QuickBooks 2005: The Missing Manual

The Very Basics

To use this book, and indeed to use QuickBooks, you need to know a few basics. This book assumes that you're familiar with a few terms and concepts:

• Clicking. This book gives you three kinds of instructions that require you to use your computer's mouse or track pad. To click means to point the arrow pointer at something on the screen and then—without moving the pointer at all—press and release the left button on the mouse (or laptop track pad). To double-click, of course, means to click twice in rapid succession, again without moving the pointer at all. And to drag means to move the pointer while holding down the button the entire time.

  When you're told to Shift+click something, you click while pressing the Shift key. Related procedures, such as Ctrl+clicking, work the same way—just click while pressing the corresponding key.

• Menus. The menus are the words at the top of your screen: File, Edit, and so on. Click one to make a list of commands appear, as though they're written on a window shade you've just pulled down. Some people click to open a menu and then release the mouse button; after reading the menu command choices, they click the command they want. Other people like to press the mouse button continuously as they click the menu title and drag down the list to the desired command; only then do they release the mouse button. Either method works, so choose the one you prefer.

• Keyboard shortcuts. Nothing is faster than keeping your fingers on your keyboard, entering ...