you to all the other kinds of graphics that you can have in your spreadsheets. These include graphic objects that you draw as well as graphic images that you import, including clip art included in Microsoft Office, as well as digital pictures and images imported and created with other hardware and software connected to your computer.
Book VI is concerned with the ins and outs of using Excel to maintain large amounts of data in what are known as databases or, more commonly, data lists. Chapter 1 gives you basic information on how to set up a data list and add your data to it. This chapter also gives you information on how to reorganize the data list through sorting and how to total its numerical data with the Subtotal feature.
Chapter 2 is all about how to filter the data and extract just the information you want out of it (a process officially known as querying the data). Here, you find out how to perform all sorts of filtering operations from the simplest, which involves relying upon the AutoFilter feature, to the more complex operations that use custom filters and specialized database functions. Finally, you find out how to perform queries on external data sources such as those maintained with dedicated database management software for Windows such as Microsoft Access or dBASE as well as those that run on other operating systems such as DB2 and Oracle.
Book VII looks at the subject of data analysis with Excel; essentially how to use the program’s computational capabilities to project and predict possible future outcomes. Chapter 1 looks at the various ways to perform what-if scenarios in Excel. These include analyses with one- and two-input variable data tables, doing goal seeking, setting a series of different possible scenarios, and using the Solver add-in.
Chapter 2 is concerned with the topic of creating special data summaries called pivot tables that enable you to analyze large amounts of data in an extremely compact and modifiable format. Here, you find out how to create and manipulate pivot tables as well as build pivot charts that depict the summary information graphically. In addition, you’ll get an introduction to using the PowerPivot for Excel 2016 and Power View add-ins to perform more sophisticated types of data analysis on the Data Model that’s represented in your Excel pivot table.
Book VIII introduces the subject of customizing Excel through the use of its programming language called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA for short). Chapter 1 introduces you to the use of the macro recorder to record tasks that you routinely perform in Excel for later automated playback. When you use the macro recorder to record the sequence of routine actions (using the program’s familiar menus, toolbars, and dialog boxes), Excel automatically records the sequence in the VBA programming language.
Chapter 2 introduces you to editing VBA code in Excel’s programming editor known as the Visual Basic Editor. Here, you find out how to use the Visual Basic Editor to edit macros that you’ve recorded that need slight modifications as well as how to write new macros from scratch. You also find out how to use the Visual Basic Editor to write custom functions that perform just the calculations you need in your Excel spreadsheets.
Conventions Used in This Book
This book follows a number of different conventions modeled primarily after those used by Microsoft in its various online articles and help materials. These conventions deal primarily with Ribbon command sequences and shortcut or hot key sequences that you encounter.
Excel 2016 is a sophisticated program that uses the Ribbon interface first introduced in Excel 2007. In Chapter 1, I explain all about this Ribbon interface and how to get comfortable with its command structure. Throughout the book, you may find Ribbon command sequences using the shorthand developed by Microsoft whereby the name on the tab on the Ribbon and the command button you select are separated by arrows, as in
Home ⇒ Copy
This is shorthand for the Ribbon command that copies whatever cells or graphics are currently selected to the Windows Clipboard. It means that you click the Home tab on the Ribbon (if it’s not already displayed) and then click the Copy button (that sports the traditional side-by-side page icon).
Some of the Ribbon command sequences involve not only selecting a command button on a tab but then also selecting an item on a drop-down menu. In this case, the drop-down menu command follows the name of the tab and command button, all separated by vertical bars, as in
Formulas ⇒ Calculation Options ⇒ Manual
This is shorthand for the Ribbon command sequence that turns on manual recalculation in Excel. It says that you click the Formulas tab (if it’s not already displayed) and then click the Calculation Options command button followed by the Manual drop-down menu option.
The book occasionally encourages you to type something specific into a specific cell in the worksheet. When I tell you to enter a specific function, the part you should type generally appears in bold type. For example, =SUM(A2:B2) means that you should type exactly what you see: an equal sign, the word SUM, a left parenthesis, the text A2:B2 (complete with a colon between the letter-number combos), and a right parenthesis. You then, of course, still have to press the Enter key or click the Enter button on the Formula bar to make the entry stick.
When Excel isn’t talking to you by popping up message boxes, it displays highly informative messages in the status bar at the bottom of the screen. This book renders messages that you see onscreen like this:
CALCULATE
This is the message that tells you that Excel is in manual recalculation mode (after using the earlier Ribbon command sequence) and that one or more of the formulas in your worksheet are not up to date and are in sore need of recalculation.
Occasionally I give you a hot key combination that you can press in order to choose a command from the keyboard rather than clicking buttons on the Ribbon with the mouse. Hot key combinations are written like this: Alt+FS or Ctrl+S. (Both of these hot key combos save workbook changes.)
With the Alt key combos, you press the Alt key until the hot key letters appear in little squares all along the Ribbon. At that point, you can release the Alt key and start typing the hot key letters. (By the way, you type all lowercase hot key letters – I only put them in caps to make them stand out in the text.)
Hot key combos that use the Ctrl key are of an older vintage, and they work a little bit differently because, on a physical keyboard, you have to hold down the Ctrl key as you type the hot key letter. (Again, type only lowercase letters unless you see the Shift key in the sequence as in Ctrl+Shift+C.)
Finally, if you’re really observant, you may notice a discrepancy between the capitalization of the names of dialog box options (such as headings, option buttons, and check boxes) as they appear in the book and how they actually appear in Excel on your computer screen. I intentionally use the convention of capitalizing the initial letters of all the main words of a dialog box option to help you differentiate the name of the option from the rest of the text describing its use.
Icons Used in This Book
The following icons are strategically placed in the margins throughout all eight books in this volume. Their purpose is to get your attention, and each has its own way of doing that.