This release was a major upgrade from the previous version. Similar to other updated Office products, Excel in 2007 used the new Ribbon menu system. This is different from what users are used to, but the number of mouse-clicks needed to reach a given functionality is generally fewer (e.g., removing gridlines only required two mouse-clicks instead of five). However, most business users agree that the replacement of the straightforward menu system with the more convoluted ribbon dramatically reduces productivity.
Also like other office products, the Office Open XML file formats were introduced, including .xlsm for a workbook with macros and .xlsx for a workbook without macros.
Specifically, many of the size limitations of previous versions were greatly increased. To illustrate, the number of rows was now 1,048,576 (220) and columns was 16,384 (214; the far-right column is XFD). This changes what is a valid A1 reference versus a named range. Other features included an improved management of named variables through the Name Manager, and much improved flexibility in formatting graphs, which now allow (x, y) coordinate labeling and lines of arbitrary weight. Several improvements to pivot tables were introduced. This version made more extensive use of multiple cores for the calculation of spreadsheets; however, VBA macros are not handled in parallel and XLL add‑ins were only executed in parallel if they were thread-safe and this was indicated at registration.
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