Using Excel Visual Basic for Applications, Special Edition

Rating:
Summary: Very clear, well organized, and comprehensive
Review: An excellent reference book for programmers who have some basic familiarity with VBA. Webb does not drown his reader in pages of useless listings or chimpanzee instructions (Go to the Menu Bar, click File, click Open, click OK, duh) that have seemed to overtake so many other training books. Instead, he provides an intelligent tour of VBA. Might be outdated, but still worth it!

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: An outstanding Read from cover to cover. The reference guide I always rely on. Overall it is excellent for those users' who use VBA everyday in the workplace.

Rating:
Summary: Not so Special
Review: First of all the examples are not put on a CD, nor can you download them from the publishers website. That makes it a little frustrating. Secondly, it is not very indepth. So if you just want basic explanations on VBA "stuff" then go for it, else find another book. I suppose my first tip off to not buy the book was that the author works for microsoft. Another persons comment was quite appropriate - it is a rehash of the help (and just as helpful (not)). No hard feelings Mr. Webb.

Rating:
Summary: Useless, useless, useless and what happened to English...
Review: I had some elementary knowledge about VB beforehand and I borrowed this book from a friend in order to look up certain things. I found it to be useless and hard to read. It might be just me, but if I wanted to buy a book on VB and Excel I would stay very far, far, far and AWAY from this one.

Rating:
Summary: Useless, useless, useless and what happened to English...
Review: I had some elementary knowledge about VB beforehand and I borrowed this book from a friend in order to look up certain things. I found it to be useless and hard to read. It might be just me, but if I wanted to buy a book on VB and Excel I would stay very far, far, far and AWAY from this one.

Rating:
Summary: Code doesn't work
Review: I have some knowledge of VB and wanted to get a look at VBA, so a friend loaned me this book. It seems to be very complete and well organized, but so far the code examples I have tried don't work. This may be because I am using Excel 2000 and the book was written in 1996. I have been able to make the code samples work by just fiddling with the code until it runs. However, this is a frustrating experience for someone who likes to learn hands on, and would probably be a disaster for a brand-new programmer.

Rating:
Summary: An essential guide for VBA for Excel programming
Review: I think that this is the book that Microsoft should have written themselves. I feel that it very much needs upgrading for the differences in Excel '97, but it is still useful. I wish the descriptions went into more detail; it sometimes seems to be a mere rehash of the Excel online Help. Despite the above, I feel that this book is essential for anyone attempting to write code for Excel, especially as Microsoft seems to think that they don't need to include "real" books with their software anymore.

Rating:
Summary: I keep coming back to it
Review: I wanted to update my last review of this book. Since I last wrote, I have been doing a lot more Excel VBA coding and I find I keep coming back to this book. I also bought Walkenbach's "Excel for Windows 95" and Wells/Harshbarger's "Microsoft Excel 97 Developer's Handbook" and I use this one the most. I just wish it were updated for Excel 97 since VBA has changed. I find the VBA on line help in Excel 97 less helpful than in Excel 95 and when I turn to Webb's book, I find what I need!

Rating:
Summary: Out of date, rehash of on-line help
Review: I wish I had read the reviews here at Amazon before I went to the trouble of buying this book. It is going back.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive reference, weak on examples
Review: This book has two sections: An explanation of fundamentals and a programmer's reference. I bought the book primarily due to the comprehensive reference, but after using the book to try to write VBA code, I discovered that I needed more examples to examine. Don't get me wrong, it's a good book as programming reference, but it probably shouldn't be your first book on Excel VBA. I think the book would have been much more useful with a companion CDROM that contained a hyperlinked programming reference.