Mastering Excel Through Projects: A Learn-by-Doing Approach from Payroll to Crypto to Data Analysis

Description

Master Excel in less than two weeks with this unique project-based book! Let’s face it, we all master skills in our own way, but building a soup-to-nuts project is one of the best ways to make learning stick and get up to speed quickly. Whether you are just getting started with Excel or are an experienced user, this book will elevate your knowledge and skills. For a beginner, the micro examples in each chapter will warm you up before you dive into the projects. For experienced users, the projects, especially those with table setup considerations, will help you become more creative in your interactions with Excel. Readers will benefit from building eight unique projects, each covering a different topic, including a word game, a food nutrition ranking, a payroll (tax withholding) calculation, an encryption, a two-way table, a Kaplan-Meier analysis, a data analysis via a pivot table and the K-means Clustering data mining method. Through these projects, you will experience firsthand how Excel skills are organized together to accomplish tasks that sound complex and daunting when first described. Get started with a word game which asks users to find English words that amount to exactly 100 points, with each letter of the alphabet assigned a point 1, 2, 3, … 26, respectively. You will disassemble a word into letters and then sum up their points, and then take it one step further, contemplating how to make the completed Excel worksheet more user friendly and completely automated. Increasingly challenging tasks like this example build on what you have learned and increase your confidence along the way, ensuring your mastery of Excel. What You Will Learn Gain confidence to tackle a challenging Excel-related mission, even those that seem impossibleBecome skilled in the creative uses of Excel formulas and functions and other built-in features Appreciate the art of refining worksheets to maximize automationUnderstand the value of treating each worksheet as a unique product Who This Book Is For People who are interested in learning Excel as quickly and efficiently as possible. While Excel beginners and intermediate users are the primary audience, experienced Excel users might also discover new skills and ways of working with Excel. Table of Contents About the Author About the Technical Reviewer Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Master Excel Through Projects Why Learn Through Projects Cell Reference and Formula Formula Cell Reference in Formulas Experiment Excel Options and Show Formulas Autofill or Copy Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3 Functions to Learn SUM, AVERAGE, MAX, MIN, and COUNT CHAR and CODE MID RANDBETWEEN LOOKUP Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3 IF IFERROR Autofill Formulas Relative Cell Reference Absolute Cell Reference Work on the Project Chapter Tip Review Points Chapter 2: Food Nutrition Ranking Functions to Learn IF ISBLANK AND, OR VLOOKUP Work on the Project Name Manager and Data Validation Instructions to Complete the Project Chapter Tip Review Points Chapter 3: Payroll Calculation Functions to Learn ROUND SUBSTITUTE INDEX MATCH Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3 INDIRECT Work on Project 1 Federal Tax Withholding Explanation and Worksheet Setup Instructions to Complete Project 1 Work on Project 2 Table Setup and Naming Instructions to Complete Project 2 Chapter Tip Review Points Chapter 4: Public and Private Key Cryptography Functions to Learn CONCATENATE and the & Operator LEN and INT MOD and Its Use in Encryption QUOTIENT and GCD COUNTIF Knowledge to Learn Work on the Project Chapter Tip Review Points Chapter 5: Two-Way Table and Chi-Square Test Functions to Learn ISERROR ADDRESS Work on the Project Chapter Tip Review Points Chapter 6: Kaplan–Meier Analysis Functions to Learn MEDIAN COUNTIFS Work on the Project Chapter Tip Review Points Chapter 7: PivotTable Data Analysis Group and Subtotal What-If Analysis PivotTable and PivotChart Work on the Project Chapter Tip Review Points Chapter 8: K-Means Clustering and Iterative Calculation Functions to Learn SQRT SUMXMY2 AVERAGEIFS SHEET Work on Project 1 Iterative Calculation Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Work on Project 2 Chapter Tip Review Points Chapter Summary and Book Summary Index