Microsoft Word 2010 Step by Step

July 26, 2010 | By In Software |

Other Related Posts:




1 Comment so far

  1. Bill Coan on July 27th, 2010

    Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks who went for a walk in a digital forest. Pretty soon, she came upon three books about Microsoft Word.

    First she looked at a book that called itself Plain and Simple. “This book is too easy for me!” she exclaimed. “It has nice pictures, and it gets me going in a hurry, but it doesn’t take me beyond the basics.” Next she looked at a book that called itself Inside Out. “This book is too difficult for me!” she exclaimed. “It weighs a ton, and it goes into excruciating detail, and it leaves me feeling overwhelmed.”

    Then she picked up the third book, which was called Microsoft Word 2010 Step by Step. “Ahhh, this book is just right,” she said happily, and she read the first part of the book in its entirety right then and there. After a nap she read several chapters from the second part of the book, and later she consulted the third part of the book, which helped her work in Word more efficiently. Some of the introductory matter at the front of the book seemed confusing to Goldilocks (about which, more later), but the detailed glossary of terms and the list of keyboard shortcuts and the very detailed index at the back of the book seemed very helpful to her.

    As this little fairy tale makes clear, books about Microsoft Word aren’t all aimed at the same audience. So before you choose the book that is best for you, you need to assess your own expectations as a user of Word.

    Microsoft Word 2010 Step by Step is aimed at the hardest-to-please user, i.e., the user who wants to be well grounded in the basics, but who also wants to move well beyond the basics without getting bogged down in excessive levels of detail or complexity.

    The book’s attention to basics can be seen in statements such as the following:

    o “When you use a computer program to create, edit, and produce text documents, you are performing a task known as word processing.”

    o “Even the most accurate typists occasionally make mistakes, also known as typos (for typographical errors).”

    o “Diagrams are graphics that convey information.”

    The book’s commitment to moving beyond the basics is revealed by the progressive quality of information flow in the book and also by the fact that the book incorporates into that flow special tips (including tips on how to set up Word for each training exercise and also how to troubleshoot problems with each exercise), plus summaries of key points. Chapter titles, main headings, procedure step numbers, and special tips are presented in blue text to help the reader feel oriented within the information flow at all times.

    Part I introduces the elements of Word 2010′s user interface and then explains how to edit and proofread text, change the look of text, and organize text into columns and tables. Part I also tells how to add simple graphic elements to a document and how to preview, print, and distribute a document.

    Part II focuses on the visual aspects of a document, including how to insert and modify diagrams and charts and other visual elements. Part II also describes ways to organize and arrange content within a document. The final chapter in Part II tells how to create and modify Web documents and blog posts.

    Part III includes some material that will be of interest to almost all users (such as the chapter on working in Word more efficiently and the chapter on collaborating with other users), but it also contains specialized material that many users will need but others won’t, including chapters on working with very long documents and working with mail merge documents.

    As an independent Microsoft Word Consultant and Microsoft Word MVP, I am not a member of the target audience for this book, so I tried to read it with my wife and my children in mind. My children would probably be put off a bit by some of the most basic statements in the book, but my wife would undoubtedly appreciate them. They all would appreciate how quickly the text moves from such basics into the solid middle and advanced areas of proficiency that most users of Word want to achieve.

    The most advanced topics in the book are treated with the same care as more basic topics. That is, they are presented with brief, thoughtful overviews of concepts, and they are illustrated with screen snapshots and supported by special tips and summaries of key points.

    The front matter is very welcoming and quite well suited to the book’s middle-level audience except for the topic entitled “Modifying the Display of the Ribbon.” This topic appears to have been conceived and written for users of any Office 2007 program, and it uses terms such as “galleries” and “task panes” without defining them or identifying them in a screen snapshot. One other quibble: the screen snapshot in Chapter 1, under the heading “Working in the User Interface” fails to show the status bar at the bottom of the Word application window, but the text that follows discusses the status bar as though it were there.
    Rating: 5 / 5

Leave a reply

CAPTCHA Image
*

Spam Protection by WP-SpamFree