Excel Pivottables and Pivotcharts - (Visual Blueprint) 2nd Edition by Paul McFedries (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Master two of the most powerful features of Excel

Even if you use Excel all the time, you may not be up to speed on two of Excel's most useful features. PivotTable and PivotChart turn long lists of unreadable data into dynamic, easy-to-read tables and charts that highlight the information you need most; you can tweak results with a click or easily fuse data from several sources into one document. Now you can learn how to tap these powerful Excel tools with this practical guide.

Using a series of step-by-step tutorials and easy-to-follow screenshots, this book shows you in a visual way how to create and customize PivotTables and PivotCharts, use them to analyze business data, and ultimately achieve more with less work.

• Explains the benefits PivotTables and PivotCharts, two powerful features of Excel that allow users to create dynamic spreadsheets
• Covers creating and customizing, analyzing business data, building custom calculations, linking to external data sources (including Access databases, Word tables, Web pages, XML data, SQL Server databases, and OLAP cubes), creating macros to automate tasks, and more
• Uses step-by-step tutorials and easy-to-follow screenshots, a "learn by seeing" approach for visual learners

Practical, visual, and packed with content, this is the book you need to ramp up your Excel skills with PivotTables and PivotCharts.

From the Back Cover

Welcome to the only guidebook series that takes a visual approach to professional-level computer topics. Open the book and you'll discover step-by-step screen shots that demonstrate over 135 key techniques with Excel PivotTables and PivotCharts, including:

• Creating a table for a PivotTable report

• Converting a PivotTable to regular data

• Changing the Report Filter layout

• Formatting PivotTable cells

• Displaying a data table with a PivotChart

• Performing PivotTable calculations

• Building formulas for PivotTables

• Filtering records with Query criteria

• Creating an OLAP cube data source

• Learning VBA basics for PivotTables

• High-resolution screen shots demonstrate each task

• Succinct explanations walk you through step by step

• Two-page lessons break big topics into bite-sized modules

• "Apply It" and "Extra" sidebars highlight useful tips

About the Author

Paul McFedries is a full-time technical writer. Paul has been authoring computer books since 1991 and he has more than 70 books to his credit. Paul's books have sold more than three million copies worldwide. These books include the Wiley titles Teach Yourself VISUALLY Excel 2010; Excel 2010 Visual Quick Tips; Teach Yourself VISUALLY Windows 7; and Teach Yourself VISUALLY Office 2008 for Mac. Paul is also the proprietor of Word Spy (www.wordspy.com and twitter.com/wordspy), a Web site that tracks new words and phrases as they enter the language. Paul invites you to drop by his personal Web site at www.mcfedries.com or to follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/paulmcf.