2007 Microsoft® Office System Plain & Simple

Very clear, easy to follow, attractive looking. Everything is illustrated, so when it says, "#1 Click on this" if you don't know where this is, just look at the diagram and find #1. The only downside, although I'm sure it's its intended use, is that is really is a basic book, but even as an advanced user, I have learned from it with the painful switch (at least for me) to 2007. When I needed to make some graphs and charts QUICK after just getting 2007 (YIKES!!), this book so easily and quickly walked me right through it. It really saved me. I've been recommending to all I know who are novices with computers and just getting into Office 2007.

I purchased this book in addition to some of the other more advanced Office books (Office 07 Inside Out & Office 07 Bible) for the full color screen shots to see how the new Office System's Ribbon looked. Don't let the title fool you, although this book is indeed geared toward the newbie, there is some excellent coverage of some advanced topics I have not found in some of the other advance Office books. The organization may not be layed out very logically, but you can jump to whatever section you please with ease. The sections of Outlook (written by Jim Joyce, an Outlook MVP and author of various Outlook Inside Out editions and Beth Sheresh) are a nice intro to the Outlook Plain & Simple book. (Also worth it.) The Access section by Curt Frye (another advanced author) gives a nice intro to one of the most advance programs Office has. I was also pleased to see some coverage (although limited) for Publisher 2007. A lot of advanced Office System books don't cover Publisher at all. Some of my favorite highlights are: Explanation of the new Office programs and Office Tools Explanation of the new Office File Formats (including saving in the Office 97-2003 formats and templates for people without the new 07 System) How to use common tasks Exchanging Info Among Office Programs (Excellent chapter with various options for using data from one program in another and coverage of how to use the Microsoft Office Document Imaging program to scan documents and convert to text. This is missing from many other Office books!) Explanation of customizing and securing Office with great screen shots My one big disappointment is the lack of coverge for OneNote 2007. OneNote can can interact with Outlook via tasks and other items and this would have been wonderful info to readers. If you don't have Office 2007 and are considering purchasing it or looking for a way to use Office more effectively, this book is a wonderful full color guide and well worth the attractive price. The Plain & Simple series may start with simple tasks, but does include more advanced topics without too much technical jargon. Enjoy!

I am very pleased with this book. The instructions are clear and visual, and that rates highly with me because I do better when I can see how to do something. Great book! Lynda Schofield

This is a great book for anyone who does not want any type of theory but just the information to get going on a project. Lots of great illustrations and just what this busy librarian needs who does not have time to go back to school for a computer science degree. The book contains easy to read page layouts with instructions on how to preform various task in a simple step by step manner. Who knew a marine biologist and former caterer could cook up such a book.

This book is well laid out and easy to understand. The step by step, visual format makes it easy for you to quickly complete topics without guesswork - it shows you all of the steps you need to take! Excellent as a manual or reference book, generally you can go directly to a topic and learn all that you need to know about that topic without having to read previous sections. The book starts off by covering the features common to all Office 2007 programs - extremely useful to quickly familiarise you to the general workings of any Office 2007 program. Each of the following chapters then focuses on an individual Office 2007 program(Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access). CHAPTER LIST 01. About This Book 02. Working in Office 03. Common Tasks in Office 04. Viewing and Editing Text in Word 05. Formatting in Word 06. Working with Special Content in Word 07. Working in Excel 08. Analyzing and Presenting Data in Excel 09. Creating a PowerPoint Presentation 10. Presenting a PowerPoint Slide Show 11. Working with Messages in Outlook 12. Organizing with Outlook 13. Creating a Publication with Publisher 14. Working in Access 15. Exchanging Information Among Office Programs 16. Customizing and Securing Office After reading this book you will do more with Office 2007. One note of caution: The content is targeted towards beginner to low-end intermediate users who need step-by-step instruction. Intermediate- Power- and Advanced-users may find the material covered to be too basic to be useful.