- •About the Author
- •About the Technical Editor
- •Credits
- •Is This Book for You?
- •Software Versions
- •Conventions This Book Uses
- •What the Icons Mean
- •How This Book Is Organized
- •How to Use This Book
- •What’s on the Companion CD
- •What Is Excel Good For?
- •What’s New in Excel 2010?
- •Moving around a Worksheet
- •Introducing the Ribbon
- •Using Shortcut Menus
- •Customizing Your Quick Access Toolbar
- •Working with Dialog Boxes
- •Using the Task Pane
- •Creating Your First Excel Worksheet
- •Entering Text and Values into Your Worksheets
- •Entering Dates and Times into Your Worksheets
- •Modifying Cell Contents
- •Applying Number Formatting
- •Controlling the Worksheet View
- •Working with Rows and Columns
- •Understanding Cells and Ranges
- •Copying or Moving Ranges
- •Using Names to Work with Ranges
- •Adding Comments to Cells
- •What Is a Table?
- •Creating a Table
- •Changing the Look of a Table
- •Working with Tables
- •Getting to Know the Formatting Tools
- •Changing Text Alignment
- •Using Colors and Shading
- •Adding Borders and Lines
- •Adding a Background Image to a Worksheet
- •Using Named Styles for Easier Formatting
- •Understanding Document Themes
- •Creating a New Workbook
- •Opening an Existing Workbook
- •Saving a Workbook
- •Using AutoRecover
- •Specifying a Password
- •Organizing Your Files
- •Other Workbook Info Options
- •Closing Workbooks
- •Safeguarding Your Work
- •Excel File Compatibility
- •Exploring Excel Templates
- •Understanding Custom Excel Templates
- •Printing with One Click
- •Changing Your Page View
- •Adjusting Common Page Setup Settings
- •Adding a Header or Footer to Your Reports
- •Copying Page Setup Settings across Sheets
- •Preventing Certain Cells from Being Printed
- •Preventing Objects from Being Printed
- •Creating Custom Views of Your Worksheet
- •Understanding Formula Basics
- •Entering Formulas into Your Worksheets
- •Editing Formulas
- •Using Cell References in Formulas
- •Using Formulas in Tables
- •Correcting Common Formula Errors
- •Using Advanced Naming Techniques
- •Tips for Working with Formulas
- •A Few Words about Text
- •Text Functions
- •Advanced Text Formulas
- •Date-Related Worksheet Functions
- •Time-Related Functions
- •Basic Counting Formulas
- •Advanced Counting Formulas
- •Summing Formulas
- •Conditional Sums Using a Single Criterion
- •Conditional Sums Using Multiple Criteria
- •Introducing Lookup Formulas
- •Functions Relevant to Lookups
- •Basic Lookup Formulas
- •Specialized Lookup Formulas
- •The Time Value of Money
- •Loan Calculations
- •Investment Calculations
- •Depreciation Calculations
- •Understanding Array Formulas
- •Understanding the Dimensions of an Array
- •Naming Array Constants
- •Working with Array Formulas
- •Using Multicell Array Formulas
- •Using Single-Cell Array Formulas
- •Working with Multicell Array Formulas
- •What Is a Chart?
- •Understanding How Excel Handles Charts
- •Creating a Chart
- •Working with Charts
- •Understanding Chart Types
- •Learning More
- •Selecting Chart Elements
- •User Interface Choices for Modifying Chart Elements
- •Modifying the Chart Area
- •Modifying the Plot Area
- •Working with Chart Titles
- •Working with a Legend
- •Working with Gridlines
- •Modifying the Axes
- •Working with Data Series
- •Creating Chart Templates
- •Learning Some Chart-Making Tricks
- •About Conditional Formatting
- •Specifying Conditional Formatting
- •Conditional Formats That Use Graphics
- •Creating Formula-Based Rules
- •Working with Conditional Formats
- •Sparkline Types
- •Creating Sparklines
- •Customizing Sparklines
- •Specifying a Date Axis
- •Auto-Updating Sparklines
- •Displaying a Sparkline for a Dynamic Range
- •Using Shapes
- •Using SmartArt
- •Using WordArt
- •Working with Other Graphic Types
- •Using the Equation Editor
- •Customizing the Ribbon
- •About Number Formatting
- •Creating a Custom Number Format
- •Custom Number Format Examples
- •About Data Validation
- •Specifying Validation Criteria
- •Types of Validation Criteria You Can Apply
- •Creating a Drop-Down List
- •Using Formulas for Data Validation Rules
- •Understanding Cell References
- •Data Validation Formula Examples
- •Introducing Worksheet Outlines
- •Creating an Outline
- •Working with Outlines
- •Linking Workbooks
- •Creating External Reference Formulas
- •Working with External Reference Formulas
- •Consolidating Worksheets
- •Understanding the Different Web Formats
- •Opening an HTML File
- •Working with Hyperlinks
- •Using Web Queries
- •Other Internet-Related Features
- •Copying and Pasting
- •Copying from Excel to Word
- •Embedding Objects in a Worksheet
- •Using Excel on a Network
- •Understanding File Reservations
- •Sharing Workbooks
- •Tracking Workbook Changes
- •Types of Protection
- •Protecting a Worksheet
- •Protecting a Workbook
- •VB Project Protection
- •Related Topics
- •Using Excel Auditing Tools
- •Searching and Replacing
- •Spell Checking Your Worksheets
- •Using AutoCorrect
- •Understanding External Database Files
- •Importing Access Tables
- •Retrieving Data with Query: An Example
- •Working with Data Returned by Query
- •Using Query without the Wizard
- •Learning More about Query
- •About Pivot Tables
- •Creating a Pivot Table
- •More Pivot Table Examples
- •Learning More
- •Working with Non-Numeric Data
- •Grouping Pivot Table Items
- •Creating a Frequency Distribution
- •Filtering Pivot Tables with Slicers
- •Referencing Cells within a Pivot Table
- •Creating Pivot Charts
- •Another Pivot Table Example
- •Producing a Report with a Pivot Table
- •A What-If Example
- •Types of What-If Analyses
- •Manual What-If Analysis
- •Creating Data Tables
- •Using Scenario Manager
- •What-If Analysis, in Reverse
- •Single-Cell Goal Seeking
- •Introducing Solver
- •Solver Examples
- •Installing the Analysis ToolPak Add-in
- •Using the Analysis Tools
- •Introducing the Analysis ToolPak Tools
- •Introducing VBA Macros
- •Displaying the Developer Tab
- •About Macro Security
- •Saving Workbooks That Contain Macros
- •Two Types of VBA Macros
- •Creating VBA Macros
- •Learning More
- •Overview of VBA Functions
- •An Introductory Example
- •About Function Procedures
- •Executing Function Procedures
- •Function Procedure Arguments
- •Debugging Custom Functions
- •Inserting Custom Functions
- •Learning More
- •Why Create UserForms?
- •UserForm Alternatives
- •Creating UserForms: An Overview
- •A UserForm Example
- •Another UserForm Example
- •More on Creating UserForms
- •Learning More
- •Why Use Controls on a Worksheet?
- •Using Controls
- •Reviewing the Available ActiveX Controls
- •Understanding Events
- •Entering Event-Handler VBA Code
- •Using Workbook-Level Events
- •Working with Worksheet Events
- •Using Non-Object Events
- •Working with Ranges
- •Working with Workbooks
- •Working with Charts
- •VBA Speed Tips
- •What Is an Add-In?
- •Working with Add-Ins
- •Why Create Add-Ins?
- •Creating Add-Ins
- •An Add-In Example
- •System Requirements
- •Using the CD
- •What’s on the CD
- •Troubleshooting
- •The Excel Help System
- •Microsoft Technical Support
- •Internet Newsgroups
- •Internet Web sites
- •End-User License Agreement
Chapter 30: Using Excel in a Workgroup
Updating changes
While you’re working on a shared workbook, you can choose File Save to update the workbook with your changes. The Update Changes settings determine what happens when you save a shared workbook:
•When File Is Saved: You receive updates from other users when you save your copy of the shared workbook.
•Automatically Every: Lets you specify a time period for receiving updates from other users of the workbook. You can also specify whether Excel should save your changes automatically, too, or just show you the changes made by other users.
Resolving conflicting changes between users
As you may expect, multiple users working on the same file can result in some conflicts. For example, assume that you’re working on a shared customer information workbook, and another user also has the workbook open. If you and the other user both make a change to the same cell, a conflict occurs. You can specify the manner in which Excel resolves the conflicts by selecting one of two options from the Advanced tab of the Share Workbook dialog box:
•Ask Me Which Changes Win: If you select this option, Excel displays a dialog box to let you determine how to settle the conflict.
•The Changes Being Saved Win: If you select this option, the most recently saved version always takes precedence.
Caution
The second option, The Changes Being Saved Win, has slightly deceptive wording. Even if the other user saves his changes, any changes you make will automatically override his changes when you save the workbook. This option may result in a loss of data because you won’t have any warning that you’ve overwritten another user’s changes. n
Controlling the Include in Personal View settings
The final section of the Advanced tab of the Share Workbook dialog box enables you to specify settings that are specific to your view of the shared workbook. You can choose to use your own print settings and your own data-filtering settings. If you don’t enable these check boxes, you can’t save your own print and filter settings.
Tracking Workbook Changes
Excel has a feature that enables you to track changes made to a workbook. You may want to use this feature if you send a workbook to someone for reviewing. When the file is returned, you can see what changes were made and then accept or reject them accordingly.
Turning Track Changes on and off
To enable change tracking, choose Review Changes Track Changes Highlight Changes, which displays the Highlight Changes dialog box, shown in Figure 30.5. Then select the Track Changes While Editing check box.
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FIGURE 30.5
Use the Highlight Changes dialog box to track changes made to a workbook.
You can also specify the period to track (When), which users to track (Who), and specify a range of cells to track (Where). If you enable the Highlight Changes on Screen option, each changed cell displays a small triangle in its upper-left corner. And when a changed cell is selected, you see a cell comment that describes what change was made (see Figure 30.6).
After you select the option(s) that you want, click OK to close the Highlight Changes dialog box and enable tracking. To stop tracking changes, choose Review Changes Track Changes Highlight Changes again, and then clear the Track Changes While Editing check box.
Caution
When tracking changes is enabled, the workbook always becomes a shared workbook, which severely limits the types of changes you can make. Shared workbooks are discussed earlier in this chapter (see “Sharing Workbooks”). n
FIGURE 30.6
Excel displays a descriptive note when you select a cell that has changed.
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Keep in mind the following when using the Track Changes feature:
•Changes made to cell contents are tracked, but other changes (such as formatting changes) aren’t tracked.
•The change history is kept only for a set interval. When you turn on Track Changes, changes are kept for 30 days. You can increase or decrease the number of days of history to keep in from Highlight Changes dialog box (use the When setting).
•If you would like to generate a list of the changes made, choose Review Changes Track Changes Highlight Changes and then enable the List Changes on a New Sheet check box. Click OK, and Excel inserts a new worksheet named History. This sheet shows detailed information about each change made.
•Only one level of changes is maintained. Thus, if you change the value of a cell several times, only the most recent change is remembered.
Reviewing the changes
To review the changes made while using the Track Changes features, choose Review Changes Track Changes Accept/Reject Changes. The Select Changes to Accept or Reject dialog box appears, enabling you to select the types of changes that you want to review. This dialog box is similar to the Highlight Changes dialog box. You can specify When, Who, and Where.
Click OK, and Excel displays each change in a new dialog box, as shown in Figure 30.7. You then click Accept to accept the change or click Reject to reject the change. You can also click Accept All (to accept all changes) or Reject All (to reject all changes).
FIGURE 30.7
The Accept or Reject Changes dialog box displays information about each cell that was changed.
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