A Reference Guide to the Best Excel 2007 Textbooks

Written by: John Garger • Edited by: Michele McDonough
Updated Dec 27, 2010 • Related Guides: Microsoft | Excel | Spreadsheet

Having a good Excel 2007 textbook around to serve as a reference can be convenient and a real time saver. Learn about the best Excel 2007 textbooks that you can use as a reference when you need help with your spreadsheet.

Learning Excel 2007 can be difficult to those new to Excel and spreadsheets in general. However, even experienced users can benefit from having a good Excel 2007 textbook on their shelf to use as an occasional reference. This article discusses the best Excel 2007 textbooks that can be used a reference when working with both simple and complex tasks in a spreadsheet.

#1 – Microsoft Office Excel 2007: Complete Concepts and Techniques by Shelly Cashman

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First on our list is Shelly Cashman’s Microsoft Excel 2007: Complete Concepts and Techniques. What makes this book such as an excellent reference is the way the author walks you through the topic without any assumption about your current knowledge of Excel. This is invaluable when you need to know how to do something quickly and don’t want to get bogged down with the theory of why you are doing it. Particularly good is the author’s casual tone that gets down to business with what you need to do in Excel. Rarely are these two elements part of the same publication.

#2 – New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Comprehensive by June Jamrich Parsons, Dan Oja, Roy Ageloff, and Patrick Carey

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June Jamrich Parsons et al.’s New Perspectives on Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Comprehensive is a reference book aimed at the learner who needs to be walked through every step of the process. This alone makes it an excellent reference book when you need to know something about Excel 2007 fast.

This textbook is organized into three levels that walk the reader through the exercises making no assumptions about the reader’s Excel 2007 proficiency. With this reference book, start with the table of contents to find what you need. The book covers so many topics that it would be almost impossible not to find what you are looking for.

#3 – Microsoft Office Excel 2007: Illustrated Introductory by Elizabeth Eisner Reding

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Third on our list is a reference aimed at those new or still fairly new to Excel 2007. Microsoft Office Excel 2007: Illustrated Introductory is a visual reference that walks the user through the most important topics much like a web tutorial might. The full-color pictures and screenshots are a welcomed addition to any reference book for those who need to see what is being done rather than just reading about it. If you are a visual learner, this is the Excel 2007 reference textbook for you.

#4 – Excel 2007: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

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Touted as “The Book that Should Have Been in the Box,” Mathew MacDonald’s Excel 2007: The Missing Manual is one reference book that lives up to its name. This book comprehensively covers the most important topics in Excel 2007 and offers solutions that are easy to understand and implement. If you want a one-stop, no holds barred approach to using Excel 2007, this is the textbook for you.

#5 – Succeeding in Business with Microsoft Office Excel 2007: A Problem-Solving Approach by Debra Gross, Frank Akaiwa, Karleen Nordquist

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Debra Gross et al.’s Succeeding in Business with Microsoft Office Excel 2007: A Problem-Solving Approach is an reference book unlike any other on this list. Rather than explain Excel 2007 tasks from a functional point of view, the authors present solutions from an experiential viewpoint.

For example, the chapters are split into 3 levels that walk the reader through successively more complex applications of Excel 2007’s most popular and uncommonly used features and capabilities. Each level makes the reader more and more proficient at using Excel to solve problems rather than simply providing solutions. Although this book will take a little longer if used as a reference book, the reader is more likely to understand exactly how Excel’s powerful functions can be applied to a variety of real-life applications.

Conclusion

Any of the five textbooks on this list would serve as an excellent reference for Excel 2007 users. However, each one takes a slightly different approach to learning the popular spreadsheet application. Which one is for you depends on your own personal learning style and your need for an Excel 2007 textbook to serve as a reference rather than a teaching tool.