PART #1 - THE EXCEL ENVIRONMENT

WHY DOES OFFICE 365 HAVE BETTER FEATURES?

Problem: I have TEXTJOIN and Funnel Charts at home, but not at work, What is going on?

Strategy: You have Office 365 at home. By agreeing to pay a monthly or annual fee for Office, you are getting frequent updates and new features. Microsoft is at war with the I.T. departments who still want to buy Office the old way. If someone buys Office 2016, they get a few new features, but they will never get the new monthly features. The days of the annual Service Pack are gone.

In the good old days (2003, 2007, 2010, 2013), Microsoft would spend three years putting new features into Office and the customers would invest $400 every other release. Now, Microsoft wants you to rent your copy of Office. Pay $10, $12, or $15 a month or $99 a year and you will get monthly updates.

I originally said that I would never rent Office. But then Microsoft started putting must-have features in Office 365 and not in the regular release of Office, so now I can see that renting Office 365 is the only logical choice.

With Office 365, you will get to use mobile versions of Excel on an iPad, iPhone or Android device.

WHICH VERSION OF OFFICE 365 HAS POWER PIVOT?

Problem: The Office 365 website is super-confusing. I don't want to buy the wrong version.

Strategy: If you want Power Pivot and all options of Power Query, you need to go with the $12 a month Pro Plus plan or the $15 a month E3 plan. Surprisingly, the $12.50 Small Business plan does not have Power Pivot. And, in an incredibly short-sighted move, the University edition does not have Power Pivot. If you don't think you will ever need Power Pivot, then the $10 a month Home edition will allow you to install Excel on five computers.

WHY DO I HAVE TO SIGN IN TO EXCEL?

Problem: What is the deal with signing in to Office? Any why do they want my Flickr info in Excel?

Strategy: Even if you are not using Office 365 to subscribe to Office, Excel will ask you to store your Office account information in the File, Account pane. This is not some attempt to harvest e-mails so they can spam you about the next MrExcel Power Excel seminar. There are actually good things that happen when you sign in on all of your computers:

* Recent files that you save to OneDrive will appear in the recent list of all of your computers. If you were working on a file at work and save it to the cloud, it will be available when you get home. No more forgetting the USB drive at the office.

* Ribbon customizations are carried through to all of your computers.

Saving your Flickr information allows you to Insert, Online Pictures and easily add photos that you've uploaded to the file sharing sites. Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook information was used in Excel 2013 to allow posting a workbook to social networks. That feature never caught on and was removed from Excel 2016.

HOW CAN I USE EXCEL ON DUAL MONITORS?

Problem: Why is it so hard to use Excel on two monitors?

Strategy: This problem is fixed in Excel 2013. Every Excel workbook gets its own window, complete with a ribbon and formula bar. Open two workbooks, drag on to the other monitor and you will have 36 linear inches of Excel.

In Excel 2010, you have to use this hack:

* Force Excel 2010 to open a second instance of Excel. You can hold down the Shift key while opening Excel to create a second instance of Excel. Downside: you can not copy formulas from one instance to the other

HOW CAN I OPEN THE SAME WORKBOOK TWICE?

Problem: I used to open two copies of the same workbook. I could select cells in copy B, see the total in the status bar, and then type that information in to a different place in copy A. Now that Excel 2013 opens every workbook in a new window, I can not open the same workbook twice.

Strategy: Open the first instance of the workbook. Then, force Excel to open in a new instance by holding down the Shift key while opening Excel. In the second instance of Excel, use File, Open to open the workbook again.

FIND ICONS ON THE RIBBON

Problem: I know a certain feature exists in Excel, but I can not find it in the Ribbon.

Strategy: Use the new Tell Me feature in Excel 2016. Located to the right of the last tab in the Ribbon, a box with a lightbulb and "Tell Me What You Want To Do" appears. Click in the box and type the name of the feature. A selectable list of commands appears.

Gotcha: If you are in Excel 2013 and don't have Tell Me, open an Excel workbook at Office.Live.Com and use the Tell Me command in Excel Online.

WHERE IS FILE, EXIT?

Problem: What happened to the old Exit command?

Strategy: Although Exit is missing from the File menu in 2013-2016, you can use Alt+F, X to invoke the Exit command. Or, add Exit to the Quick Access Toolbar.

1. The top-left corner of Excel contains a tiny strip with icons for Save, Undo, and Redo. Right-click that strip and choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar.

2. The top left dropdown starts with Popular Commands. Open that dropdown and choose All Commands. You now have an alphabetical list of 2000+ commands.

3. Scroll through the list to find Exit. When you find your command, click the command. Click the Add>> button in the center of the screen to add the command to the Quick Access Toolbar.

WHERE ARE MY MACROS?

Problem: Did Microsoft abandon the macro facility? Where are the buttons to record a new macro, run a macro, and so on? How do I get to the Visual Basic Editor?

Strategy: Most of the macro icons are hidden. Three macro options appear on the extreme right end of the View tab. You use the Macros dropdown to view macros, record a macro, or use relative references while recording a macro.

To access the rest of the macro functionality, you need to enable a hidden Developer ribbon tab. Choose File, Options, Customize Ribbon. Add a checkmark next to Developer. The Developer tab offers macro commands, buttons from the former Forms toolbar and Control Toolbox, and XML settings.

Additional Details: When you are recording a macro, instead of seeing the Stop Recording icon floating above the Excel window, you now see it in the Status Bar, next to Ready.

The same area of the status bar includes a Record Macro button when you are not recording a macro. However, because there is not a Relative References button, you cannot effectively record macros without using either the View tab or the Developer tab of the ribbon.

CUSTOMIZING THE RIBBON

Problem: I want to customize the ribbon.

Strategy: Ribbon customizations in Excel 2013/2016 are weak compared with the customization capabilities in Excel 2003. You might feel like the Pivot Table command belongs on the Data tab rather than on the Insert tab. You can add a new group to the Data tab to hold the pivot table icons.

First, look at the ribbon and decide where you want the new group to appear. Perhaps a good location would be between the Sort & Filter group and the Data Tools group.

Right-click anywhere on the ribbon and choose Customize the Ribbon.

The Customize dialog contains two large list boxes. You will first be working with the list box on the right side of the screen. Expand the plus sign next to the Data entry to see the groups on the Data tab. If you want...