Whom would your boss rather have on staff: an expert on Microsoft Office System 2007 or an expert on creating effective, easy-to-manage office documents?
Stephanie Krieger's new book is based on the arresting and gratifying notion that what your boss wants and needs is someone who can create effective, easy-to-manage documents (including worksheets and presentations), because such documents are the foundation of an effective organization.
Does this mean that Krieger's book gives short shrift to the capabilities of the new Microsoft Office System 2007? Not at all. It just means that the book offers effective ways to think about documents, worksheets, and presentations while showing how best to create and manage them with the Microsoft Office System 2007.
The fact that the word "Advanced" appears in the title is not an accident. The book doesn't tell how to save or print documents or check spelling. Instead, it tells how to plan documents and how to stay in control of them. It discusses special considerations governing documents that will be distributed electronically. It describes how work teams can effectively collaborate on documents. Within this conceptual framework, it offers detailed overviews of features that are new to the applications in Microsoft Office System 2007, plus step-by-step procedures for using those features to improve personal and organizational efficiency and the quality of documents.
The book exhibits respect for the reader throughout. Each advanced section starts by declaring what the reader needs to know ahead of time in order to benefit from that section. Cross-references (to other locations within the book and to other resources found elsewhere) are provided for readers who need more information.
An abbreviated, high-level table of contents appears at the beginning of the book, followed immediately by a more detailed table of contents. A specialized index of troubleshooting topics is found at the back of the book, just before the main index. A fully searchable electronic version of the text is provided on an accompanying CD that also includes recorded webcasts by the author and numerous other resources.
Experienced users of Office who are new to the Microsoft Office System 2007 will appreciate the book's focus on new features. They needn't worry about becoming bogged down in discussions of features already familiar to them from previous releases of Office.
The book covers the new Open XML file formats, the new Ribbon interface, the new graphics engine, and the new Themes for managing the look and feel of documents across applications and across document sets.
The chapters on Word 2007 cover new tools for managing and applying styles, new tools for working with graphics, new Quick Parts for rapid assembly of new documents, and new Content Controls for displaying data pulled from external sources or entered by the user. The chapters on Excel 2007 cover new tools for formatting worksheets, new charting capabilities, new refinements in working with PivotTables and PivotCharts, and tips for generating Visio diagrams from worksheet data. The chapters on PowerPoint cover new tools for working with presentation graphics, new functionality for custom slide layouts, and new tools for formatting text.
OneNote, Windows SharePoint Services Workspaces, and Groove Workspaces are discussed only briefly, with an eye toward helping users understand how these items can contribute to personal and organizational productivity.
In keeping with the book's advanced level and its goal of creating and managing effective documents, Krieger shows how templates can contribute content, design, and functionality to such documents. She argues that even non-programmers can exploit the new Open XML file formats and other new features of Office by relying on the VBA macro language. Then she removes one possible barrier by providing an impressively comprehensive (and comprehensible) introduction to the VBA language and to the VBA editor built into Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
The book contains occasional passages that could have been made more clear by a knowledgeable editor, but for the most part Krieger's writing is not only clear and well structured but free of the overly technical character exhibited by some books on software. Most readers will appreciate the practical perspective that she brings to her subject, particularly when addressing how to think about the formatting and organization of documents. (Many readers will be left wanting even more guidance on these important yet too-often-neglected topics.)
The book has an insider quality to it, which isn't surprising, given that it was published by Microsoft Press. The positive side of this is that Krieger clearly enjoyed frequent access to the development teams responsible for Microsoft Office System 2007. Such access undoubtedly contributed to the accuracy and completeness of her work. Krieger also benefited from the insights of her technical reviewer (Beth Melton, a widely respected authority on Microsoft Office).
The negative side of Krieger's close association with the development teams is that she sometimes includes gratuitous descriptions of her interactions with them. She also includes a few personal anecdotes that will be viewed by some readers as important foundations for her recommendations but by others as a failure to separate herself from her subject.
In a crowded field that includes beginners' step-by-step tutorials and comprehensive but undiscriminating 1,200-page doorstops, Krieger's book stands out for its thoughtful effort to help experienced users create and manage effective documents. Users who read her book are likely to find themselves in a better position to please their bosses and move their organizations forward.
