Customer Reviews

Excel 2003 Personal Trainer (Personal Trainer (O'Reilly))

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This Personal Trainer book from O'Rielly is (to me at least) a new tutorial type introduction to Excell 2003. It uses a cartoon SuperHero to add some interest to the otherwise pretty dull part of computer training. Without something like this, how can you stay awake.

This is an absolutely beginners level book, starting out with: "Berfore starting Microsoft Excel 2003, you have to make sure your computer is on -- if it's not, turn it on!" Now that's pretty beginning level.

As you would expect with a book starting with level, it goes into a lot of detail about what spreadsheets are for, and what you can do with them.

But by the end of the book you're moving along at a fairly high level. Chapter 11, for instance is on Pivot Tables, not at all a function tought by most beginner level books.

The disk that comes with the book is an "Interactive Simulation Software [that] Replicates the Experience of using Excel 2003."

All in all, this book is the friendliest, most open and easy to understand tutorial of its type that I've ever seen.

Along with the PowerPoint 2003 Personal Trainer book, I received a review copy of Excel 2003 Personal Trainer (O'Reilly) the other day. This is one I won't show my wife, as I think I'll keep this one for myself.

Chapter List: The Fundamentals; Editing a Worksheet; Formatting a Worksheet; Creating and Working with Charts; Managing Your Workbooks; More Functions and Formulas; Working with Lists; Automating Tasks with Macros; Working with Other Programs; Using Excel with the Internet; Data Analysis and PivotTables; What-If Analysis; Advanced Topics; Index

As a long-time techie, people expect me to be an expert in any software they happen to be running. One of the more common questions I get is "how do I do <insert their problem here> in Excel?". To which I answer... "Beats me!" I've just never taken the time to learn how to work the software. In fact, my wife (who is a relative newbie when it comes to software) knows more about Excel than I do. So, looking at this book, I think it's about time to improve on those skills.

The Personal Trainer series uses a lightly-themed muscle/superhero motif that isn't overly cute or annoying. Each chapter has objectives, a central task, and prerequisites to working the following lessons. After anywhere from five to twenty lessons for a given chapter, there's a summary of the material, a quiz, and "homework" that you can do to explore a little further on your own. On top of all that, the CD in the back has an Excel simulator you can use to practice your skills without necessarily having to have the software loaded on a given computer. Since I have Excel loaded, I won't need that, nor will I have to go through each of the lessons that assume little to no background in Excel or even how Window applications work. But I should be able to grasp all the Excel fundamentals I sorely lack right now in a relatively short period of time. And then I might be able to answer some of my wife's pleas for application support.

Good material, covers all the basics and quite a few of the bells and whistles, and it all reads well. Now if I can only hide it from my wife...

I love the fact that these Personal Trainer programs by O'Reilly are "simple stupid." What is in the book can stand alone; what is on the cd can stand alone. If you work them together, what shows in the book, matches the screen. I like that. It is easy to learn; easy to follow. I recommend them highly to everyone.

I am far from computer illterate (20+ years coding in C/C++ and assembly) but I never had to use Excel until now. I found this book to be just perfect! I looked at a lot of other books in the bookstore but except for this they were all reference style without any exercises which is useless for me, like trying to learn a language from a dictionary.

You can read your way through the first few pages but after that the step-by-step instructions with the sample spread sheets for each exercise are great!

I am using Quattro not Excel but everything works about the same or you can figure it out from Quattro's help.

I purchased Excel Personal Trainer because I had a horrible college professor and therefore never learned this program properly, and as a soon to be college grad, Excel is essential for me to know. I have to say that I am very pleased with this book. It is very easy to follow, and I like the fact that there are practice lessons as well as illustrations. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who needs to know Excel quickly like i did.

Do you see the amusing part on the book's cover? Not the cartoon chick with big breasts. The book's printing date is 2005, so the 2003 in the title is deprecated, as being slightly awkward. Hence, let us not ask where is Excel 2005?

Aside from this, the book gives a tightly focused test of your Excel knowledge. Each chapter is divided into lessons. Each lesson has a concise explanation of a topic. Then, the chapters end with quizzes and answers. Arguably, it is these quizzes that yield the key value of the book, as they let you actually test your grasp of the subjects. The questions seem to vary from easy to moderate in difficulty. Despite what the back cover says about the book being able to tone up skills of beginners and experienced users, if the latter includes you, then the book may simply be too easy.

Instead, the book may be of the most benefit to new users, who want an objective metric of their knowledge.

I have three of the O'Reilly series Microsoft training books (word, excel, powerpoint). They are all well crafted, with easily understandable instruction, thorough reviews at the end of the chapters, quizzes and, most helpful of all, a cd of practices exercises you use while working your way through the book.

I am an excel power user. I used this book to help me organize a training class for my co-workers, who are all at different skill levels. I picked up some quick tips along the way -- shortcuts that I never took the time to learn before. Neat. This book goes through beginner skills, moderate and advanced skills (macros and pivot tables). The exercises on the CD are very useful. This book is often missing from my desk....

This book is great!
If you never used excel or have just started learning the program you will definitely benefit from this book! Everything is explained in simple steps with diagrams to look up to. The CD with exercises is helpful, unless you're like me and like to start from scratch. I tried using excel for dummies but found it to be blah...this is sooooo much better!!
Definitely a must have!

I needed to learn how to use Excel quickly for a new job and Personal Trainer was a good tool. The book is organized into chapters and lessons that increase in complexity as you progress. The opening lessons are simplistic and if you have basic computer knowledge, you can skip them. My advice is to go to the back of each lesson, where there is a brief bulleted synopsis, to decide whether you need to study it in depth. There is also a disk that includes interactive lessons that you complete as you read. While I had no experience with Excel before purchasing the book, I now feel confident that I can perform even complex tasks such as writing and editing macros and making pivot tables without much difficulty.