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How
to Use Microsoft Office 2000 Visually in Full
Color
Reviewed by: Paul
Schneider,PhD, send
e-mail
Published
by: SAMS Publishing, go to the web site
Requires: Familiarity
with Windows 95/98/NT; Microsoft Office 2000 (any
release)
MSRP: US$24.99
How to
Use Microsoft Office 2000 Visually in Full Color, whew!
Now say that title 5 times quickly! Hereinafter I'll just
refer to it as HUMO2000. HUMO2000's title may be long-winded,
but the book is not. In a nutshell, HUMO200 provides its
users with quick, straightforward, visual explanations
of how to accomplish a wide variety of Office 2000 tasks.
Suffice it to say this book is aimed at the visual learner.
HUMO2000
is for beginner and intermediate level users. The book's
contents
consist of chapters on Common Office
Features, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, Publisher,
Office Internet Tools (Internet Explorer and Word's Web Publishing
tools), Office Graphics Tools, and Integration of Office
Applications. The later chapters are a nice addition not
typically seen in "MS Office" books.
Each
individual chapter is laid out in a visually appealing
manner. The
tasks covered are listed first, followed by a
short explanation of the chapter. What follows are instructions
on accomplishing each of these individual tasks. Each of
these sections start off with a one-paragraph explanation
of the task at hand, followed by the meat of the book, 4-8
pictures and text explaining the steps. Last, is a series
of "How-To Hints." These hints more or less give
you the "next step" for each of the tasks.
Where HUMO2000 excels is in the visual layout and explanation
of each task. The text is short and concise. With the use
of full color photos you are quickly and easily shown what
needs to be done to accomplish the task at hand. Overall
I found it easy to follow the book and repeat each of the
individual tasks.
Another strength to this book is its glossary and index.
Building a useful and comprehensive glossary and index can
be a difficult chore, but the authors of HUMO2000 have certainly
risen to the task. This, combined with the comprehensive
table of contents, makes it quite easy to quickly find any
desired topic.
Sounds pretty great so far. Well in many respects it is,
but there are some areas where it fell short. One of the
area that is lacking is in a coherent lesson plan or organization.
Although it provides a great quick and easy way to figure
out how to do things, I don't see it helping the user to
really learn the product. It seems that most of the learning
will occur through repetition and looking up tasks again
and again (fortunately this is quite easy with its excellent
index). Put simply, it does not provide any review of the
lessons learned, the explanations of the tasks are minimal,
and the grouping of the tasks, while logical, does not fit
a specific lesson goal. In terms of education the pedagogy
leaves something to be desired.
HUMO2000
successfully delivers a wide variety of MS Office 2000
lessons visually. If you are a beginner or
an intermediate user looking for a quick easy to understand
reference for MS Office 2000 or like to learn on the go and
as needed, HUMO2000 may be the book for you. If you know
that you are primarily a visual person, then definitely check
out HUMO2000, because this is the area in which it excels
(no pun intended!).
Letters
to the Editor are welcome and occasionally abused in public.
Send e-mail to: whine@kickstartnews.com
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