John Walkenbach
1 No real life examples
This book sucks! Its just a little better than the help file included in with Excel. All he does is put it in a diffrent order. I was expecting small excercises where I could put my new skills all together, but there is none. So you read the whole book, remember as much as you can, and go off and try to mix and match hundreds of commands... buy another one.
2 Excelent manual for intermediate and higher programmers!
This is a great manual for those who, at a minimum, have a limited knowledge of Visual Basic and a limited working knowledge of Excel. If you don't consider yourself an expert then this is the book for you!
I've taught myself multiple computer languages (English is my natural language but that doesn't really matter now, does it?) and am very familiar with Excel -- but not so much on the programming side of things. As far as being a VB programmer, well, about two or three years ago I taught myself VB 5.0 and then never ended up needing to use it. The first time I used this book was to help me with a VB module in a customers Excel workbook. There was even an example in this book about using the Windows API to get the window to search for a directory which I was able to easily incorporate into the code. I then started reading through the chapters and just kept on learning more and more! When working on a project I can easily find a relevant chapter/section that pertains to what I'm doing or need and solve my problem!
He clearly explains his code and if the example is a code snipet. The included CD contains his examples and other files which I find very helpful, especially when I don't want to type in everything myself :-)
If you even *think* this may be a candidate for your library then stop thinking and just get it!
3 Bravo!
Outstanding reference and how to manual for Excel macro programming. A must have for anyone who has ambitions of writing their own programs for Excel. John's clear, organized, and comprehensible writing style allows even a novice programmer to immediately begin to write Excel macros that really do something, and do something useful. His book is chock full of useful code examples. Get two copies. It is that good.
4 Excellent reference book for non-programmers
This book can be included in the handy tool category, a "must have" for non-programmers who want to give their Excel applications a professional look as well as get the most out of Excel without wasting much time and effort. Word of caution, a bit of familiarity with visual basic as a language and the controls etc. will be very helpful in using this book. Codes in the CD are very helpful. It is written by a practicing professional from usage point of view hence a very easy reading book and not heavy on the jargons of object oriented programming etc. I learned a lot of useful tricks after going through the book.
5 Useful, but some stuff didn't work as explained
I found this book very useful. However, I found it frustrating that some things didn't work exactly as explained or required perhaps some significant extra code to really work well. I am by far and away not an expert, but also not a novice; I've been programming in BASIC, VB, FORTRAN, UNIX SHELL, etc. for 30 years, but only as a tool for my job. I would recommend this book, but not for beginners who probably wouldn't deduce their way to solve things.
6 Very light in content. Cannot do much after reading it
First of all, I am non-English speaker (forgive my English). I am an Electrical Engineer, not a programmer. But I have many years programming experiences in different languages (on my own!).
I have finished up to chapter 10. The contents are very light. It talks about very basic syntax that are almost the same in any language (e.g. C, Java, Perl C++...) It puts hundreds of pages that can be done in a half of the volumn. It does not tell you much about the object details. It seems to tell you to explore the objects and methods by recording macro and learning by trial and error. If so, I don't need this book.
First of all, time is money. I spent money, time to read hundreds of pages. The author suggests you to trial and error. I really don't think it is a very good book. But I still give 3 stars (I am quite geneous!)
Maybe most audiences of this book are never program in his/her life. This may be good for them. For someone who has experiences in programming. It is not very useful.
The author should really concentrate on objects and methods after some basic syntaxs. That is the most important. I can learn the syntax in few days. But I don't know much about all the objects and methods. Without knowing the objects and methods, nobody can do much. Just like learning English, you know all the Syntax but you don't know any WORDS and USAGE. What do you think you can write!
7 Well organized, clear writing; good investment
I have found this book very useful. It is not for raw beginners, you should have at least dabbled in Visual Basic. The author gently encourages the reader to develop habits of documentation, formatting code with indents etc.
He provides helpful overviews of objects, properties, methods. There are many examples, most are snippets to illustrate key points.
Well organized, attractive page layouts, good index. CD with VBA examples (and more) adds much value.
8 Good for beginners and intermediate alike
As someone who has some programming experience, this book was very helpful to me.
The project I am working on was already defined, and all I had to do was look in the books where an example was given or a syntax reference existed. Note that I used it in alongside O'Reilly Press' 'Writing Excel Macros with VBA'. Where certain areas aren't covered in this book (rare), there will almost ceratinly be something in the other.
As an intermediate level part-time but somewhat rusty programmer (mostly self-taught) of Java, C, Javascript, HTML, CSS, XML, Assembly and others, this book certainly had what I was looking for.
It offers useful language references and the descriptions are ample, although occasionally apparently useful methods that were covered in 'the other' book and were overlooked in this one; it's just not possible to include everything though, even in ~1000 pages.
It assumes some prior knowledge of programming techniques, and is therefore not for the absolute beginner, but will serve it's purpose very well indeed to the majority.
I would recommend this book all except the absolute beginner and the advanced programmer/expert (who probably wouldn't be reading this anyway!). Definatly worth the money.
I rarely buy books on the internet without having a good flick through them at the local bookshop first. In this case I would definatly advise likeminded thinkers to make an exception.
The included CDROM is worth it's weight in gold and is all too often a crucial ommission by authours/publishers. I can now take the book with me on my laptop in PDF format (hooray!) and all of the book examples are included too. BONUS!
9 Salesmanship!
Buy this book only if you don't mind going through relentlessly blatant salesmanship throughout the whole book. The code of the author's supposedly state-of-art application is not available. But don't feel sorry about that, 'cuz it's not that impressive. In fact, with a little patience, you could develop your own cutting-edge applications.
10 Excellent
John, if you read these reviews, ide just like to say well done!!
Ive got quite a few books on VBA but this is by far the best.Im by no means an Excel guru, but found myself being asked to automate lots of tasks in excel for a new job I had. Im a VB/Database programmer by trade and I needed a book to bring me upto speed with the Excel Object model. The book done this and taught me a whole lot more in the process. Its well presented and the examples are all "realworld" which I found really handy.
Fully recommended to any Excel/VBA beginner or reference for a guru.
11 No Organization
Reviewer zitouni from Paris, France got it exactly right. This book is "stream of conciousness". No organization - subjects scattered everywhere - no concept of teaching the material and addressing natural questions that arise in doing things.
BOTTOM LINE: Read another book - e.g. Kofler, or Roman, or Albright
12 Great book--highly recommended
I am a real estate finance analyst and researcher who wanted more control over the manipulation of my data in Excel as well as learning how to create user forms. John Walkenbach's "Excel 2002 Power Programming with VBA" was an informative and excellent resource that taught me most of what I was looking for. Walkenbach begins with a brief explanation of Excel and the fundamentals of object-oriented programming (OOP), which underpins VBA. The reader has to be patient and be willing to experiment; working through Walkenbach's examples with Excel open is almost a must.
There are several issues that I would like to point out. One reviewer was upset over the fact that Walkenbach did not offer some utilities from the book's CDs for free. I did not try any of the utilities because I was more interested in the book's actual contents and explanations. Walkenbach does, however, offer the reader a full and unrestricted PDF version of the book in the CD, which I think is mighty generous of him. Instead of lugging the +1,000 page book, I sometimes leave the PDF version on my laptop so I could always have it with me. Lastly, I use Excel 97 at work and Excel X on the Mac at home, and despite some minor incompatibility issues, I would say that the book for the most part could be used for all versions of Excel 97 and up.
BTW, I would also recommend "Excel 2002 VBA" by Bullen, Green, Bovey, and Rosenberg published by Worx Press for a more advanced treatment of VBA.
13 A helpful reference for any level
It has been a great reference. It has saved me many hours of digging through the Excel Help screens. The book is layed out well.
14 A wonderful book!
I thought of myself as an Excel "expert" until I happened to come across this book at the bookstore. Imagine my surprise as I randomly flipped through the pages and found something new to me on every few pages. I ordered this book off Amazon and quickly read it from cover to cover. This is the most clearly written computer book I have ever read. If you enjoy working with spreadsheets, you will love this book. After reading this book, you will truly be an Excel "expert".
15 Overly long and light on content + Snake oil salesman
The book is poorly organized, and has a very high number of pages considering the amount of content. Of course, that means you can whip through 50-100 pages in each sitting, but you don't get that much out of it. What I found especially annoying was that there is a CD with utilities included, but if you want the source code for these utilities, you have to pay extra $. Also, there is amazing restrictive licensing agreement on the use of any code that appears on the CD (for example ".. you may not .. modify, adapt, or create derivative works based on this software"). This book is a pitch by the author to sell you one of his many other books or software products. The author is a one-man industry who writes one Excel book after another (21 books so far according to my Amazon.com search), and sells his own software on the side, and that's what he does for a living. I'm sure he makes a very good living at it, but I for one am sorry I purchased this book.
16 A well written book
I went over this book twice. Although I believe I understood most of it, I am not yet a power programmer.
This book is an intermediate book on Excel programming. Don't expect to become an expert from it. The book is very well written and John Walkenbach writes in a way that no other programmer does. The book stimulates the interest of the reader in Excel. The examples are well explained. I did not give this book five stars because the Windows API is not explained in depth.
According to me the path of the books to Excel programming is:
1 Excel The Bible( the second half of the book)
2 Excel for Power Programmers
3 Excel 2002 VBA Programmer's reference
The last book in the list is not for inexperienced programmers and is not as pleasant to read( So do not start with it).
I also recommend Excel 2002 formulas if the would be programmer does not have an extensive experience in Excel
17 A well written book
I went over this book twice. Although I believe I understood most of it, I am not yet a power programmer.
This book is an intermediate book on Excel programming. Don't expect to become an expert from it. The book is very well written and John Walkenbach writes in a way that no other programmer does. The book stimulates the interest of the reader into Excel. The examples are well explained. I did not give this book five stars because the Windows API is not explained in depth.
According to me the path of the books to Excel programming is:
1 Excel The Bible( the second half of the book)
2 Excel for Power Programmers
3 Excel 2002 VBA Programmer's reference
The last book in the list is not for inexperienced programmers and is not as pleasant to read( So do not start with it).
I also recommen Excel 2002 formulas if the would be programmer does not have an extensive experience in Excel
18 A great book on VBA
I got this book and the author's other on Formulas. Although I am only using Excel 2000, I got it because I would be using Excel 2002 in the future. With no experience in VBA for MS apps, I needed something to get me up and running with writing macros from scratch. Familiar with VB6 I figure I can pick VBA up easily. I had a book on VBA from SAMS teach yourself series some years back, which I found dry and useless. I had thrown it away so I got this book.
I was up and running in about two hours writing macros that would look down a column of data and find the last non-empty cell in a range that had empty cells between data cells. I also wrote macros to update a summary at the top of the worksheet depending on how much data was in a particular row and to advance to the next empty cell in a row after data was entered, assisting the user in entering/selecting data.
Excellent and easy to understand. The real meat doesn't start until Chapter 7 when VBA is introduced. Prior to that is a refresher on formulas and Excel itself. I'm results oriented so I skimmed up to Chapter 7 before looking for answers to my problem. I am only in Chapter 9, before userforms, which is overkill for my needs at work but I will begin tinkering since it'll be done on my own time. Highly recommended for those who need a good solid intro to VBA. If you know VB, it'll be cake walk. For those who don't, there are plenty of examples to help you out and remember to understand the Excel object model. You should be all set if you at least try some of the examples instead of staring at the print.
The only thing I think is missing is a listing of the methods and properties of the Excel object model. For that, I have "Excel 2002 VBA" by Wrox. Funny how I've only used that book for its listing in its appendix, which is several hundred pages long and easily worth the price of that book. But that's another review...
19 Many hype, tons of useless elements, total lack of structure
For sure, this book has a really really exciting title, with words like power, vba and programming.
After reading the book, the reader can answer the question the author has: "why I wrote this book?". To glorify him obviously, since they're virtually everywhere I-do-this, I-do-that, I-show-you-this-and-that. The reader knows perferctly that this book has been written by the author (like any book!), so there's no need for this perpetual I-do-this things. Besides, the only element that matters is not the author bur the book itself. If you can stand this self-promotion, then the worst is yet to come.
This book has no real structure, making its use and finding information a true headache. The summary is a clear proof: part 1) some essential background, 2)excel application development, 3) VBA, 4) userforms, 5) advanced techniques, 6) developing applications, 7) others. Since part 2 is devoted to devlopping, why this subject should again comes in part 6? Besides, isn't the whole book dedicated to developing? Finding what you want, even in the detailed contents, is harsh and shows that there's no plan, but rather disseaminated pieces of information, just like the VBA help.
Instead of clearly dividing by general topic (variables, objects, methods...), the author has a special order where everything seems mixed and spread in the book. Here something about methods, then some chapters later, another thing about methods etc.
And the author, instead of devolping and insiting on crucial themes, like accessing and working with external data (e.g. Access), contents itself with a short paragraph saying: please refer to other books! However, this book devotes around 100 pages to worthless history (starting with VisiCalc in 1978!!!) and the like. Incredible! That some historical material exist, why not. But that this comes while the essential is not here, that's inadmissible. That's why what this product is supposed to give begins only at page 120.
Besides, the layout (font, colors...) makes this book very unpleasant to read, so you want to close it ASAP, which is not exactly a good point.
The 3-star ranking reflects the amount of data provided, and some good points.
If you want a true and efficient book on Excel VBA, go for Definitve guide to Excel VBA which is really worthwhile.
20 Great new book for 2002
Hello Excel users
I have the book for 2000 also and I have purchased this one also because it is the one of the best book around about Excel VBA.
All the things in it are written in a way that people like me, a hobbyist with no study in computer stuff easily can learn everything about Excel VBA.
Look also for 2002 Formulas than you have it all for Excel 2002
Thanks for making it John
Regards Ron
21 I definitely give it the highest rate
I have the Excel 2000 edition of the book and like it very much. It's one of the best Excel VBA books I have. In the past I also read a few other good Excel VBA books, such as Simon Benninga's "Financial Modeling (2nd ed.)", S. Christian Albright's "VBA for Modelers - Developing Desision Support Systems with Microsoft Excel", Michael Kofler's "Definitive Guide to Excel VBA", John Green's "Excel 2000 VBA Programmer's Reference", and Eric Wells and Steve Harshbarger's "Excel 97 Developer's Handbook". All those book's author or co-author (except the last book I mentioned) cited John Walkenbach's book as major reference or recommended readers to read to learn more. When I saw the new edition displayed in book store (little earlier than Amazon.com), I just bought it. I still don't have Excel 2002 yet, but I already found some good stuff I can try on Excel 2000. However, I can't use the CD. I must type the code on VBE to try it.
22 Consistently Rated Number 1 for Serious Excel Users
John Walkenbach is consistently rated the Number 1 writer on Excel and this latest edition fully justifies that rating. It's rare that an author can combine a fluid and easily readable text at this level of expertise. Hundreds of easily understandable examples. Builds up the basic principles and empowers further development. A compulsory reference with clearly marked differences between Excel 2002 and earlier versions. Beginners should buy John Walkenbach's Excel Bible Gold Edition first.
