Introduction
In the beginning there was the idea....The proposal to write about every single Microsoft Excel function with interesting and comprehensible examples came from Helmut Reinkeand everyone on the team agreed. Yes, this is what Excel users needa comprehensive reference book with all of the functions. That was eight years ago, and the enthusiasm hasnt diminished.
At the beginning of this year, the idea to translate our reference book into English arose. And what could we say? There they were again: the same enthusiasm as in 2007, and along with it the tremendous task of translation. But we have persevered, and now we are really proud and happy to present to you the first edition of our function book in English. Since we wrote the German edition, a couple of small Excel revolutions took place: A few years ago, Excel 2007 was launched with many new properties and possibilities. For a year and a half now, we also have had Excel 2010 at our disposal, which includes even more new possibilities. We will address them partially in this book.
We hope that you, dear reader, will welcome this concept, and that this reference work will give you many ideas and support you when needed.
Who This Book Is For
Functions are the most powerful tools in Excel. Our goal is to give readers an understanding of every single function with the aid of plausible examples so that everyone can be capable of realizing the inexhaustible possibilities.
So this book is aimed at everyone who is interested in working with Excelwhether you are a beginner or a power user and whether you are using Excel privately or for business. We want to make readers with little experience familiar with the functions so that they will find meaningful scenarios for using them. But we also want to address the reader who is more familiar with Excel, and so we provide several scenarios to help that reader move to the next level of knowledge.
Do you want to calculate the probability of winning the lottery? Do you have to provide a meaningful report of your companys annual sales? No problem. Lets get started.
Assumptions About You
We make a basic assumption that you are generally experienced in working with Microsoft Office and know a few Excel basics. We do not spend time explaining the user interface of Excel and the buttons on the ribbon.
If you are an experienced Excel user, you can just skim over . If you are not so experienced, we hope to give you an idea of the general possibilities offered by Excel. We hope that the many pages you have in front of you will be helpful to you. Use them to your advantage, and if you like the book, please dont keep your opinion to yourself. Write to us and let us know what you like about it, and especially what we should improve.
We promise that we will be here for you if you have questions or are running into problems. You can write to us at: .
How This Book Is Organized
All the functions have been tested in Microsoft Office Excel 2000 through Excel 2010. With the exception of characteristics specific to Excel 2007 and Excel 2010, most descriptions can even be used with Excel 97. Where necessary, we added comments regarding the particularities of the different versions.
The book is divided into four sections.
Introducing Formulas and Functions in Excel
The first section contains . They describe working with Excel, provide a general introduction to using Excel 2010, and give you a first look at formulas and functions. For beginners and experts alike, we have outlined the use of formulas and table functions with all the important notes, instructions, tips, and tricks.
Because we consider the Excel 2010 PowerPivot add-in quite extraordinary, we have introduced it briefly in this section. It has relatively little to do with spreadsheet functions, but we still wanted to acquaint you with it.
Creating Your Own Solutions in Excel
, show that you can do a lot more with most functions than just use them in a worksheet. You can create and program your own functions.
provides examples for using special functions in names and conditional formatting, as well as for validity and data checks. We hope you will find many ideas and clues for your own Excel solutions here.
introduces you to programming in Excel. You can create any custom functions in Excel and then use them just like the built-in functions.
Functions
provide the descriptions of the main Excel functions:
Appendices
This book includes three appendices: explains what is new in Excel 2007 and Excel 2010.
And now we wish you lots of success for your work with Microsoft Excel!
Features and Conventions Used in This Book
This book uses special text and design conventions to make it easier for you to find the information you need.
Text Conventions
Convention | Meaning |
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Abbreviated commands for navigating the ribbon | For your convenience, this book uses abbreviated commands. For example, Click Home, Insert, Insert Cells means that you should click the Home tab on the ribbon, then click the Insert button, and finally click the Insert Cells command. |
Boldface type | Boldface indicates text that you type. |
Initial Capital Letters | The first letters of the names of tabs, dialog boxes, dialog box elements, and commands are capitalized. Example: the Save As dialog box. |
Italicized type | Italicized type indicates new terms. |
Plus sign (+) in text | Keyboard shortcuts are indicated by a plus sign (+) separating key names. For example, Ctrl+Alt+Delete means that you press the Ctrl, Alt, and Delete keys at the same time. |
Design Conventions
Inside Out: An example of an Inside Out heading
These are the books signature tips. In these tips, you get the straight scoop on whats going on with the softwareinside information about why a feature works the way it does. Youll also find handy workarounds to deal with software problems.
Sidebar
Sidebars provide helpful hints, timesaving tricks, or alternative procedures related to the task being discussed.
See Also
Cross-references point you to locations in the book that offer additional information about the topic being discussed.
Caution
Cautions identify potential problems that you should look out for when youre completing a task or that you must address before you can complete a task.
Note
Notes offer additional information related to the task being discussed.
Certain parts of the text are specially marked to draw your attention to important comments. We have used the following categories:
Category | Meaning |
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Note | Additional information about this topic thats worth knowing |
Important | Makes you aware of facts you must know and keep in mind |