Escape From Excel Hell: Fixing Problems in Excel 2003, 2002 and 2000 (Mr. Spreadsheet's Bookshelf)
By Loren Abdulezer

• Publisher: Wiley
• Number Of Pages: 408
• Publication Date: 2006-03-21
• ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0471773182
• ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780471773184
• Binding: Paperback

Book Description:

• Written especially for advanced beginners and intermediate users, this book offers quick fixes for anyone bedeviled by faulty formulas, failed formatting, printer purgatory, and other perplexing Excel problems
• Offers three types of fixes: Escape in Under 30 Seconds, Escape in Under Two Minutes, and More Elaborate Escapes-over 400 solutions in all
• Topics covered include formula fixes, formatting fixes, data and layout fixes for Excel charts, PivotTable fixes, managing complexity in very large spreadsheets, fixing broken procedure functions, and more
• Includes preventive measures and best practices that teach users how to avoid problems in the future

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.



Summary: Good But Not The Quantity of "New Idea to Me" Stuff You Would Anticipate
Rating: 3
OK, I don't like the title. Perhaps that is a point of more substance and less triviality than it may seem at first. Perhaps because of that tone, there is not the quantity of useful new ideas (or tips/tricks) that I would anticipate and that other reviewers seem to indicate that they find. To me, the main useful thing about such a book should be guideline principles. For many of the problems you probably don't need this book because you have already easily figured out the fix or the problem the book discusses is something you're not likely to be interested in. By way of principles, however, the book does make an excellent case for named ranges rather than cell absolute references. That's useful.

Conditional formatting based on whether a cell is a formula or not was the one highly useful tip I found. I had just done the most immensely complicated spreadsheet computation ever -- with references to other worksheets and even other workbooks (for good reason) and this rare project I will revisit in the future which, by then, I would forget what numbers I had entered and which are to be computed. I used the book's conditional formatting based on whether cell is a formula. (Subsequently, 3/4 of a year later, I did in fact revisit the project with new data and the conditional-formatting-based-on-cell-is-formula tip was so helpful.)

Is this book worth buying for the admonition to use named ranges and one good tip (conditional formatting by whether cell is formula or not)? Yes, it's worth buying. But is there much more there? For me, no. And that's a bit disappointing. I contrast this with the Visualization books by William S. Cleveland -- which each have a plethora of emminently useful ideas.

Incidentally, I always wished Excel had ye olde DOS Enable Spreadsheet's "MAP mode" that put (blank) or " or + or # in the cell (all cells one character wide with a space of one between) to show that cell was EMPTY (blank) " character + formula or # number -- and, even in Excel, ultimately those are the only four creature types that can inhabit a cell (a "date" for example is really the number creature just specially formatted). Conditional Formatting to whether Excel cell is a formula achieves some of Enable's "MAP MODE". But can Excel just list (text file) all formulas -- not by writing such text in the cells themselves (which it can do, but not useful for anything but trivial formulas) and preface each formula by the cell coordinates that that formula is in? Probably a macro programmer could do such, but Excel Hell doesn't mention this. This desire of mine is not a triviality; in the name of scientific disclosure one should show one's formulas. (That's always been the advantage of e.g. MathCAD over Excel -- MathCAD necessarily shows how you computed everything whereas as you could fudge and do any garbage you wanted in Excel and nobody would know.)

Overall, some good in the book; I'm just disappointed in the quantity of the good items.


Summary: Surpassed my Expectations!
Rating: 5
I consider myself to be an average-skill-level Excel user, and hesitated ordering this book because I was afraid it would be too technical and difficult to understand. But I purchased it anyway, and am so glad I did. I've been getting involved with more and more complicated spreadsheets, and thus needed some help. And Escape from Excel Hell provided just the help I needed.

Loren Abdulezer writes in a clear, easy to understand style, and includes many examples. Excel files containing his examples come on a CD with the book, so you can try out his suggestions and get a good understanding of why his techniques work.

I have learned so much from this book and now have a much better understanding of how to do things the "right" way from the beginning to avoid problems later when I need to modify my files.

This book is a keeper!


Summary: I Don't have time to investigate Excel problems
Rating: 5
I often don't have time to investigate solutions to certain problems I encounter in Excel. I, like most Excel users, end up building elaborate work-arounds that solve my problem ASAP. Well, I picked up this book yesterday and I have already found fixes that would have helped me save hours of work had I known about them.

The author has done all of the leg work for you, giving you the quickest way to solve specific issues. He does a great job providing real world examples of when and why you would use each fix. This is something you don't find in most "tips and tricks" style books. This book skips all of the theory and pomp and helps you get to the meat of your problem. Great Book!


Summary: Just Right
Rating: 5
What a great book! I use Excel in my work, but I'm no expert, and I'm in constant 'Excel Hell'. Last week I had to get out a spreadsheet and the data wouldn't sort correctly (I bet this is familiar territory). When I saw the 'Escape from Exel Hell' book I grabbed it in desperation. Well I found out about the 'trigger happy' tendencies of the program when sorting, and how I can select data to avoid confusion and get results. Everything was laid out so simply, clearly, and with such a practical approach I was able to solve my sort problems in time to submit the darn spreadsheet.

This book got me to the answers quickly, clearly, and eliminated a ton of wasted time. I may even get to eat lunch again!

I really appreciate how clearly this is written and how easy it was to find the answer. It's definitely an 'on the desk' book for quick access. Finally, some real help.



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