Excel, the best-known spreadsheet application, is vital software for anyone who needs to analyze data, make spreadsheets, produce reports with data, or make graphs. The good news about Excel is that it is relatively easy to use for simple applications; users can effectively use it for simple analysis without knowing or appreciating the advanced features.

The difficulty for a text explaining Excel arises because Excel is very powerful, with many advanced capabilities and options. These capabilities range from the simple and most-used to the less-used but very powerful advanced features and options. This range of features and options makes it difficult to write a single text that teaches the basics to novices and the advanced topics to power users.

This book covers the latest version of Excel, Excel 2010. It does a reasonable job of dealing with the two audiences (novice and expert), but I would have liked it better if the book were divided into three parts, with the first part focusing on the novice, the second part offering some very useful features for occasional users, and the third part covering advanced features.

I liked the use of screen shots of items such as menus and drop-down lists in connection with every explanation, but I found the screen shots to be too small, and often unclear. (Of course, I could have read the book and displayed the corresponding Excel menu on my computer screen, but I was reading offline.) I liked the annotations on some of the screen shots, such as an arrow pointing to a button, with an explanation.

In early explanations, the author follows a good practice of providing short notes indicating that there will be more discussion of a feature in a later chapter. In general, the author moves from simple topics to advanced topics, but not always.

The first chapter, for example, mixes beginning, intermediate, and advanced topics with reference materials. This chapter, “Quick Start Guide,” mixes entry-level explanation (four pages) with intermediate and advanced topics-- accessing buttons from the keyboard and customizing the quick access toolbar. Katz also provides an annotated list of topics to be covered in subsequent chapters. The chapter ends with Excel keyboard equivalents (essentially a reference for intermediate and advanced users).

Overall, I liked the book and its approach. I think that it would work better, however, for someone who already has some experience with Excel, rather than for a complete novice.