Excel Programming: Your Visual Blueprint for Creating Interactive Spreadsheets (With CD-ROM) [Paperback]

Jinjer Simon (Author)

Book Description

Series: Visual Read Less, Learn More | Publication Date: November 15, 2001

Each step in this visual reference is displayed with callouts so you can see exactly where the action takes place on the screen. It covers over 100 tasks, including complete coverage of macros -- with info about VBA basic techniques, variables and arrays, control statements, interfacing with other macros, debugging, add-ins, and automation.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Welcome to the only guidebook series that takes a visual approach to professional-level computer topics. Open the book and you'll discover step-by-step screen shots that demonstrate over 140 key VBA programming techniques for Excel macros, including:

• Working with the Visual Basic Editor
• Using the Excel Object Model
• Utilizing variables and arrays
• Harnessing built-in functions
• Debugging macros
• Defining ranges
• Manipulating cells
• Customizing dialog boxes
• Working with charts
• Automating procedures

Extra Apply It

• "Apply It" and "Extra" sidebars highlight useful tips
• High-resolution screen shots demonstrate each task
• Succinct explanations walk you through step by step
• Two-page lessons break big topics into bite-sized modules

VBA development tools on CD-ROM!

• Code_Crafter 2000 and VBA code Print trial version
• Barcode Add-in for Office demo
• VB Code Cutter shareware
• All sample code and spreadsheets from the book
• Searchable e-version of the book

System requirements: PC running Windows 9x/2000/Me/XP, Windows NT 4 or later. See the "What's on the CD-ROM" Appendix for details and complete system requirements.

About the Author

About the Author Jinjer Simon has been actively involved in the computer industry for the past 17 years. Her involvement in the industry has included programming, providing software technical support, training end-users, developing written and online user documentation, creating software tutorials, and developing Web sites. She is the author of several computer books, including Windows CE For Dummies and Windows CE 2 For Dummies. Jinjer and her husband live in Coppell, Texas with their two children. She currently works as a consultant for MillenniSoft, Inc., providing Web site development and online documentation development.

Product Details

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• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Visual (November 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076453646X
• ISBN-13: 978-0764536465
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,899,343 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very happy I bought this book, June 8, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Excel Programming: Your Visual Blueprint for Creating Interactive Spreadsheets (With CD-ROM) (Paperback)

To put my review into context: I used to be able to write useful Excel macros in the old Excel 4.0 / Excel 95 macro language. I'm not a programmer, and certainly not an advanced macro user, but I could use the old language to do what I needed to do: mostly just speeding or automating routine Excel tasks.

When VBA replaced the 4.0 macro language, I tried for years to understand it, but VBA just never clicked with me. I never needed it so badly that I would put myself on a course, or plough through a dense text book, though I did routinely look (without success) for something that would help me to get my head round the format.

Finally I came across this book in a bookstore, and it instantly began to make sense. I started by just looking through the text in the store, and going back to my PC to use what I had learned. By my third time back to the store for more tips, I realized that this was actually what I needed and bought the book. I am now comfortable with the format, and still learning through writing simple VBA's as and when I need them. I attribute this entirely to this book.

I recommend it to anyone who, as I did, just finds the whole VBA format daunting. The book's format is very visual - much more so than other VBA books (including "VBA For Dummies", which I own, but which didn't help me at all). This (visual format) means that each topic is very quick to learn, and you're not left wondering how you can use a particular function. Each function is described in very "bite-sized" sections, mostly two facing pages, and occasionally four. Each two page topic is at most half text, with the rest screen-shots and comments on the screen-shots. It just really works well.

By all means get another VBA macro manual as a reference, but if you really want to get started in the format without also getting put off by it, this book is the only one that I have found that fits the bill.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excel Programming cuts through the clutter!, February 16, 2003

By 

Christopher (Olive Branch, Mississippi United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Excel Programming: Your Visual Blueprint for Creating Interactive Spreadsheets (With CD-ROM) (Paperback)

For some time, I have wanted to program in Visual Basic for Applications as a means to automate Excel 2000/2002. I have looked at many titles in the bookstore by various authors (experts in the field, unquestionably), but none seem targeted to the novice or intermediate user who simply wants to understand the VBA environment and how to benefit from its powerful capabilities. If other books were trying to target such an audience, then they suffered from poor readability and simply too much material. This book instills confidence in novice users as the reader is given very succinct explanations on variables, procedures, subroutines/functions, and, of course, the Excel Object Model. I have not been able to put the book down, practically speaking.

Extremely well organized, with generally very good and detailed graphics. It makes its point in roughly 325 pp. and features an excellent appendix dealing with constants, etc. I believe this book will forever relegate the more pricey books I have on the subject to a shelf in my technical library. The others are authoritative books, to be sure, but I never gained confidence with the format. Reading other sources proved exhausting when compared to this book. As an Excel user who wrote some macros in the Excel 95 version of the software, this book is a welcome addition. The book contains probably a few typos, and perhaps an illustration or two (screen shots of the Excel or VB Editor interface) is unclear or improperly rendered (such as in the section "Remove a Module"). Minor, minor details that won't matter in the overall scheme of things - this book rates very high in my opinion. Another plus: the CD ROM has the sample code used in many sections in the book as well as an "e-version" of the book itself.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Targets a somewhat niche market of readers, April 17, 2006

By 

Jason Teo (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Excel Programming: Your Visual Blueprint for Creating Interactive Spreadsheets (With CD-ROM) (Paperback)

This nifty guide book is pretty different from most computer programming books out there, it targets a very specific group of people, namely those who are proficient in Microsoft Office but with little knowledge in VBA. Even more specifically, it is a dictionary for people who are trying to write macros in the fastest way possible, no time is wasted on explaining the fundamentals of VBA or programming in general.

Readers who skim through the book in a bookstore might be decieved into thinking that this book is for newbies due to the abundance of pictures/screenshots scattered throughout the pages. It is not. The book is essentially structured in a manual format with each spread of 2 pages covering a certain function. Neither is there any fluff for the beginner nor are there complex code snippets for the advanced user.

This text should be used primarily as a quick VBA reference book for people who are proficient in MS Excel but looking for quick and dirty ways to churn simple macros.