NOVEMBER UPDATE BY ALLTECHBUZZ TEAM: Microsoft Excel is a freemium kind of software. That means, worldwide, this calculations or sheet and chart preparation software developed by Microsoft Corporation is available in Free version and in Paid version as well if an individual or organisation is looking for an advanced feature. To have it for free, volunteers can visit Microsoft’s official website that is products.office.com and clicks on “Try for Free” on the front page. And, for those who wish to get the advanced feature of the most used spreadsheet on the planet, can click on “Buy Now” or “Buy Office 365” button.
Using Microsoft Excel (Pivot Table): Advantages/Benefits & Disadvantages
The demand for Microsoft Excel will never go down due to its versatility and easy to use the feature. One can easily master or improve their Microsoft Excel skills by using certain Microsoft Excel tips and tricks like:
- Mastering the shortcuts (shown below).
- Learning Microsoft Excel formulas.
- Using Table formatting tools.
- Learning how to align charts, shapes and objects on spreadsheets.
- Using Pivot Table tools.
- Importing data from websites.
The current version of Microsoft Excel 2016 has following advantages over both Microsoft Office 2013 and Office for Mac-2011.
1. Add multiple rows and columns at a time
A user can easily add multiple rows and columns at a time to the spreadsheet using simple Microsoft Excel tips and tricks. It improves productivity and helps get your work done faster as adding columns and rows individually can be a time-consuming affair.
2. Correct the spelling mistakes on your spreadsheet using autocorrect
Spelling mistakes can be easily corrected in your presentations by using an auto-correct feature. Simply go to file options to proofing to autocorrect options.
3. Easily extract data from the web and implement
A user can easily extract useful information from any website and implement them in a spreadsheet. This feature saves lots of time in typing data from a website to your excel spreadsheet.
4. Hide everything for distraction-free work from the working area
A user can hide protected date or unused rows/columns and can press control, shift and down arrow to select the rows that need to be hidden. This feature hides important data from being deleted while at the same time allow a user to focus and concentrate without getting distracted.
5. Track Data in a systematic manner
It’s difficult to track data in a huge spreadsheet, in order to remove all hassle one can simply activate Watch Windows which displays the values of cells that have been changed. Just click the left mouse on the cell that you want to watch, and choose excel and Window with. After the watch window dialogue box appears, click add to finally set up.
6. Customisable Toolbar
A user can easily customise the toolbar are accordingly for better productivity. One can simply add the tools that are required more frequently on to the toolbar.
7. Delete unnecessary data
It is advised to delete unnecessary data to avoid confusion at a later stage and to improve the productivity of the user.
8. Enhanced Pivot Table
A lot more new features and improvements were added in Pivot Table like Creating, editing and deleting custom measures, Search in PivotTable, Automatic Time Grouping, PivotChart Drill-Down buttons, Smart Rename, Automatic Relationship Detection and Multiple usability improvements.
9. Newer Charts option
Microsoft Excel 2016 version offers six new charts namely, Treeman/Sunburst, Waterfall, Histogram, Pareto or Box and Whisker. One can easily access these charts by clicking on Insert > Insert chart.
10. Power Query
This feature allows you to combine, refine and discover new data from a large number of sources like web pages, XML files and text. files etc. Power Query helps to fetch or pull in using data from a large number of sources and integrate them on your spreadsheet without any hassle. One can find this feature under the Data tab.
11. Easy One Click Forecasting
This feature comes with ‘Tell Me’ search bar used to mine your data and predicts trends and patterns for a certain period of time. This feature also acts as a ‘data cleanser’ and generates multiple forecasts on your planned and reviewed worksheets.
12. Data Loss Protection
This feature in Microsoft Excel 2016 enables real-time scan of content for all your sensitive data. Also saves data like credit and debit card numbers, bank account numbers etc. This feature also allows you to share this data on platforms like OneDrive and SharePoint.
13. Special features like ‘Tell Me’ and ‘Smart Lookup’
Microsoft Excel 2016 offers new features like ‘Tell Me’ and ‘Smart Lookup’ to help with easy navigation. Whereas the feature called ‘Tell Me’ helps you to search for excel 2016 functions that you not unable to find. And the ‘Smart Look Up’ feature allows to select a word or a phrase from the typed data and allows you to look it up.
14. Power BI
This Microsoft Excel 2016 feature enables you to create attractive and interactive reports which can be easily edited and shared with others. Power BI can be also used with many applications and platforms like Zendesk, Salesforce and Google Analytics. One can also monitor data from across the organization and from all the apps you use.
15. Text Lines in a cell
One can easily Text Lines in a cell by pressing Alt+Enter on a Windows PC and on a Mac. Using this new feature of Microsoft Excel 2016 once can save a lot of time.
I hope this article helped you choose the best spreadsheet software for your office. If having any queries related to Using Microsoft Excel (Pivot Table): Advantages/Benefits & Disadvantages, make sure to ask below.
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