New Features of Excel 2013: Tools that Make Life Easier

When you first open Excel 2013, right away you see how much more visually appealing the program is.  Microsoft has also created new features that help save time and increase productivity.

In the Backstage View, you can choose a regular sheet or choose from the many template options.  If you have been working on a file, the program now has a “recent” section that shows all the files you have been working on so you can have quick and easy access.

When working within a document with a large amount of data, Flash Fill saves time, by recognizing patterns in your data, this new feature automatically fills in the information based on the pattern in the data.

Recommended Charts and Chart Tools can help you display your data dynamically.  You can easily edit the look and feel of the chart you choose with filters and pallets.  There is also a preview that shows what your data would look like in each chart.

 

Use OneDrive to save and share your files online and on any device.  You can even collaborate in real time on the same document.  There are features you can use to lock sections of the document, as well as, permissions and password protection features that help keep your document safe.

These are just a few of the useful productivity and time saving tools that you can learn in our new course Microsoft Excel 2013: Introduction.  With all the new features, you could play around with them and try to figure each out.  Or you could learn from an expert in Microsoft Excel.

Look for our new courses coming in the next few weeks: Microsoft Excel 2013: Introduction, Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud: Introduction, Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud: Advanced and many more on the way!

Visit www.knowledgecity.com to find these and our other great courses in Business, Computer Software, and Safety Compliance.

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Ways to Use Excel

1. Create a budget to track your personal finance. This is a great way to see where your money is going in order to cut back on unnecessary spending. The benefit of a spreadsheet includes the ability to make formulas and work out complex sums easily, making financial planning that much easier. 

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2. If you are planning on travelling, you can create a spreadsheet outlining your vacation, including where you will stay, how you will get to each place, and how many days you will be at each location (this will greatly reduce stress if you are travelling to multiple places during one vacation, especially if it's your first visit).

3. Create a spreadsheet to track household chores, where you can include categories like daily, weekly, bi-monthly, and monthly chores. Be sure to leave a checkbox next to each entry!

4. Use spreadsheets for To Do lists—these can cover the week and be broken down into days. Include both weekly and daily tasks. Checkboxes on each task are helpful here too, and can give you a sense of accomplishment when you get to check off a completed task.

5. Create a spreadsheet to evaluate items you are considering purchasing, such as a new car.

6. Create a spreadsheet to track inventory if you have a business, or even if you just want to keep track of all your personal possessions.

These are just a few examples of how you could use Excel—the possibilities are endless. So now we're curious, what do you use Excel for?

Remember to check out the first 3 FREE tutorials for some great insight on how to use Excel 2010, the newest version of Excel. We also have both introductory and advanced courses available in earlier versions of Excel.

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Welcome, Word 2010!

After a three year wait, the newest version of Microsoft Word is finally here! Discover the new layout of Word 2010, with the return of the File tab (which you may remember from Word 2003) in place of the 2007 Office button.

With this newest version of Word, you can create professional, high quality documents, perfect for personal and business use. Word 2010 has all sorts of new and improved tools to enhance your documents, including:

• The ability to add formatting effects like gradient fills and reflections directly to your document text (the same effects you may have previously used for pictures, charts, and SmartArt graphics)

• New picture editing tools, including advanced color and cropping tools to perfect your document pictures

• Customizable Office themes to ensure the look of your document is consistent—you can even add your personal or business brand to your theme, giving your documents that much more of a professional edge

• A wide selection of SmartArt graphics, including additional layouts for charts and picture diagrams, to add an extra visual effect to your message

Word’s improved layout makes it even easier to navigate the program. You can recover draft versions of files that you closed without saving—that’s right, no more panic over losing a document!—and you can work with others on documents and projects with new co-authoring capabilities.

Get familiar with these new features and more at KnowledgeCity.com—we have training tutorials for beginning and advanced users, so you can learn all about how to use Word 2010. Coming soon are more of the new Office Suite, including PowerPoint 2010 and Access 2010.

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