Daniel McKinnon said
As per usual with a Step by Step book, this is a great book at a great price. What you get out of the book is a great lesson on how to use the long time marketing application. What you don't get is even a single example in color and this hurts in this reviewer's opinion. PowerPoint isn't an Excel spreadsheet or code, it's splashy, fancy presentations that are supposed to get managers excited to throw money around, or to get consumers to want to throw THEIR money around. The book covers all the basics and more, like working with slides, creating tables, playing with animations, and does it in a nice job. Content is just over 400+ pages spread over 15 chapters, but black, white, grey, and blue just isn't enough.
If you need a PowerPoint reference, this does the job, but I just felt that if a little more cost went into adding color, it would have been money well spent.
**** RECOMMENDED
Steven Weiss said
To make a few key points about the preceding review:
1. Microsoft Press & O'Reilly Media are in a strategic alliance to produce Microsoft Press books and other resources. There are still lots and lots of people working at Microsoft who are at the center of Microsoft Press publishing.
2. Anyone who buys a print edition of this book gets a free, downloadable, fully searchable PDF of the book. You just follow the directions on a voucher card in the back of the book, register (completely free) at Safari Books Online, use the unique code on your scratch-off voucher card, and you'll be able to view the book online or download the book.
3. The link book's exercise files are here: h[...]/9780735626911-files/ (indeed, some readers have found the link descriptions a little hard to read; we're working to fix that in upcoming titles and in reprints).
4. The reason we replaced having CDs in books with making material available online is: bundling CD-ROMs means those media can get scratched and cracked, and even removed from books while at the store (not the case with Amazon, of course). Also, system configuration issues can get in the way. Someone sits down with their new book, the CD doesn't work, they're frustrated. We've switched to making ancillary files available online, which has been deeply appreciated by most of our readers (which isn't to de-legitimize the opinions of those who'd still prefer a bundled CD, of course.) As well, it makes it possible to update those files as necessary throughout the entire life of a book.
Hoping this helps,
--Steve Weiss, associate publisher, Microsoft Press / O'Reilly Media (steve[at][..].
David Dietzel said
The previous Step-By-Step books for Office 2007 included a CD with PDF of the book that you could put on your laptop, smartphone, or convert to Kindle format -- the CD also contained the practice files. This 2010 version of the book does NOT include a CD. The practice files can be downloaded via an awkward hyperlink found in the early pages of the book. An online version of the book is available for free from another awkward hyperlik in the back of the book -- after you scratch off a lottery-style number and key in a 16 digit number -- what am I accessing, the Penatgon?. Once you see the online version, there are links to downlaod each chapter individually as a PDF file -- except that is not free -- you have to subscribe to O'Reilly's monthly service at $22/month -- but, the service will only allow 5 chapter downlaods per month -- the book is 15 chapters so you have to subscribe for 3 months at $66. The real cost of this book and PDF version is $86 -- a huge increase in price over the 2007 version. The free online version is slow if your internet connection is slow -- or unavailable if your internet service is down. Management at O'Reilly obviously wears paper and foil hats to work everyday -- it must be emabrassing for staff to attend meetings with these clowns. This has to be the stupidist idea in technology book publishing I've seen. I strongly suggest people buy Que or Weily published books as they do have a CD with a PDF of the Office 2010 book and practice files included with their books. O'Reilly is the real publisher behind the Microsoft Press Office 2010 SBS books and they are trying to use and abuse the buyer. In this digital age of content everywhere, O'Reily is in the stone age -- they seem to hold the customer in contempt.
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