Microsoft® Office Excel 2003 Programming Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft)) [Paperback]

Curtis Frye (Author), Wayne S. Freeze (Author), Felicia K. Buckingham (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0735619859 | ISBN-13: 978-0735619852 | Publication Date: March 10, 2004

You’re a sophisticated user of Excel—a real pro with spreadsheets—so now dig into its powerful programming capabilities and really put your data to work! From writing code in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to taking advantage of new XML data-sharing features, this book packs hundreds of timesaving programming solutions, troubleshooting tips, and handy workarounds all in concise, fast-answer format.

Discover the best and fastest ways to build custom business solutions with Excel—and challenge yourself to new levels of mastery!

• From automating simple tasks to building custom solutions, write better code with VBA
• Learn best practices for writing and debugging your own macros
• Use VBA code to manage dates and times, reformat worksheets, and locate external files
• Extend your Excel solutions by developing your own add-ins
• Get powerful perspectives on data by programmatically manipulating PivotTable and PivotChart dynamic views
• Create custom command bars, dialog boxes, and user forms
• Employ ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) to access external databases
• Exploit the new XML capabilities in Excel 2003

CD features:

• Complete eBook in PDF format
• Insider Extras—including all the authors’ sample files and code
• Catalog of Excel resources with links to third-party tools and demos
• Microsoft resources and demos, including Insider’s Guide to Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 eBook
• FREE! Microsoft Computer Dictionary, Fifth Edition, eBook—10,000+ entries

A Note Regarding the CD or DVD

The print version of this book ships with a CD or DVD. For those customers purchasing one of the digital formats in which this book is available, we are pleased to offer the CD/DVD content as a free download via O'Reilly Media's Digital Distribution services. To download this content, please visit O'Reilly's web site, search for the title of this book to find its catalog page, and click on the link below the cover image (Examples, Companion Content, or Practice Files). Note that while we provide as much of the media content as we are able via free download, we are sometimes limited by licensing restrictions. Please direct any questions or concerns to [e-mail].

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Curtis Frye is the author of numerous books on Excel and other Office products, most recently Microsoft Excel 2010 Step by Step. He graduated from Syracuse in 1990 with a degree in political science, and then moved to Washington, DC, where he worked as a defense trade analyst for four years and as the director of sales and marketing for an ISP for one year. He moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1995 to launch his freelance writing career. When Curt's not writing, and often while he is writing, he is a keynote speaker, mentalist, and professional improvisational comedian.

Wayne S. Freeze is the Head of Software Development for Electrical Controls, Inc., where he builds software 3D graphics applications using Visual Basic, SQL Server and DirectX. He has written more than a dozen books over the years and has over seventy-five articles to his credit. Wayne has been using and writing about Access for nearly ten years, and has over 30 years of experience using all types of computers, from small, embedded microprocessor control systems to large-scale IBM mainframes. He also has a master's degree in management information systems as well as degrees in computer science and electrical engineering.

Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (March 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735619859
• ISBN-13: 978-0735619852
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #990,822 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Curtis Frye is the author of numerous books on Excel, Access, and privacy-enhancing technologies. Microsoft Excel 2010 Step By Step is consistently among the best-selling Excel books. Before beginning his writing career in 1995, Curt spent four years with The MITRE Corporation as a defense trade analyst and one year as Director of Sales and Marketing for Digital Gateway Systems, an Internet Service Provider. When not writing, Curt is a popular conference speaker, corporate entertainer, and professional improvisational comedian with ComedySportz Portland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars PLEASE Look for another book!, October 1, 2004

By 

G. Wendt (Bay Area, CA.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Microsoft® Office Excel 2003 Programming Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft)) (Paperback)

This book isn't worth your time or money. I certainly wasted mine on it. The Author is so caught up in his ability to write code that he forgot what the book is about. No explanations of the code are offered so that you can follow his train of thought. I think he is off in the Delta Quadrant somewhere. The index is next to useless. Try to find 'comments' and you are directed to a page that has the word 'comments' on it but explains nothing regarding adding COMMENTS to your code. Most of his examples don't even work outside his tiny environment - I couldn't make any of them work in my Excel code. Forget troubleshooting your code! His code is so perfect he obviously didn't fell the need to write anything that helps debug your code. The book also lacks an appendix with a list of functions for easy reference. If you want a function your going to spend a huge amount of time flipping through pages. DON'T BUY!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Nice Book for Beginners....., August 7, 2005

By 

J. P. Estep "AutoCAD Manager" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Microsoft® Office Excel 2003 Programming Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft)) (Paperback)

I have recently been turned on to Visual Basic due to my position in an Engineering Firm. We deal with a ton of calculations based on current projects. This book has helped tremendously in getting a foothold of the begining stages of Excels Visual Basic coding.

Some of the other reviewers have not been happy with this book and claim it to be useless. I do not find that to be true. If you are an advanced user/developer of excel programing then there ARE many books that will help more than this book, but if you have never done any coding in Excel, then this book is a really good start. Hey, where can you find a good intro book of this caliber, used, for less than $5.00?

This book does have it's down falls. It is a bit difficult to follow sometimes in that they don't really give more detailed explainations of how things go together but if you can read the first few chapters and still understand then you should have no problems working through this down fall.

This book does have a large amount of information in it. It covers all the topics that a beginning coder would need. They discuss in each chapter what the topis is for and how it works. The layout of this book is a nice one too. I have 'Inside Out' books on 'MS Project & Outlook'. These are very nice as well and the main reason I went with this book on Excel. I do not feel I went wrong here at all and would recommend this book to anyone wanting to get into Excel Programming.

In Summary, this is a good book for the price. You should find it helpful while on your path to Excel programming.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Almost Useless, May 13, 2004

By 

T. Carroll - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Microsoft® Office Excel 2003 Programming Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft)) (Paperback)

I have stacks of programming books covering Java and C++. I count this book as one of the two worst books I have ever purchased. I can use either a reference book or a tutorial type book, but I can't use a book that basically recites language attributes without any development or context. It doesn't work as a reference book because it leaves too much information out. There is no value added in this book.