There's nothing like having a target to aim for. Going thorough a series of
examples and exercises from a book can be very dry and without purpose. I'm
not advising you not to look at a book. It's a very necessary evil. You
could perhaps think of a few personal goals that may inspire you to get on.
Something that, at the end of the day, will be useful to you and which you
can take some pride in saying "I done that" every time it is used. I
suppose a 'traditional' one would be to commit all you finances to a
spreadsheet and then use that to analyse income and expenditure by type and
produce some graphs. This may not be a good example for you but you are
really the best one to come up with the best idea.

Tip one is think (what you want), design (what you want) and then it will do
what you want. The best way is to start with a pen and paper with the
computer off.

Tip two is try to reduce the spreadsheet as much as possible. (No I don't
mean to make it painful to read). This approach concentrates the mind on
reducing bloat.

Tip three is not to do a job more than once. Put all the variables (e.g.
VAT rate) in one place and refer to it. This also reduces the chance of an
error (part of idiot proofing).

Tip four is enjoy a challenge.

Regards.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions

"Ted Rogers" wrote in message
...
I am trying to get my head around Excel to improve my future employment
possibilities, learning its more advanced features and hopefully VBA. What
is the best way of achieving this please? (attending a course is out of the
question as I am disabled). I have a choice of self learning via CD's
(Lynda.com or similar), books or self learning with the program helpfiles
and examples.

I would appreciate views on this and recommendations if at all possible.

Best wishes,

Ted