Customer Reviews

Apple Training Series: iWork 08

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is good tutorial on these three programs, with extremely detailed step-by-step instructions. It assumes essentially no prior knowledge of the programs or even of Macintosh software.

Each chapter works through building a complete document, and the book covers most kinds of work that people would typically need. It makes heavy use of the existing templates that come with the programs, which again is probably good for beginners but less useful for professionals or advanced amateurs who want their own formats.

The book sticks closely to the script in going step-by-step through the examples, with few digressions or explanations of why things work this way. It has a lengthy index which seems well-done and would probably be adequate to look up any particular technique you needed. There's a puzzling reference (p. 239) to a mail merge feature--puzzling because the continuing absence of mail merge in iWorks is one of the biggest gripes users have about it. The mail merge mentioned here is just an intelligent drag and drop that puts the lines of the address in the right place when you drag and drop from the address book. You can only do one at a time, though; it's not a true batch mail merge.

The book has a very heavy emphasis on Keynote, the presentation (slideshow) software, with over half of the book devoted to this topic. Pages (word processor and page layout) gets about one-quarter of book, and Numbers (spreadsheets) and an integrated example get the remaining one-quarter. There are two additional chapters on the included DVD-ROM dealing with linked text in documents, camera RAW image files, and multimedia. The DVD-ROM includes all the needed files for the examples as well as the finished documents for comparison.

I wonder about the emphasis on Keynote. I'm skeptical that the absolute beginner that this book is aimed at would do very many slideshows; they would be much more likely to start with page layout.

Very Good Feature: several pages explaining how to get your computer hooked up to a projector. This is a subject that always stumps people and has caused many delays in getting presentations started.

Bottom line: good for beginners, still useful but very slow paced if you already understand slideshows, page layout, or spreadsheets and just want to get smart about iWork.

Contrary to the other reviews posted on here, I found the content to have the right mix and proper focus. So many of us have been subjected to awful PowerPoint presentations and the info here on Keynote really opens a whole new world to energizing presentations.

The info on Pages and numbers is more than sufficient in getting a handle on the programs and is a great guide to getting into the nuts and bolts of both. For a new MAC conver like myself, I am more than satisfied with the info presented here. Definately a sound purchase.

I purchased and very much learned a lot from the prior book in this Peachpit series, iWorks '06. Since iWorks '08 added a completely new application, Numbers, for which no other book had yet been published, I was very much looking forward to learning as much about Numbers as the earlier book on iWorks '06 had taught me about Keynote and Pages. Unfortunately, there are only two very basic chapters on Numbers, and little new in the chapters on Pages and Keynote. So I bought an entire book for two chapters that don't go much beyond what I had learned myself about Numbers.

Perhaps I should have guessed this would be the case given that the book came out less than 2 months after the release of iWork '08, but I think Peachpit should have warned it's customers that this was a "minor upgrade" at best.

The hardest part about getting my wife convinced that her new MacBook is more than a web surfing tool was getting her to accept iWork as a viable competitor to Microsoft Office. She was so used to using office that she gave up on iWork after not being able to figure it out right away. I asked her to sit down with this book and run through the lessons one night and she was not only convinced... She was hooked. The lessons walk you through the apps and give you a thorough understanding of what's possible and how intuitive the software can be. Each part builds on what you've already learned to give you a comprehensive understanding of the package. She hasn't been back to the crusty old PC since.

I purchased iWork '08 to become familiar with Keynote but mainly to learn how to use Pages and Numbers. The author devotes 211 pages to Keynote, 98 pages to Pages and 51 pages to Numbers. The subtitle of the book is Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. I believe a more realistic subtitle of the book should be Keynote, with passing references to Pages and a nod to Numbers.

I am very PC literate but new to the Mac platform so actually know very little about OS X. Numbers is new and the rest of the iWork suite is new to me. I bought this book because it is supposed to be the official training course for iWork.

The material in the book is very basic. It does not even warrant a book. In deed the book is not needed. Work the tutorials on Apples web site and you have pretty much covered this book. If you are not very computer literate this book will be of help to you. If you are computer literate (you have used applications) you may be able teach yourself what this book does with Google and the help files.

I finally went back to Mac after 12 years with a PC, and decided to tackle iWork on my MacBook to be more productive in creating teaching materials.

After research, I purchased this iWork 08 training series. I did as the author suggested, and took it step by step from the beginning. Oh, lest I forget, I did install 4 gigs of RAM from [...] so that iPhoto could zoom (it does!). This morning I spent about 1.5 hours on Lesson 1, and started Lesson 2.

I am confident that this manual will serve as an excellent resource for when I am ready to branch out on my own in creating slide presentations and documents.

Why am I confident? The author walks the reader through, step by step, and refers the reader to the lessons you download from the enclosed CD to check your work.

I've read reviews that say this series spends too much time on Keynote. I disagree because it's obvious the skills embedded in Keynote are transferable to the other iWork programs.

I am pacing myself to do about a lesson at a time, and by the time school starts next year, I expect to be "fluent" in iWork.

Thumbs up:)))))))

Don't believe the negative reviews. This is a revised edition of the earlier book, and delivers on its promises to get you started and fluent in iWork. Highly recommended.

For beginners with zero presentation, page layout or spreadsheet knowledge, this book gives you basic, project-based lessons that make use of iWork templates. So for the beginner, it's probably worth it. But this is an Apple Training Series text(one labeled for Beginner/Intermediate users), so I expected more depth. Unfortunately, the intermediate student is left wanting more, particularly in the thin sections devoted to Pages and Numbers. Should any training manual direct a user to an application's Help system for an explanation of a feature? And when a program has two main modes, as Pages does (Word Processing and Page Layout), shouldn't these be discussed. While the Keynote section feels the most together, the rest of text feels rushed at best with "bonus" chapters slapped on the DVD-ROM, including one dedicated to "Power users" that suffers from low voltage. The book lists a companion website with more material/lessons that doesn't exist. I'm rather surprised that this book represents Apple's training text. It makes me wonder.

Apple Training Series: iWork 08 (Apple Training)
This is an excellent resource for IWork, I also have the ILife'08 book by the same guy. He is one of the top trainers for Apple and Adobe. You can find his attached to many digital media training books.
Enjoy!