chuq@plaid.UUCP (04/11/87)
The first of the how-to books for Word 3.0 has hit the stands. Microsoft Word Made Easy for the Macintosh, Second Edition (by Paul Hoffman, Osborne/McGraw Hill, $16.95 softbound) is a general introduction to the new version of this word processing program. This is not a book for power users (if any exist). It takes you from the "this is a mouse" stage through all of the functionality areas of the programming including outlining, spell-checking, and hyphenation. There is really no information in here that isn't also in the Word Reference guide, but I have a feeling that when I need to look something up, I'll probably pull this book out first. The material is introductory, and therefore somewhat non-technical and shallow, but it is all there. Unlike the Reference guide, it is grouped by functional blocks, so that you don't waste a lot of time leafing from place to place trying to figure out what keyword the information is listed under. The presentation, while not as complete as the reference manual, is more logical. This book fits neatly between the introduction book shipped with Word 3.0 (which is, to me, too simple) and the reference guide (which is very complete but hard to use efficiently). It reminds me a lot of Fred Huxham's wonderful C book -- you don't want to throw out Inside Mac, but you don't use it as your first reference, either. This is a good book to give you a feel for what Word can do. It doesn't really cover some of the stuff I'd really like to see deeply -- especially styles and the more complicated formatting -- but this isn't a power users book. Hopefully, one of those will be forthcoming. chuq Chuq Von Rospach chuq@sun.COM [I don't read flames] There is no statute of limitations on stupidity