Microsoft Office Word 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, and Office Excel 2007 use the new Open XML Formats. The Open XML Formats are compact and robust file formats that enable better data integration between documents and back-end systems and that are distinct from the binary-based file formats of previous versions of Microsoft Office.

The Open XML Formats is an open standard that was developed by Ecma International in collaboration with many technology vendors. The standard maximizes interoperability in a heterogeneous environment and enables technology providers to integrate files that are created in the 2007 Office system into their solutions.

After installation of the 2007 Office system, users can continue to open, edit, and save workbooks that were generated in the earlier binary file format. These workbooks can be converted to the Open XML Formats. This enables better interoperability among applications from different vendors and makes the Open XML Formats a better long-term solution. Users click the Microsoft Office Button and click Convert to convert a workbook from an earlier format to the Open XML Formats. See File format reference for the 2007 Office system for more information about the file formats.

Caution:
Users should consider existing links between workbooks before your organization converts existing workbooks to the Open XML Formats. Because earlier versions of Office Excel cannot update links to workbooks that are saved in the Open XML Formats, all linked workbooks should be simultaneously converted.

Users can develop more elaborate and detailed workbooks with the larger grid that is available in Office Excel 2007. The larger grid allows more than 16,000 columns and 1 million rows. However, the larger grid is incompatible with earlier versions of Office Excel. Data that is entered into cells that are outside the previous grid boundaries (A1:IV65536) is permanently deleted when the workbook is saved as an Office Excel 97-2003 workbook. All formulas that reference cells that are outside the previous grid boundaries are also compromised.

Users of Office Excel 2007 who plan to share workbooks with users who work with an earlier version of Office Excel should not enter data that is outside the grid boundary of the earlier version. As an alternative, users can use Compatibility Mode, which helps to mitigate these issues by regulating the larger grid size to match the grid size of earlier versions of Office Excel.

Office Excel 2007 takes advantage of the new Microsoft Office Fluent user interface to offer powerful productivity tools that are easily accessible. Most menus, toolbars, and task panes are replaced by the Office Fluent Ribbon, which organizes commands by object or scenario and groups the commands by tabs. The Office Fluent Ribbon provides access to more features, with fewer steps. After migration to Office Excel 2007, the new user interface is available even when a user works with workbooks that were created in earlier versions of Office Excel 2007.

Compatibility Mode is tied to the Office Excel 97-2003 file format, which disables new features in Office Excel 2007 that are not compatible with earlier versions of Office Excel. For example, when a workbook that is opened in Office Excel 2007 is running in Compatibility Mode, the larger grid size is suppressed so that users cannot enter data, formulas, or references that are outside the smaller grid boundary of earlier versions of Office Excel.

Users that open a workbook that is saved in the Office Excel 97-2003 file format (.xls) see that the workbook automatically functions in Compatibility Mode. Similarly, when users work with a new workbook that will be used in earlier versions of Office Excel, they can turn on Compatibility Mode (by saving the file in the Office Excel 97-2003 file format, and then closing and re-opening the file) to prevent the accidental use of functions and features that are incompatible with the earlier versions of Office Excel. This option is critical for users who plan to share workbooks with other users who have not yet migrated to Office Excel 2007.

When users work in Compatibility Mode, they are still able to work with the Office Fluent user interface and to have access to most of the new features. Only features that are incompatible—such as the larger grid size—are turned off for that workbook. Similarly, when a user saves a new workbook to the Office Excel 97–2003 file format, that workbook is automatically placed into Compatibility Mode the next time the workbook is opened. To exit Compatibility Mode, users convert the workbook to one of the new file formats and then re-open the workbook. Users can accomplish this action in one step by using the Convert command: users click the Microsoft Office Button and click Convert.

The Compatibility Checker functions automatically by default when users save a workbook to the Office Excel 97-2003 file format. It scans for features and characteristics that are not supported by earlier versions of Office Excel. Users also have the option to disable the Compatibility Checker so that it does not run automatically when the workbook is saved to an earlier file format.

The Compatibility Checker identifies two types of compatibility issues: features that are retained but that function differently in earlier versions of Office Excel, and functions that are disabled in Compatibility Mode and that are not functional in earlier versions of Office Excel. These issues display in a dialog box that enables the user to respond and take action before data or functions are lost. The Compatibility Checker lists issues that are identified in the workbook, summarizes the number of occurrences of each issue, identifies tools to help locate the issues, and provides additional help for the types of issues that are identified.

New file name extensions are assigned to the new file formats that are available in Office Excel 2007. These new naming conventions help to avoid confusion when users work between versions of Office Excel. The new file name options are listed in the following table and can be viewed in the Save As dialog box.

A number of the previous file formats are seldom, if ever, used. Support for these formats is removed from Office Excel 2007. Users can no longer open or save workbooks based on the following file formats after a migration to Office Excel 2007:

• WK1 (1-2-3)

• WK4 (1-2-3)

• WJ3 (1-2-3 Japanese) (.wj3)

• WKS (1-2-3)

• WK3 (1-2-3)

• WK1, FMT (1-2-3)

• WJ2 (1-2-3 Japanese) (.wj2)

• WJ3, FJ3 (1-2-3 Japanese) (.wj3)

• DBF 2 (dBASE II)

• WQ1 (Quattro Pro/DOS)

• WK3, FM3 (1-2-3)

• Microsoft Excel Chart (.xlc)

• WK1, ALL(1-2-3)

• WJ1 (1-2-3 Japanese) (.wj1)

• WKS (Works Japanese) (.wks)

Due to limited use as a primary file format, Office Excel 2007 no longer stores Excel-only feature information in HTML file formats. The Save as HTML command is mainly used as a publishing format, and Microsoft continues to support the command as a way to create a document that is viewed in a Web browser. HTML files can still be opened in Office Excel 2007. Office Excel-specific features that are contained in the files and that were created in an earlier version of Office Excel are preserved. Users should save these files as a primary version of the document in one of the new file formats. Users should publish the files to HTML.

Integration with Microsoft Script Editor is removed from Office Word 2007, Office PowerPoint 2007, and Office Excel 2007 as part of the decision to move away from supporting HTML as a full-fidelity file format. This change means that script debugging components are no longer installed by default in Office Excel 2007. Microsoft Script Editor can still be installed with the Microsoft Office suites so that it can run as a standalone program to edit HTML files.

Office Excel 2007 includes galleries and functions that are now called Table Style and PivotTable Style. These are significant improvements over the AutoFormat feature that was available in earlier versions of Office Excel. The AutoFormat feature is not included in the Office Fluent Ribbon. It can be added to the Quick Access Toolbar, which is an icon-driven tool set that appears above the Office Fluent Ribbon and that users can customize.

Charting is now part of a shared Microsoft Office drawing layer with the 2007 Office system. This means that some of the charting features that are specific to earlier versions of Office Excel are not available in Office Excel 2007. In most cases, these features are replaced with more robust capabilities.

Although some charting features are removed or changed, Office Excel 2007 users still have the ability to view charts the way they were created in earlier versions of Office Excel. Issues may arise if users attempt to make changes to charting features that are no longer available in Office Excel 2007. The specific charting features that are not available in Office Excel 2007 and ways to work around these differences are listed below.

• Resize multiple charts. Users no longer change the chart type of multiple charts simultaneously. Each chart is now changed individually.

• Press F11 to duplicate a populated chart sheet. Users no longer press F11 on a populated chart sheet to create a chart sheet with the same data. This action produces a blank chart sheet in Office Excel 2007.

• Direct rotation of 3-D charts. The mouse is used to directly manipulate the 3-D view of the chart in earlier versions of Office Excel. This is accomplished by using the 3-D Rotation dialog box in Office Excel 2007.

• Pattern fills. Pattern fills for shape objects are removed in favor of picture and texture fills. Existing files appear the same when they are loaded. The ability to create new shapes with the previous pattern fills is removed as part of the new drawing capabilities.

• Size with window. Earlier versions of Office Excel have a Size with Window command that automatically resizes charts on chart sheets when the window size changes. This feature is removed. The Zoom to Selection command is used to achieve similar results.

• Automatic text box creation when typing. A text box is no longer automatically created when a user types on a selected chart. A user can still insert text boxes by using the Insert Text Box command.

• Default paste behavior in Word and PowerPoint. The default choice for copying and pasting a chart from Office Excel 2007 to either Office Word or the Office PowerPoint presentation graphics program is changed to linked. This setting can change to picture or entire workbook through the Paste Options menu, which immediately displays after the user pastes the chart.

• Word table as a data source. Unlike in earlier versions of Office Word, a user does not use a table as data for a new chart in Office Word 2007. The user sees sample data rather than data in the selected Office Word table. The user copies and pastes the real data into the new chart to replace the sample data.

• Printed chart size. The Printed Chart Size option is removed from the Chart tab in the Page Setup dialog box. The behavior matches the Custom setting from Office Excel 2003 in Office Excel 2007.

• Drag data onto a chart. Users add data to a chart by selecting the data and dragging it onto the chart in earlier versions of Office Excel. This feature is no longer available in Office Excel 2007. Office Excel 2007 still supports the other, more common methods of adding data to a chart.

• Direct manipulation of data points on charts. The user can drag data points on a chart in earlier versions of Office Excel, which changes the data source values on the worksheet. This seldom-used feature is removed from Office Excel 2007.

All programs in the 2007 Office system feature a new version of shapes, with new formatting capabilities, an upgraded user interface, integration with new Microsoft Office 2007 styles and themes, and compatibility with other features that do not exist in earlier versions of OfficeArt. With the 2007 Office system, the name OfficeArt is changed to SmartArt.

Most of the shapes within that workbook automatically convert to the newer version of shapes when an Excel 97-2003 workbook opens in Office Excel 2007. This enables users to take advantage of features that are available in the SmartArt Shape galleries in Office Excel 2007.

There are a few exceptions to the automatic upgrade, and in these instances OfficeArt Shapes remain whole and usable in their previous format. These features include: comments, forms controls (including dialog sheet backgrounds), Microsoft ActiveX objects, shapes used internally by Office Excel 2007 for various features (such as filter drop-down lists, auditing and circular reference arrows, and data validation ovals), OLE objects, camera tool objects, ink annotations, header pictures, organization charts, and legacy diagrams.

It is important to note that non-upgraded shapes that are drawn in earlier versions of Office Excel cannot be grouped with shapes that are drawn in Office Excel 2007 or with shapes that are upgraded. Similarly, users cannot select upgraded and non-upgraded charts at the same time. As a result, object types are layered when users mix object types. The earlier versions of shapes are drawn on top of all later versions of shapes. The new version of charts cannot be shown on top of the previous version of dialog sheets.

Although the charts still exist, users cannot view charts that are layered underneath the dialog sheets. Users must access the new shapes by using the Select Objects command. Users must use the Select Multiple Objects command in the Customize window to select shapes from an earlier version of Office Excel.

Filtering is used to display a subset of the data or a portion of the workbook and to hide the rest of the data or workbook from view. This feature is modified in Office Excel 2007 to enable easy access to the most common filtering tasks: filtering by more than two conditions and filtering by format.

In Office Excel 2003, users could create macros to check the AutoFilterMode property when the selection was in a list (referred to as a table in Office Excel 2007) to determine if autofiltering was turned on in that list. In Office Excel 2007, the AutoFilterMode property works with worksheet autofilters and not with autofilters that are part of a table. This is due to properties of Office Excel 2007 that give each table its own AutoFilter object, which in turn enables multiple autofilters per worksheet through the use of tables.

The AutoFilterMode property may not work correctly when users open an Office Excel 2003 workbook that contains macros that are used to check the AutoFilterMode property of a list (table). This does not affect documents or macros that are created in versions of Office Excel before Office Excel 2003.

To correct this issue, users enable the AutoFilter task from the List object, instead of at the macro level.

The list feature was introduced in Office Excel 2003 as a way for users to easily track lists of data, such as contacts and orders. It is also the mechanism by which lists or data from an Office SharePoint Server site can display in Office Excel 2003. In Office Excel 2007, the name of this feature is changed to Table to match this feature in other Microsoft Office programs, such as Office Word and Office PowerPoint.

Other changes to this feature make it a more robust organizational tool. When users work with workbooks that contain lists that were created in earlier versions of Office Excel, users will discover behavioral differences in the table features of Office Excel 2007. These differences are described below.

A special row that is used to add new records to a list appears at the bottom of a list in Office Excel 2003. Although this row is removed from tables in Office Excel 2007, it is extremely easy to add new records. In most cases, typing just below a table triggers Office Excel to add that row to the table. The user may need to use the Insert Row command in the Table menu when there is already data or another object just below the table.

When users create a table, they also create a defined name for the same range in Office Excel 2007. This name is used to reference the table in formulas that use the new structured referencing feature.

Names used for PivotTables and tables in earlier versions of Office Excel may not meet the requirements for range names in Office Excel 2007. Users must change the names of these objects when the objects open in Office Excel 2007. This ensures that the objects are appropriate for use in formulas and elsewhere.

The type of table names that are used for referencing are built on top of the existing Defined Name feature in Office Excel. Consequently, the table names inherit the same restrictions that defined names have, such as containing no spaces and having no support for certain characters. The table name that was previously only available through the object model does not share these same restrictions, so the two functions are separate.

Office Excel 2003 supports a user's ability to connect to (read) and update (write) lists that reside on an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site. Lists that were created in Office Excel 2003 and that connect to an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site continue to function as they always have, even when the lists are opened in Office Excel 2007. Users can continue to update the Office SharePoint Server 2007 site. However, the update feature is removed from Office Excel 2007. This means that new tables that connect to an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site do not support the ability to write back.

Users can still publish a table to an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site through a one-time write option. Links to the list are read-only after they are published. Users can update the Office SharePoint Server 2007 list by refreshing the table data in Office Excel, but users cannot update the data directly on the Office SharePoint Server 2007 site.

In addition to these new behaviors, read/write connections to an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site are converted to a read-only connection when the workbook is saved to the new Office Excel 2007 file format. Users receive an alert message during the Save function. The message lets them cancel out of the operation and process uncommitted changes.

Read-only connections to an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site behave the same as other external data queries. For example, users no longer view the ID column. The column only appears if it is part of the view for that list. Users can delete the ID column or any other column. Users can also insert columns in the middle or add them to the end. This enables users to build calculated columns by using existing columns. Users can also rename headers, change data values for ad-hoc analysis, insert or delete worksheet rows, and apply custom data validation rules.

These exercises do not affect data on the Office SharePoint Server 2007 site, because users cannot save these modifications or update the Office SharePoint Server 2007 site. In other words, the experience of working with a table that is connected to an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site should be as comfortable as working with a normal workbook that operates in read-only mode.

Many changes are made to the formulas and architecture of PivotTable dynamic views in Office Excel 2007. These changes enable users to do more with PivotTables, but the changes may also cause some issues when users migrate from earlier versions of Office Excel.

To ensure that PivotTables remain whole and functional, the version property of PivotTables is completely separate from the version property of Office Excel. PivotTables in Office Excel 2007 are version 12 (xlPivotTableVersion12). PivotTables that are created in earlier versions of Office Excel have a different version number. For example, version 10 PivotTables (xlPivotTableVersion10) are created in either Office Excel 2002 or Office Excel 2003.

When users work in Office Excel 2007, the version of the PivotTable is determined by whether the user is working in Compatibility Mode. New PivotTables that are created in that workbook are created in version 10 if the current workbook is in Compatibility Mode. New PivotTables are created in version 12 when the current workbook is not in Compatibility Mode.

When the user saves a workbook from Compatibility Mode to one of the new file formats, the PivotTables in that workbook are marked for upgrade. When each PivotTable is refreshed, it is upgraded to version 12 and new functionality is enabled for that PivotTable.

It is important to note that version 12 PivotTables cannot be downgraded to version 10, even when the workbook is saved by using a previous file format. This means that a version 12 PivotTable that is created in Office Excel 2007 cannot be modified or refreshed when it is opened in an earlier version of Office Excel. However, the PivotTable maintains all functionality and can be modified or refreshed when it is re-opened in Office Excel 2007.

If the user plans to share PivotTables with other users who are working in a previous version of Office Excel and those users need to refresh the PivotTables, it is important to make sure that the PivotTables are created as version 10 PivotTables. The simplest way to do this is by using Compatibility Mode.

In addition to these versioning differences, other functional changes affect the behavior of PivotTables. The following features are either removed or are significantly deprecated in Office Excel 2007 due to a lack of interest from users. In some cases, these functions are replaced by more robust PivotTable tools.

Calculated members

Filtering with SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services

OLAP Cube Wizard

PivotTable Wizard

Version 12 OLAP PivotTables track customizations of items, even when those items are temporarily not visible in the PivotTable. This is true for formatting that is applied to items and to customized item labels. This is an improvement over Office Excel 2003, where custom labels and formatting were lost when the parent field collapsed. Office Excel 2007 stores and applies the parent field information after the collapse-and-expand operations. Office Excel 2007 stores customized labels when the field is removed from the PivotTable so that the customized labels still appear when the field is added back to the PivotTable at a later time.

All full row and full column references automatically consider the new cells in the larger grid size of Office Excel 2007 when a workbook from an earlier version of Office Excel is converted to the Office Excel 2007 file format. This is because the reference =A:A refers to cells A1:A65536 in earlier versions of Office Excel, but that same reference points to cells A1:A1048536 in the Office Excel 2007 format.

Full row or column references are often used as a shortcut to capture all data in a range within that row or column. This can lead to issues when a user enters data that is not meant to be included in that reference further down the column or row. In addition, the results of functions that reference full rows or columns can change when the functions are converted to Office Excel 2007. Examples include COUNTBLANK, ROWS, and COLUMN functions, which count the number of cells, rows, or columns in the reference.

With the addition of over 16,000 columns, the column header labels in Office Excel 2007 now extend to XFD. Many names that could be defined in earlier versions of Office Excel (for example, USA1, FOO100, MGR4) are now valid cell references. Additionally, Office Excel 2007 now reserves names that begin with xl for internal use.

When incompatible names are found during the conversion to the Office Excel 2007 file format, the user is alerted to the conflict and an underscore (_) is automatically added to the beginning of all incompatible names to make the names unique. External workbook references and functions that take strings references, such as INDIRECT, are not updated when they are converted to the Office Excel 2007 file format. These must be changed manually.

Office Excel 2007 does not change defined names that are referenced through Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code. VBA code that references incompatible names does not work and must be updated by the user or an IT professional. This is accomplished by performing a find and replace action on the old name.