An introductory video (youtube) by bytebodger describing the use and creation of pivot tables in Excel 2007.

Here is a video from freetutorials (youtube) on using Excel to manage simple databases.

The REPT function repeats text a given number of times. For example, =REPT(”*”,10) repeats * 10 times in a cell.

You can use this function to create a simple bar for values in multiple cells.  Here is a short video on YouTube:

Personally, I use Excel 2003 at work and Excel 2007 at home. I am constantly (as in 3 or 4 times a weeks) using Excel 2003 files in Excel 2007.

I found this tip at vista4beginners.com showing how to have Office 2007 automatically have files in the Office 2003 format: Configure Microsoft Office 2007 to save files using the old Office 97-2003 format

At work I use pivot tables nearly every day. My work does not involve analyzing business or financial data and still I find pivot tables very useful in manipulating data sets, performing on-the-fly calculations, and preparing final reports.

So, what is a pivot table?

A pivot table is a data summarization tool found in data visualization programs such as spreadsheets (e.g. Microsoft Excel). Among other functions, they can automatically sort, count, and total the data stored in one table or spreadsheet and create a second table displaying the summarized data. Pivot tables are also useful for quickly creating cross tabs. The user sets up and changes the summary’s structure by dragging and dropping fields graphically. This “rotation” or pivoting of the summary table gives the concept its name. The term “pivot table” is a generic phrase used by multiple vendors. However, the specific form PivotTable is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation^[1]. – Pivot Table wikipedia entry

See the ExcelBlog.net In-Depth page for more information on Pivot Tables.