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Review Of
POWERPOINT 2007 For Starters
PowerPoint 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual
Published by O'Reilly Media Inc.,
1005 Gravenstein Highway North
Sebastopol, CA 95472
Price $19.99 US or $25.99 Can
Author E. A. Vander
Veer
PowerPoint has probably been around as long as the Windows program.
Most of you, no doubt, are familiar with the PowerPoint version that
works with either Windows 98 or XP. If this is the case then you may
not need assistance with PowerPoint 2007. However, if you are like me,
when I first opened PowerPoint 2007, my first reaction was- Where do I
start to get this program to work? There is no visible place called
FILE, OPEN, SAVE, SAVE AS and the list goes on and on. However there
is a whole list of icons that we have seen before but not in their
familiar spots. I could go on with what is familiar and not familiar.
All this caused me to seek help from such a text as PowerPoint 2007
for Starters. I will quote from this manual as it says it as well if
not better than I "The good news is you can still do the same things
in PowerPoint 2007 that you could do in earlier versions-and a few
more, besides. You can still design beautiful slideshows that contain
bulleted pictures, and sound clips. You can deliver your slideshows in
person, on CD, or on an unattended kiosk.
What's new in PowerPoint
2007 is HOW you do all of these things" To say the book-PowerPoint
2007 for Starters is an excellent book would be an understatement. It
identifies most of the things that anyone would want to do with
PowerPoint and identifies clearly how to accomplish the task. I say
most because the one item that I Like to do with PowerPoint is to have
music with many of my pictures or slide presentations. Although I
searched throughout the book nowhere could I find any reference to how
this could be accomplished. Although when I went to Google and typed
"How to add music to your PowerPoint presentation"a number of sites
wanted to help me and according to articles that I have read a number
of other people are asking the same question, thus I feel that this
area should have been included by the author. Of all the good things
contained in PowerPoint 2007 For Starters the one that I found that
was most beneficial to me was contained on the second or third last
page. The title was TUTORIALS. Here it states that Microsoft has an
office training centre,
"http/office.microsoft.com/en-us/training",
and search for PowerPoint 2007. Here you have access to "about" a 50
minute training film on PowerPoint 2007 that takes you step by step on
how to use PowerPoint 2007. This presentation also works with you item
by item. An excellent training aid. Again no music help. There isnīt
much more that I wish to say in discussing the book PowerPoint 2007
for Starters. If you are adventurous you could eventually sort out how
PowerPoint 2007 works, but it is a whole lot less stressful to go to
this manual.
Bill Colotelo
Vice President SCUG
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