Others say...

"very helpful"
This is a good book to get you started working with excel. It takes away the fear factor. It could give better detail on how to build formulas. It is a fairly simple, basic book and does not really deal with formulas as much as it could. It is very good at other aspects though, such as just getting started putting together a spread sheet.

"grateful"
This book came in very handy with the accounting class that I am taking. I had a little knowledge but not much and this book helps alot. I keep it right next to my computer and pull it out and use it on a daily basis. I continue to learn new tricks and shortcuts to make my life easier.

"Great book, but Excel still sucks!"
I'm a great fan of the Dummies series and use a lot of their material in my presentations. Unfortunately, nothing can turn the pig's ear of Excel into the silk purse of Quattro Pro.

"Still trying to get through it..."
Well, I still haven't figured Excel 2007 out yet, but I'm working on it...the book is making it a little easier to realize that I am just a dummie when it comes to computers.

"A Quick Way to Find Out What's New"
I suppose that you'd be inteested in this book for one of two reasons.

First, you're a newcommer to Excel and want to be hand held from the beginning to get started. I suppose that there must be at least a few people out there who don't know Excel - Well, my mother doesn't, but she's not likely to read this book anyway.

Second, and I suspect most of us fit into this category, we've been using Excel for a lot of years, but at a fairly rudimentary level. We do expense accounts, a few formulas to check things out, maybe use it as a calculator, etc. We don't do things like macros or pivot tables.

Now though, there's a new version of Excel - Excel 2007. It is worth spending the bucks on? What does it have that I might find useful? And I don't want to just see the Microsoft hype, I want a bit more than that. So here for twenty bucks or so is not only a description of what's new, but how to use it.

As best I can tell, the biggest change in Excel 2007 in in its user interface. There's a new look on the screen called the ribbon. This seems to replace all the various toolbars and the like from previous versions with a new layout that puts the bulk of the Excel commands you use only one click away. (The existing File button is replaced by an 'Office' button.) Furthermore, the Ribbon appears to be a dynamic thing. As you are doing something different, for example charting, a different set of frequently used commands appear in the Ribbon. The Ribbon is also easy to customize, so if you're doing a spreadsheet for someone else to use, you can get rid of things that might get them into trouble.

Down inside there are a bunch of other changes. Instead of being limited to a fixed number of columns and rows, how big a sheet you can build is limited only by the memory size. The formatting and fonts area is changed a bunch.

That's just the first chapter of this book. It's a great way to see if the new Excel is for you. And, oh by the way, if you decide that maybe you do want to do a pivot table, it's Chapter 9, and yes, there have been a few changes here as well.