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.Read on!11Chapter 1 Part 1: Examining the Excel EnvironmentChapter 2Excel FundamentalsWhat Happens After You Install Excel?.13 File Management Fundamentals.29Recovering from Crashes.15 Importing and Exporting Files.48Examining the Excel Workspace.18 Online Help Works Really!.51Before you can get the feel of the controls, you need to know where they are.This chapter tellsyou where to find Microsoft Excel s tools and accessories.What Happens After You Install Excel?OK, this is really basic, but we have a moral obligation to briefly mention it anyway.There aretwo principal ways to start Excel:Ï% In Microsoft Windows XP, click the Windows Start button, and click Microsoft OfficeExcel 2003 (or All Programs, Microsoft Office Excel 2003).In Microsoft Windows 9x,Windows Me, or Windows 2000, click the Windows Start button, point to Programs,and then click Microsoft Office Excel 2003.Ï% In Windows Explorer, double-click any Excel file or shortcut.Registering ExcelWhen you start Excel for the first time, you will be asked to register, or Activate, the pro-gram.The easiest way to do this is by allowing Excel to register online, assuming that yourcomputer is connected to the Internet.Online registration is fast and painless and a lot easierthan taking a postcard to the mailbox.It is also highly recommended.You may have qualms about any kind of owner registration, but with software, it s really agood idea trust us.When you register, you ll automatically be in the loop for bug fixes(there will certainly be a Service Release [SR] or Service Pack [SP] available within a year orso), updates, and special offers. Maybe registering a garden tool, for example, is not worththe annoyance of special offers, but if you essentially got a new tool for free in a few months,you just might go for it.You won t see too many upgrades for weed whackers, of course, butwith software you can rely on getting an upgrade at some point.Subscribing to ExcelThey say that this is the future of software something lovingly referred to as the subscrip-tion model. It s a way of purchasing software that has been available to big companies foryears, but only now is the idea being floated to the general public.13 Part 1: Examining the Excel EnvironmentMicrosoft Office Excel 2003 Inside OutA major software application is a living thing the moment one version is completed, teamsof developers begin working on the next version, while other teams work on bug fixes for theversion they just shipped.When you buy a box of software off the shelf, it s not so much a fin-ished product as a work in progress.If you update your software semi-regularly, it becomesmore like a magazine subscription than a weed whacker you buy once and throw away whenit dies.So, the idea is, why not make software just like a subscription? You make smaller, moreregular payments, and you get automatic, periodic updates.Subscription might make excel-lent sense for frequent updaters, depending, of course, on the fee.If you purchased a standard shrink-wrapped retail version of Office or Excel, your productdoesn t expire at all.But you can still purchase a subscription, which will transform yoursinto a subscription installation.Once you subscribe, you can always buy more time, just likeyou can with magazine subscriptions.Helpfully, the Microsoft Office Activation Wizard willremind you within 60 days of your subscription s expiration that it s time to renew.Why Are There So Many Bugs?There are probably not as many bugs as you think that actually affect your daily work.Suchbugs are called showstoppers. Software almost never ships with showstoppers anymore;rigorous Beta-testing generally takes care of these problems.That said, all companies rou-tinely ship software that is riddled with bugs it s the way of the software marketing world.Microsoft and every other software company are equally guilty.But why?As the battle for market share raged among application developers in the 1980s and1990s, the mantra among developers was Ship, ship, ship! They raced to see how fastthey could release the next version of their product for two main reasons.First, all the other companies were moving at the same torrid pace, and everybody had tokeep up.Applications lived or died because of feature checklists published in major com-puter magazines.If your product was in any way ill-represented in the published featurecomparisons, your product was simply going to lose market share.If the new version ofyour program didn t make it into, for example, the Big Spreadsheet Showdown Issue, youand your development group were in deep doo-doo.Second, releasing an upgrade that is, a new version of an existing program offered for salerather than being free represents a large infusion of income to software companies.This iswhere most of the money comes from for mature software products like Excel
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