Macintosh Books

Theres alot of usefull info packed into this small book, focusing primarily on what ordinary users need to know,
it helped me bond with my powerbook.

At first glance, Powerbook Fan Book looks like a coffee table 'interest' book of diminutive size. The cover design and photo call to the Powerbook owner who enjoys reading about how great it is to be a Powerbook owner. But upon opening this book, It soon becomes apparent that it is a powerhouse primer for the Mac novice who just opened the box to their first Powerbook. The books dimensions are just larger than a CD jewel box. Obviously designed to be toted with the Powerbook itself.

Derrick explains his philosophy early on. Many Mac guide books on the market seem to lose focus of the fact that one of the major appeals of the Mac OS is it's ease of use. He feels that many of these user-guide tomes only serve to squelch the new Mac owner's enthusiasm; driving the owner farther from their new Mac in stead of uniting them. His solution is to gently introduce the machine and the OS; covering only the key information that a new user must know to become productive with their new Powerbook. He touches on the fact that being a Powerbook user is unlike being the owner of any Windows-based laptop. Much the same as being a Mac owner differs from being a `PC user'. Consider: Combine the Mac OS with the portability of the Powerbook, and it becomes, for many, an extension of their own memory; of themselves. Insights such as this pepper the book and keep the more dry nuts-and-bolts how-to topics in balance for the reader.

The book itself is logically organized, tabbed, and color illustrated. The early chapters cover the basics of Macintosh, the Powerbook and the abovementioned philosophies. Next Derrick assumes that you know nothing about the OS and guides you through setting up your new machine. All the while he interjects bits of wisdom that a veteran Mac user would recognize and appreciate (having themselves learned the hard way). He also covers `must have' Powerbook accessories, care and cleaning, and basically making your Powerbook uniquely `you'. All the main points are covered including the iLife suite and the Powerbook used as your personal digital hub.

The Powerbook Fan Book is destined to become a dog-eared, sticky note covered favorite that, after you have read it, will make the rounds to new Mac Powerbook converts as a loaner. My only criticism, as with any computer book, is that it is now in need of revision on two fronts. First, the book was written to the Mac OS 10.3 Panther user and needs to be brought up to speed for 10.4 Tiger; and second, Mr. Story will need to revise it for the new intel processor-based MacBook Pro. But there are plenty of new Powerbook owners out there and many retailers selling through their Powerbook back-stock. Apple could do worse than to commission this book to be shipped with each new unit.

One final note. There is nothing in the Powerbook Fan Book that would not also appeal to the iBook or now, MacBook (sans 'Pro') owner. Only some minor differences ,mostly to do with ports, would be off. So get out there and buy your copy!

I am not understanding the rave reviews of this book. It's VERY expensive, barely 100 pages, and it gives a very cursory overview mostly of mac OS X, not really rhe powerbook in particular. I read it in 45 minutes, and it was OK, but I don't think I got my money's worth.

This is the book to go along with your first time purchase of a powerbook, or a good present for someone getting a new powerbook. You could think of this trim form factor book as a super introductory manual that should have come in the box. Though Derrick does a good job of covering some additional topics that you won't find in the Apple documentation, like where to get good accessories and third party software.

This is not a book for a long time Mac owner. That reader wouldn't find much they didn't already know. This is a great book for a first time Mac owner.

As the book says, using a PowerBook is a digital lifestyle statement to some of its fans. That might sound a trifle pretentious, if you don't have one of these gadgets. But Story describes bunches of cool ways to use it. These are in the key chapters 3 and 4.

He quickly describes the basics of using iPhoto to amass a collection of digital photos. And of using iMovies to view digital video. The chapters are somewhat short. There is enough detail to use the most common operations of these programs, and others. But the narrative only hints at the complexity of the full features of each program. The book provides a useful and quick survey.

As webmaster to a site with over 100 quicktime VR panoramas & QuickTime digital media - this book was a MUST HAVE! It gave me all the information I needed to go beneath the surface and unlock the powerful features that QuickTime has to offer. If you want to create & deliver cutting edge media with all the bells and whistles. . . . BUY THIS BOOK! Luke - webmaster virtual bakersfield.com

I'm a loyal customer of the Visual Quickstart Guide series, and this book was up to their usual high standards. It gets straight to the point, takes you well beyond the basics, and reveals the power of this technology with both clearly written step-by-step instructions and strategically chosen screen shots on every page. A must for anyone that purchased a QuickTime Pro upgrade.

If you're a QT user, don't forget to buy this book. This book is packed with useful hints and tricks. It's surely going to be useful to you someday.

Remember to buy some other books about general video compression theories, MPEG encoding, color theories ... so you'll handle codecs better. This book is not the whole thing.

Although I didn't pay for it.. we have this book at work. I've never read any of the Visual QuickStart (sounds like a Microsoft product!) books before, hope they're not all like this. Quicktime Pro isn't exactly rocket science as it stands, so a book is going to have to have some good information in it to make it worth.

I give you an example - "Creating Video from Many Images. 1. From the file menu, choose Open Image Sequence. 2. In Open dialog box, locate and select any one of the sequentially named files and click Open." etc. etc. As I said, QTPro isn't rocket science. I followed this guide and had a problem. I clicked on the sequentially named files and it wouldn't load more than 2 images. Why? The book didn't give me any clues. I found out from trial and error, it's dependant on file names. Sorry, but this book is pointless. It's like a 360 page book on the DIR command.

Step one of the section "Creating Video Tracks from A Sequence of Still Images" states: "give each still-image file a common name with a sequential number appended to it (for example, picture1, picture2, picture3). Then place all of the files in the same folder." This is a great book for QTPro beginners, explains everything very clearly. I believe the poor review was due to lack of concentration not error on the part of the writers.

I have only just started reading about SAP. However, I was looking for more than just a review of GUI screens and the buttons on them. I was looking for explanations, perhaps a short overview. Many of the screen shots did not exactly match the words associated with them. They showed the 'default' SAP screen rather than the parameters and options discussed in the text. There were several mistakes on the screens. Buy another SAP BASIS or SAP Administration book other than this one. It is far overpriced in relation to its content. Others are available at half the price of this used book.

In some places that the book is advertised it is misleading - touting the book as SAP for dummies when actually it is a book on SAP System Administration only. Although it may adequately cover the System Administration (Basis) aspects the book is not helpful for basic SAP functionality - I had more luck with "Teach Yourself SAP in 24 hours" for general SAP.

I just cracked open this book five minutes ago. I'm new to the world of SAP and the aggravation the book has spared me has been well worth the price.

This should give you a hint that the book is well-organized and easily accessible. A little familiarity with SAP is handy, but I don't think it's necessary.

I didn't think it was possible to have a Dummies book for SAP, but it seems that Joey and Jim did it. As an experienced basis admin I read with skepticism, but I truly believe this is a valuable asset for any technical resource looking to venture into the vast world of SAP. Joey provides comical yet expert commentary that would allow anyone new to this difficult landscape to get a leg up. Thanks for the enjoyable and educational read. When are you coming out with SAP for Advanced Dummies?

This is an excellent book for both starters in sap R/3 Basis and the gurus in basis administration. I have been doing basis administration for over 2 years now and found this book not only interesting but very helpful in my daily work as a senior basis administrator.My advice for any one that need a general knowledge of sap basis admin or need trouble shooting book to guide you in your job is to get this book. It is very helpful and surely an investment to your career.

Henry.

Generally, while I haven't READ it from cover to cover I spent a good 20-40 minutes examing the various parts that I was interested in. Overall, its useful to it's target audience as others said. However, if appears to omit some important points. First, the MacOS limits you to 255 volumes per server, resulting in some strange issues if you exceed this. Second, it ignores SMS integration and Netopia NetOctopus - software used to manage systems. In a cross platform environment, these can be very important issues that I feel should have been discussed.

For what it does discuss - which is otherwise extensive, including various service pack bugs - it does appear to be well organized and quite useful.

I truly cannot understand where this dude gets the idea there is no discussion of TCP/IP connections in the section covering Windows 2000. Evidently he's not paying attention. In fact, the section called "Learning How DHCP Works With Your Macs," beginning on page 292, clearly shows how you can use your Mac's TCP/IP Control Panel to access a DHCP Server established under Windows 2000.

Either that dude missed this section, or read another book. Either way, he doesn't seem to understand how it's supposed to be done.

In my company's network, a mixed setup with Macs in our art department and Windows boxes elsewhere, this book was an invaluable assistant in getting things to work properly when we migrated to W2K. I recommend it highly.

Bummer, this book is a "wannabe".

Although, the Windows NT information is without a doubt, far and above superior to Microsoft's documentation it falls short with Windows 2000 support. Unfortunately, this book dwells upon AppleTalk as a viable protocol. However, Macintosh systems have supported TCP/IP as the native protocol since 7.x. AppleTalk is for all practical purposes dead -- Modern Giga Bit routers do not route AppleTalk. There is no discussion of Macintosh access via TCP/IP except implicitly through DAVE.

Microsoft might as well have written the discussion of the UAM (Universal Access Module) it is so terse. This book will be a great asset for those unfortunate folks supporting Legacy systems whose budgets will not allow forward progress.

Updated from review of May, 2000.
A more accurate title for this book would be "Windows 2000 SERVER or Users of Thursby's Dave Mac Support ..." This book is a step-by-step, how-to book for configuring Windows servers and Mac clients in a SERVER-based environment. If you are a knowlegible system administrator and/or Dave user and what you need is a recipe for doing X, including dialogs and what to click/enter when, then this book is well organized and complete.

If you are working in a peer-based (i.e. non Windows server-based) network, don't own Thursby's Dave, or if you need to learn/understand the different ways in which Macs and PCs can internetwork, then this book won't help you.

I rated the book 3 stars because its title and description led me to purchase the book (in May 2000) without being able to actually look at it. Had I been able to thumb through it in a bookstore I wouldn't have bought it. Otherwise I believe it delivers good value for its target audience (Windows system administrators or owners of Dave), even though I don't fit into this category.

I wanted a book to help me set up a network with the systems I had, not a book on how to use a software product (Thursby's Dave) that I did not own and did not necessarily want to buy. Without Dave the book is limited to Windows 2000 Server, so I stand by my original judgment. The basic change I'd make is to the title of my review. This is all academic now that the book can be previewed online and OS-X has supported SMB out of the box from the beginning.

Despite what another review says, this book is not just for users of Windows 2000 Server. My Mac/Windows network is set up on a peer-to-peer basis, and yet I found this book valuable, because it explained how to configure Thursby Systems' great program, DAVE, to allow for this sort of configuration.

I don't know what this other reviewer was thinking when these very clearly labeled instructions were missed.

Although the book assumes some degree of familiarity with both Windows and the Mac OS, even someone who is not an experienced administrator will learn how to set up their systems with as little fuss as possible.

I highly recommend this book.

let's start by the conclusion.your chances of running "colour" software without this book are purely and simply unexisting.How can you..?where to start...?
considering mostly colour is a must have software.
so the book is great and the excercises fantastic.It is very nice to learn in those conditions

All the Apple Pro books are great tools for anyone that does video editing. However, my copy of Color came with the top left hand corner of the back cover ripped off. I expected better quality since I was ordering directly from Amazon.

I ordered this in June of last year and I wish I'd not. I'm a live tv camera shader so my background is in color manipulation. If you have absolutely no idea how to manipulate colorimetry, this is not the book for you at all. It tells you how to drive the software with some helpful color hints scattered about. Read the manual, work in the application, scour the net and Amazon for information about color and you can learn the same stuff.

If you have a background in color manipulation, skip this book and read the manual to learn how to drive Apple's Color. If you're like me and enjoy constant learning, run and pick up "Encyclopedia of Color Correction" by Alexis van Hurkman. It's a far more useful text than this title.

I waited a long time before this book arrived but it was completely worth it. I edit on Final cut pro but never really did too much with respect to secondary coloring. I used the color correction tools with Final cut but they are not very good for precision coloring. I've always peeped through the window admiring da vinci system and even considered buying Final Touch but didn't have the nerve to pluck down $20K. Then Apple bought the company and folded it into Final Cut suite. I upgraded immediately. I soon found that i was out of my element in Apple Color.
The manual that came with Apple color didn't help that much either. Yes i could color but didn't always get the exact look i was going for. I concluded that only Da vinci system could give me the look i wanted.
Then came this book. It thoroughly explained the right way to mix and match to get precise looks, from skin tone to mood.
This book is worth twice it's price. Forget going on any silly course. read it and practice and you are good.

I'll say this for Apple color. It can color as good as any da vinci system. It is 10 times slower to render unless you create a huge cluster, granted, but the end result is the same. Anyone tell you different is trying to justify their higher rates.

Aside from the frustrations of the "one-star-reviewer", one must consider that the purpose of this book is to teach how to use the software. Apple is making professional tools available to the "general public", and is offering a training series of which this book is a part.

One assumes that if you're an industry professional, you're well on your way, without the need for "training wheels". But if you're like me, more or less still exploring the richness and the depth of Final Cut Studio 2, then this book is a must for you.

I was a bit frustrated about the long waiting period and the delay of the publishing date and was close to cancelling my order, but I am happy I own this book now. The book may seem a bit meager and I wish for more examples and exercises in an updated version, but I feel it gives me a great headstart in learning how to use Color and I feel confident enough to explore all the possibilities on my own.

I actually read this book cover to cover. I'll admit I didn't do the exercises supplied, but instead applied what I was reading to my own projects...

It's very well thought out, written and laid out, with good, clear, colorful screen shots. The writing is good, clear, humorous but not cutesy...

This is a great book to purchase to start out with GarageBand 2 or to deepen a beginner's knowledge. I am keeping it by the computer for handy reference.

I would recommend it wholeheartedly.

The writing is clear and easy to understand. If you work through the book, as others have mentioned, you will gain proficiency with the software.

But I'm surprised no one has mentioned that this book moves incredibly slowly. This book is written for people who are relatively new to comptuers. But if you have some computer proficiency, the step-by-step exercises are consistently repetitious and mind-numbing.

The book is well written and has an approach and style that lends itself to learning GarageBand easily. It is just unfortunate that there are errors in it (things it tells you to do which do not work), and there is no web support and no way to report errata to the author or publisher - actually quite surprising these days. So it would rate higher if it were correct or had a way to provide feedback, but as it is I am left wondering if the OReilly book would have been a wiser purchase simply because they support their books.

I've been spending most of the last two weekends learning all I can about GarageBand. Out of the three books I'm using, I like this one the best. Mary Plummer includes very useful tutorials that are a collection of techniques you can apply to any GB song. With the CD included with the book, you can easily copy the tutorials onto your computer and work at your pace. I especially appreciate the techniques she shares, e.g. doubling a track with mixed instruments, creating a turnaround with drum tracks, working with volume and pan, and even customizing the loops browser. And for you real instrument players, she covers how to get your music into GB and what to do with it once it's there. For serious GB users, this book is a must.

This is the official training course for Garage Band 2, Apple's music arrangement software. This book is a detailed guide to recording, arranging, and mixing music using Garage Band, instrument recordings, and the library of more than 1,000 royalty-free Apple Loops that is included with the software. This book is more than a basic tour of the application. It provides you with practical techniques that will be frequently used to add professional-quality music and sound effects to a project.

This book is based on hands on training. It starts with how to install the software, and how to install the files included on the CD-ROM that comes with the book. The CD also includes a chapter on moving up to one of Apple's true professional grade music applications, Logic Pro 7 or Logic Express 7. There's enough information for you to judge if the more powerful application is worth the money for your needs.

I received Excel X for Mac OS X in excellent condition. Love it. Thank you.

This is the second book I've purchased written by Maria Langer. The first was Mac OS X Panther (Visual QuickStart Guide). Like the book for panther. Excel X is great for those new to the program, or for those who have little experience in formating the spreadsheets, conjuring up formulas, and establish and managing lists.

For more experienced/advanced users, you'll appreciate the book as quick reference and the nice tips you'll find to increase your efficiency. But if you're looking for more advanced techniques (i.e. scripts, macros, advanced formatting) you might want to look elsewhere.

I'm a long-time (since 1984) Mac user and devotee, so I'm not being heretical when I say that the best books about Excel are written for a Windows audience. The Mac versions of Excel are sufficiently compatible with the Windows versions that almost everything you learn from a Windows book will apply on the Mac. There are so many more Windows users (and especially power users) of Excel that many more books have been written for them. If you want to become a power user, try "Microsoft Excel 2000 Formulas" by John Walkenbach.

I've bought several of the Visual Quickstart Guides for other Mac applications so when I decided I wanted to become a real Excel power user, I thought this would be a good book to start with. For those just getting into Excel, this would be the place to start. (In fairness, this is probably their target audience in the first place.) I even found it useful for gaining a better understanding some functions I hadn't attempted in the past.

My only complaint is that it just doesn't go deep enough. I wanted some help with formulas in general and more advanced formulas in particular (e.g. HLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, etc. and nested formulas) and the book didn't provide any more information on formulas than the application's help file, which isn't much.

To be helpful, it would be nice to see a nice long list of example formulas with descriptions on how or when you would use them.

OK, maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but hey, I bought the book and was a little disappointed.

This book probably works just as well for an introduction to Excel for the ones who have no experience with this program. Given that I have extensive experience with Excel, my review focuses on this guide's ability to transfer your Excel skills from the Wintel to the Mac OS environment.

This guide does a very good job of transferring the skills you have acquired in Excel/Wintel to Excel/Mac OS in the minimum of time. The format of the book is even superior to the Dummies series (my favorite until now). This is because each page is smartly divided between a relevant simple list of action steps to take to achieve a specific function. And, the other half of the page shows actual pictures of what the screen will look like. So, the emphasis on actual visuals is second to none (it is ahead of the Dummies series on that count).

It is the simplest stuff who will baffle you at first. The more advanced features of Excel are common whether you work on the Mac or the Wintel platform. But, what is unsettling is that the simplest features are different. When you first work with Excel for Mac, just the simple viewing and editing of cells is different. It leads one to believe that Excel for Mac and Wintel are really incompatible. They are actually very compatible. But, you just have to understand how the Mac environment works. It is a little bit different. Once you get the hang of it, it's a cruise.

After studying this guide, you will quickly realize that Excel for Mac is just as flexible and powerful an analytical tool as Excel/Wintel. It even has some advantages. The Clipboard is more visible and useful. The Calculator feature gives you more space and control when developing complex formulas. The List function offers more robust database capabilities than the traditional Excel. It integrates Access capabilities into Excel. The graph function has several additional 3-D capabilities. Thus, overall I strongly recommend this book, that will quickly teach you Excel for the Mac.

I had to return this book, only because of my unfamiliarity with UNIX. Long gone are the days when I used to knock out code. I've been spoiled (ruined some might say) by years of GUI and the heavy use of utility programs.

If you like using Console on your MAC you'd probably get a kick from using this book.

I wanted to leave my review 'unrated' because I consider myself unqualified to judge its utility, not because it is necessarily a poor manual, but the Review form required I supply some rating so I chose 'middle of the road' 3 stars.

I love clever tips, and Scott Knaster delivers a ton of them here, many seen nowhere else. But this tome goes way beyond tips, diving into the gnarly details of Tiger that others have glossed over, such as application internals, Widget construction, and Unix command language. So many Mac books are just a rehash of the surface of the user interface. Scott's book is way ahead of the pack.

I was looking for a book with medium to advanced info on Tiger and this one seemed to fit the bill. I was a little concerned at first when it started off with user tips which were handy, but I wanted more technical stuff. The latter parts of the book really delivered. There's well done sections on Automator and Quartz Composer. The best part is the last chapters which have programs with source for Dashboard, Spotlight, dock badging, and a few more. My advice is skim the first few chapters and pay attention to the rest.

This book is most effective if you are sitting in front of your Mac system whether it's a laptop or desktop. Work your way through the examples from start to finish, reading the chapter introduction before embarking on each adventure. While hacking is generally viewed as a more skilled or extremely geeky term, this book is clearly useful to experienced beginners who want to gain expertise in the functionality/usability of their Mac (as well as those who want to explore modifying their Mac more extensively).

Part I of the book is dedicated to a gentle introduction to the components that make up Mac OS: the finder, dashboard, dock, preferences, user interface, startup, iTunes, utilities, unix applications, terminal, and shell commands.

Part II is strictly for those ready for the "Advanced Mac" training.

Although most people see the GUI portion of the OS, keep in mind that the "engine" underlying the GUI is Unix and 'hacking' the Mac will at some point descend into command line editing. Rather than be daunted by exposure to typing in your commands instead of having your desires constrained by what some application interface designer decided you could change with a GUI, embrace the power of the OS. Knaster slowly prepares the reader for the more advanced adventures as he introduces the Terminal in the "Quit the Finder" example. Seeing each following example you can build an idea of what you are doing by looking at the similarities of the commands. Rather than just limiting you to what he knows, Knaster is building up your understanding of how the underlying secret functionality works. For example if you look at the first few examples in Chapter 1 you will see the following pattern:

defaults write com.apple.finder Function optional flag yes|no
(for non geeks the | stands for OR ..)

If we translate this to English, defaults is clearly talking about the "default way I want this done", com.apple.finder is how to refer to the finder application, and then it finishes with a toggle for turning the function on or off. We see that this formula is consistent as we follow through with the next chapter with

"defaults write com.apple.Dock function toggle"

Part II of this book may be too advanced for beginners, but gives expert users exposure to more of these building blocks to understanding the power of the OS.

Overall, a very well written book with great introductions to topics and well thought out examples to modifying the Mac from beginner to advanced techniques. I highly recommend it to individuals who are interested in becoming more Mac proficient. At a bargain price of ~$17 on Amazon, compared to many technical books that sell at over $30 a piece this is a must have.

I found the first two sections of this book very useful. ie, I have come to LOVE Mac OS's zoom feature, which I use all the time now to make small video boxes 'fill' my 17" screen. There are other fun trick and tips in those first two sections.
It's the third section that bewilders me. Without any transition, the book goes right hardcore into coding. I ended up having to use the 'help' menu in Apple's XCode developer application just to understand how to do some of the things the book instructs you to do. Then I spend all this time entering a bunch of tedious, rote code. Then what do I do? I don't know. The book doesn't tell you how to actually turn all that code you wrote in XCode into a useful application. Is there some icon I'm supposed to double-click now? I don't know and the book doesn't tell me.
Blah... Even in those first two sections, come to think of it, I would have been totally lost if I did not already read the "Missing Manual" guide to MacOSX and get an understanding of Terminal and Unix. Geez, would it have killed the author to have taken just a little bit of time and offered readers an explanation of what Terminal is, what Unix is, and how to use those to follow the instructions given in the book?
That's my take and I'm sticking with it.

As a typesetter in a large corporation I found this book very helpful when I recently had to organize our fonts on 12 computers. It clearly explains the difference in the various types of fonts and how to use them properly. It also covers in detail all the different type management software (ATM, Suitcase, etc.). After speaking with several designers, it appears that fonts can be the single biggest nightmare and this book would be an asset to any designers library.

I bought Robin's book aobut 2 weeks ago and I have read it over and over. I found that the book was not helpful in getting my fonts organised. I am left with fundamental questions unanswered and a lot of frustration. I am still looking for a book that will show me how to sort my fonts what to keep what to throw and how to do it. This book has some good back ground informationon the benefits of ATM, and the history but what about open fonts, and master fonts? It's dated and not helpful.

"He who dies with the most fonts wins," is a fact of life for a lot of desktop designers for print and the web. However, having tons of fonts of every weight, format and variety gobbles up lots of system memory, and corrupted or conflicting fonts cause crashes. This book tells all on how to get your collection under control, and keep your fonts organized, in good shape, and zipped in place for when you need them. This book is also well written, and will keep you alert and interested, which is most refreshing because I've found many how-to design/computer management books must be read with toothpicks propping up your eyes. It's also just the right length, concise and everything is clearly, not condecendingly, explained. It's a must read for any Mac designer, from the newest newbie to the most advanced.

Except for her mild endorsement of grunge (why have we spent hundreds of years designing typefaces that are both readable and beautiful only to have a generation of" designers" design deconstructed faces that are likely to be used only once in a lifetime), Robin Williams is probably the most articulate and literate writer on typography around, digital or traditional. She is sensitive to those qualities that have somehow been lost on those who have been brought up facing a monitor rather than a type book, type case or drawing board. Too many people in business have been led to believe, and accept the idea, that a typist is automatically a typographer/designer. Every designer who has grown up on the computer should have all of her books at their side, along with Strunk & White, Fowler's Modern English Usage, Roget's Thesaurus and a good dictionary.

Although the Amazon editorial review calls Williams a Mac expert, it doesn't make clear that this book is pretty exclusively Mac-oriented. Some of it will be useful to Windows users, but there are surely other, similar font books on the market more useful for Windows users. If I had realized this before I started making notes in the margins, I would have returned it.

i cant really give a rating on something that i have not recieved... it has been a month and i have not recived my book. i am not pleased with the service or tha book for that matter. (seeing how i paid for it and i have not recieved it) even without express shipping it should not have taken so long to recieve, on my other orders (made at the same time) i didnt have express shipping and i recieved them in a respectable time but my purchase from you (even if i can call it a purchase because i feel as if i have been robbed because i have not recieved my book)was and still is UNsatisfactory

Skip the manual and read this book instead. Text is appropriately detailed and clear. Many illustrations and examples. Overall, the book is a great introduction to the program and a good reference. However, this is not a step-by-step project guide or tutorial. Don't be fooled by the beautiful color illustrations in the middle of the book...this book won't make you an expert, only an advanced beginner.

This book makes it easy for beginners while offering a vast amount of information for advanced designers as well. The step by step instructions are easy to follow. Great illustrations and graphics. A must have for ANYONE who wants to use Illustrator, whether you are just a kid playing around, a student, or a professional artist.

Collaboratively written by computer experts Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas, Illustrator 10 For Windows & Macintosh is a no-nonsense, "user friendly" instructional guide to teaching oneself Illustrator 10. Taking a highly visual rather than textual approach to demonstrating basic and advanced techniques, this superbly organized guide supplements its pictures and sample demonstration artworks with extensive step-by-step, where-to-click, instructions to using each possible tool. Illustrator 10 For Windows & Macintosh is a "must-have" reference for all Illustrator 10 beginner through intermediate level users.

This Visual Quick Start Guide Book is excellent. Easy to follow directions for anything that you want to do in Illustrator. Highly recommended for beginners, and experts too.