About the Companion CD-ROM

The inside back cover of this book contains a CD-ROM that holds many useful examples that I discuss in the text. When I write about computer- related material, I emphasize learning by example. I know that I learn more from a well-thought-out example than from reading a dozen pages in a book. I assume that this is true for many other people. Consequently, I spent more time developing the examples on the CD-ROM than I did writing chapters.

The files on the companion CD-ROM are not compressed, so you can access them directly from the CD.

CROSS-REFERENCE

Refer to Appendix D for a description of each file on the CD-ROM.

About the Power Utility Pak Offer

Toward the back of the book, you'll find a coupon that you can redeem for a discounted copy of my popular Power Utility Pak software. PUP is an award-winning collection of useful Excel utilities and many new worksheet functions. I developed this package exclusively with VBA.

I think you'll find this product useful in your day-to-day work with Excel. You can also purchase the complete VBA source code for a nominal fee. Studying the code is an excellent way to pick up some useful programming techniques.

You can take Power Utility Pak for a test drive by installing the 30-day trial version available at my Web site:

http://www.j-walk.com/ss

How to Use This Book

You can use this book any way that you please . If you choose to read it from cover to cover, be my guest. But because I'm dealing with intermediate-to-advanced subject matter, the chapter order is often immaterial. I suspect that most readers will skip around, picking up useful tidbits here and there. If you're faced with a challenging task, you might try the index first to see whether the book specifically addresses your problem.

Reach Out

The publisher and I want your feedback. After you've had a chance to use this book, please take a moment to visit the Wiley Publishing Web site to give us your comments. (Go to http://www. wiley .com and then click the Contact Us link.) Please be honest in your evaluation. If you thought a particular chapter didn't tell you enough, let us know. Of course, I would prefer to receive comments like, "This is the best book I've ever read," or "Thanks to this book, I was promoted and now make $112,000 a year."

I get at least a half dozen questions every day, via e-mail, from people who have read my books. I appreciate the feedback. Unfortunately, I simply don't have the time to reply to questions. Appendix A provides a good list of sources that can answer your questions.

I also invite you to visit my Web site, which contains lots of Excel- related material. Despite the massive attempts to make this book completely accurate, a few errors have probably crept into its pages. My Web site includes a list of any such errors. The URL is

http://www.j-walk.com/ss/w

Part I: Some Essential Background

Chapter List

Chapter 1: Excel 2007-Where It Came From
Chapter 2: Excel in a Nutshell
Chapter 3: Formula Tricks and Techniques
Chapter 4: Understanding Excel's Files

Chapter 1: Excel 2007-Where It Came From

Overview

In This Chapter

To fully appreciate the application development features available in Excel 2007, it's important to understand where this product came from and how it fits into the overall scheme of things.

A history of spreadsheets - where they came from, who makes them, and what differentiates them
A discussion of Excel's evolution
An analysis of why Excel is a good tool for developers

If you've worked with personal computers and spreadsheets over the past decade , this information may be old hat. If you're a trivia buff, this chapter is a gold mine. Study this information, and you'll be a hit at the next computer geek party that you attend .