•
I admit I have totally waffled on my opinion of the Ribbon. At first I thought it was a nice looking change. Then I started using it and thought it was a nuisance. Then I got used to it (somewhat). Now, I’m just left frustrated by the amount of hunting around I still need to do. Even worse, I find a lot of simple things to be a lot more work.
Reading Simon Murphy’s post on the inefficiency of loading automation add-ins in Excel 2007 touched a nerve. I’m wrapping up the help file for FlowBreeze 2.0, and I consistently find explaining things for Excel 2007 to be a lot more steps. Here is a passage from the troubleshooting guide, in the event that the FlowBreeze toolbar doesn’t load:
=====================================================
4. Check the Disabled Items list:
Excel 2000 - 2003:
- Click Help > About Microsoft Office Excel, then click the Disabled Items button.
- If FlowBreeze is listed, enable it and restart Excel.
Excel 2007:
- Click the Office Button in the upper left corner of Excel 2007.
- On the bottom-right of the popup menu, click the “Excel Options” button.
- In the Excel Options window, click “Add-Ins” on the left navigation panel.
- Select “Disabled Items” from the “Manage” drop down and click the “Go…” button.
- If FlowBreeze is listed, select it from the list, click the “Enable” button, then close out the Excel Options window and restart Excel.
5. Check the security settings:
Excel 2000 - 2003:
- Click Tools > Macro > Security.
- Click the Trusted Publishers tab
- Make sure the “Trust all installed add-ins and templates” box is checked.
- Restart Excel.
Excel 2007:
- Click the Office Button in the upper left corner of Excel 2007.
- On the bottom-right of the popup menu, click the “Excel Options” button.
- Click “Trust Center” on the left navigation panel.
- Click the “Trust Center Settings” button.
- The “Message Bar” panel should be open by default. Make sure the the “Show in Message Bar…” option is selected.
- Next, click “Add-Ins” from the left menu.
You have two options on the Add-Ins panel:
Option 1:
- Leave all the settings on this panel Unchecked.
Option 2:
- Check the box labeled “Require Application Add-ins to be signed by Trusted Publisher”
- Uncheck “Disable notification for unsigned add-ins”
- Uncheck “Disable all Application Add-ins”
Excel needs to be restarted for these security changes to take effect. If you selected Option 2, then the next time you restart Excel a security message will show below the Ribbon. Click on Options and manually enable FlowBreeze. You will need to restart Excel (again) for the FlowBreeze toolbar to fully load. (Note: FlowBreeze is digitally signed by a Trusted Publisher, but checking the first checkbox will disable it anyway - until you manually set the permissions on the next restart.)
=====================================================
If I had screenshots for #5, you’d really see how bad it was. Argh!
•
It’s late Saturday night and before hitting the sack I decide to catch up on a little web reading. On a lark I went over to the MSDN blogs home page and searched for Excel. After all, I make Excel add-ins, and who better to find out the latest Excel news than from the Microsoft developers themselves, right?
Holy moley! The top 10 results by relevance are:
(The last 4 were by Dave Gainer, on the official Excel team blog.)
Other than the first link, it seems that Microsoft employees definitely have a SharePoint fixation. I realize that Excel is a mature product and there may not be that much new ground to cover, blog-wise. But you’d think with the release of Excel 2007 this year that there’d be more. Is SharePoint just shiny and new and worth talking about? Or, has Google scared the bejesus out of Microsoft, and the execs are pushing it hard internally? Either way, it’s an interesting insight to where the company is headed.
•
Excel 2007’s new Ribbon menu takes a while to get used to. I’ve heard a lot of people say that their productivity dropped way down after switching to Office 2007, but eventually it rose up again to match the pre-2007 levels. Some people even say they’re more productive now.
I’m finally getting used to it myself, but there is still one thing that bugs me. The Ribbon thinks it knows what you want to do better than you do. When you select different items (ranges, charts, shapes, etc.) the Ribbon will automatically switch tabs in anticipation of what you want to do next. Even worse, Microsoft didn’t provide a way to pin tabs to force any given tab to stay selected.
The problem is even worse with Excel add-ins. Add-ins extend the functionality of Excel through both expanded features and convenience. If any add-ins exist when Excel 2007 loads, it creates a special Add-Ins tab. If you’re using the features of an add-in, Excel often gets all smart on you and switches the active tab. It can be a real pain, but luckily there’s a workaround.
QAT To The Rescue
The QAT is the Quick Access Toolbar. It’s a special toolbar that users can add custom buttons to so their favorite features are readily available. And it works for add-ins as well.
To include an Add-in on the QAT, first you need to select the Add-Ins tab. At the bottom of the Add-Ins tab is a label titled “Custom Toolbars”. Right-click on the label and a menu will popup allowing you to add it to the QAT, as shown in the picture below.
(Click to enlarge)
Selecting “Add Group to Quick Access Toolbar” will make the whole add-in toolbar a dropdown from the QAT, as shown below.
(Click to enlarge)
On other thing to note is the position of the QAT. In the first picture above, you can see that the QAT is above the Ribbon. In the second picture, it’s below the Ribbon. It’s a matter of personal preference, but if you like having favorite features even closer to the worksheet, you can change the position of the QAT. As shown in the third picture, below, just right-click on the QAT and select the option to show it below the Ribbon.
With the QAT below the Ribbon, you lose a little screen real estate, but you make up for it with added convenience and increased productivity.
•
It may sound nutty, but I decided to use Excel 2007 to re-design my website. OK, the title of this post is a bit misleading. I didn’t actually design the web pages themselves with Excel 2007, but I did use it to create all the new graphics.
The Excel 2007 development team did a wonderful job re-writing the Office Drawing Tools from the ground up. The new AutoShape formatting capabilities are really impressive. Not only are the default formats stylish, but they also allow you to add some nice effects, including reflection, drop shadows, glow, 3D, and more.
Since BreezeTree Software is build around the convergence of data and (most importantly) diagrams in Excel, I wanted to emphasize the graphics capabilities of Excel on my site. So what better way than to use Excel 2007 itself to create the graphics. The re-design started out as a proof of concept, show casing that you really can create professional and stylish flowcharts in Excel. Then I decided to go for it. Hopefully I pulled it off. 
