First, we’re assuming that Office 2007 is already installed on your computer. If it isn’t, Windows makes installation so simple that you won’t need our help anyway. We’re also assuming that you’re interested in the most popular of the Office programs: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, and Publisher. Some of the other programs that are part of the Office 2007 suite—Microsoft OneNote, for example—are so intuitive that you’re unlikely to need any guidance; you’ll just jump right in and start using them. Others, such as Microsoft Project, are complex enough that you’ll want to find a specialized book devoted to that program.

Next, you don’t have to read this book in any particular order. It’s designed so that you can jump in, get the information you need, and then close the book and keep it near your computer until the next time you need it. But that doesn’t mean we scattered the information about with wild abandon. We’ve organized the book into some sections that deal with the individual programs in Office, and some that show you how to use the programs together. If you’re new to Office or if you’re stymied by the Ribbon, we recommend that you first read Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, for an introduction to the ways in which the programs look and work alike. Try out the step-by-step procedures that are common to most of the programs: working with the Ribbon; using dialog boxes, menus, and toolbars; saving, copying, and moving content; working with pictures and diagrams; doing some research; and getting help if you need it. Regardless of which program you’re working in, you’ll find that the tasks you want to accomplish are always arranged in two levels. The overall type of task you’re looking for is under a main heading such as "Inserting a Picture" or "Formatting a Worksheet." Then, under each of those headings, the smaller tasks within each main task are arranged in a loose progression from the simplest to the more complex.

OK, so what’s where in this book? As we said, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 cover the basic tasks—and a few slightly more complex ones—that are common to all the Office 2007 programs.

Chapter 4, Chapter 5, and Chapter 6 are dedicated to Microsoft Office Word 2007, and they’ll take you step by step through the basics to some of the more complex tasks. If you’re new to Word, Chapter 4 is where you’ll learn how to create different types of documents; edit your text; use Word’s find-and-replace feature to take care of document-wide changes; correct your spelling and grammar; add page numbers to your documents, and so on. In Chapter 5, you’ll move on to some slightly more complex tasks: using the Track Changes feature to mark changes in your documents; reading and accepting or rejecting the changes made to a document you’ve sent out to be reviewed; formatting text, lists, and tables; creating a layout, and dividing a long document into sections or chapters; working with running heads; and wrapping text around a graphic. Chapter 6 takes you well beyond the basics and focuses on designing and formatting your documents, using themes, styles, and fonts to create letters, memos, and other types of frequently used documents. You’ll see how simple it is to create and design a sophisticated cover page, and add sidebars, pull quotes, and watermarks to liven up a document. If your work involves technical or scholarly documents, you’ll learn how to number headings and lines, create footnotes or endnotes, insert citations, and create a table of contents. And, if you need to send a bunch of letters to a large group of people, Word’s mail merge feature is the way to go.

Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 are about Microsoft Office Excel 2007. Chapter 7 introduces you to the program and covers the basics to get you started: the column/row/cell composition of the worksheets and workbooks; entering, editing, and replacing data; formatting numbers and cells; adding and deleting columns and rows; formatting and organizing your worksheets; and setting up and printing your worksheets. In Chapter 8, which is about analyzing and presenting your data, we’ll cover some of Excel’s more complex features. You’ll learn about cell notation and functions, and create a PivotTable that will help you examine the relationships among your data. We’ll discuss filtering the data to display only the items you want to work with; using the AutoFill feature to create a series of calculations; sorting your data, and more. And, if you’ll be presenting your data at a meeting or in a report, we’ll show you how to turn your boring old worksheets into snazzy, professional-looking charts that hold your audience’s interest and make the results of the data immediately understandable to everyone.

Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 are about Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, an immensely popular slide-presentation program. Chapter 9 introduces you to the various components of the program—its views, tabs, buttons, working area, and so on—and then takes you through the creation of your presentation. You’ll choose among ready-made themes and layouts and learn how to add tables, SmartArt graphics, WordArt, and multimedia items—videos and sounds—to your slides. And, of course, if you’re not satisfied with the themes and layouts just as they come, you can create your own designs. Chapter 10 takes you to the next level: the presentation of your slide show. You might have seen (or even given) a slide show that turned out to be a complete disaster. Everything went wrong, and both the presenter and the audience were mightily embarrassed. That won’t happen again—PowerPoint and Windows Vista provide easy-to-use tools to ensure that your show will run smoothly. In this section, you’ll learn how to create and print speaker notes and handouts; rehearse and time your show to fit into a specific time slot; run the show from a projector or from dual monitors; and, if your work involves traveling, take your presentation on the road.

Chapter 11 and Chapter 12 cover Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Office’s e-mail program. (These two sections were written by Jim Boyce and Beth Sheresh, who graciously brought their knowledge and expertise to our book.) Chapter 11 walks you through the basics: creating and sending e-mail messages; reading the e-mail messages you receive; replying to those messages and/or forwarding them to someone else; attaching a file to a message you’re sending; and opening the attachments you receive. You can indicate which messages you’ve read and which are unread, and you can set up as many other e-mail accounts as you want. Chapter 12 takes a look at Outlook’s other useful features, including the Calendar and the Contacts folder. You can use the Calendar to schedule your business or personal appointments on an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis; and, if you’re using Outlook with Exchange Server, you can schedule meetings and even reserve a meeting room. Your Contacts folder stores the names and e-mail addresses of your contacts, with as much or as little other information as you want to include—telephone numbers, home or work addresses, and so on. You can also create customized electronic business cards that you can exchange via e-mail with your business partners.

Chapter 13 walks you through the creation of various publications in Microsoft Office Publisher 2007. Publisher is a page-layout program that provides a vast array of well-designed, ready-made publications such as newsletters, reports, business cards, brochures, award certificates, banners, menus, résumés, and so on. You select the type of publication you want, choose a design, and then insert your own text, pictures, and other items. If you have the time and you’re feeling creative, you can, of course, modify any of the existing designs or create your own and save them for reuse.

Chapter 14 concentrates on Microsoft Office Access 2007—a relational database program. (This section of the book was written by Curt Frye, who was kind enough to lend his in-depth knowledge of the program to our book.) If you need to understand and work with a database program, this is a good place to start. You’ll find basic information about databases, tables, and forms; and you’ll learn how to add data to tables, add tables to a database, extract information from your database, analyze the data with a PivotChart, and define relationships among tables.

Chapter 15 discusses the interoperability of all the Office programs—that is, their ability to work together to enhance each other’s performance. Let’s say you’re preparing a PowerPoint slide show. You’ll find it easiest to write and format your text in Word and then send the completed text to PowerPoint. You can insert a PowerPoint slide show into a Word document, and you can have Excel analyze the data in a Word table. These are just a few of the many other ways in which you’ll find that using certain Office programs together can often achieve better results than using one program alone.

Chapter 16 is about customizing and securing Office. You can customize just about anything in all the Office programs—the Quick Access toolbar, the window, the status bar, your user information, the spelling and grammar checkers, and more. We’ll also talk about an extremely important topic: your computer’s security. We’ll discuss all the precautions you can and should take to protect your files and guard against the bad stuff we all know is out there in cyberspace We’ll show you how to add or remove Office components and how to run some easy-to-use automatic diagnostics should you encounter any problems with your Office programs and your computer.