|
Excel Books
| |
Books that I own and use while developing in Excel
|
|
Goods and Services
| |
Excel or charting related products and services which I use or feel are worthwhile additions
|
|
|
Excel Books
The following is a list of books that I own and use frequently while developing in Excel. These books are not listed in any particular order: they are all good, and I really do use them all. I have not listed any books I do not already own, nor any books that I own but do not find useful. Click on the picture of a book to be redirected to the book's information page at Amazon.com or another distribution site.
There are a lot of Excel books on the market, and it can be difficult to select a good one for your needs. In general, anything by John Walkenbach is a good resource for beginning to advanced users, clearly written with good examples. The books by Stephen Bullen, Rob Bovey, et al., particularly Professional Excel Development, are practical high-end resources for the most hard-core Excel programmers.
|
Many of these volumes have been updated for Excel 2007. In some cases the updates indeed touch on new material, but older books remain at least strongly relevant to the new Excel. While Excel 2007 has a lot of nice new features, there are also some drawbacks to upgrading. The drawbacks include but are not limited to loss of user productivity due to unfamiliarity with the new user interface and due to inefficiencies built into the interface, performance issues with large data sets, particularly when charting such data, and some unexpected behaviors related to charting. I advise my clients not to upgrade until they have thoroughly tested all mission-critical workbooks and projects in the new version, and until they understand the potential problems reported in the community.
|
General Excel Topics
Excel Dashboard Reports
|
One of the most misunderstood terms in business today is "dashboard". When many people hear the phrase "dashboard report", they think of the dashboard of their car, or even the cockpit of an advanced fighter jet, with fuel gauges, speedometers, and other displays crammed into a tight space. These displays are effective in your car, because they tell you what's going on right now. They're effective in a jet, because the pilot has undergone many hours of training in order to interpret these gauges appropriately. These flashy but cluttered displays are horrible in a business report, because they are inefficient at presenting information, they don't show trends, they distract the viewer with colors and glitter, while presenting very little useful information.
Stephen Few of Perceptual Edge has spent a career learning and teaching what techniques effectively display data so that human eyes can readily perceive it as information and human minds readily analyze it as knowledge. The books listed below are very good references for understanding perception and cognition in terms of informational display.
Charley Kyd of ExcelUser has incorporated Few's approaches with his own background in Excel financial analysis to produce a comprehensive guide to using Excel to produce efficient dashboard reports.
|
 
 
|
Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data
Stephen Few is unique in his approaches that integrate physiological and psychological theories of perception and cognition into practical techniques for effective display of information.
|
| |
Dashboard Reporting with Excel Businessman and Excel MVP Charley Kyd explains the benefits of dashboard reporting, and shows how to construct robust dashboard reports with clearly written procedures. A dashboard report is not a set of dial gauges that mimics the cockpit of a 747; rather it is the careful use of a large number of small, well-designed charts to pack a great deal of information into a small area on screen or on a printed page.
|
Pivot Tables and Advanced Data Analysis
 
 
|
Debra Dalgleish
Debra has contributed this web site's section on Pivot Tables, explained on this site how to Create a Dynamic Chart, and written on pivot tables and other technologies on her own Contextures web site.
Beginning Pivot Tables in Excel 2007: From Novice to Professional
Debra Dalgleish introduces Excel 2007 users to Pivot Tables, and covers their capabilities and features in depth. Pivot Tables were enhanced in Excel 2007, so even seasoned Pivot Table users will find this book useful.
Excel PivotTables Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach
Debra Dalgleish follows a problem-solution format that covers the entire breadth of situations you might encounter when working with Pivot Tables, from planning and creating, to formatting and extracting data, to maximizing performance and troubleshooting. The book presents tips and techniques in this collection of recipes that cannot be found in Excel's Help section, and carefully explains the most confusing features of Pivot Tables.
|
 
|
Pivot Table Data Crunching
Bill "Mr. Excel" Jelen and Michael Alexander cover pivot tables, from basic analyses of simple data lists, through complex tables, external data sources, and VBA automation of pivot tables.
|
 
|
Managing Data with Microsoft Excel
Conrad Carlberg optimizes the layout of your worksheet, shows how to manage Excel's internal data, then how to manage external data and databases.
|
 
|
Guide to Microsoft Excel 2002 for Scientists and Engineers. Third Edition
Excel expert and retired chemistry professor Bernard Liengme illustrates numerical analysis, modeling, charting, and statistical techniques with scientific and engineering applications in mind.
|
 
|
Advanced Excel for Scientific Data Analysis
Robert De Levie shows how advanced formulas, VBA procedures, and charting techniques can enhance Excel for use in scientific analysis.
|
Excel and Office Documents and Reporting
| |
Dashboard Reporting with Excel
Businessman and Excel MVP Charley Kyd explains the benefits of dashboard reporting, and shows how to construct robust dashboard reports with clearly written procedures. A dashboard report is not a set of dial gauges that mimics the cockpit of a 747; rather it is the careful use of a large number of small, well-designed charts to pack a great deal of information into a small area on screen or on a printed page.
|
Excel-VBA and Programming Topics
 
| |
Professional Excel Development: The Definitive Guide to Developing Applications Using Microsoft Excel and VBA
Practical hands-on development for advanced to professional level Excel VBA programmers, by Stephen Bullen, Rob Bovey, and John Green. This is the the most comprehensive yet approachable resource I've found for high-powered Excel development.
I was honored to have helped with editing of this outstanding text.
|
 
 
|
Excel 2007 VBA Programmer's Reference
Using VBA in Excel, from beginner to advanced, by John Green, Stephen Bullen, Rob Bovey, and Michael Alexander.
Updated to cover the technologies introduced by Excel 2007.
Excel 2002 VBA Programmer's Reference
Using VBA in Excel, from beginner to advanced, by John Green, Stephen Bullen, Rob Bovey, and Robert Rosenberg.
Note: The 2002 version is much preferred over the newer 2003 version.
|
 
|
Pro Excel 2007 VBA
by Jim DeMarco.
Emphasis on object oriented techniques (classes and user forms) and on working with data.
|
 
|
RibbonX - Customizing the Office 2007 Ribbon
by Robert Martin, Ken Puls, and Teresa Hennig.
|
 
|
VBA Developer's Handbook
Detailed development in VBA (not application specific) by Ken Getz and Mike Gilbert.
|
 
|
Code Complete
Steve McConnell's handbook of best practices for programming, from high-level to nuts and bolts; not language-specific.
|
General Charting and Graphics
 
 
 
|
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Envisioning Information
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative
Edward R. Tufte's writings on the theory, culture, and history of visual information display.
|
|
|
Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data
Stephen Few is unique in his approaches that integrate physiological and psychological theories of perception and cognition into practical techniques for effective display of information.
|
|
|
Waterfall Chart
Box and Whisker
