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Allen Wyatt is one of the leading experts on getting the most out of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. They're powerful packages, but not always exactly intuitive. (In fact, can you say "Incredibly maddening"? I knew you could.) His hundreds of Tips are well categorized and help you figure out how to get what you need to do done. Of course you can search, and it's all free. Awesome!
Update: Since Office 2007 is so very different, Wyatt has special sites with tips just for them: Word 2007 Tips and Excel 2007 Tips.
From This is True for 6 March 2005
Suggestions for further reading:
Office 2007 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
By: Peter Weverka
List Price: $29.99
Amazon Price: $19.79
Editorial Review:
Revised and updated to cover changes to all of Office's applications and productivity tools Offers beyond-the-basics coverage of Office word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, e-mail, databases, and desktop publishing Covers Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, productivity tools such as Microsoft OneNote, and SharePoint Thoroughly updated to cover the new Office interface as well as new features in each application
Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 to Create Pres...
By: Cliff Atkinson
List Price: $29.99
Amazon Price: $19.79
Editorial Review:
Transform your presentations and boost your impact with practical, easy-to-apply techniques for using PowerPoint 2007. Author Cliff Atkinson is a presentation-skills expert who is helping revolutionize the way Fortune 500 companies design and deliver their critical presentations. Even major news media reported the contribution of Cliffs techniques to a verdict in a high-profile trial. In his highly-regarded, popular book Beyond Bullet Pointsnow fully updated for PowerPoint 2007Cliff shares his innovative three-step method that helps you unlock the amazing story buried in those bullet-riddled slides. He guides you, step by step, as you discover how to combine the tenets of classic storytelling with the power of projected media to create a rich, engaging experience. With easy-to-use templates, advanced tips, and plenty of illustrations and examples, youll learn techniques to help you clarify, visualize, and present your ideas so that your audience will remember your important message. This newly revised, popular guide now includes a CD with sample PowerPoint 2007 files and graphics.
Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual
By: Jim Elferdink
List Price: $34.99
Amazon Price: $23.09
Editorial Review:
Product Description
Still the top-selling software suite for Mac users, Microsoft Office has been improved and enhanced to take advantage of the latest Mac OS X features. You'll find lots of new features in Office 2008 for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage, but not a page of printed instructions to guide you through the changes. Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual gives you the friendly, thorough introduction you need, whether you're a beginner who can't do more than point and click, or a power user who's ready to tackle a few advanced techniques.
To cover Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage, this guide gives you four superb books in one -- a separate section each for program! You can manage your day and create professional-looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in no time. Office 2008 has been redesigned so that the windows, toolbars, and icons blend in better with your other Mac applications. But there are still plenty of oddities. That's why this Missing Manual isn't shy about pointing out which features are gems in the rough -- and which are duds. With it, you'll learn how to: Navigate the new user interface with its bigger and more graphic toolbars Use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage separately or together Keep track of appointments and manage daily priorities with the My Day feature Create newsletters, flyers, brochures, and more with Word's Publishing Layout View Build financial documents like budgets and invoices with Excel's Ledger Sheets Get quick access to all document templates and graphics with the Elements Gallery Organize all of your Office projects using Entourage's Project Center Scan or import digital camera images directly into any of the programs Customize each program with power-user techniques With Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual, you get objective and entertaining instruction to help you tap into all of the features of this powerful suite, so you can get more done in less time.
'Why Should I Upgrade to Office 2008 for Macintosh?'
Author Jim Elferdink talks about what's new in Office 2008 for Macintosh. If you're still using Office 2004, you'll find some great reasons to upgrade. Jim also fills you in on some cool features that Office for Windows can't match, and why you may not need to invest in iWork!
What are the best new features that will make folks want to upgrade to Office 2008?
Publishing Layout view. If you use Word to create formatted documents like letters and brochures, you'll find it so much easier to do now in the new Publishing Layout view than in the old Page Layout view. Publishing Layout view is actually quite similar to Pages; both are very usable. It's a huge boon for Word peopleif you haven't bought Pages, now you won't have to!
MyDay. I really enjoy Entourage's MyDay feature. Assuming you're not working on a laptop that doesn't have screen space to spare, I recommend keeping MyDay open in the corner of your screen. That's what I do! It helps me keep track of my appointments and schedule. If you've got appointments every 20 minutes or just a lot going on in your day, it's great to have it all at a glance. It also helps you remember to go pick up the kids. (And you can feel superior to your Windows friends. There's nothing resembling MyDay in Office for Windows.) Project Center. Entourage's Project Center has been streamlined and beautified for 2008, but it's still very underutilized. It takes a little extra effort to learn, but once you've got it up and running, if you're doing any kind of a project that involves Office documents or even files from other programs, it's a great timesaver. It lets you keep shortcuts to all these documents, plus email related to the project, in one window. The Project Center makes it easy to categorize email, contacts, notes, and documents. Things don't get lost, and you don't have to worry about Mac OS X labels and other ways to categorize things. (Office for Windows also has nothing like the Project Center.)
Formula Builder. In Excel, one of the greatest new features is the formula builder. If you use Excel much for formulas at all, especially more complicated ones, it's really a timesaver. It helps you get those things created and working much faster than you could do before.
Elements Gallery. The Elements Gallery concept is really great because it carries over from one program to the other, gives the programs a consistent feel. If you're using a lot of templates or AutoShapes, you'll find it a quick way to get at all that stuff. You could do all these things before, but it was a lot harder to find what you were looking for.
So, are there any disadvantages to upgrading to Office 2008?
Publishing Layout view can be frustratingly slow on G4 Macs, especially when you're trying to move layout elements around onscreen. I would only use it on an Intel Mac. The same caveat holds true for PowerPoint; it's hard to move things around. But the rest of the suite works great on faster G4 machines.
Office 2008 uses the same new, XML-based file format as Office 2007 for Windows. It's great not to have to worry when someone with Office 2007 on a PC sends you something. Office 2008 can open those documents right up. But now when you send documents to Mac folks who haven't upgraded, they won't be able to open them! Once you upgrade to Office 2008, you've got to be aware that not everyone else has, and (unless you have a real need to use the XML format) set your Save options (in Preferences) to the older format so there won't be problems with your attachments.
Then there's the macro problem. Any macros you wrote in earlier versions of Office use the Visual Basic programming language (VBA), and they won't work in Office 2008! If you've written a lot of macros for yourself, you'll have to stick with Office 2004 until you have time to rewrite them in AppleScript.
What do you like best about Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual?
I'm happy with the way this book turned out. I think it covers everything you need to use this really powerful suite of programs for all your work. One chapter I'm particularly fond of, and which I think is missing from every other PowerPoint book I've looked at, is Chapter 15Planning Great Presentations. It helps you prepare for your presentation and shows you how to use PowerPoint for its true purpose. PowerPoint isn't doing the presentationyou are. You're the star of the show! Unfortunately, too many people think it's the other way around.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Best Practices
By: Ben CurryBill English
List Price: $59.99
Amazon Price: $37.79
Editorial Review:
Get field-tested best practices and proven techniques for designing, deploying, operating, and optimizing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Part of the new Best Practices series for IT professionals from Microsoft Press®, this guide is written by leading SharePoint MVPs and Microsoft SharePoint team members who ve worked extensively with real-world deployments and customers. You ll find out how to deploy the software, design your environment, manage content, analyze and view data, perform disaster recovery, monitor performance, and more. You'll learn how to create SharePoint sites that help your organization collaborate, take advantage of business insights, and improve productivity with practical insights from the experts.Key Book Benefits:
Delivers authoritative, field-tested best practices for working with Microsoft SharePoint solutions Covers the full IT lifecycle, from planning, design, and deployment through operations and support Includes a CD with job aids, utilities, and a fully searchable eBook
Microsoft® Office Project 2007 Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft))
By: Carl ChatfieldTimothy Johnson
List Price: $29.99
Amazon Price: $19.79
Editorial Review:
The smart way to learn Microsoft Office Project 2007--one stepat a time! Work at your own pace through the easy numbered steps, practicefiles on CD, helpful hints, and troubleshooting tips to master thefundamentals of working with the latest version of Office Project,including information on the new, easy-to-use scenarios and reportingfeatures. You will learn the essentials for managing time, people, andbudgets for projects large and small with Office Project 2007. You willlearn how to create a task list and assign resources, fine-tune yourproject plan, track project progress, and share and publish projectinformation. With STEP BY STEP, you can take just the lessons you need orwork from cover to cover. Either way, you drive the instruction, buildingand practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Includes acompanion CD with hands-on practice files.
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