Today lets talk about Excel books. The question is simple.
What is your favorite Excel book? Please share your answers using comments.
I will go first.
My favorite Excel books
Since I use a variety of Excel features, I have not one but 5 favorite books.
Excel 2010 Bible by John Walkenbach
This is an all round book that offers excellent details, examples and feature explanations. You can get the same book for 2007 or 2013 too.
Excel Power Programming book by John Walkenbach
This is my go to book for all things VBA. I have it on my desk most of the time and just flip thru it to grasp a new concept or solidify something I already know.
DAX Formulas for Power Pivot by Rob Collie
This is my go to book for Power Pivot. I must have read it a dozen times already and just love Rob’s prose & explanation style.
Information Dashboard Design by Stephen Few
More on design level. I rely on this book to come up with amazing dashboard designs you see here.
And of course, I got to love my own The VLOOKUP book. It is a comprehensive book on Excel lookup formulas.
What about you?
Go ahead and tell us what is your favorite Excel book? Share using comments please. Click here to post your comment.
More recommended Excel books:
If you are looking to get an Excel book (always a good idea), apart from those mentioned above, I also recommend these books.
Note about book links: All the book links mentioned in this post are affiliate links. That means if you purchase the book after clicking link on my page, I will get a few cents commission from Amazon. I recommend these books because I read them several times, I really love them, and I would have recommended them even if there is no affiliate commission.
9 Responses to “Show forecast values in a different color with this simple trick [charting]”
While this works in a pinch, it clearly "lightens" the colors of the entire chart. Depending on where you use this, it will be blatantly obvious that you don't know what you are doing and present a poor looking graph.
Why not separate the data into different segments when charting and have as many colors as you have data points? You might have to create a new legend and/or repeat the chart in "invisible ink", but it would be cleaner and more consistent when new or updated data becomes available.
While I think I agree that doing it "properly" via a second series is preferable, I don't necessarily agree that making the entirety of the "future" (data, gridlines, and even the axis) semi-transparent is "poor looking". I think it could be seen as adding more emphasis to the "future-ness" of the forecast data.
In short, it's another tool for the toolbox, even if it's never needed.
Simply and clever 🙂
Quick & effective, cool. thanks.
I always use the dummy series.
Nice little trick, thanks very much!
Two sets of data better. Control is much better.
You can use the same chart next month to see what is actual and what is forecast.
To use this trick, I think grid lines has to be removed, that will make the graphic much more sharp.
to be honest, i dont understand why there is needed to do this way... in this case horizontal lines will be pale as well. then why a just can't change the color of the line partly???
Great tutorial. Thanks for the tutorial!