Others say...

"Everything You Wanted to Know about Excel 2007"
An easy to read and easy to understand manual. The Tip Paragraphs are very helpful. I really like the examples and the illustrations.
The extensive sections on Formulas and Macros really makes this book powerful and invaluable.
Althought the manual does not come with a CD, many examples and downloads are available online.
I recommend this to any Excel 2007 user.


"Excel 2007: The Missing Manual "
Title: Excel 2007: The Missing Manual
By Matthew MacDonald
First Edition: December 2006
Series: The Missing Manuals
ISBN 10: 0-596-52759-4
ISBN 13: 9780596527594
Pages: 856
The introduction tells in general about the "hot additions":
Fewer limits
Faster speeds
Better looking charts
Formula AutoComplete
Tables
Easier (and prettier) conditional formatting
Easier (and prettier) pivot tables
Save as PDF: available as a free download, not actually in Excel 2007
This book is heavy reading. After a few paragraphs of light introduction, each sentence is packed with actions to take, issues to ponder, tables to study, and much more. The actions to take could not be done in one night. Look forward to a week, at least.
This book is light reading. The style is light and easy to enjoy. The author is definitely a wordsmith and has total control over the tone of the book. Some of the chapters start with non issues to people interested in Excel, but this seems to be his writing style: a neutral or buffered start so you do not bolt before you get into that chapter.
I liked the following chapters quite a bit:
Chapter 27 Automating tasks with macros
Chapter 28 Programming spreadsheets with visual basic

Part Six was the best

Chapter 22 Protecting your workbooks
Chapter 23 Worksheet collaboration
Chapter 24 Querying databases and XML Files
Chapter 25 Exchanging Data with other programs
Chapters 24 and 25 were the very best in the book, depending on whether you were more interested in querying databases or exchanging data.

This book is worth 5 stars and every penny charged for it, taking everything into account. A balanced point of view is being used by the author in parts of the text. Well done.

I really like Excel 2007 and find it to be an impressive spreadsheet.

Frederick J Eccher Jr
MBA
M.S. Management of Information Systems
A.B. Psychology
B.A. Biology
CIO, Community Partners
President, Board of Directors, Saint Louis Visual Basic Users Group
rick@stlvbug.net



"New User Interface a Definite Plus for Excel 2007"
Excel 2007 is the latest edition of Microsoft's premier spreadsheet software. As with any other Microsoft products, no official hardbound manuals come with the software, only help documentation on CD or in online destinations. This book purports to satisfy the hands-on, straightforward, easy-to-use and useful documentation preferred by most Excel spreadsheet users.

This edition, like previous Excel Missing Manual editions, covers the entire gamut of how to build spreadsheets, add and format information, print reports, create charts and graphics, and use the basic formulas and functions provided by the Excel software.

A major, if not the major, outstanding distinctive feature of Excel 2007 compared to previous Excel versions is the radically redesigned user interface with a tabbed "super" toolbar, most frequently referred to as the "ribbon", that makes every Excel feature easy to locate and easy to use. Excel 2003 had many toolbars with many buttons. The ribbon has seven tabs with associated buttons that use pop-up boxes and dialog boxes that make for easy application of Excel features. The collection of buttons on each tab also provides a convenient way to explore associated functions of Excel. Two differences from previous toolbars are the Office button, which is similar to the old File button and the Quick Access toolbar, which by default has three built-in shortcut commands but the commands can be configured to whatever the user wants.

Excel's greatest strength is not in storing a lot of information, but analyzing the data once it is stored in its cells. Excel 2007 now stores its spreadsheets in a completely new file format with the extension .xlsx which uses XML(the eXtensible Markup Language), a standardized way to store information, especially numerical data. This represents a giant step in getting data out of a database that also uses XML to store its data and put it into an Excel spreadsheet when one needs to analyze the data. This book clearly explains the details involved in not only getting data out of databases and into Excel spreadsheets but also putting data already in Excel spreadsheets into databases, made possible by XML
and its mapping features.

As a previous user of Excel software, I would see no problem with a small businessperson with even limited accounting experience using this book to enable him to apply Excel 2007 to handle most of his financial and accounting reports, ledgers and other business reports. Presently I use Excel to track my monthly expenditures and to maintain a running view of my monthly budget.

With this book as a guide to provide clear explanations of new Excel 2007 functions,I look forward to trying out the additional functionality of Excel 2007 on more of my personal and household data. Some sources of data I keep are my daily walking times, my daily expenditures, my cell phone calls, my utility bills, and the movies I rent. To analyze some of these data, I would like to explore more fully some of the statistical functions and the date and time functions as a starter. Another function would be the list management abilities of Excel that enable one to treat selected columns and rows like a table, somewhat similar to a pseudo database. Creating appropriate charts to look at some of my data should also prove very interesting and informative. I don't believe I could use pivot tables on my data but I might consider revisiting that section later on. I have once dabbled in writing macros and applying Visual Basic scripts and I would definitely consider picking up on these areas sometime in the future.