Financial Analysis and Modeling Using Excel and VBA

Chapter 2. Excel 2007 and the Previous Versions

This book is specifically written for working with Excel 2007. However, you will be able to use it equally easily and well with Excel 97 and any later version of Excel. Excel 2007 looks and feels very different from the previous versions of Excel and has a few powerful new features. But unless you think you would need those features, you do not have to update to Excel 2007 right away to be able to create good financial models.

In this Chapter 1 will briefly discuss what is new in Excel 2007 and which new features you may find particularly useful for certain types of work. With that information you should be able to decide if you want to upgrade to Excel 2007 now or wait until the next version of Excel comes out. (Although no one knows for sure, from the point of view of financial modeling, the next version of Excel is not likely to add many great new features. If you upgrade to Excel 2007 now, chances are it will be fine for your financial modeling work for at least the next five years.)

For those of you who choose to continue working with an earlier version of Excel, whenever I use a feature exclusive to Excel 2007 I will point that out, and also suggest workarounds if available.

The New Features in Excel 2007

If you have been working with an earlier version of Excel or are familiar with more than one previous version, what will strike you immediately when you open Excel 2007 is that it looks and feels very different from all of them; ...