Are you a visual learner? Do you prefer instructions that show you how to do something - and skip the long-winded explanations? If so, then this book is for you. Open it up and you'll find clear, step-by-step screen shots that show you how to tackle more than 150 Excel 2007 tasks. Each task-based spread includes easy, visual directions for performing necessary operations, including:
* Using the Ribbon and galleries
* Entering data and resizing columns
* Applying formulas and functions
* Formatting worksheets
* Adding clip art and 3D effects
* Interpreting data with charts
* Helpful sidebars offer practical tips and tricks
* Succinct explanations walk you through step by step
* Full-color screen shots demonstrate each task
* Two-page lessons break big topics into bite-sized modules
Customer Reviews & Comments
One of the newest and brightest features of Microsoft 2007 which includes Excel 2007, is the addition of The Ribbon, which replaces toolbars and menus in previous editions. This is quite complex and not very user friendly, but when you learn it, it can be great! If you struggled with old menu bars, you will definitely struggle with the New Ribbon.
The series of Visual Books has been quite popular, mainly because anything as dry as instructional material is greatly enhanced by pictures. The colorful graphics that define the category of work you want are bright, amusing, informative and large. An example is for the section: protect a password shows a big yellow book with a key lock; or change data color shows paint cans and one color spills onto a worksheet. The computer illiterate can "get the picture" even if you don't know what the book refers to.
However, my grief comes with too many big pictures and not enough pictures of the screen. A most important element is viewing the screen, but each pic of the computer screen is way too small. But you do have explicit instructions in the sidebars.
My question remains, why couldn't the writer incorporate larger-size views of the computer screen. This is so needed, because of the elaborate menu bar...or ribbon as it is called in Excel 2007.
Other than that, one point is the Database section has been advanced from the 2003. This element of the software eliminates the need for ACCESS 2007, which is much more advanced. So, if you don't want to explore the challenging ACCESS, you can simply use the Database function on Excel. This works great for smaller projects.
Overall, this is one of the best books for learning excel. Graphic and text are well spread out, it is user friendly, colorful and includes a ton of help.......Rizzo
