Learn Excel 2007 Expert Skills with The Smart Method: Courseware Tutorial teaching Advanced Techniques [Paperback]

Mike Smart (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0955459931 | ISBN-13: 978-0955459931 | Publication Date: September 11, 2009 | Edition: 1

This book is for users who want to upgrade their basic Excel skills to true expert level. It will teach you to master all of Excel’s advanced features. If you are an absolute beginner you need our Essential Skills book.

The book is very, very different to any other computer book you have ever read. The Smart Method provides an entirely new and better way to master advanced Excel features. Here’s just four of the many ways in which the book is unique:

• This book won’t waste your time by teaching basic Excel skills that you already know. All of that material is covered already in our beginner’s Essential Skills book. By assuming that you are already able to use Excel’s basic features, far more ground can be covered.
• Instruction is logically structured into sessions and lessons. While this makes the book ideal for self-instruction, you can also use it to run your own, highly effective, adult training courses.
• Every lesson is presented on two facing sheets of A4 paper (the pages are much bigger than in any other Excel book).
• Each lesson has a sample file that models a real-world business problem. You’ll immediately appreciate the value and relevance of each skill you learn.

Advanced concepts are explained without needless technical jargon.  Everything is concisely described in a simple, no-nonsense way.  No matter what your background is, this book will enable you to master Excel's most advanced features.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Amongst other things you'll learn how to:
Master Excel 2007's new dynamic tables
Enforce complex business rules using function-driven custom validations
Perform What-If analysis to model and compare business scenarios
Use advanced functions to solve real-world business problems
Eliminate errors using Excel's advanced formula auditing tools
Create intuitive user interfaces using form controls
Use Excel's three different file sharing methods for efficient teamwork
Record macros and then execute them from button controls
Understand and use all of Excel's security features
Design advanced Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts
Use your Excel skills to publish a complete web site from a workbook
Create and use dynamic and table-based range names

Companies who have taken Smart Method courses include:
AOL Time Warner, The United States Army, Daimler Chrysler, Motorola, HSBC,
Barclays, American Express, Allied Irish Banks, Imperial Tobacco, Volvo,
The BBC, British Petroleum, The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Unilever, The
Institute of Chartered Accountants, The Ministry of Defence, Keele University,
Deutsche Bank, HBOS, Transport For London, The Performing Rights Society, Scottish
Power, The Office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, BAE Systems, RBS, Marks &
Spencer, Virgin, O2, BMW... and many, many others.

About the Author

Mike Smart is the founder of The Smart Method Ltd who develop and run IT courses. Mike has trained delegates from many of the world's largest companies in England, Europe and America (see back cover of book for more details). Mike's unique teaching method is fun, absorbing and virtually 100% effective.

Product Details

• Paperback: 358 pages
• Publisher: Smart Method, Limited, The; 1 edition (September 11, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0955459931
• ISBN-13: 978-0955459931
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 8.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #96 in Books > Computers & Technology > Software

More About the Author

Mike Smart is the founder of The Smart Method Ltd who develop and run IT courses. Mike has trained delegates from many of the world's largest companies in England, Europe and America (see back cover of book for more details).

Mike's unique teaching method is fun, absorbing and virtually 100% effective.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Continuation of the Excel 2007 Essential Skills Book, January 14, 2010

By 

N. Barber "n8barber" (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Learn Excel 2007 Expert Skills with The Smart Method: Courseware Tutorial teaching Advanced Techniques (Paperback)

The Expert Skills book picks up where the Essential Skills book left off and is the perfect follow-up book in this series. If you've used the Essential Skills book to learn how to do day-to-day stuff in Excel 2007 like a professional, the feel of the Expert book will be very familiar to you. Everything I liked about the first book has been carried into this book: from the intuitive layout of the lessons to the well thought-out sample problem files. Of course the content is different, and this book does a great job of walking readers through the maze of advanced features found in Excel. In fact, the book taught me some formulas and methods that are difficult to find any other places (I looked).

However, this book is not an encyclopedia of each and every feature in Excel, but I wouldn't really want to pay for a book like that anyway ... that's what Excel Help (F1) is for, which is free! This book is much more useful than that. Rather this book is a collection of tutorials and sample spreadsheets that build upon each other so that when you got to the end, you know how to do everything because you've done it yourself in Excel.

I should also mention here that I'm an Excel instructor, and though I knew how to do much of the stuff in here before I started, I still love this book. What's more, my students have purchased this book and they they really like it too. To me, that's the best sign of a great tutorial book: one that both instructors and students choose to use and re-use and re-use again. And the increase in my excel efficiencies has given me a very high return on my investment in this book.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Method for Mastering Excel 2007, March 6, 2010

By 

Heidi (Maryville, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Learn Excel 2007 Expert Skills with The Smart Method: Courseware Tutorial teaching Advanced Techniques (Paperback)

This book is perfect for those who are proficient in Excel, but want to expand their skills to become more efficient and utilize Excel's advanced features. I knew there were better ways to accomplish the work I did in Excel and was frustrated by my limitations. Completing this program has not only allowed me to do a better job in less time, but also to do things I never dreamed possible. My skills are now in such demand that I'm able to have a sense of job security even in a struggling job market. I strongly recommend this book for anyone in an office position.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, January 18, 2011

By 

G. Beglaryan "GB" (CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Learn Excel 2007 Expert Skills with The Smart Method: Courseware Tutorial teaching Advanced Techniques (Paperback)

I can confidently say that after completing Mike Smart's complete course on Excel 2007, using the Smart Method , I am an expert on excel. To be fair I will say that this book doesn't cover all the functions available in Excel, but the author describes the most important function that you may want to use. And to be honest you would need a very thick book to cover all the functions in excel. What the author does in this book, he introduces you to excel, you can navigate through the ribbon menu very fast, and it doesn't look like a bunch of features combined into a menu, but everything becomes organized. The author introduces some features of excel, that 99% of the users don't even know they can do such things with excel. After completing this course (both books, the "Essential Skills" and the "Expert Skills") I wanted to buy a book on VBA and Access 2007. Unfortunately Mike Smart is currently working on those books, but they are not ready yet. By the way, I contacted the author to ask him about VBA and Access, he replied within 5 minutes. This shows that he truly cares about his book and wants to make sure that people who buy it are satisfied. I am sure that if you buy this book, you will be satisfied. I personally would recommend buying the Essential Skills book before purchasing the Expert Skills book. 50% of the information in the Essential Skills book may be familiar to many users, but believe it or not there are a lot of great things in that book. You will be able to create professional looking worksheets, after that you are ready to tackle the Expert Skills book to take your knowledge to a very high level.