Features and Conventions of This Book

This book has been designed to lead you step by step through the most common tasks you are most likely to want to perform in Microsoft Office. If you start at the beginning and work your way through all the exercises, you will gain enough proficiency to be able to create and work on the most common tasks in MIcrosoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook. However, each topic is also self contained. If you completed all the exercises and later need help remembering how to perform a procedure, the following features of this book will help you locate specific information:

• Detailed table of contents. A listing of the topics and sidebars within each chapter.

• Chapter thumb tabs. Easily locate the beginning of the chapter you want.

• Topic-specific running heads. Within a chapter, quickly locate the topic you want by looking at the running head of odd-numbered pages.

• Quick Reference. General instructions for each procedure covered in specific detail elsewhere in the book. Refresh your memory about a task while working with your own documents.

• Detailed index. Look up specific tasks and features and general concepts in the index, which has been carefully crafted with the reader in mind.

• Companion CD. Contains the practice files needed for the step-by-step exercises, as well as a fully searchable electronic version of this book and other useful resources.

• Reference card. A tear-out guide to the new Microsoft Office system user interface features.

In addition, we provide a glossary of terms for those times when you need to look up the meaning of a word or the definition of a concept.

You can save time when you use this book by understanding how the Step by Step series shows special instructions, keys to press, buttons to click, and so on.

Conventions and Their Meanings

This icon at the end of a chapter introduction indicates information about the practice files provided on the companion CD for use in the chapter.

Use This paragraph preceding a step-by-step exercise indicates the practice files that you will use when working through the exercise.

Be Sure To This paragraph preceding or following an exercise indicates any requirements you should attend to before beginning the exercise or actions you should take to restore your system after completing the exercise.

Open This paragraph preceding a step-by-step exercise indicates files that you should open before beginning the exercise.

Close This paragraph following a step-by-step exercise provides instructions for closing open files or programs before moving on to another topic.

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Blue numbered steps guide you through step-by-step exercises and Quick Reference versions of procedures.

Black numbered steps guide you through procedures in sidebars and expository text.

• An arrow indicates a procedure that has only one step.

See Also These paragraphs direct you to more information about a given topic in this book or elsewhere.

Troubleshooting 

These paragraphs explain how to fix a common problem that might prevent you from continuing with an exercise.

Tip 

These paragraphs provide a helpful hint or shortcut that makes working through a task easier, or information about other available options.

Important 

These paragraphs point out information that you need to know to complete a procedure.

The fist time you are told to click a button in an exercise, a picture of the button appears in the left margin. If the name of the button does not appear on the button itself, the name appears under the picture.

In step-by-step exercises, keys you must press appear as they would on a keyboard.

A plus sign (+) between two key names means that you must hold down the first key while you press the second key. For example, “press ” means “hold down the key while you press the key.”

Program interface elements In steps, the names of program elements, such as buttons, commands, and dialog boxes, are shown in black bold characters.

User input Anything you are supposed to type appears in bold characters.

Glossary terms Terms that are explained in the glossary at the end of the book are shown in italic characters.