Training myself, opinions please.

[Jdegid]

I have been asked by the owner of the company I work for to learn Excel. I know the basics, per the outlines I have seen for online courses. What I am looking to do is teach myself. I have done this before for my MCITP.

I would like some input on whether or not to train myself on 2007 or 2003 Excel. We currently have 2003 installed throughout the business but I can upgrade if necessary.


1. I am looking for opinions on the best Books or training CD's / DVD's available.
2. The best Online school.

Thanks for any input.

John

 

[Domski]

Hi,

1. For the most part I use the Excel 2003 Bible by John Walkenback (others available for other versions of Excel) although I gather from this site that the Mr Excel series are also excellent.

2. The best way to learn is by practising solving problems and the best place I've found to assist with that or to look for existing solutions would be right here.

Dom

 

[Ted Roesch]

I too am teaching myself.

Amazon has 2 books w/CD's when purchased new, both have extensive examples and useable "add-in's", the author is Loren Abdulezer. The books are:

`Escape From Excell Hell'
`Excel Best Practices For Business'

I would suggest utilizing them in order, but I'm jumping around with what pops out at me.

- Good Luck

 

[SydneyGeek]

I would like some input on whether or not to train myself on 2007 or 2003 Excel. We currently have 2003 installed throughout the business but I can upgrade if necessary

For teh moment, stay on 2003. For most features of Excel it doesn't matter which version you learn on. Functions are mostly the same (a couple of new ones in 2007), navigation and creating formulas haven't changed since at least 97. What HAS changed is charts and pivot tables. In 2007 they are very different from what has gone before. Some changes are for the better (eg, the formatting options and the chart gallery), some have gone backwards (when 2007 first came out, people complained that it couldn't handle as many data points as the earlier versions. I don't know whether or not that has been fixed).
Oh yeah, you are moving from toolbars / menus to the Ribbon. At first it's a pain but once you are used to it, everything makes sense and I am starting to prefer it now.

For training, it depends what you are after. The recommendations above are good. If you have specialised needs (eg, more finance-based or maybe with an educational slant), look at some of the sector-based MrExcel books.

Denis

 

[Ted Roesch]

Thanks SydneyGeek,

I recently posted another "Dumb question" regarding formula syntax. Mainly the meaning of keystrokes: ! , -- , and such.

I've been through the entire Forum Postings over last month, but nothing popped-out in the posted websites referenced.

I hate to buy any more books (luckily, I found "meaty ones" already over my head). I've had `Basic 1, 2, & 3' classes, which were "Suggested by management" although my CAd Drafting doesn't really require knowledge of Excel. It has just turned into a "private mission".

However, the above keystrokes weren't discussed in the training materials, or noted in my book. Any ideas would be appreciated.

-Thanks In Advance, Ted Roesch

 

[SydneyGeek]

For those 2 keystroke combinations:

! is the separator between a sheet name and a range. You use it when referring to cell(s) on another sheet, like: Sheet1!A3. If the sheet name has spaces you will also see apostrophes: 'Some Sheet or Other'!A3

EDIT: If you are doing mathematical stuff, ! is also factorial notation. So, 10! is 10*9*8*7*6*54*3*2*1

-- is often used to convert a number, formatted as text, back to a number. If you multiply something by -1 twice, you get back the original value, but a TEXT item 1234 will now be the NUMBER 1234.

Hope that helps
Denis

 

[Domski]

-- is often used to convert a number, formatted as text, back to a number. If you multiply something by -1 twice, you get back the original value, but a TEXT item 1234 will now be the NUMBER 1234

Another common use for -- is to coerce the results of a logical test from a boolean result, e.g. TRUE or FALSE, to Excel's numerical equivalent (1 or 0). You will often see this used in SUMPRODUCT formula.

Dom

 

[Ted Roesch]

Thank You all,

This site is amazing! (What's the difference between this site & `Excel Frustration' both are identical in web format (both discovered the same day) yet, only the Forum topics are different?

Many thanks again to all of you.

 

[Domski]

Always a pleasure, never a chore.

I have to admit I'd never heard of 'Excel Frustration' until you mentioned it although I do tend to use this place almost exclusively. You'll find quite a few forum's use the same bulletin board software so will have a similar appearance.

Take it easy,

Dom