Sean's Writing Blog

And that's a wrap! (Microsoft Office for the Older and Wiser is finished)

26 August 2010

Phew! It's been a busy few months, but I'm pleased to say that I've finished work on my new Microsoft Office book, a sister title to my social networking book published by Wiley. I've just finished checking the last of the page proofs today and it's looking fantastic.

The book covers both Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft Office 2007, and there aren't that many differences between them. It takes a project-led approach, so that readers are taught what they need to know in the context of something useful. The book goes from the early steps of introducing the ribbon interface (particularly useful for those who haven't upgraded since Office 2003), and covers advanced layout in Microsoft Word, creating spreadsheets with formulae in Excel, creating a photo album slide show in PowerPoint, and making a recipe scrapbook in OneNote. There's also a bonus chapter on using Windows Live Mail together with Hotmail to send email messages including your Office files.

Each chapter concludes with ideas for other projects that can be created using the skills taught in that chapter. I hope this will help readers to see how they can use the skills in the nine detailed projects to do almost anything they will want to using Microsoft Office on their PC.

I've had a lot of fun writing this book. Some bits were challenging to explain (I took a few drafts to explain why styles matter in Word), but generally it flowed easily. I've tried to make the screenshots fun and colourful as well, and I'll be uploading my example files from the book to this website so that readers can experiment with them and use them as the starting point for their own projects.

There were a few sections that were cut for reasons of space as well, which I'll upload to this site if they make sense lifted out of context.

For more information, visit the homepage for the book Microsoft Office for the Older and Wiser. The book will be published mid-October (just in time for Christmas!) and is available for pre-order at Amazon now. Amazon guarantees that you will pay the lowest price it offers between when you order and the publication date, so you might be able to save a few pounds by ordering now (even if you're buying it as a gift for someone else). You won't be charged until the book is posted to you.

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