How things are organized

So, your first question might be why did Microsoft redesign Office? It worked fine before.

Well, the answer is, simply, to make the programs easier to use.

Of course, you can work any way you want, but the commands I use most often are right here in the workbook.

First, there is the right-click menu.

Then, there is something new, called the mini-toolbar, which is great for doing quick formatting tasks, like adding some fill.

When you simply select some data, this button appears – the Quick Analysis lens.

With this, you can instantly add things to help you visualize your data, like conditional formatting.

The commands I use fairly often are located on the ribbon. The ribbon commands are organized into tabs, and the tab commands are organized into groups.

We’ll look at those in more details in the next video.

The commands I use less often can be found by clicking one of these little arrows. They open dialog boxes. Look familiar?

Many of them are identical to the ones you used in Excel 2003.

Finally, to get to the commands I use least often, go to the backstage.

This is where you Open, Save, Share, and Export files.

You can also click Print to see a print preview, set up your printer and Print your workbook.

The options I use even less frequently are here in Options. This is where you set up General Excel preferences.

Options is also where you come to customize the commands and options you see on the ribbon.

So, that is basically how things are organized. Up next, we’ll take a closer look at the ribbon.