Copyright

Analyzing Business Data with Excel

by Gerald Knight

Copyright 2006 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

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Preface

Excel is everywhere, one of the most widely used desktop applications ever created. Over the years its power and versatility have grown, and so has its complexity. Today, most Excel users do not know all the things that it can do. There are plenty of good books that explain functions and features, but making Excel solve problems is not just a matter of learning new workbook functions or mastering Visual Basic. The real challenge is to understand what Excel's many features can accomplish, and especially how you can combine them to make your job easier.

Most of the chapters in this book start with a business problem or question, and then show how Excel can be used in that situation. Several of the chapters include complete applications that you can use and modify as you like. Each solution basically shows the reader how I would handle the problem. In nearly every case, Excel offers many ways to do things so the solutions presented are not the only option. You could produce solutions that do the same thing as the ones in this book using a different approach. This is not a manual and it doesn't include every workbook function. The object is to show the reader what can be done and to explain at least one way to do it.

Who Should Read This Book

This book is written for experienced Excel users. It doesn't spend much time on basics and assumes the reader already knows how Excel works. If you are starting from scratch or need a comprehensive manual, you might consider Excel: The Missing Manual , also from O'Reilly.

If you are already comfortable with Excel and would like to see how some of the more advanced features are used, this is the book for you.