It’s a familiar story in Windows: you lay your page out in one orientation (portrait or landscape), but when you print, you discover that the print settings oriented the paper the opposite way. That’s wastes paper, ink and time. But that won’t happen in Excel 2010.

As in 2007, you go to the Page Layout tab to choose Portrait or Landscape from the orientation button.

Now in 2010 when you print (File/Print or Ctrl + P), the Print section of Backstage View automatically shows the printer is set to the correct orientation.

What’s also new is that if you change page orientation in the Page Layout tab, the Print dialog will automatically update. And if you change the orientation in the Print dialog, it will automatically update in the Page Layout tab.

This may sound like only a small improvement, but it helps a lot, especially if you often print large worksheets.

If you’re following World Cup Soccer (excuse me, I mean fútbol), here are two ways to enjoy it more:

1. Get some limes, ice, sugar and a bottle of cachaça, then shake up a couple of caipirinhas. It will almost feel like you’re in Brazil. Here’s a video of how to make the perfect caipirinha, just like they do in……Brooklyn.
2. Download Microsoft’s World Cup 2010 tracker worksheet. It’s a free template for Excel 2007 or 2010 that keeps track of the standings and your favorite teams.
   

My full-length Excel 2010 course is now available at Lynda.com: http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=61219.

It covers everything in Excel  2010 from beginner through advanced levels. Check out some of the movies!

Last month, Microsoft released the Office 2010 suite to enterprise customers. That means giant corporations that buy software licenses by the truckload. Office 2010 will be available to everyone else in the next few days.

There are a lot of improvements and refinements, especially if you’re upgrading from Office 2003 and earlier.

Lynda.com just released a video training course that I authored that details the new features of Excel 2010. You can see several of the movies for free, without even having to register. So check out Excel 2010 New Features.