Customer Reviews

Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Word 2007

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

An outstanding book that delves deeply into the most advanced features of Microsoft Word 2007, including topics that lesser books often shy away from like fields, forms, OLE, master documents, XML, and security. If you want a book that will deliver serious in-depth technical content without insulting your intelligence, then this is the one.
Since Word 2007 is such a departure from earlier versions, there's plenty of learning to be done even for us old-timers who have been using word processors since the dawn of computers. In a lot of cases, Word 2007 offers an entirely new feature for the 2007 file format, but also supports the earlier methods for backward compatibility. This book describes both the 2007 and the older features where applicable, so you don't have to keep a book for an earlier version handy to look things up. Case in point: fields. Word 2007 has a whole new set of fields, called content controls, that have some benefits over earlier field types, but they also have some drawbacks, so you would not want to use them all the time necessarily. This book contains complete coverage of the 2007 fields, but it also has complete coverage of all the legacy form field types as well.
This book has an attractive, easy-to-read two-color interior design, and strikes a nice balance between text and illustration. The graphics are plentiful, but never seem gratuitous. Graphics are tightly cropped to show only the important parts of the screen, callouts are plentiful, and the figure captions are clear and concise, so you don't have to wonder why you're looking at that particular image.
Each chapter concludes with a Troubleshooting section, in which half a dozen or so common problems are discussed and resolved. These are helpful not only when you are actively troubleshooting, but just to file away in your head for future reference. For example, if your Normal.dotm file gets all fouled up, you can just delete it (if you know where to look for it) and Word will create a fresh copy the next time it starts. If you don't need that information now, I guarantee you will eventually need it at some point.
Copious cross-referencing is employed to reference related topics in different chapters, which makes the book almost seductive to skim; by reading one topic, I inevitably run into a cross-reference that takes me to something interesting I didn't even realize existed in some other section.
The book covers every aspect of word, from cradle to grave, and I can't imagine needing or wanting to do anything with the program that it doesn't explain in detail. Word 2007 is a complex topic, but Using Word 2007 has it well-covered.

If you look at the page count on this book you'll see that it's one of these big all inclusive computer books. It's intended to tell you everything there is to know about Microsoft Word. And so far as I can tell, it's all there.

But if you're already familiar with Word do you really want to plow through 1100+ pages of stuff, even if it's good stuff. If you're like me, you want to see what's different, what's new that looks like it will be helpful to me.

The authors have arranged this book so that the experienced user need read only the first part to quickly get up to speed and start being productive. At the same time, all the rest of the information is there for when you need to find out about something you haven't done before.

What's New in Word is a bunch. The biggest change is the user interface. Word (and the rest of the Office programs) now have what they call the Ribbon. This replaces the set of toolbars that used to be across the top of the screen. So this book starts off with a description of the Ribbon. The next chapter goes into the changes in the way you start a new document and how you save it. -- Pretty mundane stuff, but things you'd better know.

If you're familiar with Word, finishing part I of this book will probably be enough to get you well started. On the other hand as you go along, there are enough changes in every area -- tables for instance -- that you may want to refer to that section when you are doing one. The screen will certainly look different than it did in earlier versions.

After twenty-seven years of machine processing of words -- I certainly don't need a book to regurgitate the basics. This one does just that -- of course -- but it also has the best coverage of all the advanced feastures -- such as references, indexing, collaboration, etc. No computer reference book survives for more than a year or two -- a book needs to be outstanding to be worth the investment. This one is worth it.

I bought this book when I started working on my master's thesis, suspecting
(correctly) that I would need to take advantage of some of the "advanced"
features of Word to keep track of such a long document. Since section 5 is
dedicated to long documents, I hoped this book would help make the experience
a less frustrating one.

Unfortunately, I can't say that it did - although this may not be the book's
fault; it may just be that Word is a frustrating program to use, no matter
how well you understand it. The book itself reads more like a mixture of
standard documentation (about 75% of it is the same stuff you can read in the
online help, albeit far more well-organized) and the other 25% are admittedly
useful "tips and tricks". For example, I never would have figured out that you
can link text boxes to one another, or hold down the "Ctrl" key when launching
word to open it in "safe" mode, or print out a list of current key assignments,
had I not read them here.

Overall, though, I still find Word a frustrating program to use. It still has
a "mind of its own", but at least now I know _why_ it's doing what it's doing
(even if I still can't make it stop). The audience for this book, for the most
part, is non-programmers or even people who aren't that comfortable with
computers in general (of course, this is a book about Microsoft Word, so you'd
have to sort of expect that).

That's not to say it doesn't have its interesting points. There's a whole chapter
on Word's XML editing and validating capabilities - I was surprised to find out
how advanced they were (you can load an XML schema and generate a validated document
against it; the functionality is similar to XMLSpy, for example). The last chapter
is a reference on "RibbonX", which requires a degree of what some people might
consider programming to modify the internals of the document to change the UI around.
The internals of the new .docx are even touched on (but not in any great depth).

Some features were almost ignored completely. There's a section in the book on
the new equation editor, for example - you might as well skip it, because it doesn't
have anything to say. Even the chapters on long documents, including the section
on table of contents, bibliographies, tables of figures, etc., for which I bought
the book, didn't contain any information that you wouldn't be able to figure out
on your own.

Most of the value in the book is in pointing out obscure features buried under
multiple layers of option menus that you might never notice while actually using the
program (I've been using it for over 15 years and there were lots of time-savers
in here that I had never run across accidentally). This book won't, however, turn
you into a Word "power user" - it's just a very long introduction to each and every
feature of the program. I would have preferred a shorter book that didn't go over
the obvious (if you don't have anything to add about SmartArt other than, "it exists",
there's no reason to dedicate nineteen pages to screen shots describing how to change
the font, color, and size of the "SmartArt" - especially when these procedures are
the same as those for AutoShapes, to which you dedicated 20 pages and for Charts, to
which you dedicated yet another fifteen pages), or even better, a long book that
left out the obvious, but did a better job of "bringing everything together" so that
I felt like I was in control of my documents.

Still, I'd recommend this book in general, because it calls out quite a few things
you'd probably never find out on your own, regardless of your level of technical
expertise... just be prepared to lose hours reading through pages of (repetitively)
obvious features to find that one nugget of useful information.

I was reared on a N0 2 pencil and a fountain pen, at 83 years, I know next to nothing about computers, and word processing. Without Faithe Wempen's book "Using ord 2007" I would be totally lost, and would be unable to use Word 2007 effectively. With the clear step by step instructions and tips in this volume, I find not only can I use Word 2007, but I actually enjoy doing things which I never dreamed possible. I highly recommend "Using Microsoft Office ord 2007" to WWII survivors, and other elderly people who wish to communicate by Word 2007. It's amazing what one can do with this book as a guide.

As a long-time Word user, I was looking for a book that covered the advanced aspects of Word 2007 and didn't assume I was a dummy or an idiot. (You know the titles I mean.)

I've been delighted by "Using Microsoft Office Word 2007". It has covered all the things I needed. Also, it has introduced me to new features in Word 2007 that I wouldn't have discovered on my own.

If you're already comfortable with earlier versions of Word and want to be quickly up to speed with the new features of 2007, this is just the book for you.

On the cover of this book that is as thick as the Yellow Pages of a fair-sized city it says: THE ONLY WORD 2007 BOOK YOU NEED. I believe it. I am a beginner with Microsoft Word and needed something that was comprehensive but didn't pass over the basics and assume that I was born already working in Word.

My experience with Word started with the 2007 Beta version. Microsoft Office had tutorials online which got me started, but they were pretty rudimentary. They explained about the new Ribbon and its usefulness and how to do basic commands using the Ribbon interface. The one strength of their tutorials for a beginner was that you actually downloaded a pre-formatted template and then they took you through the steps about how to change things and build in the basic format they provided. If you need something like that then this book is not for you. In other words, there is no hand holding here.

To me this is a good thing. Sure it's harder when it's not spoon-fed to you and you have to do your own thinking, but with something as complicated and multi-faceted as Word 2007 you better be able to fend for yourself. Not that the book leaves stuff out -- not by any means. It just explains all the functions as best as they can be explained and it is up to you to work with the features after they are shown to you. If it shows you how to make a table for example, it shows you what to do but leaves the doing and creating totally up to you. It's for grown-ups. LOL

Microsoft's Office Word 2007 is a powerful tool and has gazillions of features. It took a book this size to cover and explain them all, and it looks like the author succeeded.

I'm in love! I bought digital access to this book as well as ordering a copy. The day after ordering it, I was able to clean up some serious formatting messes after reading the chapter about styles online. "Using Word 2007" gives clear descriptions of how to use the basic and advanced features, including things like the Style Inspector that Microsoft seems to avoid telling you about in the Help files. It also explains the good and bad points of different options - for example, warning you that if you set a style to Automatically Update and then make a minor formatting change to the text in one location (e.g. applying italics), ALL examples of the style will change to italics whether you want that or not.

If you are forced to work with Word 2007, or support people who have to work with it, you need this book.

Faithe Wempen's "Special Edition" volume on Word 2007 is touted in its subtitle as "The Only Word 2007 Book You Need." That might or might not be true. It depends on you, your purpose and your taste.
Personally, I love this book. If you're like me, Word 2007 at first glance astounds you, frustrates you and angers you. You definitely need a guided tour to navigate your way through it. The question is whether you need 1,066 pages to do it. That's a pretty darn long tour.
For my money, I want a thorough and comprehensive guide. Maybe I don't want to know the ins and outs of tables at the moment or the mechanics of inserting graphics, but I might later on.
I chose this book out of the scores of similar titles because it came closest to the author speaking to me, her style resonating with me. I also considered the "Microsoft Word 2007 Bible," which runs a close 960 pages, but the author lost me when he asked me to imagine myself an outer-space traveler who has been away from Planet Earth for a decade or so. No thanks. Not the kind of thing I want to spend my time imagining. Or the kind of thing that will get me up and running with Word. So that's what I mean by the author's style, of speaking your language, of communicating with you in the way you're comfortable with. It's purely a matter of personal preference.
My suggestion for anyone considering this or a similar guide to Word 2007 is to read as much of the excerpt as is available and decide if you like what you see. Before choosing this one, I conducted a rather simple test. I am annoyed by Word telling me which words it likes and which ones it doesn't and then interrupting my reading of what I've written with red squiggly lines. So I looked in the index under "red" to see if it was there. It's in the "Special Edition" book (under "red wavy lines"), but not in the so-called "Bible."
Conducting your own test -- picking something that's very specific -- could very well narrow your own choices in a very crowded field.
My only criticism of the book -- and I just received it and have only read a few passages -- is that the numerous illustrations and examples are all in grayscale and not four-color. Color, of course, would make it more expensive, so that's the trade-off.
My own solution will be to buy a second book, the one on Word 2007 from the "Teach Yourself Visually" series. That will give me the quick-hit introduction I want and the easy-to-read-and-follow color illustrations I prefer. But when Word screws up, as it inevitably will -- or when I screw it up -- I've got an authoritative backup to get me out of it. And I have the details for all the fine points that sooner or later I will want to know.
The bottom line is that we're all different, with different stages of technical savvy and different wants and needs. If you're looking for a well-written, comprehensive and authoritative guide to Word 2007, this "Special Edition" could well be as perfect for you as it is for me. If you want something short, general and colorful, you should look elsewhere.

I've been very pleased with the detail this book provides. It covers many details of Word that even long time users may not even know exist. The step by step instructions are concise and clear.

A must have for any serious Word user.