Office 97 Annoyances

By Woody Leonhard, Lee Hudspeth, T.J. Lee
First Edition  January 1900 
Pages: 396
ISBN 10: 1-56592-310-3 | ISBN 13: 9781565923102

This book is OUT OF PRINT.

Book description

Despite marked improvements, much in Office 97 remains annoying. This book illustrates step-by-step how to get control over the chaotic settings of Office 97 and shows how to turn the vast array of applications into a simplified list of customized tools ready to execute the task at hand. Also uncovers many hidden gems tucked away on the Office 97 CD.
Full Description

First, the promise: Because Microsoft Office 97 is an integrated suite of applications, your spreadsheet, word processor, database, presentation graphics program, and personal information manager not only share a common user interface, but allow you to share data among the programs seamlessly. Now the reality: Despite marked improvements from version to version, there is much in Office 97 that remains annoying. Maybe it's the fact that identical user interface options are implemented differently -- and sometimes are not implemented at all -- in individual Office applications. Or maybe it's that Office is too integrated; there are pan-Office "sticky" settings that, when set in one application, affect all other Office applications too. Office 97 Annoyances takes a look at these and other annoyances and shows how to get rid of them so that you can get your work done more easily and efficiently. For instance, the book shows you how to:
  • Configure the Office Shortcut Bar to provide an effective tool for accessing your Office applications and documents
  • Customize the toolbar of each Office application except Outlook so that it reflects the way that you work rather than the needs of Microsoft's marketing machine
  • Use Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as a macro language to control the behavior of the individual Office components, in the process removing many of their annoyances
Sometimes, you can't do anything to improve Office's integration -- or lack of it. But you can reduce your annoyance level simply by knowing where Office's integration is most problematic. Office 97 Annoyances also arms you with knowledge in the following areas:
  • The pan-Office "sticky" settings
  • Shortcomings in the Office Binder, an integration utility developed to address shortcomings in Office integration
Office 97 Annoyances is for the users who want to be as productive as possible when using Office 97. Learning which Office annoyances you can and can't eliminate will save you countless hours (and endless aggravation) when working with Microsoft Office 97.

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Media reviews "Microsoft Corp.'s popular Office 97 Suite is so full of infuriating quirks that someone should write a book about it. The job turns out to take more than one volume, and publisher O'Reilly & Associates Inc. has made a lot of headway in the third and fourth titles in its series of 'Windows Annoyances' tutorials.

"Examining near-final drafts of 'Office 97 Annoyances' (due next month for $21.95) and 'Excel 97 Annoyances' (released this month at $21.95), PC Week Labs found both books well-stocked with suggestions that may cut costs of corporate support. The help is needed because, although Office may be the lingua franca of the PC-equipped workplace, it isn't an easy language to learn or to use with elegance or style.

"Like other pervasive languages, Office has grown from beginnings that never anticipated its current responsibilities. Office's history, like that of the comparably popular but equally infuriating English language, burdens users with a legacy of mixed origins and irregular rules of usage.

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