Customer Reviews

Special Edition Using Microsoft Excel 2000

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In "Using Excel 2000", Patrick Blattner sets new benchmarks for clarity, thoroughness, and progressive teaching of its subject matter. It is actually a joy to read its 1000+ pages.

I was probably a low-end intermediate user of Excel when I purchased the book. I started at the beginning of the book to refresh and upgrade my understanding from Excel 97 to Excel 2000. I constantly found myself amazed at what I was learning and there were several times when I actually felt drawn in to reading 20 or 40 more pages than I had originally intended to read at one sitting because I wanted to see what came next. Within the first couple of days of owning this book, I was committed to reading the book cover-to-cover and moving up to becoming a power user of Excel.

I have been raving about the quality of Blattner's book to clients, associates and friends and highly recommend it to Excel users of any skill level. For the first time I actually look forward to reading future books by a specific author of books on computing. Patrick Blattner is that caliber of a writer. I also look forward to what he and Que put on their respective book websites to expand my Excel learning experience

The CD is a gold mine of Excel Workbooks from the book, and contains many additional resources worth at least the cost of the book. My only disparaging remark is that Que choose to include a .PDF copy of the book on the CD with the copy, past and print functions disabled. A fully functioning .HTML version would have been so much more valuable. I got spoiled reading the .HTML chapters of the book at the mcp.com BetaBooks site before it was published. I used those chapters like I use the hard copy of the book by highlighting text and inserting comments, etc. and I miss capability with the .PDF and will therefore only use it when I am on the road without my hard copy. I am sure Que choose to do what they did out of concern for intellectual property protection but I think their logic is faulty and encourage them to switch formats in the future.

This is by far the most uselful book I've bought this year. I consider myself an above-average user when it comes to Excel, and wanted to get a head start on this new release before my office upgrades. When I purchase a computer book I want something that reads easily, and explains the workings of the software in a coherent way. I'd bought Laurie Ulrich's books in the past and stuck with her for just these reasons. Blattner's chapters read almost as well, and I guess that's why the publishers teamed them up: they know what they're talking about, and know how to explain it. The best thing about this book is you don't need to be a rocket scientist to get something out of it. My wife, who's not a computer person, has been using the book too and feels it's one of the few books that doesn't make her feel inadequate because she's not a "power-user". What more can I say? I highly recommend it.

This Special Edition Using Excel is the exception to my personal rule that Really Big Computer Books are boring and hard to use. This book is accessible and clear, but doesn't baby you. Having taught myself to use Excel, I had a lot of holes in my own knowledge base, and this book helped me master basic things (like setting up a worksheet, editing my data) and the more advanced stuff I need to do (like setting up pivottables, building macros, and adding Excel objects to other applications). If you have other needs, you'll find them covered in this book.

Now about that training ---- I am a big fan of training, and have taken a lot of computer classes, both live and online. I never got around to taking an Excel class, though, but after using this book, I feel like I did take a class. This is probably due to fact that one of the writers (Ulrich) is a trainer. The book starts with basic concepts, to make sure everyone has the foundation topics down and then moves through an impressive spectrum of Excel features, covering most of them thoroughly but not cryptically. I work with technical people and find that they like to impress you with what they know, but don't really care if you "get it" when they show you how to do something. Trainers on the other hand, want to make sure you understand before moving on. You get that feeling from most of the chapters in this book, and in the chapters that assumed more previous experience than I have, the foundation built in the earlier chapters saw me through.

I recommend this book to users of all levels, even "newbies" even though these NYC-Phonebook-thick computer books aren't meant for new users. The patient, friendly style is easy to read, but the book won't disappoint even the most powerful of power users.

Special Edition Using Excel 2000 is a must have for any serious Excel user. The authors' employment of over 1000 screen captures attests to the rich "visualness" of this book. "How to" steps for achieving some tasks are simply not laid out numerically; the reader is gently interrupted after some steps, and given a picture of what his/her screen should look like.

In addition to the visual illustrations, the authors follow up most tasks with practical everyday examples of where one might utilize a particular skill to expedite Excel usage. As an instructor of Microsoft software, I am always searching for additional instances for applying a particular skill out in the workplace; their examples are invaluable.

Many of the book's examples are contained on the accompanying CD, which means they become interactive for the reader. Load these examples onto your computer, and practice the steps outlined in the book.....experiment with other scenarios and check that your outcome mimics that shown in the book.

Speaking of the CD, it contains not only the entire book which makes searching electronically very quick and easy, but it also has in essence......another entire book! One of the authors - Patrick Blattner - has included a 388 PowerPoint slide presentation, which takes Excel's chart building capabilities beyond the obvious. All the tricks to massaging a chart into a finished polished product are included in this step by step presentation.

I have carefully examined many competitive books covering Excel 2000 and found this edition to be far superior. With its over 1000 pages of instruction, over 1000 figures, tables, and drawings, and extensive use of cross references to lead the reader to previous illustrations or further areas of study......this is the book I take to the classroom and recommend for anyone eager to use Excel to it fullest!

Rebecca Marsh - Catapult Instructor

Using Excel 2000 by Patrick Blattner is probably the most useful book for Excel users.

Although this book covers everything from formatting cells to VBA it is especially practical for those who are looking for ideas and guidelines on how to make use of the numerous charting functionalities of Excel. The author introduces methods that combine Excel's interactive elements with graphical functions. Particularly one example about dynamically creating charts was an enormous help. In addition it is shown how to create 3D and even 4D Matrizes by bringing together advanced layout possibilities and Excels mathematical power.

Another topic that this book covers is the use of Excel as a planning tool. Patrick Blattner shows how Excel can be used to create GANTT charts that usually can only be created with Software like MS Project.

Needless to say that every example mentioned in the book is on CD-Rom as well. 5 Stars for a book that is definitely worth it's money.

I really wish I'd had this book last year when I set up the spreadsheets for our organization. I did so many things the hard way, even though I THOUGHT I was an advanced user and assumed I knew how to do what needed doing. Now I realize how many of even the basic things I didn't know how to do properly. I see from her Amazon interview that one of the authors (Ulrich) is a trainer, and that's quite obvious in the book because the steps in the instructions are really very clear, and the descriptions of how to use the button or the feature or whatever it might be are really simple to understand without sacrificing detail. I found the coverage of taking Excel data to the web to be especially useful. The book covers everything, so I've got some great ideas for improving my sheets and making some new ones, things I didn't realize I could do. To the authors: A job well done!

I've had this book for about three months, and I refer to it at least twice a week. The coverage is thorough and clear, and even on the general topics, I learn something new every time I skim through. There's something for everyone: for people who use Excel for accounting, for people who use Excel to storing data (I keep my bosses client lists in Excel), for people who use it for invoicing and keeping track of sales. There are parts of Excel I don't use, but they're covered in this book, too, and I know I can rely on this book to help me if I ever decide to use those parts. In my job I support seven CPA's at a large firm, and whenever they don't know how to do something in Excel, they ask me. I haven't told them how I know so much, but it's this book that makes me the office "guru" on Excel. I owe my job security to Laurie & Patrick!

This is a good overview of the main features of Excel. I learned a lot about features that are tucked away and hidden in menus that I had never seen before.

However, the function examples are a bit lacking. The authors provide overviews of only the most common functions, and even then they lack good examples for most of them. Also, when they get into the Macro/VBA section, they provide only a brief overview without much detail. Also, one of the authors spends an inordinate amount of time showing how to create Gantt charts; This may or may not be what you want.

Overall, a good book if you are new to Excel, but you'll need more if you use a lot of functions or macros.

I bought this because I had previously found the 'Using Excel 1997' guide very useful--it seemed that 90% of the time I could actually find exactly what I wanted via the index! I used that guide to teach myself new functions (to me) and to enhance my use of others I knew slightly--but was continually amazed that I could find what I wanted in the index--something that usually doesn't happen. When I started using Office/Excel 2000 I wanted to improve my knowledge of some areas--particularly the Pivot Table/Charting enhancements. The 2000 guide has come through again--giving me the additional information I wanted in a useable way. And, the index, once again, works!

One of the very few books that uses examples to illustrate both how and why you'd do a certain task. Also, often goes the extra mile to present very useful examples rather than just bare-bones ones. Fine extras on the CD as well, particularly the facinating electronic book on Excel Charting, which is by far the best reference I've seen on this area.