Introduction

As you probably know, Microsoft Office XP is a suite of programs. However, Office is much more powerful than the sum of its component parts because it glues the programs together in such a way that you no longer have to think in terms of programs per se. You can instead focus on the documents (files) you need to work with to accomplish specific tasks .

Office comes in several editions that include various combinations of the following programs:

• Microsoft Word 2002. You can use this full-featured word processor to write, edit, and print text documents. You can control the look of the text by changing the font, style, and size of its characters and by setting such elements as indents, line spacing, tabs, and margins. And you can check the accuracy of your words using the built-in spelling and grammar checkers.

• Microsoft Excel 2002. You can use this spreadsheet program to work with numeric data. You can use efficient, built-in functions as shortcuts for performing mathematical, financial, and statistical calculations. These calculations can be as simple as totaling a column or row of values or as complex as figuring the rate of return on an investment under varying circumstances.

• Microsoft PowerPoint 2002. You can use this presentation program to put together sophisticated slide shows or electronic presentations with professional-looking graphic effects. You can format the slide text in a variety of eye-catching ways and add charts , tables, and pictures for even greater impact.

• Microsoft Access 2002. You can use this database program to store and organize information in sets of tables. After creating a database, you can look at the information as a list (in columns and rows), or you can look at each item of information in a form, as though it were on an index card. You can also sort the information, perform calculations, compute statistics such as totals and averages, and create reports .

• Microsoft Outlook 2002. You can use this desktop information management program as a one-stop location for handling your e-mail, calendar, contacts, and task lists.

In addition, the Office XP family includes the following programs:

• Microsoft Publisher 2002. You can use this desktop publishing program to create professional-looking publications such as newsletters, flyers, and business cards with very little effort.

• Microsoft FrontPage 2002. You can use this Web authoring program to create impressive Web sites with little or no knowledge of the underlying HTML (HyperText Markup Language) coding system.

• Microsoft Project 2002. You can use this project management program to plan tasks, allocate resources, plot timelines , and track progress.

• Microsoft Visio 2002. You can use this drafting tool to create flowcharts, diagrams, schematics, and other illustrations.

These stand-alone programs are not shipped as part of the Office suite but can be used in conjunction with the Office core programs using techniques similar to those you will learn in this book.

Your edition of Office might also come with Microsoft s Web browser, Internet Explorer, which you can use to view information on the World Wide Web or on your organization s intranet. You can also use Internet Explorer to preview documents you create for use in Web environments.

Office enhancements This book is a fast-paced introduction to the core Office programs. In 380 pages, we can t hope to cover all the ins and outs of Office, and we don t try to. But we don t just skim the surface, sticking with the easy stuff. We focus on the most useful features ”the ones people will use frequently and the ones more people would use if they knew how. By the time you finish this Quick Course, you ll have a firm understanding of the important features of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook, and you ll know enough about Office to experiment on your own with the features we don t cover in detail. Specifically, you will know how to:

• Carry out basic Office tasks

• Edit and organize Word documents

• Format eye-catching Word documents

Office enhancements

Occasionally Microsoft releases small programs designed to enhance Office. These are often available for free downloading from the Internet. Although these programs are not covered in this book, the techniques you will learn here will allow you to explore them on your own.

 

• Set up Excel worksheets

• Perform calculations and graph Excel data

• Develop simple PowerPoint presentations

• Add graphics, graphs, and special effects to slides

• Develop Access database tables

• Make Access data easily available

• Manage e-mail and contacts with Outlook

• Manage schedules and task lists

• Integrate the Office programs

This course was written based on a typical installation of Microsoft Office XP on a computer running Microsoft Windows XP. We don t go into detail about installing Office on your computer, assuming that the program has already been installed. We also assume that you have experience working with Windows (98, 2000, Me, XP, or later), and that you will know how to interpret our instructions for your own operating system. For example, our instructions for starting programs tell you to click All Programs on the Windows XP Start menu to access the program you want, but if you are using a different version of Windows, you might need to click Programs instead. If you are new to Windows, we recommend that you take a look at the appropriate edition of Quick Course in Microsoft Windows , which will help you quickly come up to speed. And finally, we assume you are using a mouse. You can perform many Office functions by using the keyboard, but a mouse is required for some tasks.

To accomplish its purpose, this course walks you through procedures one step at a time. But we don t just take a simple do this, do that approach, because when you ve finished the course, we want you to be able to apply what you have learned to your own work. So we explain how you need to set things up and why, what s going on at each step, and what the results will be. And we include lots of screen shots so that you can check your work in progress. The exercises indicate items you should click and keys you should press by showing them in bold type. If we want you to press two keys simultaneously , we show the keys one after the other, separated by plus signs ”for example, Ctrl+N. Anything you should type is shown in bold italic . So there is never any question about what you need to do when.

The step-by-step instructions in the course tutorial are selfcontained, meaning that you create the files you need as you go along, and no additional files are necessary.

Because this is a fast-paced survey course, it does not prepare you for Microsoft Office Specialist certification. If you are interested in taking the certification exams, you might want to take the following individual courses:

• Quick Course in Microsoft Word 2002

• Quick Course in Microsoft Excel 2002

• Quick Course in Microsoft PowerPoint 2002

• Quick Course in Microsoft Access 2002

• Quick Course in Microsoft Outlook 2002