After performing these steps, the message appears when the cell is activated, and it disappears when any other cell is activated.
Note that this message isn’t a “real” comment. For example, a cell that contains this type of message doesn’t display a comment indicator, and it’s not affect by any of the commands used to work with cell comments. In addition, you can’t format these messages in any way.
FIGURE 5.17
Cell comments don’t have to be rectangles.
Reading comments
To read all of the comments in a workbook, choose Review➪Comments➪Next. Click this command repeatedly to cycle through all the comments in a workbook. Choose Review➪Comments➪Previous to view the comments in reverse order.
Hiding and showing comments
If you want all cell comments to be visible (regardless of the location of the cell pointer), choose Review➪ Comments➪Show All Comments. This command is a toggle; select it again to hide all cell comments. To toggle the display of an individual comments, select its cell and then choose Review➪Comments➪ Show/Hide Comment.
Editing comments
To edit a comment, activate the cell, right-click, and then choose Edit Comment from the shortcut menu.
When you’ve made your changes, click any cell.
Deleting comments
To delete a cell comment, activate the cell that contains the comment and then choose Review➪ Comments➪Delete. Or, right-click and then choose Delete Comment from the shortcut menu.
One of the most significant new features in Excel 2007 is tables. A tableis a rectangular range of data that usually has a row of text headings to describe the contents of each column. Excel, of course, has always sup- ported tables. But the new implementation makes common tasks much easier — and a lot better looking. More importantly, the new table features may help elimi- nate some common errors.
This chapter is a basic introduction to the new table features. As always, I urge you to just dig in and experiment with the various table-related commands. You may be surprised at what you can accomplish with just a few mouse clicks.
What Is a Table?
A tableis simply a rectangular range of structured data. Each row in the table cor- responds to a single entity. For example, a row can contain information about a customer, a bank transaction, an employee, a product, and so on. Each column contains a specific piece of information. For example, if each row contains infor- mation about an employee, the columns can contain data such as name, employee number, hire date, salary, department, and so on. Tables typically have a header row at the top that describes the information contained in each column.
So far, I’ve said nothing new. Every previous version of Excel is able to work with this type of table. The magic happens when you tell Excel to convert a range of data into an “official” table. You do this by selecting any cell within the range and then choosing Insert➪Tables➪Table.
When you explicitly identify a range as a table, Excel can respond more intelli- gently to the actions you perform with that range. For example, if you create a chart from a table, the chart will expand automatically as you add new rows to the table.
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding how a table differs from a normal range Working with tables Using the Totals Row
Removing duplicate rows from a table
Sorting and filtering a table
Introducing Tables
Excel 2003 introduced a rudimentary version of the table feature. In that version, tables were known as lists. The implementation in Excel 2007 is much better.
Figure 6.1 shows a range of data that has not yet been converted to a table. Notice that this range corre- sponds to the description I provide earlier: It’s a range of structured data with column headers. In this example, each row contains information about a single real estate listing. The range has 10 columns and 125 rows of data (plus a descriptive header row).
FIGURE 6.1
This range of data is a good candidate for a table.
Figure 6.2 shows the range after I converted it to a table by choosing Insert➪Tables➪Table.
FIGURE 6.2 An Excel table.
NOTE NOTE
If you’d like to practice working with tables, the workbook shown here is available on the CD-ROM. The file is named real estate table.xlsx.
What’s the difference between a standard range and table?
n Activating any cell in the table gives you access to a new Table Tools context tab on the Ribbon (see Figure 6.3).
n The cells contain background color and text color formatting. This formatting is optional.
n Each column header contains a drop-down list, which you can use to sort the data or filter the table to hide specific rows.
n If you scroll the sheet down so that the header row disappears, the table headers replace the col- umn letters in the worksheet header.
n Tables support calculated columns. A single formula in a column is automatically propagated to all cells in the column. (See Chapter 11.)
n Tables support structured references. Rather than using cell references, formulas can use table names and column headers. (See Chapter 11.)
n The lower-right corner of the lower-right cell contains a small control that you can click and drag to extend the table’s size, either horizontally (add more columns) or vertically (add more rows).
n Excel is able to remove duplicate rows automatically.
n Selecting rows and columns within the table is simplified.
FIGURE 6.3
When you select a cell in a table, you can use the commands located on the Table Tools ➪Design tab.
Creating a Table
Most of the time, you’ll create a table from an existing range of data. But Excel also allows you to create a table from an empty range so that you can fill in the details later. The following instructions assume that you already have a range of data that’s suitable for a table.