Word 2007: The Missing Manual, First Edition

By Harry {doc} Babad           © 2007

Author: Chris Grover Publisher: Pogue Press, O’Reilly http://www.missingmanuals.com/ Released: December 2006  Pages: 552 $23 USD, $39 CDN, £13.99 GBP, €29.00 Euro ISBN 10: 059652739X ISBN 13: 9780596527396 Audience: Intermediate and advanced users of MS Word. Strengths: This book explains basics in detail and teaches, in a more summary fashion, more advanced concepts. It appears to have been written for those who are just beginning to use Word seriously, or for those who want to learn more about creating attractive documents for more than just typing letters or shopping lists.

Weaknesses: Even with a magnifying glass many of the gray illustrations were indecipherable. Hasn’t anyone heard of color screen shots? Sure they cost more to print, but they serve to help the reader’s understanding rather than filling space. Where appropriate the instructions in the book were tested, for fun, on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM running under OS X 10.4.9 using MSW 2004. Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Publisher’s Description

“Fast-paced and easy to read, this concise guide teaches you the basics of Word 2007 so you can start using the program right away. You'll learn how to create documents, format and edit text, share the results, and go beyond basic documents to handle graphics, create page layouts, and use forms and tables. The new Word is radically different, but with this book, you'll master the new features in no time.

“Word 2007: The Missing Manual not only explains basics like how to create documents, enter and edit text, format, print, and fax, but also learn how to create sophisticated page layouts, insert forms and tables, use graphics, and create book-length documents with outlines and Master Documents. Coverage also includes how to share documents with other people and programs, create web pages, automate documents with fields, and automate tasks with macros and the Visual Basic scripting language.”

Introduction

When I asked myself, “Why are you reviewing this book about a piece of peecee software?”, I had to think. Hard work, but it only took a minute. First and foremost MSW (Microsoft Word) is my primary working tool. Although I recently flirted with NeoOffice 2.1 (see the May 2007 macC), I can be best described, as an “old dog” as far as my word processing habits is concerned.

Office 2008 for Mac is coming in the second half of 2007. Microsoft press releases state that the new version of our productivity suite is designed to work seamlessly for users on either Intel-based Macs or PowerPCs. I wanted to learn more. I have several options, all but one poor.

• Run out and buy both an Intel Macintosh and Office 2007. Sorry, I’ve neither won the lottery, nor yet save enough for my grandkids college education.
• Borrow a PC and a copy of Office 2007 and play with that – Life it too short for those kinds of diversions.
• Read a good book and hope to get a feel for what MS promised for us, the Macintosh, later this year.

As others and I have noted previously, Microsoft's documentation is terrible. Using the help files, at least for MSW 2004, even if I found the features I needed, I still have trouble using them. Word 2007: The Missing Manual helps you master Word's redesigned user interface and gives you exactly what you need to create unique, attractive and effective documents. In addition, the author has written a comparable volume Word 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual for users new to the software. This book meets the high standards set by the series editors.[1]

So I read this booking for possible oohs and ahs I could look forward to in a few months. In this review I share both my thoughts on this, on of the excellent Missing Manual series, from both a potential Windows User and from a hopeful MS Word addict on the Macintosh. I soon learned that the new Word is radically different from previous versions on both platforms, an attention-getting fact. These differences were all made clear by Chris Grover in this book.

Working with the Books Contents

Okay, I read on, starting on page one and stopping at the index. Note that the book assumes a small amount of PC knowledge on the part of the reader. Fortunately, to get the most out of the book, I had the knowledge.

So what did the book tell me to expect:

• Gone at the dropdown Menus – Glory Be the Ribbons — The “drop down” menu has been replaced by “ribbons” that more directly allows you to focus not only on what you want to, but also provided you instant access to the tools with which to make the changes you want. Everything you’ll ever want to do in MS Word is now packed into the ribbon. Functions are grouped logically into tabs: so, for example in Word you get tabs called: Home, Insert, Page Layout, References, Mailing, Review, and View. These however, on occasion, change as you change tasks in MS Word providing you with a developer, add-ins or other options. Each one could be thought of as a “task.” You want to Insert something, change the Page Layout, Review a document, etc.
  
  
   But here’s the problem: this new interface, which is now common to all office applications, is so different from what was there before, that (initially at least) no one really knows how to use it. We’ve all grown up with the familiar Word pull-down menu. Word 2007 is so different that many users will resemble a folksinger switching to a newfangled Fender guitar after a lifetime using his bread and butter acoustic box. Although the ribbons are a change, based on my reading, they should only cause a minor discomfort to heavy MSW users. I’m guessing it will not take long to adapt to them.

• There are new file formats, changes designed to protect against macro based do-bads. Gone is .doc and here we come with .docx and .docm, the later for all document that contain macros.

• Many of the often used functions, but not their menu shortcuts, have been reorganized according to the task and function in a way that is less confusing to the user. Under each tab in what was the menu, you get a collection of buttons, list boxes etc to help accomplish the task in question. – This book tells it all.

Take note, the best way to use this book is not by reading it as I did. [Reviewers, compulsively, don’t want to miss anything.] Instead, read a chapters or part of one, a little at a time at time. Or perhaps just browse in the areas of interest until you find something that you’ve wanted to do in MSW that eluded you. For me, topics that stuck a chord were creating bookmarks, working with long documents, and using mail merge.

Then, right away, not tomorrow, do the virtual exercises. The book is full of good examples of the various functions and methods discussed in each section.  They are easy to follow, and help you in understanding the material of a given section. These are not explicit tutorials in a how-to sense. The reader should walk though the steps for any given action, with the book propped up next to your screen. I did this, translating the information to MSW 2004, and was surprised how quickly I got comfortable with using MS Word in ways that were previously awkward.

…And Now the Details

The book is divided up into chapters that deal with the more and further along, the less routine talks you want to perform. Starting with the basics, the books walks you through the basics of accommodating the changes to, and using MSW. In later chapters, the book gets its teeth into core complex materials, e.g. setting margins, customizing columns, and formatting sections using style sets. Finally, there are chapters on customizing Word: changing the workspace, using macros, creating your own themes and templates, and so on.

Although all parts of this book are well organized, outlined, and logical, many of the topics were not personally compelling. This is no fault of the book, but rather is the result of how and for what I use MSW. Many of you will find the chapters that I was not impressed by, useful and compelling.

The Introduction — Perhaps the best part of this book

Part One — Word Basics for Simple Documents

Chapter 1: Creating, Opening, and Saving Documents

Chapter 2: Entering and Editing Text

Chapter 3: Setting Up the Document: Margins, Page Breaks, and More

Chapter 4: Formatting Text, Paragraphs, and Headings — That includes using the now more accessible styles

Chapter 5: Themes and Templates

Chapter 6: Spelling, Grammar, and Reference Tools

Chapter 7: Printing Word Documents

These are the usual getting started themes and are well worth a quick glance, if for no other purpose than to see the changes made in the user interface in Work 2007.

Part Two — Creating Longer and More Complex Documents

Chapter 8: Planning with Outlines — This was an excellent chapter, which focuses on planning your document by making use of a more streamlined outlining interface in Word 2007. Although I’m still likely to work first in Opal (on my Macintosh of course) but then I own the product. However, what I read leads me to believe the implementation of outline features will become easier in Word 2008. Than in MSW 2004.

Chapter 9: Working with Long Documents — Perhaps the weakest part of this document. But I am coming from the perspective of a writer of longish technical documents and an occasional book chapter. Mo0re about that later in the review.

Chapter 10: Organizing Your Information with Tables  — One of my favorite tool made easier to use. The book also clearly explains when to use tables and when to rely on setting margin tabs.

Chapter 11: Adding Graphics, Video, and Sound to Your Documents — I ignored all but the graphics part of this chapter since there is no conceive occasion that I might want to do this. I was delighted to find that the process of inserting an illustration with a caption has become easier to do on Word 2007. That ease I hope will spill over to Word 2008.

Cause Celeb — The section on graphics and other media complete forgets to warn readers about copyright infringement.

A Nit or Three — What is smart art? (See pages 258 and 271). What is a “pull quote”? — I love new words but give me a reference - please.

Chapter 12: Mass Mailing with Mail Merge – Although I seldom need to mail more than two dozen “form” items, after rending the section, I began to think I might well be able to do a mail merge.

Part Three — Sharing Documents and Collaborating With Other People

Chapter 13: Creating Web Pages and Blogs — It looks more easily doable, but I don’t.

Chapter 14: Creating Forms with Word — The way to go! This worked out well in MS 2004 when I tried it. I can hardly wait to create forms in MSW 2008 when it is released.

Chapter 15: Word's XML Connection — Another section that I had no immediate use for, although it’s good to know it’s been covered.

Chapter 16: Collaborating with Other People — What me, an iconoclast and loner, collaborate? But seriously, from what I’ve recently read, there are additional virtues to using MSW rather than Acrobat for this purpose. I’ve used both and have difficulty choosing. The collaboration process, in MSW, now looks less cumbersome (its interface including track changes) and is likely to be smother than what I need to do in MSW 2004.

Part Four — Customizing Word with Macros and Other Tools

Chapter 17: Customizing Your Workspace — Although the interface is different, I am delighted to have learned that it is as easy to customize MSW 2007 as it was Word 2004 – But, I hope neither colleague, nor my grandson, tries to use MSW 2004 my shortcuts… they will be surprised at the many changes I’ve made. My daughter did, much to her chagrin.

A Nit — There’s no information on creating a new set of customized special purpose toolbars. I can and have done this in MS Word 2004. Have I missed something?

Chapter 18: Changing Your Security Settings — Okay, folks will find these easier to use. One new thing I learned was that there is metadata that identified you in your documents, whether you want that or not, but the book tells you how to remove it.

Chapter 19: Introducing Macros and Visual Basic — The Macros section was fascinating. I’ve managed to butcher every instance of recording a macro shortcut in MSW 2004. I’ve focused on simple stuff like reformatting text that I copied from the web. The macros were supposed to make it easier to transform the text to my preferred recipe format. The information in this chapter makes that easier to do even in MSW 2004.

Chapter 20: Creating Your Own Themes and Templates — This was a capability that I’ve avoided for many version of MSW. Every time I’ve tried, I do something wrong — some day I’ll get back to this when my needs for complex standardized templates evolve.

Part Five – The Appendix

The later includes a, excuse the pun, brief but focused helpful section called “Works Help and Beyond.” It should be a must-read.

The book concludes with an index, which proved complete content list in the instances I needed to check it.

A Minor Discomfort

The only place book disappointed me, except for the illegibility of many of the graphics, was in explicitly dealing with the creation of long documents. I’m not sure whether I can put into words what I was looking for. Perhaps it’s a sort of way to integrate the bits and pieces of information to enable me to produce a template or three that I could use to create a technical document without having to worry about individual styles or the formatting of the pieces. Perhaps I’m in the wrong book.

It’s not that I’m not intrigued by master documents or collaborative writing (or editing). However, what I really want to know is how to write a long document based on creating a style that works for or a longish technical report. The style should be intuitive, all the aspects of style and document origination should both self-consistent and easy to implement. Now the book has sections on creating TOC and Indices and working with links.  It also discusses headers, footers, and bibliographic citations at great length. There is a lot of good information about creating Tables, inserting graphics and the like. But the book requires me to work too hard at integrating the pieces. Shame on you!

Another Graphics Issues — In a number of places (no I did not make a list), a graphic seemed either out of place or could not be tied to the associated text. This seems more loosey-goosey than the other Missing Manuals.

A Kudo for the Publisher

 When I checked the publisher’s web site, I found a great deal of useful book related material. As I always do, since I need a copy for my review — I checked out the TOC. The TOC for Word 2007: The Missing Manual is presented not as a list but in outline form. When you click on a chapter or section title, you can read the first two to four paragraphs of that section. Sometimes, there is a paragraph of additional material from elsewhere in the book associated with that topic. No graphics are provided, but the outline allows the reader good look at the whole book. A little of that material might also be useful to reviewers.  The outline approach to a book’s contents beats providing a single chapter/section lists. Ups, the O’Reilly folks do that too and the index as well.  Perhaps such annotated TOCs have been a part of previous book descriptions on the O’Reilly website, but I’d not previously noticed. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527396/toc.html

Conclusions/Recommendations

I recommend this book to those peecee users just starting out in MS Word or for those who want to build on their basic knowledge of this powerful word-oriented document creation tool. Although not the complete story, it does provide a readable and clear means to really learn the in-depth capability of this the latest version of MS Word.

In fact, for anyone wanting to get familiar with the MSW’s suite’s new interface and richer but easier to use features should buy this book.

…And if that not enough, Check out the Missing CD on the website. It contains examples exercise and more, without charging you an extra $5 USD for a CD you many not often use.

Author BIO

Christopher Grover lives in Fairfax, California with his wife and two daughters. Chris received degrees in Creative Writing and Film from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. He's worked as a technical writer, advertising copywriter and product publicist for more than 25 years. His freelance articles have been published in a variety of magazines from Fine Homebuilding to CD-ROM World. Chris's latest project is launching Bolinas Road Creative, an agency that helps small businesses promote their products and services. He's also the author of "Word 2007: The Missing Manual" and "Word 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual."