Welcome to the PCs and the Macs. I am delighted to be able to bring you a resource for experienced Microsoft Office users on both platforms. Whether you work only with Microsoft Office 2010 or only with Microsoft Office for Mac 2011, or you work across platforms as I do, this book is for you.
As a document consultant and trainer, I’ve often been frustrated by the lack of available resources that move beyond ‘click here’ or ‘point there’ to explain why things work the way they do, which best practices can make a real difference to your work, and what tools you may be missing that could simplify your work and expand your possibilities. So when I began writing books about Microsoft Office, it was exactly what I wanted to provide. For Microsoft Office 2007, I had the opportunity to do that with my book Advanced Microsoft Office Documents 2007 Edition Inside Out. Now, a few years later, I’ve updated and expanded on that book to bring you Documents, Presentations, and Workbooks for both Office 2010 and Office for Mac 2011.
Throughout this book, you’ll learn about new features in both Office 2010 and Office 2011. You’ll also learn about new technologies and related tools available to users on both platforms, such as Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Windows Live SkyDrive, and Microsoft Office Web Apps. But this book is not about new features.
What this book is about is helping you to put what you already know together with both new and existing methods and concepts to work the way the experts do; helping you create the kind of documents and templates you’ve always wanted; and giving you the tools to take full advantage of the capabilities in these programs to find the simple solutions you’ve often wondered about. In short, it’s about doing less work, getting better results, and expanding your possibilities.