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Left Side of the Ribbon in Excel 2007
In the first part of our Excel 2007and 2010 tutorials, we'll explain what you will see when the program first starts. We're not going to explain what a spreadsheet is, and assume that you already know. If you don't, we have an introduction here:
Launch your Excel 2007 software. When the program loads, you'll see something like this:
Excel Main Screen (Opens in a new window 67KB)
If you've ever used a previous version of Excel then you'll notice that the new version looks quite different! Even if you have never used Excel, the software looks quite intimidating. But we'll make a gentle start, so that you can get used to the way everything works.
The first thing to notice is the Ribbon
running right across the top. The Ribbon is supposed to be more intuitive than
drop-down menus. Emphasis is placed on the tools and options appropriate to what
you're doing. Here's a closer look at the Ribbon when Excel first starts (it's
split in half, here):
Notice that in both versions the Home tab is the one that is selected. Other tabs are: Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, Review and View. (In the image above, there's also a Developer tab. If you don't do any programming then you don't have to worry about this tab.)
In the top left of the Ribbon in Excel
2007 there's a big circle. This one:
Click this, and you'll see all the file operations: New, Open, Save, Exit, etc.
To see the same menu in Excel 2010, you have to click on the File tab, which is on the far left. (It looks as though it's already selected, but it's not.):
We'll go through all these menu options later, along with the various options on the Ribbon tabs. But the best place to start with Excel is getting to grips with all those numbers and letters. These are the Grid Coordinates. We'll do that in the next part.
Continue to next selection --> Excels Rows and Columns