Customer Reviews

Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Outlook is the most forgotten of all Office programs. I am amazed at how many people have access to it and still use Outlook Express or some other program.

I was used to Outlook 2002 and when I got my new computer last week I saw that Outlook 2003 had a whole new look to it. Then I got that sinking feeling: I am going to have to learn this software all over again.

Thank gosh for Ms. Cardoza book. In the past, such huge books have been overwhelming confusing, this one is not.

I like d her personalizing the book: She not just mentions how you can do something, but what she does. For example, in explaining the new junk mail filter, Ms. Cardoza mentions her settings and her results; In discussing Outlook's new look she mentions that it took a few days for her to get used to it but then she like it. Well, it took me a few days too and now I like it.

Part of the problem with some of these programs is that all the tools for a function are not in one place. For example, it you wish to archive past emails and other folders there is not one menu to go, you must go to several. Ms. Cardoza, very simply, explains the various places to go and what to do. I now have archived older emails but have instant access to them. Wow!

I was thinking of adding "ACT" to my computer. Act is a software that helps you with client contacts. There is no need to do this with the new Outlook, which comes with a Business Account Manager. But more than just that, this book gave excellent instructions in setting it up and using it.

I don't really read a book of this type from cover to cover, just the topics as they come up. The highlighting of what is new is so helpful and interesting, I found myself checking out those items. For example, the new way of doing signatures and searches was helpful, but would be lost in a huge program like this if it weren't for a clear cut explanation in the book.

In conclusion, I did not feel overwhelmed with Outlook with this book next to me and I was able to quickly learn many new features, which made this program easy to use.

I bought this book as a companion reference with Outlook 2003 that came with a Dell unit, Microsoft's own documentation being sparse.

The idea was to get a clear understanding of the new features in Outlook 2003, the business contacts thing, etc. The book does that very well in a clear and friendly manner. I skimmed though it, got a decent enough overview and then forgot about.

What really endeared the book to me was that I had to help out a friend with a missing address book and after doing a futile search on the web I turned to this book as an afterthought. The answer was right there in a troubleshooting section.

That one time saving help was well worth the price.

I am going to go through the book again, with a new appreciation.

Patricia Cardoza did one fantastic job in the writing of this book on Outlook 2003. I have found it very useful for people that have only used Outlook Express and had stayed away from Outlook due to the fact it felt more complex. Patricia writes in a very neat manner, you almost feel like you are sitting down with her and learning the program as she gives examples of how she uses Outlook 2003 and many of those opened up new ways to use the software. I have gone thru the book twice, first time was skimming it for area's I needed help in and the second time was cover to cover. Both times I got a huge amount of info from and that has made my life with Outlook 2003 much better. Also what I found very interesting and several of my friends commented on this is that I felt like my mind worked somewhat similiar to Patricia as right when I got to a section that I did not understand fully, several questions would pop up in my head as far as how to use these and why and then I discover on the next page, Patricia is addressing those issues. So for me, this is by far the best "real world" book around for Outlook 2003.
Tedd Riggs

We're deploying Office 2003 right now across our network and knew ahead of time that Outlook 2003 was one of the most changed applications in the suite...especially when paired with Exchange Server 2003 (next year's upgrade). We've been using this book to build upon the introductory material in "Special Edition Using Microsoft Office 2003" to help train our users on the new features and get them to leverage all that Outlook 2003 has to offer.

Ample pictures throughout the text help to reinforce what the author is presenting. As well, like all of the Special Edition Using books this one too has a full index that is actually helpful and fairly easy to locate things in. If have room for only one Outlook 2003 book, this would be my pick.

I am a retired software designer, now using Outlook for home use. I needed to move my cardfile from an obsolete MSDOS program to Outlook. After exporting my cardfile to a report in a text file, I wrote a VBA program to move it to an Access database. I then needed an Outlook VBA program to merge it with my existing Outlook cardfile and re-import the combined cardfile into Outlook. Ms. Cardoza's book told me what I needed to know - how to write VBA code in Outlook to read and write contacts and how to reference my Access database.

It also helped teaching me the Categories feature and reporting features so I could duplicate the categories and reports that I was used to using in my old MSDOS program.

While not a basic book on programming, Ms. Cardoza describes enough information for someone with some knowledge in Visual Basic for Applications programming to program Outlook. A good book that provided just what I was looking for.

I've been using this book for about two months now, and there is a constant theme: I have a question, and this book can't answer it. Sometimes I'm able to figure it out. More often, it turns out that Outlook 2003 simply doesn't support that feature. But even in the latter case, it would be useful for the book to SAY that you can't do it.

I'm not talking about esoteric stuff, either. It's all config stuff like "how can I setup Outlook to check both my local contact list **and** the global list on the server?" (You can't.)

So, this is a good book to tell you how it works, but for 1088 pages, it does a surprisingly poor job of answering day-to-day configuration questions.

My purchase of Outlook 2003 was as advertised. The book arrived promptly, as advertised in like-new condition. Extremely pleased.

Thank you.

Yes, it has over 1000 pages of how-to instructions, and the instructions are probably good, but not a page is any good if the program fails to function properly. The book could use much, much more troubleshooting advice.