Last updated 4/15/2005
Office 2004 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual
Office 2004 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual
Author: Mary Plummer
Publisher: Pogue Press/O"Reilly
740 pages ...$29.95
ISBN 0-596-00820-1
If you already own Microsoft Office, or more then one of its separate parts, Word, Excel, Power Point, or Entourage, or if you have to use them in your work, by all means buy this book.
Otherwise you might want to stay away from this book because this book's description of the improvements in Office 2004 might lead you to think you actually want to use the improved Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Entourage programs that make up Office and which are now more integrated in Office 2004. As an AppleWorks and Pages user, I wouldn't want to encourage that.
I was happy to read in this book that Office 2004 for the MacIntosh has improved compatibility with AppleWorks.
I was also happy when I learned that Pages can read and write Word files so that I do not need to use Word. I am sure that Excel is the most powerful spreadsheet program, but I have found no spreadsheet task that I needed to do that could not be done in AppleWorks, and I like the true database program in AppleWorks. PowerPoint is the standard for presentation programs, and Microsoft has taken steps to try try to catch up to Keynote by adding over 100 new design templates. I do not know enough about Entourage, Microsoft's e-mail and personal/project information management program to think I need it. I like iCal, Safari, and Address Book just fine.
This is not really a review of Office 2004 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual
, because I do not have or need the program. But the parts I did look at were easy to read like other Missing Manuals, and the black and white illustrations looked interesting.
To learn more about Office 2004 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual
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