Excel binary files

Since the release of Excel 2007 it has been storing data as an XML file. This is a good practice if we want to exchange spreadsheets between different platforms, or even operating systems, but when it comes to complex calculations, which contain hundreds of thousands of rows, such documents can take up a lot of disk space. This can be overcome by saving with the use of the XSLB extension. You can read about the advantages and disadvantages of this approach in the text that follows.

Formatting objects

Since version 2007, Excel has been enriched with a wealth of options for “beautifying” reports, and from version to version it offers more of these functionalities that can be applied to the formatting of all graphic objects, whether these are charts or their elements, images, shapes, schemes … The following text will show how the appearance of the graphic object can change: its body, frames, the use of special formatting styles …

Ribbons and shortcuts

Excel 2007 brought a new work environment based on ribbons. This novelty was annoyed by many experienced users (who were able to set shortcuts to the most commonly used options) and delighted new users (who saw some options they did not even suspect that existed). In order to “calm down passions,” Office programmers first added the Quick Access Toolbar and the ability to adjust the toolbar content (Office 2010).