readers the
best possible viewing experience.
Share your Office documents over the Web From any Office program, you can
save documents to Web sites on MSN. This gives you an instant collaboration
space where you can share files with other people.
Save a Web site as a single file A special Web archive file format is
available in Microsoft Access, Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft
Publisher, and Microsoft Word. This file format lets you save all the
elements of a Web site, including text and graphics, into a single file.
Open Office Web pages for editing from the browser Office programs
recognize the HTML pages that they generate. You can open an Office document
that you've saved as a Web page in the program it was created in, right from
Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Error prevention and recovery
Document recovery and safer shutdown Documents you are working on can be
recovered if the Office program encounters an error or stops responding. The
documents are displayed in the Document Recovery task pane the next time you
open the program.
Office Safe Mode Microsoft Office XP programs can detect and isolate
startup problems. You can bypass the problem, run your Office program in
safe mode, and keep doing your work.
Office crash reporting tool Diagnostic information about program crashes
can be collected and sent to your company's information technology
department or to Microsoft, allowing Product Support Services (PSS) experts
to correct these problems so they don't interrupt you again.
Security
Digital signatures You can apply a digital signature to Microsoft Word,
Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint files to confirm that the file has not been
altered.
Increased protection against macro viruses Network administrators can
remove Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications, the programming language of
Microsoft Office, when deploying Office. This can decrease the possibility
of viruses spreading via Office documents.
Language-specific features
If you are not using the specific language version of Microsoft Office for
which one of these features is designed, then the feature is only available
if you have installed the Microsoft Office XP Multilingual User Interface
Pack or Microsoft Office XP Proofing Tools for that language. In addition,
you must enable support for the language through Microsoft Office XP
Language Settings.
Improvements to changing the language of the user interface and Help More
components across Microsoft Office support changing the language of their
user interface. In addition, terms on the interface match the terms in Help,
even when the main text of Help is in a different language than the
interface. This feature is only available with the Office XP MUI Pack and a
volume licensing agreement.
Hangul/Hanja converter improvements Over 20,000 new characters are
supported by this converter for Korean language documents. The converter
automatically uses new fonts that have the proper glyphs for the new
characters.
Full support for Windows 2000 language features Office programs now
support all the languages that Microsoft Windows 2000 does. Office also
supports the latest extensions to Chinese character encoding via Unicode,
including support for almost 70,000 Chinese characters.
East Asian character support on non-East Asian systems Now you can enter
characters from East Asian languages in all Office programs, even if your
system software is a non-East Asian language version. (This was previously
only supported in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook, or when running
Windows 2000.) For example, on a computer running English (U.S.) Microsoft
Windows 98, you can enter Japanese characters in Excel.
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