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Ultimate Microsoft Excel Formula & Function Reference Guide: 500+ Practical Tips for Beginners to Experts including AI prompts for ChatGPT
Master Excel Formulas & Functions with Ease!Struggling with Excel formulas? Looking for a quick, practical reference to boost your productivity?
📘 The Ultimate Microsoft Excel Formula & Function Reference Guide is your go-to resource for learning, applying, and mastering over 500 Excel functions—from the essentials like SUM, AVERAGE, VLOOKUP and IF to advanced formulas like XLOOKUP, INDEX, MATCH, and dynamic arrays.
What’s Inside?✅ Two-Pages Per Concise explanations, real-world examples, and troubleshooting tips.
✅ Cheat Sheets & Downloadable Quick-reference guides to streamline your workflow.
✅ VLOOKUP, IF, INDEX, MATCH & Master the formulas you use every day.
✅ AI-Powered Learn how to use ChatGPT for smarter formula creation and troubleshooting.
✅ For Beginners & Experts A structured, easy-to-use reference for Excel users at any level.
Why You Need This Book✔ Save Time & Work Smarter – Stop struggling with complex formulas and find quick, clear answers.
✔ Increase Productivity – Automate calculations, analyze data faster, and streamline reporting.
✔ Boost Career Skills – Mastering Excel is a game-changer in business, finance, data analysis, and beyond.
✔ Quickly Find What You Need – Alphabetical and Formula Category indexes for easy navigation.
Whether you’re an analyst, student, business professional, or Excel enthusiast, this book will help you unlock Excel’s full potential—so you can work smarter, not harder.
🔹 Includes downloadable workbooks for hands-on learning!
🔹 Includes step-by-step guide for getting started using ChatGPT!
🔹 Includes popular keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet for PC and Apple users!
👉 Get your copy today and start mastering Excel formulas with confidence!
📘 The Ultimate Microsoft Excel Formula & Function Reference Guide is your go-to resource for learning, applying, and mastering over 500 Excel functions—from the essentials like SUM, AVERAGE, VLOOKUP and IF to advanced formulas like XLOOKUP, INDEX, MATCH, and dynamic arrays.
What’s Inside?✅ Two-Pages Per Concise explanations, real-world examples, and troubleshooting tips.
✅ Cheat Sheets & Downloadable Quick-reference guides to streamline your workflow.
✅ VLOOKUP, IF, INDEX, MATCH & Master the formulas you use every day.
✅ AI-Powered Learn how to use ChatGPT for smarter formula creation and troubleshooting.
✅ For Beginners & Experts A structured, easy-to-use reference for Excel users at any level.
Why You Need This Book✔ Save Time & Work Smarter – Stop struggling with complex formulas and find quick, clear answers.
✔ Increase Productivity – Automate calculations, analyze data faster, and streamline reporting.
✔ Boost Career Skills – Mastering Excel is a game-changer in business, finance, data analysis, and beyond.
✔ Quickly Find What You Need – Alphabetical and Formula Category indexes for easy navigation.
Whether you’re an analyst, student, business professional, or Excel enthusiast, this book will help you unlock Excel’s full potential—so you can work smarter, not harder.
🔹 Includes downloadable workbooks for hands-on learning!
🔹 Includes step-by-step guide for getting started using ChatGPT!
🔹 Includes popular keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet for PC and Apple users!
👉 Get your copy today and start mastering Excel formulas with confidence!
579 pages, Paperback
Published March 1, 2025
21 people are currently reading
965 people want to read
About the author
Alex Holloway
7 books11 followersAn author with a passion for data: how best to curate, define and store it, and how to use it for organizational success
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
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May 22, 2025I wanted to take a moment to express my heartfelt appreciation for your outstanding Excel guide. It is, without a doubt, one of the most user-friendly and well-structured resources I have come across. Your step-by-step approach makes even the most complex functions easy to grasp, ensuring that users of all levels can confidently navigate Excel’s powerful features.
What truly sets your book apart is its clarity and practicality. The intuitive explanations, real-world examples, and logical progression make learning both seamless and enjoyable. The accessibility of your guidance transforms Excel from a daunting tool into an empowering one, fostering efficiency and confidence in its users.
Your dedication to creating such a valuable resource is truly commendable. This guide has been an indispensable companion, and I look forward to discovering more of your insightful publications in the future.
Thank you again for your remarkable work!
What truly sets your book apart is its clarity and practicality. The intuitive explanations, real-world examples, and logical progression make learning both seamless and enjoyable. The accessibility of your guidance transforms Excel from a daunting tool into an empowering one, fostering efficiency and confidence in its users.
Your dedication to creating such a valuable resource is truly commendable. This guide has been an indispensable companion, and I look forward to discovering more of your insightful publications in the future.
Thank you again for your remarkable work!
May 21, 2025
*Good Reads Giveaway* I really enjoyed that the book had common errors and how to trouble shoot those. Comprehensive list of formulas and how to use AI tools to help assist with more complex situations. I read in another review that Alex has another book on Pivot tables. I will have to grab that one to keep as well.
May 28, 2025
a fantastic reference to keep open while working in Excel, or google slides, though you may need to work with an AI to figure out conversions.
May 14, 2025
Very helpful
I'm not great at excel and this book is going to help me. I skimmed through to what I needed help with (especially) and the book walked me through it. Thanks!
I'm not great at excel and this book is going to help me. I skimmed through to what I needed help with (especially) and the book walked me through it. Thanks!
May 28, 2025
**Giveaway winner review**
As someone who has gotten through life saying, “Yeah, I can do that,” when in fact I cannot, this guide is a life saver. This is perfectly categorized in an easy to understand format so that I can quickly find out how to make different formulas work. The way the author explains how AI goes hand in hand with Excel truly makes the process all that more simple. Now I can happily maintain an Excel savvy appearance to my co-workers.
As someone who has gotten through life saying, “Yeah, I can do that,” when in fact I cannot, this guide is a life saver. This is perfectly categorized in an easy to understand format so that I can quickly find out how to make different formulas work. The way the author explains how AI goes hand in hand with Excel truly makes the process all that more simple. Now I can happily maintain an Excel savvy appearance to my co-workers.
April 24, 2025
Having read Alex Holloway's previous books, such as Data Analysis in Microsoft Excel: Deliver Awesome Analytics in 3 Easy Steps Using VLOOKUPS, Pivot Tables, Charts And More and Data: Principles To Practice - Volume 1 'Foundations': Essential Foundations: Key Concepts behind Data Architecture, Engineering and Analysis for Professionals, I had high expectations for this one... and Alex exceeded them!
The book starts off with an overview of how to effectively use formulas in Excel workbooks. While this seems basic, it sets the tone for newer users and even serves as a good reminder of best practices for seasoned users. Some of us may get used to creating complicated formulas with nested conditionals and such, but keeping things as simple as possible is best. Also, there is a subsection devoted to the usage of generative AI tools to aid in Excel. As someone who approaches the usage of generative AI with caution and skepticism, this portion of the book does help one see the value of leveraging these tools as a resource for troubleshooting and such.
The following section groups functions together into categories based on the kind of problems each formula is supposed to solve. This is extremely helpful if one does not already know whether a certain function exists, providing an alternative to the simple alphabetic lookup (both alphabetic and category-wise lookups are available). It also goes through use cases and troubleshooting steps that are applicable to each category.
The bulk of the book consists of the formulas themselves. Each formula has its own page in the guide, keeping things clean and organized. Alex explains each formula, goes through its syntax, provides practical examples, and offers additional practice for the reader. In addition to the content in the book, Alex made Excel files available via GitHub for each of the formulas!
As someone who has used Excel extensively for many years, I felt like I already had a decent grasp on the various formulas available to use... when reading through this book, I came across many functions I had never heard of. I immediately thought of past cases where these new-to-me functions would have made great improvements in my workbooks. Some of those formulas I created could have been made much simpler!
This reference guide is something I really wish I had when I was first learning Excel. But even as a seasoned Excel user, I plan to keep this on hand going forward. This is an invaluable resource for folks of all experience levels!
The book starts off with an overview of how to effectively use formulas in Excel workbooks. While this seems basic, it sets the tone for newer users and even serves as a good reminder of best practices for seasoned users. Some of us may get used to creating complicated formulas with nested conditionals and such, but keeping things as simple as possible is best. Also, there is a subsection devoted to the usage of generative AI tools to aid in Excel. As someone who approaches the usage of generative AI with caution and skepticism, this portion of the book does help one see the value of leveraging these tools as a resource for troubleshooting and such.
The following section groups functions together into categories based on the kind of problems each formula is supposed to solve. This is extremely helpful if one does not already know whether a certain function exists, providing an alternative to the simple alphabetic lookup (both alphabetic and category-wise lookups are available). It also goes through use cases and troubleshooting steps that are applicable to each category.
The bulk of the book consists of the formulas themselves. Each formula has its own page in the guide, keeping things clean and organized. Alex explains each formula, goes through its syntax, provides practical examples, and offers additional practice for the reader. In addition to the content in the book, Alex made Excel files available via GitHub for each of the formulas!
As someone who has used Excel extensively for many years, I felt like I already had a decent grasp on the various formulas available to use... when reading through this book, I came across many functions I had never heard of. I immediately thought of past cases where these new-to-me functions would have made great improvements in my workbooks. Some of those formulas I created could have been made much simpler!
This reference guide is something I really wish I had when I was first learning Excel. But even as a seasoned Excel user, I plan to keep this on hand going forward. This is an invaluable resource for folks of all experience levels!
July 4, 2025
I got this book as a refresher. When I learned excel, I learned in another language, so many times I catch myself writing things like "how do I do "procv" in US Excel".
I knew this author from another work, so why not try this one too?
It's really good! Have it with you and you'll be covered for any function. It also has a downloadable workbook to see how they operate and every page has a ChatGPT prompt to give you ideas about taking your skills to the next level.
Highly recommend it.
I knew this author from another work, so why not try this one too?
It's really good! Have it with you and you'll be covered for any function. It also has a downloadable workbook to see how they operate and every page has a ChatGPT prompt to give you ideas about taking your skills to the next level.
Highly recommend it.
June 16, 2025
This Great reference guide for Excel formulas and functions! This has helped me a lot at work. Thank you for creating such wonderful guide!
June 23, 2025
Very Helpful. I have my employees using it as well.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews