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As an Excel programmer, I needed a "base-text" for setting up VBA. I gave it a 5 star because it has the main material I need to setup the next step to make Excel do the max. This is an intro Excel text that covers many areas essential to my work. I noticed the rather weak reviews of this text an I am surprised. I wonder if they really read the book! For VBA work, I use MS Excel 2002 Power Programming with VBA by John Walkenbach. The combination of these two books makes working in Excel very easy.

Contrary to the other two reviews that existed when I wrote this, I found this book to be just what I needed. I have years of experience with every version of Excel, but only at a modest level. Because I do my work in SQL Server, I never needed any of the more obscure (to me) Excel features, until now. This book answered several of the how-to questions I had with its examples.

I have to agree with the reviewer who wanted more depth. While this book has met my immediate needs, it is clear that it is going to leave me wanting more, very soon. I will certainly have to buy a more advanced book, but I would not have been happy with a very advanced book before I used this one.

My advice is to take a look at the sample pages on Amazon and only buy the book if it addresses your specific issues.

The book is a rehash of the authors' 1999 publication "Running Microsoft Excel 2000." Both books have the same problem, i.e. a lack of comprehensive examples. Of the two, this book is only slightly better. Some of the examples appear to be extracted from the Help file rather than providing additional needed information.

Also, for someone learning or attempting to advance in Excel, neither of these books follow the [helpful] format of the rudimentary "Step by Step Microsoft" books that include, in the margins, pictures of the buttons. These give the relative novice potentially quick aid in navigating the system.