Nate Oliver's blog

There was a recent blog entry that listed the top-10 online Excel resources:

http://www.odesk.com/blog/2009/05/excel/

I don't necessarily agree with, nor endorse, this list or the order, etc... But I would like to take a moment to speak to several items that are on the list, and some that aren't on the list.

When you make a list like this, given the vast amount of high-quality Excel resources on the Internet, you're going to get it a little right, and probably a little wrong, as you can see by this thread:

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/showthread.php?t=388373

Such a list doesn't go without controversy. In this particular blog entry, I'll attempt to avoid dogging anything on said list, and look to augment its contents - it's Friday - I'm in a good mood.

Let's start with MrExcel.com, which is owned and maintained by fellow Microsoft Excel MVP, Bill Jelen. I need to disclaim this a little bit, I've been active there since 2000ish, and am an Administrator for their forums - I'm what sports fans would call a "homer". However, there are some interesting aspects to this site that I would like to highlight.

The first are the 500+, free, Excel articles:

http://www.mrexcel.com/articles.shtml

If you're into podcasts, Bill creates these, too:

http://www.mrexcel.com/podcast.shtml

The third are the web-based forums:

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/index.php

These are great forums, some of the best Excel-minds on Earth stop by to take part in Q&A, for free. One particular sub-forum, within the forums, I'd like to highlight is the "Hall of Fame" forum:

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=17

As you can see, it's fairly lean: There's only 12 subjects taken from  ~2,000,000 forum posts. We take this area of the forums fairly seriously, only really dynamite posts need apply for this sub-forum.

Experts-Exchange is a great site, I participate there from time-to-time, and there are a lot experts there, as implied. This is a little misleading, however:

"Suck it up and register for the site, answer a few questions for people that are more of a novice than you, and save yourself the monthly fee."

It's not just a matter of providing the answer, the Original Poster of said question needs to consider your answer the best, and there could be many. And, of course, that's out of your hands.

Office Online and MSDN can be great resources - if you want to learn how to use Excel from a novice to expert level, these are sites you should be reading. I find the following quote to be interesting:

"Yes, that’s right…Microsoft actually provides some things for free."

Microsoft provides a ton of content, for free, and they actually continually look to improve both their content and delivery mechanisms - it's a serious operation. How do I know this? I volunteered to assist with the Excel Content Partnership Council, which is, for the most part (myself not included), an internal group at Microsoft that's committed to driving great Excel content.

As a Microsoft [Excel] MVP, I have a non-disclosure agreement with Microsoft and can't disclose the details of my involvement - in a nutshell, they put me under flood-lights and beat me up on their content. Just kidding, but Microsoft really does care about their content and is committed to helping their customers with their products. I was told my involvement was helpful, so if you notice their content improving with time - you're welcome. ;)

Jon Peltier's site is mind-boggling excellent when it comes to Excel Charts. I recall spending a few hours creating a fairly complex chart, and when done, I thought "I bet Jon Peltier would be impressed". Then I went to his site and noted he had already fully documented what I had done. I had bet incorrectly - whoops.

Also, the following quote is technically incorrect:

"Currently, there are only 90 people ever granted the title of Excel MVP by Microsoft, so you can see how important of a designation it is."

Currently there are just over 100 Microsoft Excel MVPs, spread throughout the world. The word 'ever' isn't quite right, either, some of us are newer, and there have been several retired Excel MVPs. Still, a small number - I'm currently the only Microsoft Excel MVP residing in the state of Minnesota.

The Excel Product Team blog is a great resource, and something to keep your eye on if you're really interested in Excel. For a fairly obvious reason, you're reading content directly from the people who make Excel, well, Excel.

Good. Now let's talk about some resources that aren't included on the aforementioned list, and some examples of why I like them.

Chip Pearson's site:

http://www.cpearson.com/Excel/MainPage.aspx

Chip, a fellow Excel MVP, really knows his stuff, and his content is outstanding. E.g., if someone asks me about running a scheduled/timed procedure, I send them directly to Chip's site (as a start), to review the OnTime Method:

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/OnTime.aspx

It's such a well written article on the subject, it doesn't make sense for me to reinvent that particular wheel.

Mr. Spreadsheet, John Walkenbach's (J-Walk), site:

http://spreadsheetpage.com/

John's a fellow Excel MVP, and again, the content is outstanding and the variety ranges, quite a bit.

I find Debra Dalgleish's (Excel MVP) site to be excellent as well:

http://contextures.com/index.html

Especially when it comes to Pivot Tables:

http://contextures.com/xlfaqPivot.html

The last resource I will speak to are the Newsgroups, via Google. Some of the content that is available there, and highly searchable, is outstanding. E.g., take Laurent Longre's post on the Evaluate Method:

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.excel.programming/msg/a6b26610d3b8abc3

Now, at this point in life, for me, this is old-hat. But when I first read that, I thought "whoa". We'll be revisiting the Evaluate Method, by the way. In any event, there's a ton of great content in the Newsgroups.

I've certainly left off a number of other great resources, e.g., UtterAccess.com, XtremeVBTalk.com, Daily Dose of Excel, etc... It's a little difficult to speak to every single great, free resource out there. But, there are great Excel resources out there on the WWW, so if you're interested in learning about Excel, get out there and explore!