Chris Grover (Word) got his first computer in 1982 when he realized it was easier to write on a computer than an IBM Selectric. He never looked back. Chris has worked as a technical writer, advertising copywriter, and product publicist for more than 25 years. He is the author of Word 2007: The Missing Manual and co-author of Digital Photography: The Missing Manual. In addition to computer topics, he’s written book reviews, software reviews and articles on subjects ranging from home remodeling to video recorder repairs. His latest project is the launching of Bolinas Road Creative (www.bolinasroad.com), an agency that helps small businesses promote their products and services. Chris lives in Fairfax, California with his wife and two daughters who have learned to tolerate his computer and gadget obsessions.
Matthew MacDonald (Excel, Access) is an author and programmer extraordinaire. He’s the author of Excel 2007: The Missing Manual, Access 2007: The Missing Manual, Creating Web Sites: The Missing Manual, and over a dozen books about programming with the Microsoft .NET Framework. In a dimly remembered past life, he studied English literature and theoretical physics.
E. A. Vander Veer (PowerPoint) started out in the software trenches, lexing and yaccing and writing shell scripts with the best of them. She remained busy and happy for years writing C++ programs and wresting data from recalcitrant databases. After a stint as an Object Technology Evangelist, she found a way to unite all of her passions: writing about cool computer stuff in prose any human being can understand. Books followed—over a dozen so far—including Flash 8: The Missing Manual, PowerPoint 2007: The Missing Manual, JavaScript for Dummies, and XML Blueprints. Her articles appear in online and print publications including Byte, CNET, Salon.com, WEBTtechniques, and CNN.com. She lives in Texas with her husband and daughter. Email: emilyamoore@rgv.rr.com.
Dawn Mann (editor, technical reviewer) has been with O’Reilly for over four years and is assistant editor for the Missing Manual series. When not working, she likes rock climbing, playing soccer, and causing trouble. Email: dawn@oreilly.com.
Peter Meyers (editor) works as an editor at O’Reilly Media on the Missing Manual series. He lives with his wife and cats in New York City. Email: peter.meyers@gmail.com.
Nan Barber (editor) has worked with the Missing Manual series since its inception—long enough to remember booting up her computer from a floppy disk. Email: nanbarber@oreilly.com.
Michele Filshie (editor, copy editor) is O’Reilly’s coordinating editor in the Dynamic Media Division. Before turning to the world of computer-related books, Michele spent many happy years at Black Sparrow Press. She lives in Sebastopol. Email: mfilshie@oreilly.com.
Nellie McKesson (production editor) is a graduate of St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM. She currently lives in Cambridge, MA, where her favorite places to eat are Punjabi Dhaba and Tacos Lupita.
Sohaila Abdulali (copy editor) is a freelance writer and editor. She has published a novel, several children’s books, and numerous short stories and articles. She recently finished an ethnography of an aboriginal Indian woman. She lives in New York City with her husband Tom and their small but larger-than-life daughter, Samara. She can be reached through her Web site at www.sohailaink.com.
Jill Steinberg (copy editor) is a freelance writer and editor based in Seattle, and has produced content for O’Reilly, Intel, Microsoft, and the University of Washington.
Greg Guntle (technical reviewer, Word) is a Windows veteran covering Office, Programming, Networks and Operating Systems. He’s been providing technical editing services for the past 20 years.
Rick Jewell (technical reviewer, Word) has been in the technical industry since 1995. He’s now a Beta Support Engineer for Microsoft. Since Microsoft acquired Groove in April of 2005, he’s been a technical support engineer supporting the Groove product suite, which is part of the Premium edition of Microsoft Office 2007.
Rhea Howard (technical reviewer, Excel) works in the Operations department at O’Reilly Media and is an avid Excel user. She currently splits her time between Sebastopol and San Francisco.
Zack Barresse (technical reviewer, Excel) started teaching himself Excel in 2003 and fast became an addict. In October 2005, he was awarded the Microsoft MVP award for Excel. Along with Jake Hilderbrand, he owns www.VBAeXpress.com, a site dedicated to VBA. His full-time gig is as an ambulance EMT. Zack’s a family man and a volunteer lieutenant with his local fire department.
Echo Swinford (technical reviewer, PowerPoint) has spent 10 years in the medical presentations and education industry. She’s currently finishing her Master’s degree in New Media at the Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis School of Informatics. Her first book, Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances, was published by O’Reilly Media in February 2006, and she has a string of tech editing credits with other publishers. Echo has been a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP since early 2000. She can be contacted for projects and consuling at freelance@echosvoice.com.
Geetesh Bajaj (technical reviewer, PowerPoint) has been designing PowerPoint presentations and templates for over a decade and heads Indezine, a presentation design studio based out of Hyderbad, India. His indezine.com site attracts nearly a million page views each month, and it has hundreds of free PowerPoint templates and other goodies for visitors to download. In addition, Geetesh also issues a biweekly PowerPoint newsletter on indezine.com that has tends of thousands of subscribers.
Juel Bortolussi (technical reviewer, Access) has worked as an Access database developer for inventory and asset management systems in the design, beverage, and publishing industries. She thinks this book would make a great classroom textbook, providing students with database skills. Email: juel@oreilly.com.
Michael Schmalz (technical reviewer, Access) works in banking and performs business and technology consulting in a variety of industries. He has done technical editing for O’Reilly on Microsoft Office books. Michael has a degree in finance from Penn State. He lives with his wife and daughter in Pennsylvania.
Many thanks to the whole Missing Manuals creative team, especially to Nan Barber, who had her work cut out for her making my prose readable. Peter Meyers helped shape the book and gently kept us all on track. Dawn Mann, Greg Guntle, and Rick Jewell checked and double-checked the technical details. Thanks to Michele Filshie for copy editing, indexing, and working weekends.
As always, thanks to my beautiful wife Joyce, my collaborator in that other project—life. And hugs for Mary and Amy who help me approach everything I do with fresh enthusiasm and a bundle of questions.
—Chris Grover
Writing books about programs as sprawling and complex as Excel and Access is a labor of love (love of pain, that is). I’m deeply indebted to a whole host of people, including those who helped me track down all the neat and nifty things you can do with the latest version of Office (including bloggers extraordinaire David Gainer, Jensen Harris, and Erik Rucker), those who kept the books clear, concise, and technically accurate (Peter Meyers, Sarah Milstein, Brian Sawyer, Zack Barresse, Rhea Howard, Juel Bortolussi, and Michael Schmalz), and those who put up with me while I wrote it (more on that in a moment). I also owe thanks to many people who worked to get this book formatted, indexed, and printed—you can meet many of them on the Missing Credits page.
Completing this book required a few sleepless nights (and many sleep-deprived days). I extend my love and thanks to my daughter Maya, who put up with it without crying most of the time; my dear wife Faria, who mostly did the same; and our moms and dads (Nora, Razia, Paul, and Hamid), who contributed hours of babysitting, tasty meals, and general help around the house that kept this book on track. So thanks everyone—without you half of the book would still be trapped inside my brain!
—Matthew MacDonald
It takes a team of dedicated, hardworking professionals to turn any manuscript into a finished book, and the O’Reilly team is one of the best in the business. Extra thanks go out to Nan Barber, whose competence, surefootedness, and directness make her the kind of editor every author dreams of; Echo Swinford and Geetesh Bajaj, whose experience and dead-eye accuracy helped shape this book immeasurably; and Peter Meyers, who made sure the trains ran on time (while still managing to be a genuinely nice guy).
—E. A. Vander Veer
Missing Manuals are witty, superbly written guides to computer products that don’t come with printed manuals (which is just about all of them). Each book features a handcrafted index; cross-references to specific pages (not just chapters); and RepKover, a detached-spine binding that lets the book lie perfectly flat without the assistance of weights or cinder blocks.
Recent and upcoming titles include:
Access 2007: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
AppleScript: The Missing Manual by Adam Goldstein
AppleWorks 6: The Missing Manual by Jim Elferdink and David Reynolds
CSS: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland
Creating Web Sites: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Digital Photography: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover and Barbara Brundage
Dreamweaver 8: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland
Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland
eBay: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
Excel 2003: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Excel 2007: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
FileMaker Pro 8: The Missing Manual by Geoff Coffey and Susan Prosser
Flash 8: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer
Flash CS3: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer and Chris Grover
FrontPage 2003: The Missing Manual by Jessica Mantaro
GarageBand 2: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
Google: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by Sarah Milstein, J.D. Biersdorfer, and Matthew MacDonald
Home Networking: The Missing Manual by Scott Lowe
iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
iPod: The Missing Manual, Fifth Edition by J.D. Biersdorfer
Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition by David Pogue
Office 2004 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual by Mark H. Walker and Franklin Tessler
PCs: The Missing Manual by Andy Rathbone
Photoshop Elements 5: The Missing Manual by Barbara Brundage
PowerPoint 2007: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer
QuickBase: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
QuickBooks 2006: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition by David Pogue and Adam Goldstein
The Internet: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and J.D. Biersdorfer
Windows 2000 Pro: The Missing Manual by Sharon Crawford
Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by David Pogue
Windows Vista: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by David Pogue, Craig Zacker, and Linda Zacker
Word 2007: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
The “For Starters” books contain only the most essential information from their larger counterparts—in larger type, with a more spacious layout, and none of the more advanced sidebars. Recent titles include:
Access 2003 for Starters: The Missing Manual by Kate Chase and Scott Palmer
Access 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Excel 2003 for Starters: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Excel 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Mac OS X Leopard for Starters: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
PowerPoint 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual by E. A. Vander Veer
Quicken for Starters: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
Windows Vista for Starters: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
Windows XP for Starters: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
Word 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
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