How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office 2003 (How to Do Everything)

Rating:
Summary: How to do everything? Not quite...
Review: I understand that "how to do everything" is a marketing conceit. Explaining everything there is to know about all the Office programs -- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and FrontPage -- in a book of 500 pages is impossible. Entire books, some of them a thousand pages long, have been written about Word, Excel, and the other Office programs. How can "How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office 2003" cram everything there is to know about these programs in only 500 pages?

The answer is it can't. In fairness to the author, she writes clearly and is good at explaining the basics. This book's 500 pages (110 on Word, 74 on Excel, 50 on PowerPoint, 42 on Access, 38 on Outlook, and 40 on FrontPage) are a good starting point for learning those programs.

What you won't get out of this book are the tips, shortcuts, and workarounds that make using the programs easier. For example, the book devotes only five pages to Word styles, and being a Word afficianado, I happen to know that using styles is the key to mastering Word. The author devotes only two pages to designing a database, which pretty much renders the rest of the material on Access meaningless, since Access databases are useless if they aren't designed properly from the get-go. I feel sorry for anyone who attempts to lay out Web pages in FrontPage using instructions from this book. Only one of the layout tools, the hardest to use, is described.

My biggest complaint about this book has to do with Outlook. Outlook 2003 is radically different from its predecessor. The program (as I learned from another book) offers numerous ways to sort mail as it arrives. This is a godsend for people like me get reams of e-mail daily. But in this book, you won't find a detailed discussion of handling e-mail automatically in Outlook.

At 500 pages, "How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office 2003" is a good introduction to the Office programs. It just doesn't dig down very far.

Rating:
Summary: And I thought I already knew Office! Great book.
Review: If you need to get up to speed on one or all the parts of Office, this is the book!! The examples are really appropriate and practical, and the author's training background is obvious, you wish you could take a class with her to get even more info. This book is really well organized, clear, and fun to read (if you can say that about a computer book!). Don't waste your money on one of those huge books that cover every little nook and cranny. This book is at a great price, gives you great coverage, and teaches you the stuff you need to know and gives you such a strong foundation that you'll be able to learn even more on your own as you go along using the software at work, home, or whatever. Buying this book saved me about $100 in other books I was going to buy on the individual apps (Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint) because it says it all!

Rating:
Summary: A really good, no nonsense book on Office 2003
Review: If you want a direct and clear reference to Office (Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, Access, and Frontpage) you want this book. It isn't one of those 1000+ page books that cover every little radio button in every little dialog box, but it shows you how to do real things. The examples are realistic and you know just what the author's talking about and can think of ways to apply everything to your own work. The author doesn't baby you and she doesn't talk over your head either. If you need use Office at work or at home and don't like wasting time, this is the best book out there. GET THIS BOOK!

Rating:
Summary: A great reference and general resource on Office
Review: Reading this book taught me way more than I learned in a recent Office course (9 hours), and I wasn't bored at all, as I was in class. I was someone (like a lot of people, I think) who used Word alot and sometimes Excel, but not the rest of the Office suite. After reading this book I was able to use the other programs as thouhg I had been using them for ages. I am also feeling much more confident about trying new things, so the fact (as another reviewer said) that EVERY little thing is not covered is no big deal because I am poking around and trying new things and mastering the programs at my own speed.

Rating:
Summary: It really covers Office thoroughly - A really good book!
Review: There aren't too many people who don't know something about Office because its everywhere in every business, home, etc... HOWEVER, people don't really "know" office as well as they think they do. I'm an office manager and am always shocked by how much people don't know and even sometimes by what I don't know, either. I got this book to keep on hand in the office, and I've made it "required reading" for all new employees. If you're prepping for the MOUS exam or just want to know the software well and be more productive, this is the book for you. It's fun to read, the examples are relevant and clear, and the author is an expert in Office ---- what more can you ask?

Rating:
Summary: It really covers Office thoroughly - A really good book!
Review: There aren't too many people who don't know something about Office because its everywhere in every business, home, etc... HOWEVER, people don't really "know" office as well as they think they do. I'm an office manager and am always shocked by how much people don't know and even sometimes by what I don't know, either. I got this book to keep on hand in the office, and I've made it "required reading" for all new employees. If you're prepping for the MOUS exam or just want to know the software well and be more productive, this is the book for you. It's fun to read, the examples are relevant and clear, and the author is an expert in Office ---- what more can you ask?