The public beta of Office 2007 now is available. I've just started to download the program. You can do the same by going to this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/getthebeta.mspx

Approximately 3 zillion people are trying to download the program this week, which is causing a major traffic jam on the Microsoft servers. The first few times I tried to download I was told to come back later. But much to my surprise, I've just managed to connect.

According to the download dialog box, the Office 2007 install file is 440 megabytes and should take nearly three hours to download using DSL.

If you wish, you also can pay $4.95 to receive the beta by mail. The link above offers you this option as well.

Warning, if you choose to install the beta, make sure that you DON'T erase your current version of Office.
 

Fighting Spreadsheet Hell

Spreadsheet Hell comes in many forms, and has many causes. But certainly, this is one common aspect of the problem: You pull a large file into Excel and then sort, filter, consolidate, and transform it to generate the view of the data you want to report or analyze.

Worse, after the first report is finished you must generate other similar reports. Typically, these are for other regions, or product lines, or departments, or managers, or whatever.

PivotTables sometimes can simplify this process. But unfortunately, the data frequently needs more help than PivotTables can offer.

Another approach that often works is to maintain your data in a spreadsheet database then use Excel formulas to return the data to your reports and analyses. This approach lets your formulas do the work.

In How to Fight Spreadsheet Hell With Three Excel Functions, I explain how to use the MATCH, INDEX, and OFFSET functions to return data from such a database. Intermediate and advanced Excel users rely on the INDEX-MATCH combination extensively for reporting. If you haven't used it before, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Using INDEX with OFFSET is less common. But OFFSET provides power that INDEX doesn't. By keeping all three of thee functions in your Excel user's toolkit, you have a better chance of fighting Spreadsheet Hell.

Avoid Excel Errors

In Seven Ways to Avoid Errors In Excel Reports & Analyses I take a small step on a very long journey. There are likely dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- of excellent ways to avoid spreadsheet errors. But every journey begins with the first step.

In this article, I tried to offer practical ideas about a wide variety of techniques. The way you organize your workbook can reduce errors. Saving generations of your workbook can reduce errors during the development process. You even can use a line chart to quickly find unusual results in a data series. And so on.

As I write in the article, I would be interested to know your thoughts about ways to reduce errors.
 

Excel Seminars

This year, I've given more seminars about Excel than I have in the past ten years combined. Additionally, I plan to offer seminars in cooperation with other people who have special knowledge about some aspect of Excel.

More later,

Charley