Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)
by Garr Reynolds
from New Riders Press
FOREWORD BY GUY KAWASAKI
Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the net — presentationzen.com — shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.
Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual
by Jim Elferdink
from Pogue Press
Product Description
Still the top-selling software suite for Mac users, Microsoft Office has been improved and enhanced to take advantage of the latest Mac OS X features. You'll find lots of new features in Office 2008 for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage, but not a page of printed instructions to guide you through the changes. Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual gives you the friendly, thorough introduction you need, whether you're a beginner who can't do more than point and click, or a power user who's ready to tackle a few advanced techniques.
To cover Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage, this guide gives you four superb books in one -- a separate section each for program! You can manage your day and create professional-looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in no time. Office 2008 has been redesigned so that the windows, toolbars, and icons blend in better with your other Mac applications. But there are still plenty of oddities. That's why this Missing Manual isn't shy about pointing out which features are gems in the rough -- and which are duds. With it, you'll learn how to:
- Navigate the new user interface with its bigger and more graphic toolbars
- Use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage separately or together
- Keep track of appointments and manage daily priorities with the My Day feature
- Create newsletters, flyers, brochures, and more with Word's Publishing Layout View
- Build financial documents like budgets and invoices with Excel's Ledger Sheets
- Get quick access to all document templates and graphics with the Elements Gallery
- Organize all of your Office projects using Entourage's Project Center
- Scan or import digital camera images directly into any of the programs
- Customize each program with power-user techniques
'Why Should I Upgrade to Office 2008 for Macintosh?'
Author Jim Elferdink talks about what's new in Office 2008 for Macintosh. If you're still using Office 2004, you'll find some great reasons to upgrade. Jim also fills you in on some cool features that Office for Windows can't match, and why you may not need to invest in iWork!
What are the best new features that will make folks want to upgrade to Office 2008?
Publishing Layout view. If you use Word to create formatted documents like letters and brochures, you'll find it so much easier to do now in the new Publishing Layout view than in the old Page Layout view. Publishing Layout view is actually quite similar to Pages; both are very usable. It's a huge boon for Word people—if you haven't bought Pages, now you won't have to!
MyDay. I really enjoy Entourage's MyDay feature. Assuming you're not working on a laptop that doesn't have screen space to spare, I recommend keeping MyDay open in the corner of your screen. That's what I do! It helps me keep track of my appointments and schedule. If you've got appointments every 20 minutes or just a lot going on in your day, it's great to have it all at a glance. It also helps you remember to go pick up the kids. (And you can feel superior to your Windows friends. There's nothing resembling MyDay in Office for Windows.) Project Center. Entourage's Project Center has been streamlined and beautified for 2008, but it's still very underutilized. It takes a little extra effort to learn, but once you've got it up and running, if you're doing any kind of a project that involves Office documents or even files from other programs, it's a great timesaver. It lets you keep shortcuts to all these documents, plus email related to the project, in one window. The Project Center makes it easy to categorize email, contacts, notes, and documents. Things don't get lost, and you don't have to worry about Mac OS X labels and other ways to categorize things. (Office for Windows also has nothing like the Project Center.)
Formula Builder. In Excel, one of the greatest new features is the formula builder. If you use Excel much for formulas at all, especially more complicated ones, it's really a timesaver. It helps you get those things created and working much faster than you could do before.
Elements Gallery. The Elements Gallery concept is really great because it carries over from one program to the other, gives the programs a consistent feel. If you're using a lot of templates or AutoShapes, you'll find it a quick way to get at all that stuff. You could do all these things before, but it was a lot harder to find what you were looking for.
So, are there any disadvantages to upgrading to Office 2008?
Publishing Layout view can be frustratingly slow on G4 Macs, especially when you're trying to move layout elements around onscreen. I would only use it on an Intel Mac. The same caveat holds true for PowerPoint; it's hard to move things around. But the rest of the suite works great on faster G4 machines.
Office 2008 uses the same new, XML-based file format as Office 2007 for Windows. It's great not to have to worry when someone with Office 2007 on a PC sends you something. Office 2008 can open those documents right up. But now when you send documents to Mac folks who haven't upgraded, they won't be able to open them! Once you upgrade to Office 2008, you've got to be aware that not everyone else has, and (unless you have a real need to use the XML format) set your Save options (in Preferences) to the older format so there won't be problems with your attachments.
Then there's the macro problem. Any macros you wrote in earlier versions of Office use the Visual Basic programming language (VBA), and they won't work in Office 2008! If you've written a lot of macros for yourself, you'll have to stick with Office 2004 until you have time to rewrite them in AppleScript.
What do you like best about Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual?
I'm happy with the way this book turned out. I think it covers everything you need to use this really powerful suite of programs for all your work. One chapter I'm particularly fond of, and which I think is missing from every other PowerPoint book I've looked at, is Chapter 15—Planning Great Presentations. It helps you prepare for your presentation and shows you how to use PowerPoint for its true purpose. PowerPoint isn't doing the presentation—you are. You're the star of the show! Unfortunately, too many people think it's the other way around.
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data
by Stephen Few
from O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Dashboards have become popular in recent years as uniquely powerful tools for communicating important information at a glance. Although dashboards are potentially powerful, this potential is rarely realized. The greatest display technology in the world won't solve this if you fail to use effective visual design. And if a dashboard fails to tell you precisely what you need to know in an instant, you'll never use it, even if it's filled with cute gauges, meters, and traffic lights. Don't let your investment in dashboard technology go to waste.
This book will teach you the visual design skills you need to create dashboards that communicate clearly, rapidly, and compellingly. "Information Dashboard Design" will explain how to:
Avoid the thirteen mistakes common to dashboard design
Provide viewers with the information they need quickly and clearly
Apply what we now know about visual perception to the visual presentation of information
Minimize distractions, cliches, and unnecessary embellishments that create confusion
Organize business information to support meaning and usability
Create an aesthetically pleasing viewing experience
Maintain consistency of design to provide accurate interpretation
Optimize the power of dashboard technology by pairing it with visual effectiveness
Stephen Few has over 20 years of experience as an IT innovator, consultant, and educator. As Principal of the consultancy Perceptual Edge, Stephen focuses on data visualization for analyzing and communicating quantitative business information. He provides consulting and training services, speaks frequently at conferences, and teaches in the MBA program at the University ofCalifornia in Berkeley. He is also the author of "Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten," Visit his website at www.perceptualedge.com.
Microsoft Office 2007: Introductory Concepts and Techniques, Windows XP Edition (Shelly Cashman) (Shelly Cashman)
by Gary B. Shelly
from Course Technology
For the past three decades, the Shelly Cashman Series has effectively introduced computer skills to millions of individuals. With Microsoft Office 2007, we are continuing our history of innovation by enhancing our proven pedagogy to reflect the learning styles of todays users. You will find features that are specifically designed to engage learners, improve retention and prepare the user for success. Our trademark step-by-step, screen-by-screen approach now encourages the reader to expand their understanding of the Microsoft Office 2007 software through experimentation, exploration and planning ahead.
Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire
by Cliff Atkinson
from Microsoft Press
Transform your presentations and boost your impact with practical, easy-to-apply techniques for using PowerPoint 2007. Author Cliff Atkinson is a presentation-skills expert who is helping revolutionize the way Fortune 500 companies design and deliver their critical presentations. Even major news media reported the contribution of Cliffs techniques to a verdict in a high-profile trial. In his highly-regarded, popular book Beyond Bullet Pointsnow fully updated for PowerPoint 2007Cliff shares his innovative three-step method that helps you unlock the amazing story buried in those bullet-riddled slides. He guides you, step by step, as you discover how to combine the tenets of classic storytelling with the power of projected media to create a rich, engaging experience. With easy-to-use templates, advanced tips, and plenty of illustrations and examples, youll learn techniques to help you clarify, visualize, and present your ideas so that your audience will remember your important message. This newly revised, popular guide now includes a CD with sample PowerPoint 2007 files and graphics.
Using Microsoft Office 2007, Special Edition (Special Edition Using)
by Ed Bott
from Que
Special Edition Using Microsoft® Office 2007
THE ONLY OFFICE BOOK YOU NEED
We crafted this book to grow with you, providing the reference material you need as you move toward Office proficiency and use of more advanced features. If you buy only one book on Office 2007, Special Edition Using Microsoft® Office 2007 is the only book you need.
If you own a copy of Office 2007, you deserve a copy of this book! Although this book is aimed at the Office veteran, Ed and Woody’s engaging style will appeal to beginners, too. Written in clear, plain English, readers will feel as though they are learning from real humans and not Microsoft clones. Sprinkled with a wry sense of humor and an amazing depth of field, this book most certainly isn’t your run-of-the-mill computer book. You should expect plenty of hands-on guidance and deep but accessible reference material.
This isn’t your Dad’s Office! For the first time in a decade, Microsoft has rolled out an all-new user interface. Menus? Gone. Toolbars? Gone. For the core programs in the Office family, you now interact with the program using the Ribbon–an oversize strip of icons and commands, organized into multiple tabs, that takes over the top of each program’s interface. If your muscles have memorized Office menus, you’ll have to unlearn a lot of old habits for this version.
Ed Bott is an award-winning computer journalist and one of the most widely recognized voices in the computing world, with nearly two decades of experience as a writer and editor at leading magazines, such as PC World, PC Computing, and Smart Business. Ed has written many of Que’s all-time bestsellers, including Special Edition Using Office 2000, Special Edition Using Windows 98, and Special Edition Using Windows Me.
Curmudgeon, critic, and perennial “Office Victim,” Woody Leonhard runs the fiercely independent AskWoody.com website with up-to-the-nanosecond news, observations, tips and help for both Office and Windows. In the past 15 years, Woody has written more than three dozen books, drawing an unprecedented six Computer Press Association awards and two American Business Press awards. Woody was one of the first Microsoft Consulting Partners and is a charter member of the Microsoft Solutions Provider organization.
Introduction
I Common Tasks and Features
1 Getting Started with Office 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 Using and Customizing the Office 2007 Interface . . 27
3 Managing Office Files and Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4 Creating, Editing, and Formatting Documents . . . . . 75
5 Creating, Editing, and Using Pictures and Graphics . . . 103
6 Sharing and Reviewing Office Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
7 Office Security and Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
II Using Outlook
8 Outlook Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
9 Reading, Writing, and Organizing Email . . . . . . . . . . 219
10 Keeping Your Contacts List Under Control . . . . . . . 259
11 Working with Calendars and Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
12 Outlook Security and Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
III Using Word
13 Building a Better Word Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
14 Using Themes, Styles, and Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
15 Advanced Document Formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
16 Professional Document Tools and Advanced Document Sharing . . . . . . . 455
17 Letters, Envelopes, and Data-Driven Documents . . . . . . . . .477
IV Using Excel
18 Building a Better Workbook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
19 Advanced Worksheet Formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553
20 Using Formulas and Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
21 Organizing Data with Tables and PivotTables . . . . 627
22 Creating and Editing Charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665
V Using PowerPoint
23 Building a Perfect Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703
24 Advanced Presentation Formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 737
25 Adding Graphics, Multimedia, and Special Effects . . . . . .759
26 Planning and Delivering a Presentation . . . . . . . . . . 779
VI Other Office Applications
27 Publisher Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 797
28 Access Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 835
29 Using OneNote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879
30 Using Office 2007 on a Corporate Network . . . . . 907
VII Appendixes
A Advanced Setup Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 929
B Macros and Add-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 943
C Using Office on a Tablet PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 961
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 969
Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook, 2nd Ed.
by Michael Linenberger
from New Academy Publishers
Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook is a book for the over-extended office worker whose workday feels out of control. It shows how to regain command of an over-committed workday and an overflowing, unmanaged e-mail in box. It does this by teaching the author's system of time, task, and e-mail management, and it shows how to implement the system in Microsoft Outlook.
Real World SharePoint 2007: Indispensable Experiences From 16 MOSS and WSS MVPs (Programmer to Programmer)
by Robert Bogue
from Wrox
Written by the most well-known SharePoint experts in the field, this book arms you with in-depth information on the critical areas within the platform. Sixteen Microsoft MVPs guide you through SharePoint 2007's products and technologies, focusing on topics related to both WSS and MOSS. The authors share their unique knowledge and experience on the specific parts of SharePoint that they know best.
Covering the full breadth and depth of SharePoint, you'll learn everything from how to configure forms-based authentication and administer a SharePoint site to developing a publishing site within MOSS and building workflow solutions. You'll find different approaches to site design and corporate site branding using SharePoint Designer 2007 or using CSS depending on your needs. You'll see advanced development scenarios using Excel Services for reports and advanced administrative functions for securing SharePoint communication. All of this will help you develop a dynamic SharePoint site that meets the needs of your company.
What you will learn from this book
* The strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches to SharePoint authentication
*
How to keep your SharePoint farm healthy including the essential command utilities you'll depend on
*
A structured approach to developing SharePoint sites that eases management and maintenance
*
Web Part development with C#
*
Creating Workflows with either WSS or MOSS including InfoPath(r) forms with MOSS
*
Developing applications with the Business Data Catalog, Excel(r) Services, and Information Rights Management
*
The different approaches to a SPS 2003 to MOSS 2007 upgrade emphasizing the gradual method
Who this book is for
This book is for experienced .NET developers, Office (VBA) developers, and IT professionals developing and implementing SharePoint solutions.
Microsoft SharePoint 2007 For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
by Vanessa L. Williams
from For Dummies
- Microsoft SharePoint now has a 10 percent share of the portal market, and the new release, which features enhanced integration with Office 2007, is sure to give SharePoint a boost
- Offers clear instructions and soup-to-nuts coverage of this complex product, focusing instead on practical solutions to real-world SharePoint challenges
- Features tips, tricks, and techniques for administrators who need to install and configure a SharePoint portal as well as ordinary users who need to populate and maintain the portal and use it for collaborative projects
- Topics covered include setting up a SharePoint portal, matching SharePoint to business needs, managing portal content, branding, collaborating on SharePoint sites, using a portal to improve employee relations and marketing, putting expense reports and other interactive forms on a portal, and monitoring and backing up SharePoint
Google Apps Hacks
by Philipp Lenssen
from Make Books
Can Google applications really become an alternative to the venerable Microsoft Office suite? Conventional wisdom may say no, but practical wisdom says otherwise. Right now, 100,000 small businesses are currently running trials of Google office applications. So are large corporations such as General Electric and Proctor & Gamble. Google Apps Hacks gets you in on the action with several ingenious ways to push Google's web, mobile, and desktop apps to the limit.
The scores of clever hacks and workarounds in this book help you get more than the obvious out of a whole host of Google's web-based applications for word processing, spreadsheets, PowerPoint-style presentations, email, calendar, and more by giving you ways to exploit the suite's unique network functionality. You get plenty of ways to tinker with:
- Google Documents -- Share and edit documents with others in real time, view them on the run with Google Docs mobile service, and use Google Notebook for web research
- Google Spreadsheets -- Add real-time data to spreadsheets, and generate charts and tables you can embed in web pages
- Google Presentations -- View them on a mobile phone and save them as video
- Gmail -- Send email to and from a mobile phone, adjust Gmail's layout with a style sheet, and a lot more
- iGoogle -- Create your own gadgets, program a screenscraper, add Flash games, and more
- Google Calendar -- Add web content events, public calendars, and your Outlook Calendar to this application
- Google Reader, Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google SketchUp: the new 3D modeling software tool
- Picasa, YouTube, and Google Video -- discover new ways to customize and use these media management apps
In addition, Google Apps Hacks outlines ways you can create a simple web site with nothing but Google tools, including Page Creator, Blogger, Google Analytics, and content from other Google apps. This amazing collection just might convince you that Microsoft Office is not the last word in business applications. The price is certainly right.
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