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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What do you want to know (really, really know) about Word 2007?, March 5, 2008
What do you want to know about Word 2007?
If all you want to know is how to click the buttons on the new fluent ribbon interface, then any book on Word 2007 will probably meet your needs. In that case, I recommend whichever book will look nicest sitting next to the other books on your bookshelf.
If you want to know how styles and themes work (and how to exploit them), or when to customize document defaults on the one hand and when to customize a style or a theme on the other, then how a book looks next to your other books probably isn't a matter of grave concern to you. In that case, I recommend Microsoft Office Word 2007 Inside Out.
This is a book that is extremely task-oriented, by which I mean that nearly every single section of every single chapter discusses how to DO something. Yet the book doesn't just tell you what to do, it tells you how Word works so that you can continue to put Word to work for you long after you put the book down. (Background information and special tips are presented as sidebars so that you can focus on the steps of a procedure when that's all you're interested in.)
The book is extremely comprehensive. I've worked with Word since 1985, yet I gained important new insights into the program within minutes of picking it up. The authors have been working with Word for many years, too, and this has enabled them to offer helpful notes and tips for users transitioning from earlier versions of Word to Word 2007. For readers completely new to Word, the book's discussion of foundational concepts such as paragraphs, tables, and sections, and global and attached templates (user and workgroup) will prove revelatory.
Some software books read like a catalog of features, but this one is organized around the small, medium, and large tasks associated with creation of documents. This approach has two advantages: 1)the major divisions of the table of contents let you turn instantly to the part of the book where the information you need can be found, and 2)as you're reading about, say, controlling text placement with textboxes, you'll find closely related subjects nearby.
The book is just as authoritative as it is comprehensive. In addition to reflecting the long, varied experiences of the authors, it offers special, difficult-if-not-impossible-to-find information gleaned from senior program managers on the Word development team. The book's companion CD, with its searchable ebook version of the content, is well worth installing on your computer for quick access while you're working.
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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"Special Edition: Using Word 2007" is better, August 13, 2007
This book suffers from the "new" Microsoft viewpoint. For example, "toolbar" apparently is an unacceptable concept nowadays. At any rate, "toolbar" is not in the index.
Wonder where the "help" facility has gone in the new menu system? Well, "help" is not in the index either. Wonder how to paste an Excel Chart into Word as a picture (rather than linked to the spreadsheet)? Not in the index either: not under "Excel", not under "Paste".
My biggest objections to this book are its poor index and cross-referencing. As a comparison, Faithe Wempen's "Using Word" has a three-level index of 41 pages. "Inside Out" has a two-level index of 26 pages.
For a book of this type, used constantly to find how Word handles a particular problem, such failure is fatal.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Shortcomings, October 10, 2008
Word 2007 INSIDE OUT is a handy reference, but I found two things wrong with it and the first is enough to say I would not buy the book again knowing what I know now: the print is a faint gray, not black. To read this book you must have daylight or bright illumination in your room. I read a lot using a bedside light with a 75 watt bulb. It is a strain to read this book under moderate or low-level illumination. Second, for a reference book on Word I found nothing specific about field codes. Another book says field codes are rarely needed unless you are dealing with an older Word document. I think this is a serious omission. If someone can point out that I missed field codes in the book, I'll correct my submission of this review.
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