Contents
Part I: Getting Started with Excel
Part II: Working with Formulas and Functions
Part III: Creating Charts and Graphics
Part IV: Using Advanced Excel Features
Part V: Analyzing Data with Excel
Part VI: Programming Excel with VBA
Part VII: Appendixes
Identifying What Excel Is Good For
Excel, as you probably know, is the world’s most widely used spreadsheet software and part of the Microsoft Office suite. Other spreadsheet software is available, but Excel is by far the most popular and has been the world standard for many years . Much of the appeal of Excel is due to the fact that it’s so versatile. Excel’s forte, of course, is performing numerical calculations, but Excel is also very useful for non-numeric applications . Here are just a few of the uses for Excel :
Number crunching: Create budgets, tabulate expenses, analyze survey results, and perform just about any type of financial analysis you can think of .
Creating charts: Create a wide variety of highly customizable charts .
Organizing lists: Use the row-and-column layout to store lists efficiently .
Text manipulation: Clean up and standardize text-based data .
Accessing other data: Import data from a wide variety of sources.
Creating graphical dashboards: Summarize a large amount of business information in a concise format .
Creating graphics and diagrams: Use Shapes and SmartArt to create professional looking diagrams .