Customer Reviews

Microsoft Office System Step by Step -- 2003 Edition (Step by Step (Microsoft))

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Book Review by Douglas E. Parsons/IPCUG

MICROSOFT OFFICE SYSTEM 2003
Step-By-Step
From OnLine Training Solutions Inc. & Curtis Frye

This 908 page book is chock filled with instructions and a training disk to allow you to learn at your own pace. If you know everything about Office 2003 you will not need this book but as I don't know as much as I wish I found this book fascinating. I love to learn new things and this book is filled with them. Even if you know how to do a lot of the things in Microsoft Office there are always new techniques available to make your work easier.

Using this book and the tutorials on the training disk you can build just the right skills you need to do your jobs and tasks. There are several `real world' examples for you to practice on and improve your skills. The CD-Rom disk included with this book is filled with the Step-By Step & One Note 2003 e-books, Microsoft Computer dictionary, business templates and clip art with which to practice your Office computing skills.

There is one section of Quick Reference for those of you that know all the stuff but just need a brief list of do this, do that to accomplish your task. In browsing through this I was amazed to find out there were so much more that could be done in Office 2003 than I ever knew.

The easy to read chapters in the book cover all the 2003 programs, Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Outlook, FrontPage, Publisher, OneNote and InfoPath (The last two are new to 2003).The chapters are laid out in easy to follow steps to complete the task you want. For instance, in chapter 11, Access 2003, Sorting for information the instructions tell you to start Access, and use the GardenCO database in the practice file folder (this is followed by complete instructions on where to find this folder; detailed step by step instructions such as I need and admire). Following this is an eight step instruction list on how to sort customers by City and Region. Many of the different chapters on the various programs give screen shots and show you how to come up with these screens. Several times I was warned that if my screen did not look like the one in the book I should go back and re-do it until is matched.

Of particular interest was chapter 29, `Working with Notes' as this covered the new OneNote 2003 program that Microsoft just came out with this year. This program makes the notes you take at meetings or in classes more useful by providing a number of ways to find them, mark them and share them. You can jot sown a great idea for the saving of mankind with minimal interruption of your current task. Then you can search your notes-no matter how big or lengthy they are. Sharing with others via e-mail and creating tasks for yourself is easy with the integration into Microsoft Outlook.

The list price for this book is $39.99 but Amazon.Com is having a 30% off sale making it $27.99 and some deal for free shipping. They also have some used copies for $25.75. You might try to find other companies that sell used books at great prices. I have bought several by doing a web search for cut rate books.

Therefore, if you are interested about becoming better at the Microsoft Office 2003 products you must get this book. Not only get it but spend a few evenings with it going through the STEP-BY-STEP tutorials. You will be very glad you did in the future when you are able to do the things you want easier and faster and develop a much better looking product. DEP

I feel I was misled when I purchased this book (or maybe I was half asleep and didn't read the book description carefully enough). "Microsoft Office 2003 Step by Step" is a tutorial. It covers all the Office programs, but it does so with the idea that you can learn the programs best by getting hands-on instructions for using them. You won't find much commentary, much advice, or many tips or tricks. You will find a CD with raw data and a number of step-by-step lessons to help you gain experience with the Office programs.

If you have time to load the sample data from the companion CD and, when you need to know how to complete a task, pick your way through a step-by-step lesson, this book is for you. But if you're in a hurry and you just want to get the information quicky, try a reference book instead.

This book is not for people who, say, are at work and have to get the thing done before five o'clock. It's aimed at readers who want to learn Office programs from the ground up and have the time to do that.

First of all, the CD did not have all of the Practice Files I need to actually USE the book. Second, the features it runs through are so basic as to be useless to anyone who has ever used Word, Excel, etc. There's nothing on how to creat mail merges in Word, for example. This was a complete waste of $20. Only buy this crummy book if you know absolutely NOTHING about Word, Excel, etc.

"In browsing through this I was amazed to find out there were so much more that could be done in Office 2003 than I ever knew" ?!
This is true only if you're totally, absolutely new to any edition of Microsoft office not just 2003, that is you've never or barely used Microsoft office before.
If that's the case, then any book including this one here is a great one. But if you have minimum knowledge about Microsoft office don't waste your time and money, I'm saying this because I've been teaching Microsoft office for years now and I can hardly recommend this book for a beginner level.
There are much better books out there, try the Special Edition(Que) or the Inside Out(Microsoft) series.
5 stars for this book is a misleading review and aims only to boost the bad rating this book have.

Office 2003 and Office XP are very similar. This book could guide you through both. This book is basically useless with Office 2007. The framework of Office 2007 is very different.

This book is very good as a refresher manual. May be a bit complex if you are not familiar with it. Yet, overall, its a great reference book.

The book provides an excellent resource for obtaining maximum benefit from the associated software. Excellent product by Microsoft Press.

This is a very nice book for a beginner. If you are Office savy don't buy.

I will never purchase anything from this vendor again as I never recieved the item and I've tried contacting them via email and still have not gotten a response from them a month later regarding this item.

I've had to reorder the item from another vendor and hope that I get my purchase. This is the first time this has happened with a purchase from amazon, so I know that it's not the site fault but the vendors.

Sincerely,

Deidre Gregory

Even though I have used Microsoft products for a number of years, I found this book helpful. This book gets you started using the basic features of the different Office products. The explanations are detailed yet not boring. The diagrams are easy to read and relevant to the text.

I do wish that before the step-by-step excercises they would briefly explain what is about to be done.