Product Reviews

Excel has had the same cosmetic makeover as all the other Office applications, but what else is new?

Like Word, Excel can save and load data in a new XML file format. It can also import data from other XML files, mapping the schema nodes to cells, columns or ranges in the workbook. In the Professional version of Excel, you can work with custom XML Schemas as well as the new XML Spreadsheet file format. XML files may be imported directly into databases or routed through BizTalk and so on. Their advantage, particularly over

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standard XLS files, is that you don't need to run Excel to extract or edit the data.

The IRM tools are here too, offering to secure your documents providing you download a patch for Windows and authenticate your PC with Microsoft. Financial and pharmaceutical companies may be interested in IRM but they shouldn't rush into it without very careful consideration.

A range of cells may now be declared as a list. Lists can have a row at the bottom showing totals, averages and so on. They can also have a data entry row where you may type in new values. Lists can be exported to, imported from or shared with SharePoint websites. If you have SharePoint, you may use lists to centralise corporate or departmental data.

Ultimately, there isn't much new in Excel apart from IRM and XML, and these are only fully implemented in the Professional version. Excel is still the best general-purpose spreadsheet application, but there's precious little here to tempt users to upgrade.

PC Pro's full review of the Microsoft Office System