posted
Tue, 12/03/2013 - 15:15
Written on:
March 12, 2013
Whether
you're a novice or an advanced user, you'll find many of Excel 2013's new
features useful at your nonprofit, foundation, charity, or library. The changes
between Excel 2010 and Excel 2013 are subtle, so your staff should have no
problem transitioning into the new version. Most of Excel 2013's updates are
designed to make crunching numbers and analyzing data faster and easier.
Eligible
nonprofits, charities, foundations, and libraries can now request Office Standard and Professional editions
through the Microsoft Software Donation Program at TechSoup. To learn more
about the new Office, read TechSoup's Microsoft
Office: What Your Organization Should Know.
Updated Look
Like the
rest of the new Office suite, Excel 2013 has undergone a light, minimalist
makeover. With less clutter, it is easier to find the menus and tools you need
to get started on your projects. If you're working in a spreadsheet for a long
period of time, your eyes can sometimes get fatigued from looking at endless
columns of data. Excel relieves this with subtle animations that make it easier
to track your cursor between cells.
When you
start up Excel, you'll see a new landing page with your most recently opened
projects as well as a variety of templates to choose from (you'll find similar
landing pages in other programs in the new Office). If you aren't sure how to
format a fundraiser budget or where to start to make a volunteer calendar,
Excel's expansive library of templates can get you started on the right track.
Built to Help You Save Time
Flash
Fill is a handy new feature that can help you reformat and rearrange your data.
Excel will learn and remember your data entry patterns and auto-complete the
remaining data with no formulas or macros required. One way Flash Fill can be
of assistance is if you have to import a large chunk of data into another
spreadsheet.
Flash
Fill can predict your data entry — before you type it.
For
example, say you need to copy and paste volunteer names into a spreadsheet from
a list. You prefer to have the last name and first name in separate cells,
however, so you can list the volunteers alphabetically. When you start typing
the last names into a separate column, Excel will recognize this pattern and
automatically fill in the rest of the data. To see Flash Fill in action, watch
a replay of our webinar Take
a Tour of the New Microsoft Office, which includes a demo of this
feature.
Visualize Your Data
A number of new, useful
tools will appeal to Excel novices and advanced users alike. The new Quick
Analysis function helps you convert your data into a chart, table, or
Sparklines (small graphs that you can show alongside your data. See our article
on How to Use Sparklines in Excel 2010 to see examples.) To do this, you
select the cells you wish to analyze and click the Quick Analysis button that
appears to the bottom right. You can preview different visual formats for your
data (like a pie chart, bar graph, and so on) so you can swiftly choose the
best format.
Excel's
Recommend Chart feature helps you pick the best format for your data.
If you
already know that you want a chart to illustrate your data, you can jump to the
Recommended Charts tool by selecting it from the Insert tab on the Ribbon
(click Insert > Recommended Charts).
You'll see different charting options that might work for your project, such as
pie, line, and bar charts.
A small,
but useful enhancement in Excel 2013 is chart animation. When you adjust data
associated with a chart, Excel will animate the change to show how the new
numbers affect the overall graphic.
The
Recommended Chart feature can help you discover new ways of visually presenting
your data.
Recommended
PivotTable is another new feature you'll find under the Insert tab. The
PivotTable feature lets you create an interactive table that automatically
extracts, organizes, and summarizes your data (for more on Pivot Tables in
Excel 2010, read TechSoup Canada's Data Analysis Is for Everyone! A Short Intro to Pivot Tables).
When you select a group of cells, you can see a preview of how your data would
look in a variety of tables using different pivots.
Sharing and Collaboration
As with
the rest of the new Office suite, it is easier to share and collaborate in
Excel with your colleagues. Your workbooks are saved to SkyDrive (Microsoft's
cloud-based storage service) or SharePoint by default. SkyDrive will even save
your place in a spreadsheet so when you come back it, you'll be in the cell you
were previously working on — even if you're accessing it from a different
device. You can also save workbooks to your computer if you prefer to save
files locally. Want to share a particularly interesting chart or graph with
your audience? Excel 2013 lets you share selected portions of your spreadsheets
on your social networking pages directly from the application.
You can
also show off your charts in a PowerPoint presentation. PowerPoint 2013 lets
you insert Excel charts (as well as tables and graphs) into a slide without
losing any of their formatting or functionality.
Conclusion
The new
features in Excel 2013 can help anybody create professional-looking charts,
spreadsheets, and tables — regardless of their skill level. If your staff is
already comfortable working in earlier versions of Excel, they should have no
trouble getting started.
