poorly edited and untested, rough going

I was familiar with Excel, knew nothing about pivot tables ( a really great tool for analyzing data from spreadsheets), but with a new job where people do use pivot tables I wanted a book to teach me and to keep as a desk reference. This book was very rough going in the beginning, frustrating, and unclear. It wasn't until I got past chapter 3 things started to clear up, in fact chapter 3 should have been chapter 1 as it explains the basics. Furthermore the author has a tendency to switch database examples in mid lesson so that it is very confusing while trying to follow along learning an aspect of pivot tables. The book should have been edited better, someone unfamiliar with pivot tables should have tried to learn from it before the book was sent to press. There are mistakes in the examples that can make one think one has screwed up somehow (listed as ascending but is descending, columns missing or with different data, the wrong name of a chart type so that reader is creating a different chart from the one shown). It did come with downloads to use as examples and by the time I was through it I had learned pivot tables. It could have been better done. I did not bother with the programming section so I cannot speak to that.

Other Reviews

• Pivot Tables for Dummies
• poorly edited and untested, rough going
• Very Disappointing; Nothing New Here