From the article at Microsoft.com entitled “Top 10 reasons to try Excel 2010”. Excel happens to be the application I use the most, and for which I seem to offer a lot of training. Analytical skills are critical to any job, so being able to articulate “what the numbers mean” to your audience is important. The differences between Excel 2007 and 2010 are subtle. If you haven’t been using the 2007 new features, then it will seem like 2010 has a lot of new cool stuff. For this reason, my top pick is “#6: Add more sophistication to your data presentations” because in my opinion, conditional formatting is an under-used feature of 2007. I’d like to see more people tapping into the power of these formatting and display features when working in Excel 2010.
#6: Add more sophistication to your data presentations.
Conditional Formatting in Excel 2010 gives you more control over styles and icons, improved data bars, and the ability to highlight specific items in a few clicks. You also can display data bars for negative values to more accurately illustrate your data visuals.
October 19th, 2010 at 10:13 am
Thanks Deb for this tip. I have been using these features in Google Docs for years and never knew it was possible in Excel.