Don't Fear the Spreadsheet: A Beginner's Guide to Overcoming Excel's Frustrations

by Tyler Nash, Tyler Nash

Written in a question-and-answer format, this lowest-level beginner book covers the extreme basics of using spreadsheets in Excel. Instead of delving into advanced topics that scare most Excel novices away, the guide starts at a much more basic level, quickly providing a passable knowledge of the program and allowing users to overcome their fears and frustrations. It answers hundreds of common questions, including Can I delete data from a spreadsheet without changing the formatting? How can I merge two cells, columns, or rows? How do I use text-wrapping? How do I create custom functions? and What is a Macro and how do I go about creating it? Intended for the roughly 40 percent of Excel users who have never even entered a formula, this book will demystify the problems and confusion that prevent them from using the program to its potential.

210 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Elaine Bindler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been trying to figure out how to do something in Excel for some time. After looking through this book for maybe an hour, I found the best way to go about doing it.
...Time saver and well detailed with steps, I loved this book.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was just what I was looking for. I didn't want to step through every Excel task. I'm between a novice and an advanced Excel user and I liked the way the authors posed a real-world question I would have that would drive me to use a specific task. For example, I need to look up a specific value in my spreadsheet, how do I do that. The section then went on to explain the VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP features with screen shots, commands, and before and after pics. It was like an FAQ section in book form.

I wouldn't recommend this to a beginner at Excel.

[Laura]

Only took a cursory glance thorough but it looks like a good overview of basics and enough to get you to intermediate functionality. The exercises look pretty doable for getting you to proficiency in a hands on way. Now to make myself actually do them...

Not rating since I haven't spent enough time with this book. Returning to the library but I want to get this again sometime.