How to use Microsoft® Excel® | The Making of this Free and Open Textbook...Superbowl Style.

How to use Microsoft® Excel® by Joseph Manzo is the first in a series of three IS textbooks to publish at Flat World Knowledge. Coincidentally, it was also the first book in the “FWK 2012 lineup” to publish. Now, I’m not a huge football fan, however, given that Super bowl Sunday is fast approaching AND our very own New York Giants will be fighting for the championship, I’m going to go with the whole “football theme” and give you the Manzo play-by-play so you can get a sense of how we are, no doubt, going to hoist a trophy with this bad boy.

Let’s start off with some stats, shall we?

Joseph Manzo –

• Lehigh University, esteemed Professor of Practice.
• Courses taught include Intro to Financial Accounting, Fundamentals of Accounting, Business Consulting Process and Practice, Business Ethics, and Intro to Business.
• Author of a successful series of IT books, In Business, previously published by Pearson Education

The Kickoff – We launched this book a little more than a year ago and set in motion our plans to create a series of books that directly compete with top contenders like the Shelly Cashman Series as well as Shelly Gaskin’s GO!. We decided we would offer three products in our Careers in Practice Series:

1. How to Use Microsoft® Excel® - a standalone textbook covering the fundamentals of Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheet software
2. How to Use Microsoft® Word - another standalone textbook teaching students how to successfully create documents using Microsoft® Word software.
3. The third book would be comprehensive in nature, including material from the first two textbooks in addition to covering concepts on how to use Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation software and Microsoft® Access® database software.

All of these products would be written at the beginner to intermediate level and combine both technology and business in a personal and professional setting. How to Use Microsoft® Excel®, for example, would teach students how to set up and maintain a personal budget while also learning key terms with respect to home mortgages. Our plan? Solid. Our goal? To intercept and convert users of the competition. Oh yes, folks, Shelly Cashman was going to get the Heisman!

Halftime – By June, Joseph had made real progress. The first drafts of 3 out of 4 chapters were written. We had nailed down a solid panel of advisory board reviewers who struck a nice balance of offering both supportive feedback and constructive criticism of Joseph’s material. After this team vetted each chapter, we huddled together to discuss and plan our final draft strategy. Our running game was in place, sure hands, no fumbles!

End of the game – By December of 2011, Joseph had successfully made it to the red zone with 4 completely polished chapters covering fundamental Excel skills, producing mathematical computations using Excel formulas, processing and analyzing data using Excel functions, as well as presenting Excel data using charts in Word and PowerPoint. Before we could complete the play for a touchdown, however, we were tackled…by HTML. We were noticing that the alignment of numbered lists was not cooperating. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue given that most of our books don’t incorporate many numbered lists. Joseph’s book, however, is an exception given that most of the content is laid out in steps, directions that students need to follow in order to accomplish different tasks. What seemed to be causing the alignment issue was the fact that we were inserting screenshots in between steps within these numbered lists. Any step numbered after the figure would have to be hard coded to pickup where the numbering left off. The catch - when you hard code the numbering, you cannot control the alignment.

Thank goodness we work with such a talented, knowledgeable, and creative tech team as they were able to solve the issue.

What you’ll see here is a perfectly aligned textbook and, most importantly, offers what the competitor texts don’t – practical applications using Excel software, presented in clear step-by-step instructions, in the context of a personal or professional objective to which most, if not all, students can relate.

Overtime – stay tuned for a few extra goodies we plan to incorporate into How to use Microsoft® Excel®. Students trying to complete homework at 2am and getting those pesky #DIV/0! errors? With the help of follow along and refresher videos, Joseph can walk a student through how to add an absolute reference to a cell reference in a formula with the click of a button.

Now that I’ve given you a sneak peek at what went on in our locker room, anybody want to do a little Monday morning quarterbacking?

Becky Knauer is a proud New Jersey native and member of our gifted editorial and content team. She has extraordinary skills in project management and trampoline dodgeball.