The spreadsheet is the software tool that turns everyone into a hacker by making it possible to play with numbers easily.
Excel Hacks, therefore, makes a lot of sense. This small, fact-dense book explains how to get maximum utility from Microsoft's popular calculation application. It shows how to use all the stuff you know is in there but have never bothered to figure out (dynamic cell ranges, PivotTables, macros), and how to carry out particularly hasslesome calculations (notably those involving dates). The coverage is all the more succinct because the authors didn't feel obligated (thankfully) to include the ponderous basics of Excel--the details of formatting and simple calculation that fill up pages and pages of more typical Excel guides.
The Hawleys' treatment of PivotTables is typical of their approach to Excel. The authors explain this powerful statistical analysis feature with a series of four recipes (called `hacks`) that go from straight documentation of the feature (how to create an unadorned PivotTable) to more complicated tricks involving Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as it applies to PivotTables. They provide some background information along the way, but the main focus of the hacks is procedural: Follow along with the text and you'll see your spreadsheets do new tricks. You'll also understand what's going on, so you'll be better able to modify the procedures to suit your own requirements. --David Wall
Topics covered: How to use the most powerful and least-understood features of Microsoft Excel (versions 2000 and later) for Windows and Mac OS. Sections address data lookups, statistical calculations, charting, macros, and general tricks for enhanced efficiency.
User review
If you buy only one Excel book, it needs to be this one!
I've looked at numerous Excel books and scoured the web for Excel tips. This one book has most of the techniques I come back to again and again. The stuff about using formulas to create dynamic named ranges is some of the most valuable Excel trickery ever. Rave rave rave!
User review
A Series of Useful Tips and Tools for Microsoft Excel
`Excel Hacks` is a useful and easy-to-follow book. Excel is used for a wide array of tasks in today's corporate and educational environments. While Excel is used widely, its full range of utility is, based on my own experience, not utilized by a large percentage of Excel users.
This book covers versions of Excel preceding Excel 2007, and Excel 2007 offers an expanded range of formatting tools and options that diminish the need for some of the hacks in the publication. That being said, this book is a worthwhile investment for all Excel users.
For those readers who use VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) with Excel, there are a number of hacks in this book that lend themselves to quick and useful extensions into code.
User review
great supplement
Although there is some overlap between hacks, overall this is a great addition to an excel reference library
User review
Ultimate satisfaction
This actual book is better than advertised! Surpassed my expectations. Used several tips in the first day and left my co-workers speechless! THANKS!!!!
User review
you can put this to good use right away
While this book is not really written to be something you read cover to cover, I did just to fill up my mental tookbox. (If you don't know that you have a hammer in your tool box, you might use a rock instead) This book prompted me to buy other books by the publisher because I was able to use things out of it right away. The hacks are easy to understand and use and before reading this book, I didn't know how many spreadsheet problems I had that were screaming for a solution.
