Imagine this situation: although you have already used Excel pivot tables many times, there are so many features, you don’t remember which ones apply to your case. This book comes to the rescue in this kind of situation. As its title suggests, it is a recipes book; indeed, it can be used just like a kitchen cookbook. Its pages are loaded with examples that cover a great number of circumstances. The examples are drawn from a wide range of professional settings, ranging from sales departments to biology labs to insurance companies. As for pivot table features, they are arranged along the entire application life cycle, from planning to implementation to execution.

The book is composed of 11 very direct and accurate chapters that bite directly into their respective topics without fussing around: planning and creating a pivot table; sorting and filtering data; performing calculations both through built-in functions and custom ones; aggregating data from different outside sources; formatting and filtering data; updating pivot tables both periodically and upon triggering events; understanding pivot table limits, security, and performance; printing data and producing charts; and programming pivot tables with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), the programming language for all Microsoft Office applications. This last chapter is particularly useful, as it plainly introduces programming to the ordinary user.

Each chapter consists of real-life problems, with a presented solution. The solutions are in the form of step-by-step procedures that can easily be followed with Excel 2007 and the source code available on the publisher’s Web site (http://apress.com/book/downloadfile/3780); on the other hand, these problems and their solutions are harder to follow without immediate access to a personal computer (PC) and an Excel version other than Excel 2007.

No references are included, neither in print nor in electronic form; yet, in this particular case, this causes no great nuisance. In fact, as the book resembles a cookbook, if you have a problem, all you need to do is look up the appropriate section, and you will certainly find something that will suit your immediate needs. On the other hand, like a real cookbook, it can be used at its best only if you have some previous cooking experience. This book will only help readers who have experience with pivot tables or, at least, Excel. In other words, the perfect role for this book is as a companion book to other books on Excel, and it will be most appreciated by people who already have a working knowledge of it.