Office Excel 2007 - Sort and Filter Data for Print

Sometimes there is a need to print certain ranges of cells that contain a group of data values.

A fairly simple procedure that bypasses the need to create a Pivot Table is to use the built in filter.

Take a spreadsheet that tracks the number of hours for a task or tasks over a given period of time. In this case the period is one year.

The following screen shot shows the group of data after sorting by the last name:

1. Once sorted, click in cell A1 to remove the A column highlight.
2. Click on the Sort & Filter button on the Home ribbon.
3. Click on the Filter option.
• A down arrow style button will appear beside each heading in row 1.
4. Click on the relevant data column's down arrow to find available options.
• The following screen shot shows what you should see:
  
5. In this case we are looking for people whose total in the last column is at or below the value of 10.
6. We choose "Less Than Or Equal To..."
7. The Custom AutoFilter dialogue window comes up where we punch in 10.
• The AutoFilter:
  
8. Click OK.
9. Print the results.

The results screen shot:


This is a simple way to quickly pull some relevant data from what can be a very complex spreadsheet.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Office 2007 Keyboard Shortcuts for Office 2003 Users

While in Excel, I got this message as I went about my usual keyboard shortcut to do something. This little gem popped up to let me know that I can continue with the way I would have done it, or cancel out:

That's a nice touch for us keyboard shortcut users.

Here's another screen shot of what happens when you hit the ALT key:



The ALT+Letter combination possibilities come up. This gives one the chance to get familiar with the new ways of keyboarding around the interface.

So, after hitting the ALT first, then the H to bring up the next set of keyboard strokes within the Home tab, we come up with the following:

There are certainly a greater number of steps to achieve the same tasks as before, however, there are now a whole new set of keyboard shortcuts for commands that one would have had to manually create in Office 2003.

And, for ALT+F we find our old File menu under the Office Symbol:

We have the traditional key strokes, and then a few new ones for some new sub menus.

The blue lines represent previously opened files in Excel, Word, etc. I do like the fact that we are no longer restricted to 9 previously opened files.

The learning curve involved with the new key strokes is not too steep. It will not be too difficult to pick up for those of us who use our keyboards more so than our mouse to get around a program's interface.

Happy Keyboarding!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists.