Book Review: the Unofficial Guide to Microsoft Office 2007
Title: the Unofficial Guide to Microsoft Office 2007
Author: Paul McFedries
Publisher: Wiley
Size: 772 pages
Price: £8.57 (Amazon)
OfficeRocker rating: 7/10
Who is it aimed at?
It seems to be pitched at people who are fairly familiar with computers and who probably have a reasonable awareness of Office already. It does start with fairly basic things like saving documents but it quickly gets more nerdy. The title on the 3rd page is "creating a custom shell presentation" for example. It does have a lot of little tricks to make you look clever and be more productive. I hate to say it but I think it might appeal to the nerd in you.
What does it cover?
It starts off with general Office things to do with documents then goes on a tour of Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Access. It then has a section called "Finishing your site and beyond" which has lots of set up options and security settings for customising the suite but nothing to do with creating a web site which confused me. It has 8 pages on SharePoint but no real detail there.
What is good about it
I must say that I did learn a few tricks from this book which I'd not come across before and I think it does a pretty good job of explaining the topics covered. I do like the way it just leaps in there and explains how to get things done. The author has avoided the trap of explaining the way 2003 worked and then how 2007 is different. Instead he just explains how 2007 works without all the baggage. If you worked through the section on an application, I think you would have a pretty good handle on some important things it can do for you. If you are the sort of person who likes to look clever, there are plenty little tricks that will come in handy and will impress your colleagues at work.
Criticisms of the book
It might be a personal response but it took me a while to get over this cocky "we will tell you the things Microsoft doesn't want you to know" kind of attitude. I don't think anything in here is undocumented but they really do ham up the "unofficial" guide status. Once I got over that, I did start to quite like the author's slightly idiosynchratic style. For example, in Excel, he'll spend a long time explaining outlines (useful) but doesn't even mention pivot tables which have changed quite a lot in 2007. I think the danger is that although everyone will learn new things about the applications, it is not an end to end survey of each application. I think it's a shame he doesn't cover Office Live which would have been a good complement to the applications described. The other app conspicuous by its absence is OneNote, which seeing as it is now part of the Home and Student edition, really out to have been covered before Access (IMHO). Maybe he ran out of room as it is already quite a big book.
Summary:
As promised on the cover, lots of handy tips and tricks for getting more out of Office core applications. You will definately learn useful things about the applications that you would probably not casually come across otherwise. Not an end to end guide of the apps but covering many important areas in very good depth. Probably not for the total novice but if you have some basic familiarity now with 2007, it will take you to the next level.
Comments
- Anonymous
January 24, 2007
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