Office Suites Books

This is very clearly written and so helpful. I just got my first computer a little over a year ago, 2nd hand, and with no owner's manual. I have looked at many self-help computer books from the library and think this is the best one. I keep it by the computer to refer to if I get stuck. If you need to really go into depth, the same authors publish separate books for that purpose. But this is really the only one you should need. I am nearly 63, and am teaching myself with this book and not doing too badly. It comes with a CD-ROM disc which I have not yet downloaded, but probably will. I heartily recommend it.

We're slowly starting to deploy Office 2003 across out network and this book has been a pretty good general all-in-one type of resource for answering the vast majority of the questions that the users has posed. As well, we've been able to generate several traning sessions based on the content of the book itself using our customized screen shots.

If you need super-deep coverage of a specific application, this is probably not the book for you. If you need a very good overview of the entire suite and what's new and improved, get this book.

A few of the really nice things I liked about this book were the full index and the chapters in the back on macros and VBA...very useful.

This book has a good overview on all the office programs. If you are looking for in depth information on a certain aspect of office I would look elsewhere. I will be buying the Access book because I need in depth information about about Access and this book does not get that deep. I would still recommend this book to anyone because it is much easier to read than the help included with Office.

Once again, Ed and Woody come through for those genuinely interested in exploiting Office functions to their benefit. Hitting topics not referenced in help screens or the MS Knowledge Base, the authors address challenging circumstances with efficient solutions. Learners in many professional roles, from Administrative to Executive relate to Ed and Woody's clearly explained situations and resolutions, which are easy to implement. If you wish to have a top-notch book, which covers all Professional Office Suite applications, this is the book to buy. The front cover is right on target where it states, "The only Office 2003 book you will ever need."

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This Google apps book has more of a user focus and a bit more hand-holding than other Google app books I have taken a look at lately. (Google Apps Hacks)

The 13 chapters are divided into 4 parts:
1) Setting up with Google and using the word processing, spreadsheet and presentation creation software.

2) Using Google e-mail, communication and calendar applications.

3) Customizing the Google home page and creating Web pages without HTML knowledge with the new Page Creator.

4) Using Google applications within organizations. This last section went into administering users and facilitating team collaboration. This was interesting and something I had not seen in other books.

This "Missing Manual" is pretty thorough and has a good index. If your goal is to *use* Google applications (rather than program them), this book is an excellent reference and guide.

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This book has frustrated me more than twice. It has a bunch of typos, refers to commands and options that don't exist (on the Windows version anyway), and check out the index for those of you that have it. The first entry under 'O' is oatmeal on page 478. I wondered "what could the word oatmeal be doing in this book?" So I headed to page 478 and couldn't find it anywhere on the page! If someone can point it out to me, let me know.

Other than those complaints, the book is okay. The topics kind of jump around not seeming to flow just right. I'm absolutely new to StarOffice and being a Microsoft Office user for the past 8 years it's helped me find the same features I'm used to in Office.

Good for the beginner, but watch out for the errors in the text!

I commend the authors for their end-to-end coverage of SO/OOo, but when I looked for a book for OOo I was hoping for something to help me get around its quirks. IMO OOo has a long way to go in terms of "intuitiveness" before it is really useful for people who have work to get done quickly. Maybe it's just me, but...

Unfortunately I find that a lot of the language in this book is nearly intractable. Here's an example from "Understanding Outline Numbering" on p. 309:

"...you must assign a number format (in the Outline Numbering window) to the level that will serve as the chapter number. But because only one paragraph style can be the chapter paragraph, you can only set up a running head that displays the contents of the chapter-numbered paragraph. Make sure the paragraph style you want to use for the outline numbering is set as the Level 1 paragraph style in the Outline Numbering window."

Huh?

One of the problems I have with the book, exemplfied above, is its constant references to doo-dads, dialogs, and other animals in the OOo zoo which, unless you've read it all forwards and backwards twice, you haven't memorized in order to be able to match nomenclature with concepts. It's hard to discern when the terminology is theirs or the program's (e.g. "running head"). So, while the book seems to be conceived as a quick reference for specific tasks, I find that I have to chase down other things in order to understand the "localized" coverage.

I understand that removing the obtuse references by providing more in-line graphics would probably make this a 3,000 page tome. I feel bad for the authors b/c they seem to be in the position of having to exert a lot of energy explaining "around" what seems to be an oddly constructed program in the first place.

I have not found how to avoid OOo's mad idiosyncrasies using this book. Some examples:

OOo seems to insist that a table row be entirely contained on a page, despite some "don't break tables" option I recall. I use tables to format my resume, with multi-line text (e.g. previous job descriptions w/ bulleted items) occupying the cells, so it looks great when OOo insists on breaking my table so that the rows are not broken across pages. The result is lots of needless white space via forced inter-row page breaks. It should fill the whole page and break according to the lines of the paragraphs within the cells, something "natural" which Word does as a matter of course.

Word also makes creating and filling up an on-the-fly outline a complete breeze. I gave up trying to figure out how to get OOo to do my "1", "1.1", "1.1.1" levels automatically. Until my wife conveyed the secret (tab!), which she apparently discovered in some lengthy, painful expedition, I was stuck with idiotic and illogical defaults.

Lastly, when duplex printing multiple copies of a document with an odd number of pages, OOo has a nebulous need to start the first page of an (n+1)th copy on the unused side of the last page of the (n)th copy. So, docs come out like this (say, 5 page doc, duplex printing, 3 copies printed):

Logical Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
Physical Page Sides: a b a b a b a b a b a b a b a

Interstingly, that lower row looks like the sound you get when you make a constant tone while oscillating your index finger across your lips, which OOo makes you do a lot! The book spends a lot of ink in Chapter 4 "Printer Setup and Printing" trying to help you avoid this sorry scenario, but I've flipped all the switches to no avail. Printing one at-a-time and checking when they are done is just easier!

These are a few examples of the "in the trenches" help I don't find here. To be fair, the authors do spend a lot of ink TRYING to help steer you clear of various oddities, but even then I find the book's style hard to follow. Most of the time I can't easily imagine what exactly they are warning me about. My point is that I can't find help to many of my specific issues in the book, which are not off-the-beaten-path uses, so what's the point?

Annoyingly, I find many references in the book to "self explanatory" dialogs and wizards, which in effect tell me that I oughtn't need the book in the first place. I bought the book to go above and beyond what is available in the tool, duh.

The book hasn't worked for me as either a "straight read" or as a reference. I read the first 200-or-so pages and quit, because I don't have that kind of time and I found my retention rate was too low. Read-do-read-do beats read-read-read-read-do? anytime! The fact that most of these first 200 pages cover just getting OOo "set up" ought to tell you something.

I once read that "A user manual is just a large catalog of bad user interface choices." An aphorism indeed!

On a positive note, I do appreciate the authors' use of explicit and implicit humor (sly references to Spinal Tap abound, I recall).

I imagine one can do lots with SO/OOo, but I think it will be a while until it is well exemplified. I note the dearth of "real" examples to be found via the official sources. NB: I cannot recall finding whether the book itself was produced with SO/OOo...

Different paths to learning exist, so for many this book is probably fine and deserves its accolades as found in other reviews. If learning by example is your thing, however, you would likely be better served by a "starting from scratch" step-by-step series of exercises that take you through the basics and give you opportunities to branch off at points into more advanced techniques.

My goal is not to be harsh to the authors but rather to give my honest experiences. If other reviewers have had no such troubles, great!

I am using StarOffice at work and attempted to learn it with the manual that came with it but that did not cover the things I needed. I like the Companion better, because of course it covers more topics and because it is organized in a logical way for learning the product from the beginning. The first chapter for each application starts with simple basics like creating a new file and opening other Microsoft files, and progresses logically to the more complicated advanced topics.

The instructions are easy to follow. This is not the typical book that is probably correct but confusing. It is very good for someone who is not familiar with the program.

I would recommend this to someone who is learning StarOffice.

If you use Linux and have just migrated from Windows well its time to move to the free Office Suite, well almost free. This book is EXCELLENT companion to the Sun Staroffice program. It teaches you in one book, how to master StarOffice. Unlike Microsoft Office with it 100's of books this all you need.

(BTW: I am a complete beginner, meaning no previous knowledge, and now I have more knowledge of the OS and StarOffice than I have of Windows and Office XP)

Polished reference work. Well written if a bit terse, but there is a lot of ground to cover in only 1000+ pages! Great cross references and index. Excellent and appreciated cross references within text and to on-line support sites. Not intended as a teaching tool. It has minimum examples and excercises. Frank about current bugs and inadequacies (few though they may be.) Overall, similar in usefullness to the "Star Office Users Guide", just a lot more information and a bigger package.

Definitely worth getting if you don't have the user's guide.

Open Office is free, so there's a huge benefit over MS Office. I've been using Office 2003 for years, and cannot justify the upgrade cost. So I got Open Office via the Internet and bought this book on Amazon.com. Get the software and all of the upgrades free, and use this manual to show you the ropes of how to use OpenOffice. I have now all but abandoned MS Office except for Outlook.

No this isn't an OpenOffice review, but if you want to tap into the power of it without going in circles, buy this manual and say goodbye to Microsoft.

This book provides a systematic introduction to the features of OpenOffice.org 2.0, an office suite that is free but has most of the features of Microsoft Office. It is well-illustrated and organized for those attempting to learn these features. It is still a work in progress, or it might be even better.

Great product to become familiar with Microsoft Windows, Word, Excel, and Access. Compatible with Vista operating systems which surprised us.

i had to buy if for my college course, but i didn't have to use it. i now appreciate my knowledge about the computer. it's alot easier to take it step by step rather then guessing. this would save your life....

An enormous amount of work has gone in publishing the ITIL v3 bookset and it shows. Unfortunately the degree of in depth information varies here and there, which is probably due to the tight release schedule.

All in all a worthwhile execution of the LCM concept for IT Services.

There will be many that feel ITIL v3 is lacking in parts, however, these will be the same people that felt ITIL v2 wasn't required when it was originally published.

There is a large amount of work in ITIL v3 and those who are displaying the signs of resistance towards it will simply need time to see that it is in fact the new commonsense approach for IT Service Management.

Let's begin...

All five books start with a common section that reviews Service Management as a Practice. In here you will find what you would expect. What is Service Management, What are Services, Business Processes discussed and a good section that explains the concept of the Service Lifecycle.

Service Strategy
Includes a section on Service Strategy Principles. Where the concept of service assets are raised against the three differnt Service Provider types. The book then moves into some heavy duty stuff where Service Strategy itself is defined as four distinct phases. This is real heavy going so don't try to read it at the end of a busy day.

Service Strategy then looks at organizational considerations as well as addressing the imporant issue of organizational culturee, before rounding out with a link to the other four volumes, a section on technology and finally the risks, challenges and critical success factors.

Service Design is next and it (like Transition and Operations) has two dominant sections. The first on Service Design principles looks at the concepts and activities of service design (things like identifying service requirements and design constraints). The other major section looks at the Service Design processes (Catalogue Management, Service Level Management, Capacity Management, Availability Management, IT Service Continuity Management, Information Security and Supplier).

The Service Design book finishes with technology, organizational issues, technology, implementation and challenges, risks, critical success factors.

Service Transition follows the pattern of Service Design. The principles section of Transition is very short; but then you have over 110 pages on processes (Transition Planning and Support, Change Management, Service Asset and Configuration Management, Release and Deployment, Evaluation and Knowledge Management).

Service Transition concludes with the same topics as Transition.

Service Operation continues the pattern, but throw in a sizeable chunk on the four defined functions (Service Desk, Application Management, IT Operations Management and Technical Management). The processes covered are event management, incident, problem, request fulfilment and access management).

Finally, the Continual Service Improvement volume. Issues dealt with here include Governance, Deming and benchmarks. Processes covered are the 7 step improvement process, service reporting, service measurement and some other topics which I would call concepts, rather than processes (ROI for CSI, Business questions).

The book introduces some techniques for CSI which is where Deming is expanded, assessments and gap analysis is covered and benchmarking gets a mention.

Finish off with technology, implementation, risks and challenges and that is the five books.

Service Strategy - 257 pages
Service Design - 317 pages
Service Transition - 251 pages
Service Operation - 251 pages
CSI - 215 pages

Approximately 10% is a direct repeat in each book (the opening sections).

I was excited to learn that the OGC was looking to 'evolve' ITIL but I've not been overly impressed with the output. Granted I've only finished reading two of the five books in the suite but have seen little in them to necessitate a five book re-write. And the style in which it is presented sends shivers down my spine. If I'd not been previously experienced in ITSM I'd have been intimidated by the material.

The point of the suite was to provide IT managers with a systematic approach to plan, design, implement, manage and improve IT process management. In other words they spent a lot of time throwing a project management wrapper around the ITSM processes... not exactly rocket science unless you were one of those that threw common sense out the window to religiously follow a consultant's 'expert' opinion and ended up mired in an undisciplined and incomplete ITSM installation.

I do credit them with the separation of the Service Management methodologies. It was due and makes more sense. I think that this section will benefit many who have struggled with the Service Catalog in Version 2.

Overall, I think readers will suffer through a lot of noise in these books trying to find the truly 'evolved' items that were promised.

I was using ITIL and others IT Quality Standards for almost 5 years and I think the new version includes a more mature evolution on how incorporating IT services towards the business. It takes into account strategic aspects, as well as new processes that were before not specified but that they were carried out in the day to day. What it really does is force the IT areas to view IT in a service lifecycle and customer business needs and expectations sense.

For those who have been understanding and applying the underlying concepts of ITSM since version 2, this is a natural evolution of the framework, and many of the IT shops are currently using one or more ITIL process.
I just want to point out some things that I found on this new version:
- some topics from ICT IM (infrastructure management) are now incorporated as part of the Service Lifecycle. For example Strategy and Event Management. In the past this two processes were NEVER taught in ITSM Foundation classes. The same can be said for Security and Application Management. Now they are part of the service lifecycle, wich is good for those who already knew this was necessary, but it could be very complex for those people completely new in ITIL.
- small but certain portions of the books are completely "copy and paste" excerpts from the previous V2 books, while other parts are improved and of course there are a LOT of new material.
I strongly suggest you buy first Design, Transition and Operations book. Specially the Operations book. And after a carefull understanding, proceed with Strategy and CSI.
Someone can say this books are really expensive. Yes, they are. But I just can think how much an IT degree (MBA) costs in this days. This is really a MBA in managing an IT organization. So the investment worths it, because you get the knowledge MOST of the world class IT shops are using.

For those who have never used Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 before like myself, this book is the best start to get you familiar with this office suite. And also if you don't mind reading Dummies books, they can be entertaining as well.

This book covers most of Word Perfect Office 2000 in the usual quick and easy "for dummies" style, but it does NOT (as promised in the synopsis) review the use of Paradox. If you want info on using Paradox you will have to go somewhere else.

This "e-book" is actually a press release that appeared in GUI program news that a company called MimarSinan International released a Windows Installer editing product.

I was just minding my own business, doing some research and thought it might be a 2 page summary on how to create WI installations. I thought wrong :) Save your $6.

I bought the book in an instant when I read the title, and was expecting it to give me some really great tips for CREATING a Scrapbook, and Family History by using my CorelDRAW12, and my CorelWORDPERFECT12. Instead, it's how to become a writer, find an audience, find a publisher, and distributing your book.

It was very disappointing. It's really How-to-Do-Something-Yourself-With-Something-You-Already-Have. I don't know how she sells so many books. Oh well, I'll look again for what I really wanted, this surely wasn't it :o(