Product Description
The dominant spreadsheet program and one of the most widely used software applications in the world, Microsoft Excel is unbelievably powerful–and can be downright intimidating. If you’re new to Excel or among the many existing Excel users who are dazed and confused by all that the program can do (and by how little it has actually done for you), “Excel for Starter: The Missing Manual” is your ideal resource.

For everyone who wants to quickly get up to speed on Excel to create, organize, and present household and/or office data and information, this smart new guide delivers just the essentials: it concentrates on the must-have information and the best, most practical Excel features that people like you can use to maximize your productivity and minimize your spreadsheet confusion and frustration.

“Excel for Starters: The Missing Manual” demystifies spreadsheets and explains how to use them most effectively and efficiently. Clear explanations (with lots of examples), step-by-step instructions, helpful illustrations, and timesaving advice guide you through all the most common and useful features of Excel 2002 and 2003–including how to build spreadsheets, add and format information, print reports, create charts and graphics, and use basic formulas and functions.

Sure, there are plenty more thorough, more massive Excel books on the bookstore shelves. But why wade your way through a swamp of details you’ll never need–or want–to use? Let author Matthew MacDonald, an educator and software developer who also wrote the highly popular “Excel: The Missing Manual,” be your trusted guide as you learn which Excel features will serve you best and which are best ignored.

Utterly practical and refreshingly funny, this down-to-earth guide gives you nothing more (and nothing less) than what you need to make Excel do exactly what you want it to do. It’s a quick read you’ll want to keep on hand for reference again and again.

About the Author
Matthew MacDonald is an author, educator, and software developer. He is the author of Excel: The Missing Manual and several books about .NET, including The Book of VB .NET (No Starch), ASP.NET: The Complete Reference (McGraw-Hill), Microsoft .NET Distributed Applications (Microsoft Press), and several more. He is a regular columnist for Inside Visual Basic, and has been involved in non-programming writing projects like the classical All-Music Guide. In a dimly remember past life, he studied English literature and theoretical physics.

Product Description

Even experienced Excel users have never learned how to manage data efficiently, and there are few books that provide this information for people who use Excel to do their jobs. Within Excel, efficient management includes designing the layout of data on the worksheet and knowing which functions to use to take advantage of that layout.

When users need data that’s maintained elsewhere (e.g., a database with G/L information or HR management software) they frequently resort to copying from the source and pasting to an Excel worksheet. There are more effective ways to move data. This book provides advice on using Excel’s data management to get the results readers want. This is the only book that focuses on managing data in Excel. Covers Excel 97 - 2003.

The Business Solution series was created to provide professionals with books that are focused on a specific use or application of a software product. They don’t want general software information, but need specific features and functions related to their particular productivity use. This series is for those who need to go farther with the software to specifically solve complex applications and uses. They want a book that addresses their immediate needs, and is likely to answer any additional questions they might have in the future.

About the Author
Conrad Carlberg is president of Network Control Systems, a firm that develops event and statistical analysis software for the health care industry. He holds a doctorate from the University of Colorado and has authored nine books on Excel, including Que’s Business Analysis with Excel. Carlberg lives near San Diego and would go sailing more frequently if his loved one would just take the man overboard drill again.