Purnachandra Duggirala is well known in the advanced Excel community, especially through his website chandoo.org, so it is of interest that he is the coauthor of this title. While a user level is not explicitly stated on the cover, it seems to be directed at mid-level technicians who need to create informative data visualizations for management and organization staff from Excel spreadsheet data.

The book has five main divisions. Part 1 is an introduction to dashboards and also to the general subject of data visualization. On these topics, it is very introductory and lacks depth; however, in the second half of the section, there is a useful introduction to the Microsoft Excel data presentation libraries. Part 2 introduces design tools and various concepts that may be utilized in their implementations. A major focus is on Visual Basic and “thinking outside the cell,” a catchy phrase that I rather like.

Part 3 might be considered the “meat” of the book, as it is entitled “Formulas, Controls, and Charts,” and contains a great deal of practical material that is suitable for replication and insertion into working spreadsheets by the reader. Many will find this the main reason to purchase and read this title. Part 4, “From User Interface to Presentation,” may be of less utility. The final section on “Data Models, PowerPivot, and Power Query” returns to topics of practical use for advanced business users, although one should be cautioned that the latter are Microsoft proprietary products which add cost, bloat, and complexity to systems and may not be suitable for all environments.

There are well-regarded competing titles [1,2,3], which are worth perusal. This book’s index is detailed. However, small defects include numerous typographical errors and grammatical mistakes, which one hopes will be corrected in a subsequent edition. As color is important in data visualizations, it is a shame that in a $59.99 book, a small series of color prints, as well as some discussion of the use of color in dashboards, was not included (“color” is not even in the index). Finally, it is a shame that the authors chose not to address any open-source systems that might complement, or perhaps even substitute for, Microsoft products. In spite of these shortcomings, this is a very useful, detailed, and informative book that will be of great use to the intended audience.

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