Fantastic Office Resource
Written: Nov 29 '01 (Updated Nov 30 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: 1158 pages of concise Information, well laid out, quite in depth
Cons: Doesn't go into Access or Frontpage in great detail.
The Bottom Line: Office is a powerful set of applications. With the amount of features awaiting to be discovered, a book like this can guide you on the right path to perfect productivity.
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| adamadi's Full Review: Ed Bott et al - Using Microsoft Office Xp Books |
Microsoft Office is one powerful set of applications. The quantity of features available in each of the programs which few people know about is tremendous. That’s why I went out and bought this book, Using Microsoft Office XP.
--Information about the Book
The page count is 1158. The authors are Ed Bott and Woody Leonhard. ISBN Number: 0-7879-2513-4 . The edition I am reviewing is the first edition printed in May 2001 .
--What this Book covers
This book covers the 4 main Microsoft Office XP Applications, that is, Word, Excel, Outlook and Powerpoint. Microsoft Access and Frontpage are briefly covered towards the end of the book with 2 chapters dedicated to each. Obviously, the 4 main applications are covered in the most depth, with a couple hundred pages dedicated to each. Also covered to the end of the book are Macros and a brief introduction into VB Scripting.
--Sections
To give you an Idea of what this Book contains, I will list out the sections of the book and briefly explain what it contains.
1. Common Tasks and Features
· This section contains overview of the features of Office XP, customising the interface, basic formatting information that works cross the board with all the Office applications, Merging and collaborating data between different Office applications.
2. Using Outlook
· This section is basically dedicated to Outlook, all the features, from setting up your email accounts to using the built in scheduler in Outlook.
3. Using Word
· Dedicated to Word, from entering text to advanced features like setting up Mail Merges.
4. Using Excel
· Dedicated to Excel, contains information from simple cell movements to explaining advanced formulas, e.t.c.
5. Using Powerpoint
· From Basic slide creations to adding advanced and custom animation effects.
6. Other Office Applications
· This portion contains 5 chapters, 3 dedicated to Access and 2 dedicated to Frontpage
7. Automating Office with Macros and VBA
· Introduction to Macros and basic VBA writing. Not very detailed because this is not a VBA book.
8. Appendixes
· Troubleshooting installing XP and other little Office tricks.
I hope you get an idea of what this book contains. Basically, it goes quite indepth in Word, Excel, Outlook and Powerpoint while briefly touching Access, Frontpage and Macros.
The book is mostly black and white, although the headers are in a blue background with white text. There are also some portions that are written in blue, these are reserved for special instructions. The screenshots are in grayscale. The font size is fairly big and is very easy to read.
--How good is it?
Good question. The flat answer: This is an excellent Office resource. Everything is explained very well, accompanied by screenshots, many with arrows labelling where to click and explaining portions of the screen. Also, after almost every little explanation, there is a Tip box which usually shows the shortcut of how to do that specific task or anything else related to that task. It is very handy.
It’s a bit hard to explain the depth of this book. Almost every feature I can think about in any of the main office applications is explained here. Many of the features that are in the book I had absolutely no clue about, and they turned out to be very useful. For example, in word, I never knew Word had a summarising feature in it, where Word can actually take your document and summarise it. Its pretty amazing although it actually doesn’t work that perfectly.
I am just trying to get this point across. This book is very detailed. There a features in almost every application which you probably have never even known about but can help you tremendously that are explained in this book.
--Conclusion
To summarise this review, this book is outstanding. Its an excellent Office resource for any office user. It’s a good Cover to Cover book, if you read it through, you are sure to learn many new helpful things. Its also an excellent reference book. Its structured well and the index is very detailed (The index is 75 Pages long!) I believe any Office user should own this book, for 27.99, you can’t go wrong.
(Remember that this book really only covers Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook… If your looking for Access or Frontpage, get a dedicated book for each of them)
Recommended:
Yes
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adamadi
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