Since the release of Excel 2016 for Mac, customers have given great feedback about its ease of use and the benefits of the new features. We want to highlight the Excel 2016 for Mac features that customers rave about and share some tips and tricks that could save you a ton of time using the most powerful spreadsheet and data analysis tool on the Mac platform.
Jan 11, 2017 - The topic of my post pretty much sums it up. I have office 2016, Pro Plus 2016 - yet i cannot see some of the functions. I have updated,.
1. Recommended Charts
Choosing a chart type to best represent your data is often challenging. Let Recommended Charts take some of the pain away. This feature allows you to see how selected data would be visualized on a variety of chart types before committing to one in particular. To see a collection of suggested chart types, select a cell in the range of data you want to visualize, and then on the ribbon, under the Insert tab, click Recommended Charts.
2. Formula Builder
If you’ve ever had trouble remembering Excel functions or syntax, the new Formula Builder makes it easy. With the Formula Builder in Excel 2016 for Mac, building formulas just got simpler. It allows you to search and insert a function, add data to defined function arguments, and get help on any function. To access the Formula Builder, simply click the fx button on the Formula bar or press Shift+F3.
3. Chart Formatting task pane
Excel 2016 for Mac offers a rich set of features that make creating and customizing charts simpler and more intuitive. One part of this fluid new experience is the Formatting task pane. The new Formatting task pane is the single source for formatting—all of the different styling options are consolidated in one place. With this single task pane, you can modify not only charts, but also shapes and text in Excel!
To use the Formatting task pane, on the ribbon under the Format tab, click the Format Pane button or press Cmd+1 while a chart element is selected.
4. PivotTable slicers
Slicers enable you to filter the data in a PivotTable report. It contains a set of buttons allowing you to find the items that you want to filter without the need to open drop-down lists. Creating a slicer is easy—just select the PivotTable you want to filter, and then on the ribbon, under the PivotTable Analyze tab, click the Insert Slicer button. To filter the PivotTable data, simply click one or more of the buttons in the slicer.
5. Data Analysis ToolPak
Still looking for the Data Analysis ToolPak in Mac Excel? It’s finally here! Data Analysis ToolPak is an Excel add-in that helps develop complex statistical or engineering analyses. You provide the data and parameters for each analysis, and the tool uses the appropriate statistical or engineering macro functions to calculate and display the results in an output table. Some tools generate charts in addition to output tables.
To enable this add-in, under the Tools menu, click Add-Ins, select Data Analysis ToolPak and then click OK. The Data Analysis ToolPak is now on the ribbon under the Data tab.
6. More (or new) keyboard shortcuts
When building Office 2016 for Mac, one of our key objectives was to make it as easy as possible to transition from using Office for Windows to using Office for Mac and back again. That’s why you’ll notice an interface consistent with Office 2016 for Windows and why we added support for virtually all of the Windows Excel keyboard shortcuts. Windows users will rejoice that Windows key assignments like Ctrl+O for Open, Ctrl+F for Find and Ctrl+C for Copy now also work in the Mac version—no need to remember to press Cmd instead of Ctrl. If you want to clear the content of the selected cell or range, just press the delete key. This even works on your Mac laptops, where delete is actually the backspace key. Some popular shortcut keys are listed below; a complete list can be found here.
Note that if a function key doesn’t work as you expect, then press the fn key in addition to the function key. If you don’t want to press the fn key each time, you can change your Apple system preferences:
- Go to Apple > System Preferences > Keyboard.
- On the Keyboard tab, select the Use all F1, F2, etc. as standard function keys
If you want to customize a keyboard shortcut, you can refer to the steps in this article: Create a custom keyboard shortcut for Office 2016 for Mac.
7. New functions in Excel 2016 for Mac
We worked hard to ensure your workbook is compatible and works seamlessly across platforms as often as possible. In Excel 2016 for Mac, we’ve added almost all new formula functions in Excel 2013 from the Windows platform. Why not have a try on the Arabic function (for example, try =ARABIC(“LVII”)) and see what you get.
Note that the WebService, EncodeURL and FilterXML functions are not available yet in Excel 2016 for Mac.
8. Get data using SQL Server ODBC
Say goodbye to having to use third party drivers before connecting to external data in Excel for Mac. Excel 2016 for Mac comes with a pre-installed and integrated SQL Server ODBC driver that supports ODBC data connections with SQL Server and Azure SQL Database right out of the box. It also has a brand new Microsoft Query (MSQuery) and Connection Manager to make creating and managing all of your data connections easier and more consistent with Windows. For more details, check out this blog post: Working with external data in Excel 2016 for Mac.
What do you think?
We just went through the basics of the new features available in Excel 2016 for Mac. Try them out for yourself and share your ideas for other features and improvements you’d like us to change or improve in Excel 2016 for Mac.
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125841180/663806815.png)
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Whether you're manipulating text or calculating numbers, a Microsoft Excel for Mac worksheet gives you power over many types of data. Spreadsheets enable you to manage long lists of data, look for trends in sales performance and evaluate the costs of different approaches to a project for your company. You can use them to maintain employee review data, create a contact directory for after-hours client support, work up vacation schedules or track bank deposits.
Click the 'Finder' icon in your Dock, then click 'Applications' in the Finder window that opens. Double-click the 'Microsoft Office' folder, then double-click 'Microsoft Excel' to launch the program.
2.Type column headers in row 1 and row headers in column A. Some Excel procedures, including data sorting and filtering, use these identifiers to help you select which portions of your worksheet to process.
3.Use Freeze Panes to keep your headers visible as you scroll. Click on the row number immediately below your headers or below the last line of a header that occupies more than one row, selecting the entire row. Click the 'Window' menu and choose 'Freeze Panes.' To freeze both row and column headers, click in the first cell to the right of your last column of row headers that's also in the row below your column headers. When you choose 'Freeze Panes,' your full set of headers becomes fixed in place. The slightly bolder cell boundary you see below the column-header cells and at the right edge of the cells that contain your row headers serve as a signal that you've turned on Freeze Panes.
4.Use autocompletion to add the same text content into many cells in the same column. Once you type a word or phrase into one cell, you can type its first letter or letters into another cell, and Excel automatically displays a menu below your cursor that shows the text you've typed before. Press the 'Pg Dn' key -- use the combination 'Fn-Down Arrow' on a MacBook -- to highlight and select an item from the list, and press 'Return' to set the cell's contents to it.
5.Speed data entry of numbers, dates, days of the week, times of day and patterns of text. Enter a value in one cell and press 'Return' to confirm your entry. Click in your cell to select it, or select more than one cell to work from a multicell pattern. Place your cursor on the bottom right corner of the last cell in your selection to reveal the fill handle, a solid-black '+' sign. Drag the handle down a column or across a row to fill other cells with repeated or sequenced entries.
6.Turn a text file into a worksheet by opening it in Excel. If you've prepared your text with delimiters -- special characters that signal the divisions among separate items in a string of text -- Excel identifies columns of data based on the delimiting characters and walks you through the process of setting up a worksheet.
7.Paste information from Microsoft Word or another application into your worksheet from the clipboard. If you copy text with tabs that separate series of words or numbers, Excel treats the material like tab-delimited input and separates it into columns where the tabs appear.
8.Use functions to build formulas that evaluate your data. Start with simple functions such as SUM, which adds the numbers in a selected row or column. Click in the empty cell below a column of numbers and type the following:
=SUM(FirstCell:LastCell)
Press 'Return.' 'FirstCell' represents the reference to the first cell in your range of numbers, expressed in cell notation; 'LastCell' refers to the cell above your formula. In standard Excel notation, you identify a cell by the combination of its column letter and its row number. 'H9' stands for the cell in column H, row 9. If H1 contains your first numeric value and H9 your last, type the following:
=SUM(H1:H9)
Because your formula references the cells themselves, not their specific values, the sum you create changes to reflect any alteration in the cell values that produce it.
Tips
- Autocomplete only works with alphanumeric cell entries, not dates, times, numbers or days of the week.
- Autofill's behavior depends on the content of the cell or cells you select. Select one date, time or day of the week, and autofill enters subsequent days or times; select a pattern of days, times or dates, and autofill continues the pattern; select cells with text, and autofill repeats them; select cells with numeric content, and autofill repeats single-cell entries, or continues a sequence or pattern.
- If you drag the autofill handle over a cell that already contains information, the autofill process replaces existing cell content.
Warning
- If your cells fill with sequences of number signs -- '#,' also called the pound or hash sign -- your column isn't wide enough to display its contents. Drag the right cell boundary of the column header to widen it.
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About the Author
Elizabeth Mott has been a writer since 1983. Mott has extensive experience writing advertising copy for everything from kitchen appliances and financial services to education and tourism. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English from Indiana State University.
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Mott, Elizabeth. 'How to Make a Spreadsheet on a Mac.' Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/make-spreadsheet-mac-51092.html. Accessed 23 December 2019.
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