Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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.

I have studied Microsoft Excel 2007 in the past, but iy was difficult and confusing. Then I studied Excel 2007 with The Smart Method, the first volume on the essential skill, and the second volume on the expert skills . What a terrific and rewarding experience! The method is easy, complete and enjoyable. The explanations, the projects and the exercises are a teaching work of art. There are anecdocts and pieces of computing history that sound refreshing and informative. As bonus, there are suggestions how to navigate better and faster in the workbooks. Moreover, I have found out that the author accepts questions and gives prompt answers. I strongly recommend "Learn Excel 2007, Essential Skills and Expert Skills, with The Smart Method". If you want to learn Excel 2007, it is money well spent.

I have used Spreedsheets for 20 odd years starting with Ability - Qtro - Lotus and ultimately Excel. Thought after all these years I was fairly conversant with Excel but purchased both 2007 Basic and Expert Skills by Mike Smart and discovered how much I didnt know. Excellent teaching style and presentation I congratulate Mike for an excellent offering.

Don Dudley

I found this course an excellent way to learn more advanced skills in Excel 2007. I started with very rudimentary skills, first worked through the Basic Skills book and then moved to this one. The book is divided into 8 "Sessions," each with fifteen or twenty "Lessons." Lessons took me five or ten minutes each. Each Session is followed by a test to reinforce the skills learned. I found that "whipping through" a Session in an hour or two gave me a reasonable understanding of the items covered, but to be able to retain things and use them took a bit more time and review, generally about four hours per session including my own review. Doing this, I was able to take the test at the end of each session with a good grasp, further solidifying my knowledge. The author obviously has a superb understanding of Excel and teaches with a methodical, clear, and entertaining style. As you work through the book, you use concepts learned earlier in performing more difficult tasks. References are always given to the earlier concepts; in case you don't remember them, you can quickly refer back to the lessons teaching the more basic skills, making it easy to refresh your memory and complete the task at hand.
The course completely met my needs to advance my Excel skills to the point I could create more complex spreadsheets and perform tasks I previously had no idea how to do. I would recommend it without hesitation over other texts that are not designed to advance your skills one step at a time.

Smart creates excel lessons based what he discovered working with actual excel users. As I have gone through this book, I have said "I know this, I know this," and then, "Holy Cow, I didn't know it could do that." It will greatly improve your efficiency in the use of excel.

I was thrilled when getting this book for the mere fact it provided a hands on use of actual data files to practice the techniques and skills being taught. The layout of the book is easy and enjoyable to follow along with. Steps for each lesson are explained in detail with a quiz at the end of each chapter to practice what you learned. A very user friendly learning experience and I highly recommend it as a reference and learning tool for anyone's Excel library. Thank you Mr. Smart -- I look forward to future books!

Bon
SoCal Calif

Looking at the book after it arrived made me wonder how this book could deliver an advanced knowledge in Excel. In contrary to other books I have on Excel, this book is only one-half thick; however, after just going through half of the first lesson, I realized Mr. Smart is really a genius. He shares all his tricks and tips very detailed and clearly on every page and subject that he explains. I love the book very much and thank him for sharing his skills and expertise in Excel. A must buy for people considering to advance their Excel knowledge!

Mike Smart's Excel books have a visible structure and flow smoothly, easily, and progressively from one topic to the next - it is unlikely that a reader (of his books) will get "stuck" because of a missing prerequisite. It has been a blessing to have stumbled upon his books.

Mike's books are easy to read not because the subject matter is easy. They are easy because he has put in the effort to understand a student's mind and a reader's mind. They are easy because he has put in the effort to anticipate questions before they arise and delights the reader of his books with answers just as those questions begin to surface.

I had some question on a particular lesson and sent him an email. To my pleasant surprise, I received a response answering my question the very next day. To further clarify the response, I sent him another email and promptly received another response on the following day.

I learn from my email exchanges with Mike, that he is writing other books on topics of interest to me. I eagerly look forward to the day when those books become available.

Thank you Mike for writing such wonderful books.