Customer Reviews

This Isn't Excel, It's Magic!: Tips and Tricks for Getting the Most Out of Microsoft Excel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Bob Umlas is a regular and valued contributor to numerous Excel user groups and mailing lists. Whilst I have never met him personally he has always been generous with his time and knowledge, and infinite with his patience. He is also one of the smartest guys you will meet and understands Excel and spreadsheets inside out.

This is only a little book (142 pages), but that certainly is not a criticism. Rather than filling many pages with fluff, Bob has produced a compact, but brilliantly useful book of shortcuts, formula secrets and tricks.

Amazingly there is no Visual Basic (macro) coding in this book. It is all done using Excel's built in features and formulae capabilities.

One thing I loved about this book is it tackles `real world' problems. Bob clearly understands the frustrating types of issues that the average excel user has to tackle on a day to day basis. The sort of annoying and time consuming problems the IT training department gloss over at the corporate Excel training classes.

Some of the tips are simple one liners - but that doesn't make them any less useful. Indeed I was constantly surprised at how often I was going "oh that is sooo cool" or "Hey, I didn't know you could do that!" and I have been designing and developing custom built spreadsheets for large corporations for over 15 years.

Is this book for you? Well that depends. This is not a book for Excel beginners or if you want to learn to write macros in Visual Basic. If you are the type of person who likes to have big chunky books on the shelf to look important and impress people, then this brilliant, pithy and simple book is also not for you.

However, if you use Excel professionally or fun then you absolutely should consider grabbing a copy of this highly useful and informative book. It will save you many hours of work and delight you at the same time. - Excellent stuff

Highly Recommended.

Bob Umlas is an amazing guy. He has been an Excel MVP since the program began. He has a reputation among the MVPs as being the guy who can find amazing things in Excel.

This book contains 85 tips about Excel. I was amazed as I went through the book that I had never heard of at least 50 of these tips! They are cool things that you can do with Excel. Even if you are the Excel guru in your office, you will find new tips in this book. At 142 pages, it is packed with cool stuff.

This isn't Excel, It's Magic! is a fantastic book. I thought I knew a lot about Excel; but I now realize how little I did know. It is hard to pick a favorite because there are so many great head spinning, jaw dropping tips & tricks.

The book is well written with easy to follow examples. It makes unlocking the power of Excel an amazing experience. 85 great topics ranging from using advance filters to using vba bookmarks. A must have for beginning and expert users everywhere.

Thanks for a great time saving book, Mr. Umlas. You are a true magician!!

This book is full of quick hints that can save you time and frustration when working with Microsoft Excel. Many functions were identified that I never knew existed. This book is definitely worth the price. Enjoy!!!

I love it! The compact size and concise format make it easy to use. I can carry it with me so it's always available for me to reference. I use it when I teach Excel classes because it's sure to elicit many OOH's and AAH's.

What a handy little book chuck full of hints, tips and techniques by Bob Umlas. Bob Umlas is a Microsoft MVP and has held that honor since 1995 for his dedication to various online groups

The book is organized into 6 categorizing chapters: Features, Formulas, Keyboard Shortcuts, Printing, Miscellaneous, and VBA. It contains 142 pages with 84 tricks, tips and manipulative techniques, some of which are quite useful.

Some of the techniques covered are ones that you probably learned at some point but have forgotten. Others will be old tricks applied differently that will give you a new perspective. Plus there are many advanced features that are explained to stretch your skills. What impresses me the most is the practicality of what is presented in the book. The majority of the techniques are useful hints that can be put into practice rather easily.

Despite its small size this book is packed with tips and tricks to efficiently exploit Excel's capabilities. My productivity when using Excel has rocketed. Thank you, Bob Umlas!

This is a handy little reference for a variety of time-saving tips and tricks. You'll definitely be able to economize your daily activities if you keep this book near you when building your reports and analyses. Don't be surprised if you dog-ear quite a few pages.

JR