business

The 2002 version is much more user-friendly with its color pages and helpful organization than the bigger and less-organized 2000 offering. An added bonus for those looking to take the Microsoft Office Specialist Exam is the fact that this edition lists which core and expert objectives are covered when covering a lesson. Also, the interactive practice files make it extremely easy to follow and learn - for anyone.

This book, in conjunction with the one by Barbara Clemens, helped me to not only garner Excel 2002 proficiency, but to become an Excel 2002 Expert. Now that I'm an Expert, I can tell you this book might be too easy for me - but maybe not for you. And that's the real deal.

I found the lessons easy to follow... a bit too easy sometimes. That was to be expected in this type of book. I have a lot of experience with Excel and I only bought the book so that I could prepare for the Excel Expert exam. So, most of the information was known to me, but there were several sections of new information. It filled in my knowledge gaps and I passed the exam. The book did its job.

This book is excellent in many ways but it is also filled with too many errors.
I actually documented the errors and sent a letter to MSPress to notify them. These mistakes are no big deal but if you are truly new to computers or if you just follow along and do not really pay attention as you perform these exercises...you will get the wrong results at times. Most errors do not affect the outcome but in some cases they do. Such as.....page 99, step #14...just skip it. Go from step #13 to #15. If you perform step #14 you will not get the intended results.

I also did not like the authors approach to explain what to click on. He does it in a backwards way like this - To cascade multiple workbooks select Arrange then choose Cascade then click OK under the Window menu option. He should say it like this - To Cascade multiple workbooks click on Window, then Arrange, then choose Cascade and click OK. Typed liked that it is easier to follow but most of the time he doesn't. This gets to be a royal pain!
Overall the book is great if you need to learn Excel 2002 fast and do not want tons of extra info and in depth details about the functions you are learning. He spends a whopping 13 pages on Macros and a measely 10 pages on working with database data. I did not expect heavy coverage and neither should you. Those subjects are worthy of their own books.
I train and teach Office products to clients and I would recommend this book. The practice files are excellent and makemit possible to work with real examples so you actually get to do Real Time exercises and not just read instructions.

Let me add one more thing - The author of Outlook 2002 Step By Step was a better writer and made it easier to follow along and understand. If you need to learn Outlook fast I highly recommend it!!!!!