"A yellow cover slapped on a lukewarm regurgitation of common Office tasks."

The Dummies Quick Reference series is the only good Dummies series knockoff, and with good reason: The books fill a necessary void. They look and smell like Dummies books, but they contain concentrated bits of how-to information. At least that's what the covers promise.

The most revealing thing about this book is that it's "revised" by Bjoern-Erik Hartsfvang, which is the most interesting name I've typed this year. (Well, next to Sanky Winkervan.) The book doesn't exactly explain what was revised, so I was eager to determine whether any of Doug Lowe's familiar and clever writing snuck through Hartsfvang's revision. Apparently, and to my regret, none of it did.

Honestly, there's nothing obscenely wrong with this book. It documents most of the major things you can do with the popular Office 2000 components: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and Publisher. There's a general introduction chapter that explains many of the common Office activities. Then the book breaks out into chapters covering each Office application. Still there's nothing special. It's just average information bobbing in a sea of mediocrity.

The topics aren't covered in real depth, which makes sense given the book's teensy size. There are step-by-step lists, but no inside hints, tips, or tricks. Often a table is presented as a solution without a real explanation of what the problem is. So, this book is more of a regurgitated manual than the kind of information I would expect to find. Despite the promise of Doug Lowe's name, this book is a disappointment. --Dan Gookin


Book Description
Time to make the jump to Microsoft's Office 2000 suite of productivity tools? No time to slog through pages and pages of user manuals? Cut straight to the heart of things with Microsoft Office 2000 For Windows For Dummies Quick Reference, your fast and friendly fingertip companion to getting up and running with the latest versions of Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Publisher. Dive right in and emerge with the information you need to complete whatever task you have at hand. Inside Microsoft Office 2000 For Windows For Dummies Quick Reference, you'll find clear, no-nonsense explanations of all the Office 2000 features and commands in an easy A-to-Z order, and you'll discover how all the programs work together in one integrated suite. Review common chores used in all Office applications; use the powerful Office Wizards to save time and headaches when creating files; share data across applications, projects, or workgroups; and master the fine art of desktop publishing with Publisher 2000, the newest tool in the Office 2000 Professional Edition. With its spiral, lay-flat binding for quick reference and its low price, this book will become your desktop companion.


Book Info
Presents clear explanations of Office 2000 features and commands. Discover how to solve real life problems by using them together. Spiral.


From the Back Cover
Fast answers to frequently asked questions Office 2000 essentials at your fingertips! If you like your answers quick and your information up-to-date, look no further. With this concise, superbly organized reference, you get no-nonsense explanations of all the great programs this office suite offers, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and Publisher. You'll also find helpful tips on using Office wizards, sharing files across applications, projects, and workgroups, and more. The Dummies Way™ Concise, "get it done" information Helpful alphabetical organization Convenient lay-flat binding Icons and other navigational aids A dash of humor and fun Get smart! www.dummies.com


About the Author
About the Author Doug Lowe has written more than 30 computer books, including IDG Books Worldwide's PowerPoint 97 For Windows For Dummies, Word 97 Secrets, and Internet Explorer 3.0 For Dummies, and he know how to present boring technostuff in a style that is both entertaining and enlightening. He lives in sunny Fresno, California, with his wife Debbie, three adorable daughters, and two female golden retrievers, and he considers himself significantly outnumbered.


Excerpted from Microsoft® Office 2000 For Windows® For Dummies®, Quick Reference by Lowe, Bjoern-Erik Hartsfvang. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
Part I Getting to Know Microsoft Office 2000 One thing's for sure: You get your money's worth with Microsoft Office 2000. In one convenient bundle, you get a world-class word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, and database program. Plus, you get a grab bag full of other useful programs. What a bargain! This part provides a general overview of the various pieces that make up Office 2000 so that you can get an idea of how the pieces fit together.In this part . . .What each of the major Office 2000 applications does Seeing What All Those Programs DoThe standard Microsoft Office 2000 package comes with four programs: Word 2000, Excel 2000, PowerPoint 2000, and Outlook 2000. The more expensive Microsoft Office 2000 Professional Edition comes with the same four programs plus a database program called Access 2000 and a desktop publishing program called Publisher 2000. Microsoft Word 2000 for Windows (also called Word 9) is one of the best word-processing programs available. The program enables you to create documents of all shapes and sizes, from small letters and memos to medium-sized term papers and reports to humongous books and reports from Independent Prosecutors. Excel 2000, also known as Excel 9, is a spreadsheet program. It's the bean-counter of the Office 2000 operation. Excel 2000 excels at adding up budget totals, calculating sales commissions, figuring loan payments, and performing other math-oriented chores. Just like other spreadsheet programs, Excel 2000 presents its data as a large table that consists of rows and columns. The intersection of a row and column is called a cell. You can use cells to store text, numbers, or formulas that calculate results based on the contents of other cells. PowerPoint 2000 (also sometimes known as PowerPoint 9) is the oddball program of the Office 2000 suite. Many people buy Office 2000 because they need a word processor and a spreadsheet program, and buying the standard Office 2000 package is cheaper than buying Word 2000 and Excel 2000 separately. So the rest of what comes with Office 2000 is basically free. And that includes PowerPoint 2000. So what the heck is PowerPoint 2000? It's a desktop presentation program, which means that the program is designed to help you make presentations. You can use PowerPoint 2000 whether you're speaking in front of hundreds of people at a shareholders' meeting, to a group of sales reps at a sales conference, or with a client one-on-one at a restaurant. If you work with overhead transparencies or 35mm slides, PowerPoint 2000 is just the program you need. PowerPoint 2000 can create slides in any of several formats and can also create handouts for your audience as well as notes for you so that you don't get lost in the middle of your speech. You can also use PowerPoint 2000 to create files that you can publish on the World Wide Web. Access 2000, a database program, is the computer equivalent of the shoe box in which you store your tax records. Access 2000 is better than the shoe box in many ways, because Access keeps your records in order, enables you to print reports that list and summarize your data in any form imaginable, and doesn't crumple your papers. On the negative side, Access 2000 is a lot harder to use than your average shoe box. Access 2000 (also known as Access 9) comes with the more expensive packages of Microsoft Office 2000 (Professional, Premium, and Developer); the program isn't in the bargain-basement, standard Office 2000 package. Of the programs that come with Office 2000, Access 2000 is the hardest one to conquer, but learning it may be the most worthwhile. Database programs, such as Access 2000, are well suited for keeping mailing lists, but if a mailing list is the only reason you need Access 2000, don't bother. Word 2000 does a pretty good job of storing mailing lists all by itself. If, however, you want to keep an inventory of your CDs or books, or if you want to keep a record of sales orders or employee performance, Access is unbeatable. You can also use Access 2000 to set up databases that you can access from the World Wide Web. Outlook 2000 is the computer equivalent of one of those fancy combination appointment book/address books -- a time-management program that enables you to schedule appointments, create a To Do list, and keep track of your important contacts. But more than that, Outlook 2000 is also an all-in-one e-mail program from which you can send and receive electronic mail over the Internet, your office network, or any of several popular online services. Publisher 2000 Publisher 2000 is the Microsoft desktop publishing program, and it's available in the Office 2000 Premium Edition. You can use Publisher to create professional-looking documents suitable for publication. Publisher can create everything from single-page leaflets to posters to newsletters with full-color photographs. Publisher provides you with document templates to cover nearly every imaginable type of document you want to create, and then it allows you to customize your document so that you can create your own personal look and feel.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Fast answers to frequently asked questions

Office 2000 essentials at your fingertips! If you like your answers quick and your information up-to-date, look no further. With this concise, superbly organized reference, you get no-nonsense explanations of all the great programs this office suite offers, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and Publisher. You'll also find helpful tips on using Office wizards, sharing files across applications, projects, and workgroups, and more.

The Dummies Way™ Concise, "get it done" information Helpful alphabetical organization Convenient lay-flat binding Icons and other navigational aids A dash of humor and fun