Customer Reviews

Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft))

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

 

 

This book can not only be used an instructional guide, but also makes a great desk reference. It teaches you how to use a lot of the key shortcuts that all the super geeks know, while also giving very good advice on how to start your spreadsheet. To me starting is the most difficult part. You have a boat load of data and just can't figure out how to put it in a spread sheet that makes sense to everyone else. This will help you in that area plus a thousand others. I love it. I already knew the Excel extreme basics, this put me on the level I needed to be on.

Are you sure you were on the correct Web page when you wrote this review? Seems you were looking at a different book. I checked both the 2002 and 2003 versions of this book and I could not find any of the things you mentioned as being incorrect. The code sample you mention on page 173 does not exist, and I didn't find the problems you mention about screen shots. You sure you weren't looking at Using Excel ...? LOL

Don't guess, don't waste time with the MS Help's Office Assistant, and don't Google it. Buy an Excel reference book and learn to do it right. I own this one, The Excel Bible, and Excel Formulas 2003. Any one of them will do, but owning multiple is overkill. The book comes with a searchable .pdf version that I keep on my laptop and use regularly. By picking up the hardcopy from my bookshelf once a week, I've really streamlined my spreadsheet building process. Were you once an Arts & Crafts type of person and are trying to morph into a quant guru? I was. I am...... still working on it. Buy the book. -Sly

I found the book to meet the needs that I had to get a better understanding of some of the more capable functions in Excel. In particular, I was looking for more insight in the use of Pivot Tables which it provided although it stopped short of going sufficiently deep in the use of functions and formulas within Pivot Tables which would have been helpful. I particularly liked that it came with a CD that could be loaded on my laptop great when you don't have the book readily at hand. There were a few editing errors with items refering to the wrong figure or table, but not difficult to figure out which was the right referrence, just a minor annoyance.

As with all Inside Out books from Microsoft Press, Excel 2003 was fantastic. The thing I love most about these books is (1) the comprehensiveness of the book while (2) not forgetting to cover the fundamentals of the product. Thus, anything you want to do with Excel is covered, from simple formatting to working with external data all the way up to creating highly complex spreadsheets with macros and programming. This book is perfect for all Excel (or spreadsheet) creators.

This book contains a lot of errors which should be corrected, and many pro-microsoft or authors' commercial tool hypes (which costs you your time). Some contents are repeating and it may take for you to finish the book longer than it should, but nicely written and well explaining a variety of topics. Basically this is a good book with few minor problems. With the same money, however, I am afraid that taking another Excel book could be a better choice.

This book doesn't appear to have been well proof read. I have found numerous figures (screen shots) in the first few chapters of the book that are in the wrong place. Also, the code sample on p173 does not actually calculate the correct averages it sets out to do i.e. sglTotal = sglTotal + rgeMonth(intWeek, intHours) does not work as proposed.
These frustrating errors combined with a lack of syntax examples and code shown without reference (some of the time) to the underlying examples makes this book tough going. The book also assumes an already strong understanding of VBA which was ok for me, but limits the potential audience, so beginners beware.

This book is an excellent reference to have on your desk if you use Excel extensively through the intermediary level. If you use if for work beyond that it will probably be not high level enough.

In addition to being a very good reference at that level is is also a very good stand-alone learning tool. If one has only a rudimentary knowledge of excel and desires to move up to an intermediary level it is a good book to read. If one wants to go beyond that, however, this is not the right book.

Hence for the beginner and intermediary used the book is valuable to have but if one is a sophisticated expert it would only have limited value.

This book could not be more comprehensive. If you need to go deep and want to have a paper-based book to do it with (versus online help/tutorals), this is the one to have on your desk. A chapter each week will help you me much more productive.

This was a mandatory textbook purchase and it was interesting and valuable during the course.