Customer Reviews

Excel 2000 Formulas

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you only buy one book on Excel, this should be the one. If you are a low intermediate user (i.e. not brand new to it, but with a passing familiarity) up through seasoned Excel veteran, this book is a help. There are many hidden secrets in Excel. Do you know how to use Array formulas? Create Custom conditional formatting? Save time with Auto-functions? That Circular References can be a good thing? How to give cells names, then use names instead of cell references in your equations so they are easier to edit / understand (I.E. =(Cost of Goods Sold / Sales) vs. =(A1/C3)? How to use VBA to create the exact function you need? This book has it all, plus all the basics and hidden shortcuts (some not even published) I.E. Using CTRL+Shift+F9 to force recalculation.
This book is extremely lucid and easy to understand. Every piece of information is supported by examples. I am a financial analyst and extremely experienced with Excel, yet this book is still helpful. It is almost a one-stop shop, seemingly lacking little. I also have an MBA. MBA's, buy this book BEFORE you by the MBA's Guide to Excel. I did it the other way around, and knowing what I know now, would not have purchased the Guide. In my opinion, anyone considering an Excel guide purchase, should purchase Excel 2000 Formulas first. It is much more than just a list of formulas. It is truly an excellent book, will save you time, effort, and frustration, and is an excellent value even at twice the price.

Being new to Excel I was constantly stumped on writing formulas for the various applications I was putting together. I can't tell you how many times I was contacting Microsoft Support for assistance. As helpful as they were, I am no longer in need of them since I got this book. Forget the various "how to use" books if it's help with formula writting that you need. I been through several and none come close to this one. Cover to cover (700+ pages)of well explained examples of every type of formula. Most useful software book I've ever had.

I already had a reputation at work as the Excel Wizard, so I was a little cautious about investing in a 'how-to' book on the subject. I have to say though, that Excel 2000 Formulas is worth every last cent and more. Even skimming through the early chapters, where I doubted I would find anything new, I chanced upon several easy tips I'd not known before.

Excel 2000 Formulas is arranged in a simple-to-reference way and the page layout is excellent, giving easy-on-the-eye icon notes, references and tips. Even so, I quickly found myself grabbing a colored highlighter to pick out the bits that were important to me. The author also has a flowing style of writing so you don't feel you're working through a manual, It's more like a fun day out, with new discoveries on every page.

Particulary interesting and useful was John Walkenbach's section on creating megaformulas. Though I was already familiar with the concept, and have used it to good effect at work, I found Walkenbach's methods even more concise and precise. In no time at all, you're building a relatively simple 229 character formula that does the work of 51 intermediary formulas. Not only is this more efficient and streamlined, it saves space in the workbook, thus making calculation quicker and more effective. Also of great value was the section on debugging formulas.

VBA had always remained something of a mystery to me (excluding elementary macros) until I got stuck into 'Excel 2000'. Now (with a bit of prompting from John Walkenbach) I'm really getting the hang of it, and finding, again, that I can streamline my workbooks and impress my colleagues. I've already bought 'Excel 2000 Power Programming with VBA' by the same author, and look forward to improving my skills in this area.

If ever there was a technical book that deserves more than five stars, this is it. If you need to improve your Excel skills, there's no other book you should consider - Excel 2000 Formulas has it all.

If you don't have this book by Walkenbach you are at a serious disadvantage when building Excel spreadsheets. That's the long and short of it. This book is an invaluable reference in building business models. I've been developing complicated spreadsheets for years and years, but this book shows tips and tricks I never dreamed of before. Well worth the money. From now on, if Walkenbach's name is on the cover, I shell out the money to get it. Absolutely outstanding. Never read anything better

I hesitated to buy this book, even though I knew the author to be an expert. (I have his Excel utility program, and I've seen him answer questions in Excel user groups.) Why did I feel uncertain? I had bought several large computer books over the past several years...and I found them difficult to understand and use. As a financial consultant, I had used a lot of financial functions. But I just couldn't see how to use much of the materials in those other books. I couldn't get the feel of them.

"Excel 2000 Formulas" is far better than I had even hoped. Now I've find myself naturally using naming techniques, pivot tables (which are amazingly powerful and easy to use), simple and more complex lookups, arrays, and other tools that I'd never even worked with before. The CD-ROM that comes with the book lets me quickly and smoothly play with and understand the Excel tools that I'm learning.
Only a few days after buying this book, I've already read, highlighted, and marked up this book. And benefited more than I could have imagined. I'm using Excel far more effectively...and at huge time savings.

I am usually the guy who amazes his co-workers with Excel capabilities, and have used Excel from it's inception. The formulas books were always a good help... but THIS book simply amazed me! I didn't get past SECTION 1 without learning half a dozen things I could use immediately! I'm already "scaring" my managers with the things I've learned. Talk about impact! Well written, easy to understand examples, and thorough. If you want to stay on a simple level with Excel (or just a general overview) go for a less expensive book. BUT IF YOU WANT DETAIL (plenty of it here!) and "comprehensive comprehension" - this is what you're looking for.

As with most everyone who is frustrated with the pathetic state of OEM software doumentation, I buy a lot of computer books. Unfortunately, many books on the market may contain only 1 or 2 chapters of useful information; the remaining chapters essetially pap. Not too much different from musical CD's. On rare occasion I come across book that is well-crafted, coherent, and actually contains a lot of useful information. Excel 2000 Formulas is one of those books.

I am quite competent in Excel but I still get stumped from time to time. This book has already provided me with new apporaches to old problems. I'll wear the cover off this book. Good job, Mr. Walkenbach!

We use Excel extensively at work, but I always found using formulas in Excel to be much more difficult than, say, Quattro Pro or Lotus 1-2-3. Well, with this book in hand, I got farther in an hour than I have in months of haphazardly using Excel and the (hmm) help files. This book is NOT just about formulae--there is excellent background on Excel and a good introduction to some of the most central features, such as multiple worksheets and data entry tips.

Excel is a powerful program and though you can set up a simple spreadsheet with little or no training, using the deeper functions becomes a bit complicated. This book helps you dip into more of the things Excel can do and which frankly are not well explained by the manual or the help files.

We do a lot of charts and forecasts. I found the chapter on charting helpful. I also found a bunch of tips and tricks on naming cells that I hadn't used before (for example, I've named cells for charts but never for variables in a formula.)

Having examples of formulae also saves a lot of time. Maybe the formula is not exactly one you need, but having one to start from sure helps.

This book is a fantastic tutorial and really expanded my knowledge of Excel quickly. What's interesting about this book is that it also includes a history of Excel, starting with VisiCalc. I used VisiCalc when it first came out--and spreadsheets revolutionized what you could do on the earliest of PC's. The history section is wonderful reading --a nice thing to see in what could have been a dry subject. I think this could be classified as "the missing manual." A must for anyone doing forecasting, math functions or anything more than basic Excel work.

As an intermediate user of Microsoft Excel, and new to the 2000 environment, I was fortunate enough to stumble upon John Walkenbach's Excel 2000 Formulas. Unlike many other books on the market filled with minutia , Excel 2000 Formulas is a straightforward no nonsense reference guide. The examples in the book are simple to follow as well as duplicate on your own without having to spend countless hours recreating sample spreadsheets. I am in a financial oriented work environment and have found numerous examples applicable to my everyday tasks that I was unaware of prior to my purchase. Bottom line....... a must have on any Excel 2000 user's desk.

I've been using spreadsheets (Lotus, Quattro, and Excel) since 1986. I've written macros in Lotus and VBA in Excel. I thought this "Formulas" book would be beneath my skills. I was wrong. I've learned more new things from this book in the last two weeks than I've learned in the previous 2 years using Excel. I've learned how to do things I was convinced could not be done in Excel.

If you are an advanced user, get this book and be amazed. If you are a beginning user, get this book; you won't be one for long.