spreadsheets

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.

Too often, while going through this book, did I say to myself, "I've tried that", often recalling the mixed results I had. This book and the awesome accompanying CD has empowered me to return to those battles with a concise set of tools, to get the results I was looking for the first time. The section on resolving PDF data was immediately helpful, as were the Pivot Table sections of the book. Excel is my first choice for an analyses tool, both for my business and of my business. The techniques and tools presented in this book have quadrupled my abilities to do both. I've wasted too much time wading through reference books and help screens to achieve the results I've always felt were possible within Excel.

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.