Learning Word Programming

What can I say, I found this book very informative. Also, check out his second book.The writing is clear and concise. This book isn't going to *make* you a Word programmer, but it can be a useful reference.It seems Word programming is all about creativity. Obviously, creativity is something that can't be taught.

Let me start by saying I am not a Visual Basic programmer, until now! I had a project that needed a solution. My research lead me to Visual Basic for Application's Word Object Model. Not having any significant experience in VBA I needed a way to get up to speed quickly. I first bought the Guy-Davis book Word97 VBA and found it simplistic and not providing enough technical information to accomplish my task. I then purchased the Word 2000 Programmers Reference Handbook which told me everything I ever wanted to know about the Word Object Model, however, it didn't really explain how and when to use the enumerators and other such objects, which are very important when programming. I work with 5 different languages and felt very lost with this book.Then I purchased Steven Roman's book "Learning Word Programming". Spent a weekend reading it and by Monday I was more than ready to tackle my project. After reading his book using the Word 2000 Programmers Reference became my next best friend because Mr. Roman's clear and concise approach to explaing everything (sans fluff, as he says other authors have a tendency to do) helped even a seasoned programmer, such as myself.I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to become a programmer or is now a programmer. Yes, it was boring to read the 'Programming 101' end of it but after getting through all of it I was pleasantly surprised at how a little refresher helped me look at my project from a new perspective.Again, get the book! It saved me hours of work.Dan Borden [email protected]

This is a good book for learning Word Programming, but if you want a reference book, look elsewhere. It is well written and informative, but does not have enough detail for reference use.

Steve Roman clearly explains the most important of the Word objects, with useful real-world examples thrown in. I had spent several weeks programming Word VBA on my own before getting this book, and wish I'd had Chapter 14-"The Range and Selection Objects" when I started! (As it was, I spent hours looping through the VBA help files trying to figure out how to get the range object to do what I wanted...aaaaargh!)It's true, the book spends nine chapters on intro programming skills and the VB editor, to the detriment of more examples. Beginners will rejoice, while intermediates will wish the book went into more detail and had more of Steve's concise code snippets. Even so, the book has many "been there" tips and pointers that are worth the price of admission.