Microsoft Excel 2000 - Illustrated Complete

Rating:
Summary: Although flawed, this book got me "from 0 to 60" quickly
Review: This book teaches you how to use Excel 2000 by having you create and change real examples and progressively shows you the most efficient way to get your tasks done. So that if you are competent with using Windows then this book will progressively take you through a series of exercises that will teach you HOW to use Excel. The exercises really do not take that long for what they teach you but I'm taking off a star because they force you to download them from their web site instead of including a CD. For some of the exercises this might be useful (each section has an optional bonus Web Work exercise) but the core files should be included. The illustrations are excellent throughout the book and they are only provided as necessary so you are not coddled too much and are required to put your new skills into practice. However, the exercises at the end of the sections often call for skills that aren't taught until a few units later, which is a fact that I find especially upsetting during the first few units. For this reason I'm knocking of another star. They also take the hard way to teach you how to start making formulas, BUT the sections on easier data entry (first section, labeled A) and duplicating similar functions (second section, labeled B) teach you important skills to build useful spreadsheets without wasting a bunch of time. The next section basically shows you that you have all the basic text and graphical formatting abilities of Word 2000 built into Excel 2000 and runs you through a few exercises. Of course, they next go into graphics and how to start making all those neat chart that are so easy to understand even your boss can understand the results. It then continues onward into more advanced (actually intermediate and then advanced) subjects.