Spreadsheets Books

Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

Jim Elferdink

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

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

With Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual, you get objective and entertaining instruction to help you tap into all of the features of this powerful suite, so you can get more done in less time.

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.

Office 2004 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

Mark Holt Walker, Franklin Tessler, Paul Berkowitz

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Pogue Press Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $8.25

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Microsoft Office is the number-one selling software for the Mac; the Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Entourage applications are more dominant in the Mac world than they are among PC users. And Microsoft has greatly improved and enhanced Office 2004 to take advantage of the latest Mac OX features. In short, Microsoft Office for the Mac is wildly popular and better than ever. But as incredible and powerful it is, the Office 2004 suite comes without a single page of printed instructions. That means you're left to forge your own path through its countless innovative and useful new features and tools--until now. Office 2004 for Mac: The Missing Manual is the manual that should have been in the box. It's the map that clearly and easily guides both beginners and veterans through this new suite. Mark H. Walker, Franklin Tessler, and Paul Berkowitz deliver all the practical information you need to master the basics and make the most of all four Office 2004 programs--Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Entourage. It's four books in one! According to Microsoft's own research, the average Office user taps into less than fifteen percent of the suite's features. With first-rate writing, a handcrafted index, and the trademark humor and clarity of every Missing Manual, Office 2004 for Mac: The Missing Manual will change that. Because this isn't an authorized book, Walker, Tessler, and Berkowitz candidly point out which features are gems in the rough worthy of your focused attention--and which are junkware that you best continue to overlook. Whether you're an Office beginner eager to master one or all of the applications in the suite or a longtime Office user looking for detailed coverage of what's new (and what's removed) in Office 2004 and hoping to implement power-user techniques for better and more efficient work, this funny and friendly, comprehensive guide will prove indispensable.

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac in a Snap (Sams Teach Yourself)

Richard H. Baker

Amazon Price: $26.99 List Price: $29.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Sams Amazon Marketplace: 54 new & used starting at $1.75

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A Very Nice Approach 5 out of 5 stars.
76 of 79 people found this review helpful.

The In a Snap books do not presume that you are a Dummy or an Idiot. They presume that you are a smart person, not afraid of computers, but that you need to learn how to use something new, like a piece of software on your computer. Further they assume that you want to get started without having to pour through all the 1500 pages or so in the guru level book. This book takes the Office 2004 software package for the Mac computer and gives it the In a Snap approach.

In evaluating books on Office, I always look first to see if they discuss Pivot Tables in the section on Excel. A surprising number of books don't, or give them very short treatment. In this book the index sends you to page 263, that puts you right in the middle of a discussion on pivot tables. Flipping back a page or three gets you to a section called Find Relationships Between Data. What an excellent idea, that's what a pivot table really is, but doesn't have the problem of the dumb name Pivot Table. The discussion is as good as I've seen anywhere in explaining what you can use them for.

The next thing I found was inside the front cover where they have a "Contents at a Glance." This sends you to, not the page number - that's the function of the index, but to a section identified by its own numbering system. Really a handy way to get where you want to jump in to solve the problem you're having at the moment.

Editorial Review:

As a Mac user, you may often feel like you are in a unique world and that the programs you use are even more unique. Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac is no exception and Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac In a Snap covers all of the innovative program features. A unique random-access format makes all of these nuggets of information and advice easily and instantly accessible. Packed with more than 160 essential tasks, tips and techniques for the new Mac version of Microsoft Office 2004, this book will help you zero in on the task you're most interested in so that you can learn and get back to work.

AppleWorks 6: The Missing Manual

Jim Elferdink, David Reynolds

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Too many writers of books about software let the software determine how they organize the material. If the File menu contains commands A, B, and C, the writers put A, B, and C in the same chapter, regardless of whether they're functionally similar. AppleWorks 6: The Missing Manual is organized more logically, tackling the functional units--including Internet integration, macro programming, and table creation, among others--in separate chapters. It's an approach that makes sense for AppleWorks, in which the spreadsheet module can be used to create tables for word processor documents and all the modules rely on a common graphics editor. For those who want to know what a particular menu command does, there's menu-by-menu documentation in an appendix.

You get the requisite instructions: explicit steps to follow if you want to transpose rows in a spreadsheet, for example, or export button graphics for use in Web pages. Other procedures, like making calculations that refer to cells in multiple spreadsheets, are explained in text. "Workaround Workshop" modules call attention to shortcomings in AppleWorks (such as its two-palette limit when you're working with colors) and explain how to get around them (use a custom palette). Throughout, the instructions are engaging and fun to read. --David Wall

Topics covered: AppleWorks 6, the multipurpose office-productivity suite for Mac OS; the suite's capabilities, comprehensively--including word processing, spreadsheets, graphics, databases, and presentations; how to create documents and databases from scratch, as well as from existing materials.

Excel X for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide

Maria Langer

Amazon Price: $14.99 List Price: $19.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Peachpit Press Amazon Marketplace: 33 new & used starting at $4.97

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Great 4 Beginners - Power Users Will Be Disappointed 3 out of 5 stars.
25 of 27 people found this review helpful.

I've bought several of the Visual Quickstart Guides for other Mac applications so when I decided I wanted to become a real Excel power user, I thought this would be a good book to start with. For those just getting into Excel, this would be the place to start. (In fairness, this is probably their target audience in the first place.) I even found it useful for gaining a better understanding some functions I hadn't attempted in the past.

My only complaint is that it just doesn't go deep enough. I wanted some help with formulas in general and more advanced formulas in particular (e.g. HLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, etc. and nested formulas) and the book didn't provide any more information on formulas than the application's help file, which isn't much.

To be helpful, it would be nice to see a nice long list of example formulas with descriptions on how or when you would use them.

OK, maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but hey, I bought the book and was a little disappointed.

Editorial Review:

Excel X for Mac OS X is the model OS X app, from its Aqua interface to its complete support for OS X's modern architecture. In Excel X for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide, author Maria Langer, veteran Mac writer and consultant, walks you through all that's new and noteworthy in Microsoft's spreadsheet powerhouse, dispensing lots of expert tips along the way.

Maria knows you're a busy professional. That's why Excel X for Mac OS X: VQS was designed to let you learn as you work. Use it as a quick-reference guide: Just look up a topic in the index--or use the page tabs to thumb to it--then follow the simple, concise steps and check your results against the accompanying screenshots. Newcomers can treat the book as a step-by-step introduction to Excel, starting with the basics, then moving on to more advanced techniques, such as inserting objects and multimedia events, creating charts and graphs, and publishing spreadsheets to the Web.

Accounting Information Systems (8th Edition)

George H. Bodnar, William S. Hopwood

List Price: $125.00 By: Prentice Hall Amazon Marketplace: 33 new & used starting at $1.16

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Comprehensive book for IT and Audit Professionals. Just Fa 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This is one book our professor recommends to all MBAs, IT Auditors and accounting professionals. I think its worth the price.

The Life and Times of Accounting Information Systems 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 10 people found this review helpful.

This book reminds me more of a travelog about many of the sights and sounds you will encounter on your quest to become best friends with your Accounting Information System.

It would make a lot more sense if the authors skipped a lot of the details of where Accounting Information Systems fit in our social experience and get down to dealing with the dirty details of how someone would go about writing a system of their own.

Then they could spend a chapter on how to go about the testing of the system and how and why to do a complete re-write of this masterpiece.

Editorial Review:

Textbook providing the reader with up-to-date information on management information systems, including ERP, SAP, and electronic commerce. Also includes comprehensive treatment of internal control, hundreds of CPA exam questions integrated into the text, and a new website to supplement the text. Previous edition not cited. DLC: Accounting--Data Processing.

Apple:: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders

Jim Carlton

List Price: $3.99 By: Crown Business Amazon Marketplace: 75 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 58 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

The biggest blunder is this book 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I'm not a big Apple Computer fan, but I was very disappointed by this book. Covering the tumultuous period just before Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the book attempts to provide all the 20/20 insight necessary to explain the company's short-comings. Unfortunately, though, the book is so poorly written -- and doesn't at all hide the disdain the author feels for Jobs -- that it's nearly unreadable. Rather than tell the story in a linear timeline, the book jumps back and forth in a very confusing way. If you didn't already know the Apple story, you wouldn't know what was going on. Also, considering all the success Apple has had since then (with the iMac and Titanium PowerBook), this topic is moot now anyway.

Editorial Review:

Computer users who favor Macintosh products are truly enthralled with their machines. But after reading Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders, even the most zealous may be hard-pressed to defend the company that produces them. Here, Wall Street Journal technology reporter Jim Carlton chronicles the missteps that have befuddled the fallen giant of Cupertino between the initial and current regimes of cofounder Steve Jobs. Carlton combines a keen sense of observation with a slew of previously undisclosed facts to produce a damning history that will leave many wondering how the firm has managed to survive.

Administering Sap R/3: The Fi-Financial Accounting and Co-Controlling Modules

List Price: $49.99 By: Que Amazon Marketplace: 12 new & used starting at $15.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 2.0 of 5

Don't buy this book 1 out of 5 stars.
20 of 20 people found this review helpful.

I found this 500-page book completely useless. The book doesn't have any (!) illustrations, it's plain text only, and it basically rephrases standard SAP OnLine Help. I found the standard SAP FI/CO Online Help more readable than this book ...

Waste of Ink! 1 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This book is pretty useless and gives you just enough information to really screw things up.

Great for the person needing process knowledge of FI or CO 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I have ordered/read 6 books on the FI and CO modules in the last two weeks. My experience is that this book is the most detailed and beneficial of all. For someone who is looking to understand the process side of these SAP modules I would strongly recommend this book. If you are looking to learn more about the config, BUY A CONFIG book, not this one. The negative reviews seem to be related to the fact that people don't understand what this book is trying to accomplish (process understanding). If you have a medium understanding of SAP R/3 and a limited to medium knowledge base of accounting (internal and external) concepts, this book is a winner.

very exiting to read and get a deep knowledge about control 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 5 people found this review helpful.

helpful to understand the logic of finance and controlling concepts. navigation are clearly explained.

Sap R/3 Certification Exam Guide (All-in-one Certification)

Stewart S. Miller

List Price: $99.99 By: McGraw-Hill Companies Amazon Marketplace: 5 new & used starting at $15.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 113 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This tremendous volume, penned by enterprise resource planning (ERP) consultant Stewart S. Miller, tracks nearly all the elements involved in preparing for, taking, and passing SAP's battery of available certification courses. In addition to offering content and context for the course and exams, Miller has taken the time to include information about the body that administers the tests--the SAP Partner Academy--course and exam pricing, and relevant contact information.

It's unfortunate that Miller doesn't pay the same attention to the text itself, which tends to be wordy. Unlike most reference books of this stripe, the All-In-One Guide doesn't have particularly clear or useful diagrams, nor does it provide much in the way of tables. These types of tools may not be necessary for those familiar with R/3, but for the newcomer such elements can help tie things together.

Miller covers the basic R/3 modules and also touches on such issues as shifting operating systems and integrating third-party applications with R/3. Each chapter ends with several pages' worth of questions, followed by somewhat lengthy but useful answers. All in all, this book is an effective guide to the intricacies of R/3, particularly from a study guide perspective. --Sarah L. Roberts-Witt

Mastering Excel on the Macintosh

Carl Townsend

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