Microsoft Excel 2010 Version Overview

The following is a list of some of the key new features in Microsoft Excel 2010.

If you are upgrading to Excel 2013 or 2016, check out key new features in our Microsoft Excel 2013 Version Overview or Microsoft Excel 2016 Version Overview.

Are you working with 2007? Check out the Microsoft Excel 2007 Version Overview.

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Microsoft Excel 2010 New Features

Applies to: Microsoft Excel 2010 for Windows

The following are some of the key new features available in Microsoft Excel 2010.

File Tab (Backstage View)

In 2010, the Office button has been replaced with a File tab on the Ribbon (also called Backstage View). Here you will find common commands such as Save, Open, New and so on.

Customize the Ribbon

In Excel 2010, you can now customize the Ribbon and add your own tabs. Click on the File tab and then choose Options. In the dialog box, click on Customize Ribbon on the left. You can add new tabs and add buttons to new tabs or existing tabs.

Display Trends using Sparklines

You can add miniature charts called Sparklines to cells to summarize trends. You can add line, column and win/loss Sparklines and a new Sparkline tab will appear to format the Sparklines.

Improved PivotTables and PivotCharts

PivotTables have received some improvements in 2010 which include:

• Performance enhancements – multi-threading helps speed up data retrieval, sorting, and filtering in PivotTables.
• PivotTable labels can be filled down in a PivotTable. You can also repeat labels in PivotTables to display item captions of nested fields in all rows and columns.
• Enhanced filtering using Slicers to quickly filter data in a PivotTable without having to open additional menus.
• Filter interface includes a search box that can help you to find what you need  in your PivotTables.
• The Show Values As feature includes a number of new, automatic calculations, such as % of Parent Row Total, % of Parent Column Total, % of Parent Total, % Running Total, Rank Smallest to Largest, and Rank Largest to Smallest.
• It is now easier to interact with PivotChart reports as you can filter data directly in a PivotChart and reorganize the layout of a PivotChart by adding and removing fields. You can also hide all field buttons on the PivotChart report.
• Write-back support – In Excel 2010, you can change values in the OLAP PivotTable Values area and have them written back to the Analysis Services cube on the OLAP server. You can use the write-back feature in what-if mode and then roll back the changes when you no longer need them, or you can save the changes. You can use the write-back feature with any OLAP provider that supports the UPDATE CUBE statement.

Improved Conditional Formatting

Excel 2010 includes new conditional formatting options:

• In Excel 2010, you have access to more icon sets including triangles, stars, and boxes.  Also in 2010, you can customize icon sets.
• Excel 2010 provides new formatting options for data bars. You can apply solid fills or borders to the data bar or set the bar direction from right-to-left instead of left-to-right. Also, data bars for negative values appear on the opposite side of an axis from positive values.
• When specifying criteria for conditional or data validation rules, it's now possible to refer to values in other worksheets in your workbook.

Business Intelligence with the PowerPivot for Excel add-in

If you need to analyze large data sets, you can download the PowerPivot for Excel add-in, which adds a PowerPivot tab to the Excel Ribbon.With PowerPivot for Excel, you can import large amounts of data from multiple data sources into a single Excel workbook, create relationships between tables of data, create calculated columns and measures using formulas, build PivotTables and PivotCharts and then further analyze the data.

Check out our blog for more Excel tips, tricks and shortcuts.

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