Word Processors Books

If you've ever said-even under your breath-"I hate Word," you'll like this book.

The book has answers for dozens of the little aggravations that Word visits upon you. It solves things you thought you just had to live with (though you knew you'd never forgive the programmers at Microsoft who made them this way).

The author writes in an engaging question- ("The Annoyance" by you) and-answer ("The Fix" by him) style that's friendly and yet precise. I would have liked it to be a bit less wordy, but it's okay because the directions are very clear and even, in many cases, contain version-specific instructions for Word 2000, 2003, XP and so on. He also sprinkles the text with occasional helpful tips in little text boxes.

Lots of documents you open frequently? The author shows you how to add a Work menu that will keep up to 9 documents readily available (p. 16). Hate it when Word won't let you put a .jpg or .gif in a document? You can change an option in the Office Setup Wizard. Want to unclutter your menus? Learn how to customize which commands show up.

Boy, this one really annoys me-how about you? Sometimes when I close Word, it asks me if I want to save the changes to Normal.dot. Now, I happen to know that Normal.dot is the default template for new documents. But I don't remember making changes to it! Why is this happening?
To kill this seemingly random prompt, choose Tools -> Options, click Save tab and uncheck "Prompt to save Normal template" box (pp. 9, 14). But it might still happen to you for other reasons-the only solution they say is to quit Word and restart Windows. Sigh.
That #$%^&@# Task Pane

This one I was paying my tech guru to fix for me-but he couldn't find the "next step." I gave up worrying about it but continued wasting time (and putting extra stress on my mouse hand) having to manually close the "new document" task pane that pops up-and stays up-on my screen, hogging valuable screen space. We'd both found the place to supposedly turn this off (Tools -> Options, click the View tab, uncheck the Startup Task Pane box in the Show area, click OK) but, as the author says, it just wouldn't obey! So I'm going to give you this whole fix in case that stupid pane annoys you, too.
If the task pane doesn't obey on your first effort, close Word and create a system restore point. Don't be afraid-this isn't as scary as it sounds. Choose Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore, click the "Create a restore point" option, click the Next button and follow the prompts.Next, choose Start -> Run, type regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
Navigate to the following Registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\General (in some versions it may read "...\Office\10.0\..."). Then, right-click the DoNotDismissFileNewTaskPane key, choose Delete from the shortcut menu and click OK to confirm. Choose File -> Exit to close the Registry Editor. Restart Word and you're done. This works like a charm, and I'm thoroughly delighted.

Template magic

Here's a really good tip if your work involves creating many documents of certain basic types, or if you work with others who have to create documents for you that use specific styles. Too bad I didn't read this one before that last big project-I spent hours manually correcting all the headings and fonts in the other writers' drafts because they didn't know how to use styles!

To create a template for each type of document you need, choose File -> New and in that task pane on the right that we mentioned earlier, click either "On my computer" (Word 2003) or "General templates" (Word XP). Up comes the Templates dialog box. (In Word 2000, choose File -> New to get there.)

Highlight an existing template, click Template at the bottom, and click OK. Save the .dot file with a name you'll remember. Then lay out and format the document (fonts, headings, etc.) as you want all final documents to appear. You can even enter text that you want to have in all documents based on this template.

You can create AutoText and AutoCorrect entries for boilerplate text (your company info, etc.) that doesn't specifically belong in any template. Save the changes to the template and then close it. To create a new document based on the template, open the Templates or New dialog box, select the template and click OK.

To create a template from an existing document, choose File -> Save As, select Document Template in the "Save as type" drop-down list, specify the name and click the Save button. Templates and documents look pretty much the same except for the file extension.
File gigantic?

Ever had your file be too big to send by email-even after you've deleted everything but a paragraph? That's enough to make you crazy. The author goes into a long-drawn-out explanation of why this happens-get the book if you want to read it. Otherwise, just turn off the culprit (fast saving). Choose Tools -> Options, click the Save tab and uncheck the "Allow fast saves" box.

Got a bunch of documents open and want to save them all? Shift-click the File menu and click Save All. Then, to close them shift-click File and click Close All. Easier yet (as you may already have discovered from having to shut down because Word just hangs there), just close Word and it saves and closes all your documents for you.

Home document security

Ever notice in Windows Explorer that someone else originated one of your documents? Maybe you asked your friend to help you draft something. If you want to be sure the other person's name doesn't appear when you move your cursor over that document in Explorer, remove the personal data (metadata) from the document.

Choose File -> Properties and manually delete what you want. In Word 2003/XP, choose Tools -> Options, click the Security tab and check the "Remove personal information from file properties on save" box. Then, save the document to preserve your changes.
HTML malfunctions

Writing HTML pages in Word? First piece of advice, don't-if you can help it. Word's HTML code is so wordy and clunky that your page will take longer to load and, heaven help you if you want to make changes outside Word. You'll be trying to change a font and end up with some of the strangest behaviors.

If you must use Word for HTML, save as "Web Page, Filtered" for pages you want to put on your web site. That cuts out a small amount of the messy code, but not much.
Potpourri of pleasantries

Want to stop those ridiculous "Shall we report this error to Microsoft" prompts? Who crammed all that useless code in there anyway? Just turn it off. You'll find out how on p. 30.

I don't know about you, but sometimes when I'm pasting from the web the formatting is way off, even if I should accidentally remember to use Paste Special. The author tells us how to fix this-sort of. Choosing Edit -> Paste Special and selecting the "Unformatted text" option should give you plain text. If not, paste the text into Notepad first, then copy it and paste it into Word.

Ever get something someone copied from an email and it's full of spaces or >> signs at the beginning of each paragraph with a first-line indent? I knew this, but it's a good tip to share with you in case you don't.

Use Find and Replace. In a later fix he tells you all the symbols to indicate formatting in this dialog box. Replace ^p (paragraph mark) and four spaces with ^p and a distinctive string - for example, ^pfirstlineindent. Then replace firstlineindent with nothing but the paragraph formatting that you need: delete the contents of the "Replace with" box, choose Paragraph in the Format drop-down list, specify the indentation level, click OK and click Replace All. (Alternatively, once you've deleted the whitespace, you can use a style to apply a first-line indent to all of the paragraphs.
Learn how to reformat WordPerfect documents on pp. 32, 78.

Here's a big question for most of us I bet: How do I correct automatic numbering in numbered lists? You know you're not going to be happy with the answer when a guy starts his response with "Bad news" and it's four pages long (pp. 80 to 84).

Do you ever get aggravated that when you're selecting text with the mouse, it keeps grabbing more than you want? The author says this is Word's smart-selection feature.

Choose Tools -> Options, click the Edit tab and see whether "When selecting, automatically select entire word" and "Use smart paragraph selection" boxes are checked. If so, try unchecking them and see if you prefer the resulting selection behavior.
Do you have to count your words sometimes? I like this one: Instead of using Tools -> Word Count each time, do this: Display the Word Count toolbar; go to View -> Toolbars or right-click any displayed toolbar and click the Word Count item. To force a recount, press Alt + C or click the Recount button.

Sometimes have to type web or email addresses and don't want the auto-hyperlink? Read all about it on p. 94.

I've never been good at using Compare and Merge Documents-like when someone else has made changes and you want to see where they are. Here's a cool tip for comparing multiple versions:

Open the original version and choose Tools -> Compare and Merge Documents. In the Compare and Merge Documents dialog box, select the first of the other versions of the document, click the drop-down arrow on the Merge button, and choose "Merge into Current Document." Word merges the documents and marks the changes with revision marks. If the results look okay, repeat the procedure with the next version, etc.
Hate how Word's columns act when you need to change the width of one of them? Try clicking Shift as you drag it. This makes Word keep the columns to the right the same, but it does mean that your table's overall width will change.

How do I convert a long list of names or other data that are separated with regular old spaces instead of tabs? He says it's easy.

Choose Edit -> Replace and replace ^w (whitespace) with ^t (a tab). Select the list, choose Table -> Convert -> Text to Table, make sure the Tabs option is selected and that the "Number of columns" box shows the right number of columns, and click the OK button to perform the conversion.
All told, I'd say get this book if you experience periodic aggravations with Word. Don't try to go through the whole thing. The index is pretty good, so just keep it next to your computer.

When it comes to word processing programs Word is so predominant in the marketplace as to be ubiquitous. Unfortunately just because it is everywhere doesn't mean that there are not a lot of problems with it. Learning how to deal with all those annoying problems is the purpose of this book. The author covers installation problems, dealing with multiple versions, moving Word to another computer, dealing with long startup times, when it runs slowly, when it takes a long time to close, modifying the toolbar, saving all open documents at once, keeping separate versions of the same document, dealing with crashes and document corruption, transferring your auto-correct entries to another computer, the myriad problems of working with styles and layouts, printing problems (and there are many of these), mail merge, and even dealing with problems specific to the Mac OS.

Written in a question and answer format it contains all the most commonly asked questions about how to get Word to work the way you want. I've worked with Word for years and still found a couple of tips in this book that I really appreciated. If you use Word for anything other than an expanded notepad you will want a copy of Word Annoyances.

Does Word annoy you? If it does, buy this book? Why you ask? Because, author Guy Hart-Davis has done an outstanding job of making Word less annoying in this book.

Hart-Davis begins by prompting you to prevent Word from demanding the installation CD, or installing multiple versions of Word on the same PC. Next, the author exploits the power of templates to minimize the annoyances of creating and saving documents at home or at work. Then, he deals with common annoyances in Word's views. The author continues by getting the mysterious "Normal template" under control and changing its settings. In addition, the author next shows you how to prevent users from accessing certain parts of a document, by forcing them to fill in the rest with suitable data. He also shows you how to deal with printing annoyances, add faxing capabilities to Word, and scan hardcopy text and graphics into your documents. The author next shows you how to make a table appear at the start page, and how to get a table away from the start of a document when it's stuck there. Next, the author shows you how to record macros, edit them, and write them from scratch, with examples of specific VBA-quashable annoyances and generic approaches that you can turn on your own annoyances. Then, he shows you how to minimize annoyances with object linking and embedding (OLE). Finally, he shows you how to deal with crashes and performance annoyances on the MAC.

With the preceding in mind, the author has done an excellent job of focusing on Word for Windows; because, that's what most of you are using. At the end of the day, you'll see hundreds of concentrated annoyances with solutions that will calm your colleagues, impress your friends, and confound your enemies.

This book is a guide to making Word work your way. Users are advised on how to get rid of Word's greatest annoyances, such creating hyperlinks the user doesn't want, and how to turn off automatic paragraph numbering, among others. It provides solutions to common and unusual problems in editing, formatting, printing, faxing, and scanning. There are hundreds of customizations, fixes, workarounds, and instructions which show you how to make Word work your way. You can save a lot of time by using the advice in this book.

Because I spend most of my time programming and not writing reports and such in Word, I just figure that certain quirks of Word existed because I was too dumb to know better. While that may still be the case, I now have a way to make my Word time more productive and less annoying... Word Annoyances by Guy Hart-Davis. This is a *really* good book for anyone who uses Word (although Microsoft may tend to disagree)...

Contents: Installation, Repair, and Configuration; Creating and Saving Documents; Text Entry and Editing; Formatting and Layout; Forms, Revising, Proofing, and Finalizing; Printing, Faxing, and Scanning; Tables, Columns, and Text Boxes; Automate Annoyances Away with Macros; OLE, Mail Merge, and Office Applications; Mac Word Annoyances; Index

If you've never had the pleasure of reading an Annoyances book before, here's how it works. The author gathers up a large number of questions and "annoyances" from regular users of the product. Then in an irreverent question and answer format, he (or she) proceeds to show solutions and workarounds to allow the reader to bypass those irritations. Since this book deals with Word, you'll learn all sorts of interesting stuff on how to "fix" auto-formatting, how to change your default template, and dozens of other gems that will quickly make this one of your favorite Office books (much to Microsoft's chagrin). I'm sure they'd like you to believe that their software doesn't have any annoying features, and that everything is very helpful and well-implemented. Not! Even things that I didn't give a second thought to before now stand out as things I don't have to live with.

Obviously, not every tip in this book will apply to your needs or situations. You'll either never use a particular feature, or you've already figured out how to fix the behavior. But there are far more instances where you'll say "so *that's* how you get rid of that!". So get a copy of this book, sit down in front of your computer, open up Word, and start reading. The "Eureka!" moments will start coming fast and furious...

At several points reading Christmas's 'Write in Style', I was tempted to write a glowing review. Now, I selfishly don't want to. Everyone has at least one book inside them. I don't want you all to know how Bobbie's Christmas's guidance will guide you to tell your story. I want 'Write in Style' all to myself.

I could give a thorough review, of content and chapters, proving myself an excellent writer. But why? With Bobbie's guidance I stand a better chance of writing best sellers. Why write a review when you can write a book. Read 'Write in Style', study it for yourself. It's written by a master.

Not only does 'Write in Style' teach to write clearly, and give you a secret tool to reduce the work, Bobbie's guidance helps to get the story out from your imagination onto paper in the way readers want to read. 'Write in Style' encourages confidence and thereby enthuses you to write with the belief you have a guardian angel on your shoulder.

Thanks Bobbie.

Sorry Bobbie. I want to keep you all to myself.

just Jack

Let's say you're a good writer, have lots of good ideas, interesting characters, whiz-bang plots, all of it, but--you're not getting published. Maybe your writing needs a style upgrade. Maybe you're using passive constructions, dangling participles, weak modifiers, and variant English. Maybe the editors are tossing your manuscripts after the first page. You need to read this book to write with genuine, publishable style.

Author Bobbie Christmas teaches writers like us how to use the Find function on our word processors to track down and eliminate unstylish usages and write tighter, stronger sentences. Not only that, she is witty, clever and easy to read. She doesn't hesitate to poke fun at herself, which makes her teachings easy to swallow. Guess what? This reviewer makes a lot of the mistakes she talks about in her book. Not any more. Armed with Write In Style I will do better, and you will, too.

Writers, run out and get Write In Style today. You will be glad you did. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

An invaluable book for any writer or aspiring writer. Most writing books aren't very objective, but this does it well, showing you how to improve your own style instead of incorporating someone else's. It shows you how to use your computer to help you find and fix problems. It's incredibly helpful, even to the experienced writer. It helped me tighten up my style and make it much more readable and appealing.

Every good writer knows that judicious rewriting makes for a better book. Bobbie Christmas gives us specific helpful tools so that we can do our own revising BEFORE we send our books to the agent/editor/powers that be.

WRITE IN STYLE is packed not just with "Don't Do This" directions, but with often-hilarious examples of how to repair the problems. I use WRITE IN STYLE frequently as a reference tool when writing my cat mysteries. It's handy when I'm editing other people's books, too. But just as often I browse through it simply to get a laugh.

If you write -- this is a must-read. Buy it. Use it.

Unless you are still writing on a typewriter or with paper and pencil, this book will improve your work. First it tells you the kind of mistakes you should be looking for, then tells you how to find and correct them using your word processor.

You won't find lessons on characterization or plot. You will find ways to make your writing tighter and more presentable to both the reader and the agent or publisher you are trying to impress with your work.

The book is more than worth the $13 being asked for it.

Excellent- I received the item within a few days. I would order from them again without hesitation.

Microsoft Word 2003 Quick Reference Card - Handy Heavy Laminated, Tri-Fold MS Word 2003 Tip & Tricks Guide. 6 Total Pages. Stores Easily. Ultimate Reference for Shortcuts, Tips & Cheats for Word 2003. (Software Quick Reference Cards) "This card is cleanly written & layed out. It's easy to understand. Much better than other similar products I've seen."

I started as a system operator in 1982 and then became a programmer. For 10+ years I was a hunt-n-peck computer geek. With this book, after less than an hour a day for about a week I was touch-typing competently. It was so easy it isn't funny. The book is small and spiral bound. You just open it and place it on the top of your monitor so you can do the exercises without seeing what you are typing. Open a text editor and start the lesson. When you finish a lesson, lift up the book and see how you did on the screen. If you need, you can restart the (5min) lesson. In a couple of hours, Voila! You've learned to touch type! I wish I had bought this book 10 years earlier!!!

This is the most outstanding book ever written on Corel WordPerfect8. The book is perfect for a beginner or an experienced user, with it's step by step instructions that really does teach you how to master the software.

Products arrived in 2 days!! They were just as I wanted, a quick reference for the OpenOffice products. Can't wait to see what other Software packages they also cover.

Although I had been told that OpenOffice.org was very similar to MS Word, I was still having some problems finding common commands. After using this card and reading the easy-to-follow instructions, I was able to find the commands I needed to do the same things in OpenOffice.org that I used to do in Word. Awesome reference!

My measure of a fascinating book is how often I'm interrupting my wife to read her a paragraph or a page. Based on dozens of irritating interruptions this past month, my wife would agree that Novak's book met and exceeded my standards.

Bob Novak has penned a remarkable memoir spanning 50 years of political reporting in Washington, D.C. If you're over 50, you'll be amazed and alarmed at the political background info and revelations. (He names names and doesn't hold back on his strong, conservative opinions.) If you're under 50, I'd humbly suggest this be required reading--because it's possible you've missed the all-important context that only a 50-year in-the-trenches reporter/commentator can deliver. Though written a year ago, the book immediately sheds light--and context--on the current U.S. presidential campaign.

Novak comments on Reagan, "I came to understand that the presidency is a leadership position that has very little to do with management." On Bob Dole: "Dole was a hopeless micromanager, inappropriate for a presidential candidate and indeed for a president." Ross Perot and Jimmy Carter fared no better on the management-o-meter. Albeit in my book, Mastering The Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Non-profit, I argue that leadership and management cannot be separated, Novak, in fact, demonstrates a very savvy insight into all things leadership.

Novak also reveals his extraordinary access to "senior administration officials" at the highest levels--and what motivates Democrats and Republicans alike to leak such info. It will surprise you--and discourage you. You may also want to re-think the expectations you have regarding the loyalty of your own team members at your workplace.

There's minimal gray area in Novak's historical travelogue. When Vice President Al Gore reneges on a verbal commitment to Novak, it's not forgotten. Lack of integrity always causes relational damage, as was the case with MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews. (By the way, and for balance, I also recommend Matthew's book, Life's a Campaign: What Politics Has Taught Me About Friendship, Rivalry, Reputation, and Success.)

Ten years ago, following a four-year investigative journey from his Jewish roots to the Christian faith, a college student challenged him, "Mr. Novak, life is short, but eternity is forever." He writes, "I became convinced that the Holy Spirit was speaking through this Syracuse student." He embraced Christ and was baptized and confirmed at St. Patrick's in Washington, D.C. in 1998.

Warning: it's 662 pages long. Guarantee: you'll wish it was 1,000 pages. And yes, I read every page. While the chapter titles make it easy to scan, don't--you'll miss the morsels. It gets my highest recommendation.

It took me a little while but I read each and every word of this 638-page Washington memoir by Robert Novak. While Novak clearly sees the world through his right-wing perspective, the dirty little secret is that he can usually rise above this point of view and be just as tough and analytical on conservative republicans as he can on liberal democrats and become a terrific and perceptive reporter. As proof, Novak cites his usually dead-on predictions through the Evans and Novak Political Report of election results for each two-year cycle.

His book is amazingly candid in revealing many of his sources throughout his 50 years of reporting in Washington as well as frequent references to his personal assets and earnings throughout the years, which he uses to measure his success. Novak has and continues to suffer from an almost innumerable amount of illnesses (including several bouts of cancer) which he details throughout the book, but it all doesn't matter--The column or the (CNN) show must go on! Because he is so tough and serious about his work, he makes enemies amazingly easy and often converts former friends to enemies after some "misunderstanding" which he points out is never his fault.

The book does offer some great insights into some of major events and figures of our times with a special emphasis on politicians' and other reporters' hypocrisy whether it's Dick Armey, Bill Kristol, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bob Dole, Wolf Blitzer--well, you get the idea.

What I found amazing is that Novak--as a central figure in at least part of the CIA leak case--never references the name of Scooter Libby and he makes no acknowledgment that his column's reference to Valerie Plame had a contributing role in Libby's actions which led to Libby's conviction. This is an example, I think, of Novak's inability to often "connect the dots" which looks to be one of his weaknesses.

Finally, Novak also shows himself to be a very sensitive individual and he seems to take special "joy" in using his latest and the most personal of his books to settle old grudges--both personal and political. It was somewhat disappointing (but revealing and entertaining) to learn that Novak just can't help himself throughout the book in attacking the policies of George McGovern. Gee, Bob--that was 36 years ago. Oh well.

This is a solid read and will fill in many of the blanks in your knowledge of the last 50 years in Washington, D.C. I strongly recommend it especially for those who have an interest in journalism and media as well as politics.

I'll come clean and admit off the bat that I like Robert Novak. I don't dislike someone because of their political ideology if they can sublimate that to their profession. I like his combative style, his principles, his philosophical underpinnings which - one notices distinctly - set him against those who one would assume would be natural allies (Bush, Dole, Bush II, Eisenhower, various conservatives). Indeed, his traditional Republican values of personal liberty, sound currency, a foreign policy of non-intervention, a free-market (vs government-imposed or Socialist) approach to societal problems - these eventually set him squarely against the Washington elite regardless of party. This principled approach helped maintain his independence over the years instead of becoming a party hack mouthing the party line as so many journalists are wont to do tody.

In the end, though, his is a story about journalism. He continually went after the big story. The book is framed around the so-called Plame affair and in this case, Novak's version was completely verified by all those concerned - the special prosecutor, witnesses and the Senate committee that found Wilson had gave untruthful testimony. One notes repeatedly how often Bob Novak reports on incidents that put himself in a bad light or shows that he made a mistake at the time - a rarity in either DC politics or modern journalism.

His sources were legendary - Patrick Moynihan, Jack Kemp, lobbyists, secretaries, ambassadors, Karl Rove - the list goes on. These provided so many exposes and behind-the-scenes "what really happened" incidents that they are too numerous to attempt to enumerate. His Evans & Novak column, his CNN shows, his personal and private friendships and wars make for fascinating reading from a true Washington "insider." The personal touch - his conversion from a fuzzy Jewish background to Catholicism - gives us that human touch needed in tomes like these. My Grade: A

As a retired journalist I thought "The Prince of Darkness" was one of the best autobiographies I've ever read. This book should be required reading for journalism students. Novak is probably one of the best pure reporters in the last half century. If you're one of Novak's contemporaries you can relate to the politicians, communicators, and other prominent Americans and the pivotal events he discusses so succinctly. I especially enjoyed his personal reaction to Joseph Wilson, husband of Valerie Plame. I think that his integrity is the major reason his career was so successful. His opinions and his reporting come straight from the shoulders--direct and more often than not right on the mark.

An autobiograpy of Novak career as a journalist, this book is a tour de force of his personal recollection and opinion of an imposing array of the famous, near famous, would be famous US political figures of the past 50 years.

I heartily recommend this book as nostalgia for readers of my generation and an educational primer for the younger.

It used to be that if you bought a new PC it came with useful software such as word processing and spreadsheet programs. Lately, the pernicious practice has arisen of bundling "trial versions" of Microsoft Office that expire in a few days if you don't pay to buy them. I would certainly prefer the old way, where you may not get the most powerful word processor around, but at least you get one you can USE without it suddenly going dead if you don't pay for it. I wouldn't even want to TRY it, and risk the possibility that I'd get used to the software. So when I recently bought a new notebook PC and found this stupid trial version, I quickly uninstalled it and went to get hold of word processing and spreadsheet software so I had the functionality on my machine.

To the rescue: [...], a software package that includes nearly all the functionality of Microsoft Office (certainly all the functionality that I needed!) and even a few things that Office doesn't do (like creating PDF files directly without a separate program like Adobe Acrobat!) I downloaded the software, and immediately had a package of Office-like software free.

The only problem was that it is not well documented. Searching through a help file when you're trying to figure out how to do something is NOT fun to me. So I wanted a book, at least on the word processor, Writer. (The spreadsheet program, Calc, is pretty intuitive to me, but then I'm not trying to do things as fancy with it as I want to do in Writer!) And this book seemed the one to go with.

It has proved useful to me; I'm not sorry I bought it. But it has at least two shortcomings: (1) It describes an old version of Writer, version 1.1 while 2.4 is the current version, and (2) it has a woefully inadequate index. The first is not the author's fault; I'm sure she wrote about the version that was current when she wrote the book, but it does mean that sometimes it describes some feature that does not operate as she describes it, and I'm left trying to figure out how to do what I want to. But the second certainly IS her fault; I simply cannot expect to find what I'm looking for in the index and I'm usually forced to go trying to guess what chapter is likely to have what I want, then flipping through the chapter to find out if she discusses the topic I want to look up.

On the plus side, only two days after getting the book, I've succeeded in doing several things I never could figure out how to do before I had the book, so it has clearly proved useful to me.

Even though the book emphasizes a version of OOo before the current one, this book will get you proficient on the basics of Writer enough to get you off and running. The majority of the basic tasks you will do with a word processor are covered. I would recommend some previous experience with word processors and GUIs in general, but its not completely necessary. For someone switching over from Word to Open Office Writer, this book would more than meet your needs.

Writer is very easy to learn, especially if you have already been using some other word formatting package. A lot of care went into the design of Writer. So that you don't have to be a technical person in order to quickly learn it.

Which largely obviates the need for this book. Most of the material should be obvious to readers. Plus, the book's CD is superfluous, so long as you have Internet access. If you need a version of Writer to install on your computer, try going to openoffice.org and getting the latest version.

Jean Hollis did a good job of explaining how to do certain advanced things like styles and creating tables of contents.
I was really floundering until I got hold of this book.
I had always used Word but have not used it since.
I am a software developer and we are writing documentation for our software.
OpenOffice has been a good tool to have and this book was the key to understanding some really handy things.
It also covers some more mundane things like optimizations.

I have used OpenOffice.org since before it was called OpenOffice.org and I was surprised at how much I learned when I read this book. Most of the sections stand alone, which means that you can read the sections that interest you at the moment.

This book is very readable and accessible to beginners, and it contains content that some advanced users do not know. If you want to learn how to use styles, for example, this book is amazing. I also learned how to use fields to count my figures and other items. I consider this book a must have.

Whether you like Newt or not, one thing you can't take away from him is having the talent of a great communicator! I gave this book to one of my friends who is a Newt fan and he really enjoyed Winning the Future and was happy that I chose one of Newt's books as a gift.

Great ideas he has! I think they will very difficult for a majority to accept. Too revolutionary from our current state! Or should I say too grass rooted. We've drifted to far from the original intent of our founding fathers!

Newt Gingrich is decidedly conservative and dedicates his life to honoring his conservative ideals by pressing forward with his publications in timely fashion. From the beginning with "The Contract For America" and continuing with his latest work "Winning The Future" it is heartwarming to see this honorable man standing behind his principles. His books are grounded in reality and project a no nonsense approach to today's most important issues.

Newt is right on target as usual. He knows what's important and he knows how to fix the problem or at least how to get to an answer. He goes through his take on the most serious threats facing us today and suggests simple solutions that stand up to real testing.

I had read Mr. Gingrich's Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America when it was first released, but thought it might be worthwhile to dust it off because of the upcoming presidential election. It was definitely worth the invested time to reread this book and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it already. No matter what side of the isle you are on politically or whether you love, are indifferent to, or despise Mr. Gingrich, after reading this book I think you will likely come away thinking America would have been better off with him at least being in the race to help promote discussion of the most pressing issues we face as a country in something more sustentative than a simple sound bite.

Topic after topic, Mr. Gingrich cuts through the current political drivel and addresses problems and opportunities America will face in the 21st century in a well thought out manner. Unlike most other politicians he doesn't simply point out problems that need to be addressed, he takes the bold step to actually discuss solutions to those problems. What a refreshing idea that is! Some topics include our war on Islamofacism, Social Security, God's role in America, Education, Healthcare, the Environment, Energy, Science and Technology as well as several others. There are some very original and thought provoking ideas throughout the book.

While I don't agree with all of Mr. Gingrich's ideas and solutions I believe him to be one of the most profound political thinkers of our time. We as a nation are foolish if we simply dismiss his thoughts and ideas because of a personal dislike of the man or because he is a member of the opposing political team. Winning the Future and his new project "American Solutions", which can be found online, should be studied by not only the presidential candidates, but members of congress, state and local politicians and the general public. We as a nation have some very real threats that can be turned into opportunities if we can elect politicians that are willing to take risks and lead while refusing to play the sound bite and political gotcha game.