What’s New in Microsoft Excel 2013

2013 is looking to be another exciting year for the IT industry, starting off with the release of Microsoft Office 365 in the first quarter. On the heels of Windows 8, Office 365 looks like it will benefit from similar upgrades that will incorporate cloud services and touch screen capabilities. We will preview four of these features by looking at Excel 2013.

Recommended Charts
Recommend Charts makes it possible to have great looking charts to show off all the hard work you have done. Making professional charts is now as easy as one click of the mouse or tap on the screen. Excel 2013 will recognize the patterns of data that you are entering, and recommend assorted chart options for you. By Excel helping you choose nice charts and graphs, you will be able to focus more on your important data instead of getting distracted picking out graph color schemes.

Recommended Pivot Table
Recommended Pivot Table is a new feature designed to provide you with new insight into the data you have compiled in your spreadsheet. For all the times that you have wondered if there is anything else to your data that you might have missed, Excel 2013 will give you new ideas and options after automatically analyzing your rows by coming up with new tables, charts, and insight.

Chart Formatting Control
The new Chart Formatting Control feature works well with the new Windows 8 touch interface; this is seen with the option to easily make a change to a chart with a single tap or click. This means if you are reviewing your project and want to make a quick edit to the layout, title, color scheme, or anything else, the change will be quick to enact and easy to figure out. This feature is in line with the overall redesign of Office 365 to give users a less cluttered and streamlined experience.

Simplified Sharing
Microsoft has included their cloud services SkyDrive and SharePoint to make collaboration with team members on Excel 2013 projects easy. Simplified Sharing allows everybody to view and edit the same spreadsheet in real-time from different platforms and different locations. The cloud adds a layer of security to your project by only allowing the team members you authorize to have the ability to view the project, while continually backing up your work to prevent data loss.

These four Excel 2013 features are just a small taste of all the upgrades Microsoft has in store with its Office 365 offering. To learn more about Office 365, call Computerware at (703) 821-8200. We can go over with you how the Office features will improve the way you do business, as well as install Office on your network, manage your software updates and licenses, and assist you with all of your IT needs.