Customer Reviews

Microsoft® Office System Inside Out -- 2003 Edition (Bpg-Inside Out)

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Microsoft Press publishes a bunch of books on the latest version of the Office suite (Office 2003). This book "Office 2003 Inside Out" covers all the major applications in the suite and serves as a starting point for someone who's new to Office or just wants to know the most useful features without being burdened with the advanced details. Each Office program is covered for its most oft-used features. When you are ready for the advanced features, you'll need to get the separate "Inside Out" books for each program: Outlook 2003 Inside Out, Word 2003 Inside Out, Excel 2003 Inside Out, etc. These latter volumes (which I'll review separately as I read through each of them) are truly the advanced user's most valuable weapons in conquering the monster known as Office.

In summary, if you want to get your feet wet in using Office, nothing beats this book. It's precise, accurate, well-written, and well-edited, like pretty much all "Inside Out" books. I highly recommend it to those new to Office, or those who have been using Office without reading any written manuals. This is a thick volume (1000+ pages), but don't let that intimidate you. It's very easy to read through.

Huge book, difficult to handle. Takes a lot of patience going back and forth from chapter and sections.Will continue to try to master a very complicated but necessary software.

This book is okay for what it is -- it tells you which keys to press and which commands to choose to perform different tasks in the Office 2003 programs.

However, because this book is published by Microsoft, you don't get an objective, third-party perspective on the different software programs. The authors are never critical of the software itself. They don't steer you to competitors of Microsoft when going to a competitor might be the better choice. The authors don't describe unorthodox work-arounds -- the kind of things that save you time but aren't in official instruction book. I get the feeling this book promotes Microsoft Office 2003 as much as it describes how to use the software.

Finally, a little humor would be appreciated by this reader. This book is pretty dry.

The book was in excelant condition exactly as stated. A very good value. Thank You