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Excel Best Practices for Business: Covers Excel 2003, 2002, and 2000

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In one year I bought (in succesive order):

1. John Walkenbach - Excel 2000 Power Programming with VBA
2. Michael Kofler - Definitive Guide to Excel VBA
3. Loren Abdulezer - Excel Best Practice for Business

The first two books are way use a lot of VBA code examples. Loren's Excel Best Practice for Business is a refreshing surprise. Written in simple, easy to understand english in fluent lines that read away as though is was a novel! Once started , I couldn't stop reading untill I finished the whole book.

Its details are simple, but most effective. The outlined ideas give you a headstart when creating and maintaining Excel files.

For example, Loren demostrates clearly what pitfalls to escape from when you design any Excel file. It is good that Loren reminds the reader of some old Roman advise ("Divide and Conquer") when recommending to SEPARATE the date into 3 layers: 1) original date, 2) analysis layer and 3) presentation layer) to CONQUER in your work of creating and maintaing Excel files.

It is funny how, if you look at your own personal or labour Excel files, many times this simple device is still broken.

Another example deals with the advantages of the R1C1 workbookstyle compared to the traditional A1 style. It sounds so simple, but yet, in Walkenbach and Kofler you will not find these kind of tips.

Finally the book has great examples on the CD. Examples on how to use conditional formatting to colour and present your data.

In a nutshell, I can advise anyone to buy this book, whether he or she considers him or herself novice or expert Excel user.

Spreadsheets are one of the hidden backbones of strategic business analysis. In a sea of data, many corporate professionals are left to figure out on their own how to leverage the spreadsheet tools which are so crtical to success and sometimes even survival.

'Excel Best Practices for Business' goes further, than any book I have found, to turning this challenge into the opportunity that Excel always promised and can now deliver on.

The book is real, hands-on and gets the reader to productive answers -directly and efficiently. Answers, sometimes to questions you didn't know to ask. Concrete answers that help meet business deadlines and achieve tangible success.

Layout, organization and clarity of language all went a long way to making this book's tools accessable and consumable by a businessman who no one would confuse with a technical expert.

As I have used this book, I have discovered a partner in Mr Abdulezer, and his book, to help me in business and to support customers and clients in gaining strategic insights that they need to succeed.

As a user of Excel 2003, with all of its additional capabilities, I am especially appreciative of a resource that can help me leverage the potential for this new program and its expanded range of applications. Specifically, I found a whole new side to Excel as I discovered insights about Spreadsheet Portals, XML and Web services.

Bottom Line: This book is a powerful tool for productivity -- as important as Excel itself. Anyone using Excel should consider this book a fundamental part of their Microsoft investment - both in terms of time and money. Why buy only half the solution? This book has allowed me to fill in the missing insights I needed so badly.

Well done and thank you for this gift to my business.

I'm a very lucky guy because I was paid to read Excel Best Practices for Business. I teach introductory Excel courses as well as more advanced Excel applications. As a result, I have reviewed many guides on how to use spreadsheets dating all the way back to VisiCalc, MultiPlan, and Lotus 1-2-3. For these and other reasons, I was offered and accepted the opportunity to be the Technical Editor on this book.

Aside from having all the latest and greatest spreadsheet technology (like spreadsheet portals, XML, and web services), the author writes about really practical techniques. Even if you think that you know all that there is to know about spreadsheets, you will still learn more from this book. Where else can you learn, for instance, how to evolve a strategy for Absolute vs. Relative vs. Hybrid cell referencing in Excel? While this may seem mundane to some, having the best strategy for your particular situation can make a serious difference in long-term productivity and the resulting value of the spreadsheet.

Just as there are best practices for construction in the home building industry, there are best practices for spreadsheet construction that can make a long-term difference in customer or client satisfaction. In addition to providing a better understanding of simple spreadsheets, you will learn how to create blueprints for large or complex spreadsheets.

The author's excellent formal training in applied mathematics is readily apparent in the sections on manipulating, compiling, managing, viewing, and presenting data. You will learn about how to create and use smart data and how to analyze data without getting stuck in the MUD (messed-up-data). How you ever managed before learning the fine art of data slogging will become a mystery to you.

There are whole chapters devoted to special topics and themes. Some of these include using spreadsheet portals with XML, spreadsheet auditing, spreadsheet makeovers, developing spreadsheets to accommodate special needs of individuals with disabilities, and learning how to manage mountains of data. By now it should be clear that this is not your ordinary spreadsheet book written just for the computer phobic or mathematically challenged. It's well worth reading by anyone with an interest in using best practices for spreadsheets even if you've only had eight hours of previous Excel training.

The CD-ROM alone is worth the price of the book because it's not just files that serve as input for exercises in a computer lab. The CD-ROM contains a selection of components and spreadsheets that can be quickly and easily modified to meet various predictable business needs, including making spreadsheets accessible to the motor impaired, hearing impaired and visually impaired using the latest assistive technologies.

I have been looking for a book on Excel with both substance and heart. It's got tons of clearly stated tips that I haven't seen anywhere else. Also, I've been looking for a book that can finally explain how to make Excel accessible to blind users since I have many goverment clients who have to comply with section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities act. The use of Spreadsheet Portals in general (and in specific with screen readers for blind users) is going to make my life a lot easier.

I highly recommend this gem of a book!