如果您一直在阅读我的评论，您可能已经注意到我是印刷版软件手册的忠实拥护者，并且对 .pdf 格式的帮助文件和手册一点也不热情。而且我提到过微软(Microsoft)的手册曾经是最好的。Microsoft的印刷手册已不复存在，但他们与O'Reilly Media合作以书籍填补空白，他们的Plain & Simple系列是过去那些精美手册的当之无愧的继承者。
从DOS版本 3.0(version 3.0)开始，我一直在使用Microsoft Word，因此这些年来我看到了很多重大改进。随着Word扩展并与Excel、Powerpoint和其他程序合并到Office中，添加了越来越多的功能，阅读使用这些功能的说明变得越来越必要。Office 2010是迄今为止功能最丰富的版本，一本能让它“ Plain & Simple ”的书非常值得一看。我很高兴地报告Microsoft Office 2010 Plain & Simple正是它的标题所说的。现在，话虽如此，我需要明确的是，Plain & Simple系列书籍的目的不是深入技术细节并解释为什么一切正常(everything works)。这些书的目的是帮助人们对使用该软件充满信心，并尽可能高效地完成工作。一旦用户对软件感到放心，他或她很可能会对为什么事情会以他们的方式工作存在疑问。对于这些类型的答案，还有其他书籍更详细。（许多微软(Microsoft)手册都是这样编排的——有一本相当短的书让你开始，还有另一本厚厚的书(fat book)这为您提供了您可能想要的所有技术细节。）
这本书承诺“没有计算机(No computer)会说话”和一个简单的方法，没有解释占用超过两页。它绝对兑现了这一承诺。一切都很清晰，并配有截图，页面色彩丰富，布局精美，便于阅读。有一些提示(Tips)可以帮助您更轻松地完成一些事情，另请参阅(See Also)其他页面上的信息链接。作者选择了一些您最有可能对Office的每个组件执行的任务，并为每个组件提供了清晰、逐步的图解说明。
奠定基础
到目前为止，许多人已经使用过Microsoft产品，足以非常熟悉基本知识——剪切、复制、粘贴、打开、保存等等——但Office的功能远不止这些，而且它所做的大部分工作都是经过布局的在屏幕顶部的功能区上。(Ribbon)功能区(Ribbon)对于第一次遇到它的人来说可能看起来很吓人（我从经验中知道这一点，即使我从 DOS 3.0 版开始就一直在使用Word ！(DOS)）(version 3.0) Microsoft Office(Word) 2010 Plain & Simple(Microsoft Office 2010 Plain & Simple)以清晰的插图和解释开始业务功能区(Ribbon)上的部分，这应该会消除谜团并显示它的有用性。处理画廊、列表(Galleries, Lists,)和后台视图(Backstage View)的部分也是如此，所有这些都出现在组成Microsoft Office 2010的每个单独程序中。
正确使用Office 2010
我必须承认，我很困惑地看到一章标题为“办公室的常见(Office)任务(Tasks)” ，它不是处理文本或计算(text or calculations)，而是处理字体、插图和照片。它旨在展示所有Office应用程序通用的工具，但使用(Office)文字处理文档(word processing document)而不是剪贴画来制作插图不是更合乎逻辑吗？一看目录就会发现Word比(Word)Office 2010的其他元素更受关注。不过，在那次转移之后，这本书就开始谈正事了。
Office 2010共有三个版本（Professional Plus 2010、Professional 2010和Home and Business 2010），其中包含不同的组件，Microsoft Office 2010 Plain & Simple详细介绍了其中的大部分。Word分为三个部分；Excel、Powerpoint和Outlook各有两个部分；Publisher、Access和OneNote各有一个部分。Professional Plus版本中的专用工具InfoPath、SharePoint和Communicator的简要说明包含在其他章节中。每个Office 2010 组件程序(component program)的解释从基础开始，然后逐步进行到更复杂的任务。当你看到基本解释透彻时，你肯定有信心继续前进。这本书没有花很多时间去介绍大多数Windows用户已经知道的东西，这意味着有更多的空间可以专注于教读者如何充分利用该软件。与本系列其他书籍一样，Microsoft Office 2010 Plain & Simple可以任意顺序阅读，可以作为参考书使用(reference book)对于任何想知道某事如何运作的人。但是，由于每个部分都建立在前面部分的信息之上，我建议您从头到尾阅读专门介绍您正在学习的程序的整章。
让Office 2010成为您独一无二的……并保持这种状态
由于不是每个人都以相同的方式工作，而且Office的工作环境可以通过多种方式为每个用户量身定制，因此自定义和保护 Office(Customizing and Securing Office)部分必然会得到大量使用。仅仅决定您在功能区(Ribbon)上做什么和不想要什么很容易会占用大量时间，而手头没有这个清晰插图的指南。同样(Likewise)，处理保护、恢复和数字签名文件的部分也是必不可少的参考工具(reference tool)。使用Office绝对不是安装程序并开始工作的简单问题 - 清楚地了解AutoSave和AutoRecover之类的东西(AutoRecover)可以为可能丢失或删除的工作节省很多痛苦。仅此一项就值这本书的成本了。
判决
Microsoft Office 2010 Plain & Simple是一个文字清晰、插图清晰的分步指南，几乎每个人都需要知道如何成功使用Microsoft Office 2010。Microsoft Office多年来不断发展，并已成为更加复杂的软件，为初学者和高级用户提供功能。有了这样的书，初学者将有信心继续尝试新事物，而更高级的用户很可能会找到使他们已经掌握的任务更容易完成的方法。
Book Review - Microsoft Office 2010 Plain & Simple
Іf you've been reading mу rеviews, you may have noticed that I am a big fan of the printed software manual and not at all enthusiastic about help fileѕ and manuals in.pdf format. And I've mentioned that Microsoft's manuals used to bе amоng the best. Microsoft's printed manυals are no more, but they've joined with O'Reilly Media to fill the gap with bookѕ, and their Plain & Simple series is a worthy successor to those fine manuals of the past.
I've been using Microsoft Word since version 3.0 for DOS, so I've seen quite a few major improvements over the years. As Word expanded and was incorporated into Office with Excel, Powerpoint and other programs, more and more features were added, and reading the instructions for using those features became more and more necessary. Office 2010 is the most feature-rich version yet, and a book that can make it "Plain & Simple" is well worth a look. I am happy to report that Microsoft Office 2010 Plain & Simple is exactly what its title says it is. Now, having said that, I need to make clear that the aim of the Plain & Simple series of books is not to go into deep technological detail and explain why everything works. The books' purpose is to help people feel confident about using the software and to get their work done as efficiently as possible. Once the user feels at ease with the software, it's likely he or she will have questions about why things work the way they do. For those kinds of answers, there are other books that go into more detail. (That's the way many Microsoft manuals were laid out—there would be one fairly short book that got you started, and another big fat book that gave you all the technological detail you could possibly want.)
The book promises "No computer speak" and a straightforward approach, with no explanation taking up more than two pages. It definitely delivers on that promise. Everything is clear and well illustrated with screenshots, and the pages are colorful and nicely laid out for reading. There are Tips to help make some of the things you do easier, and See Also links to information on other pages. The author has selected some of the tasks you're most likely to do with each of Office's components and gives clear, step-by-step illustrated instructions for each.
Laying the foundation
By now, many people have worked with Microsoft products enough to be very familiar with the basics—cut, copy, paste, open, save and so forth—but Office includes a lot more than that, and much of what it does is laid out on the Ribbon at the top of the screen. The Ribbon can look intimidating to people encountering it for the first time (I know this from experience even though I've been using Word since version 3.0 for DOS!) Microsoft Office 2010 Plain & Simple gets down to business with a clearly illustrated and explained section on the Ribbon, which should take away the mysteries and show how useful it can be. The same can be said of the sections dealing with Galleries, Lists, and the Backstage View, all of which appear in each of the separate programs that make up Microsoft Office 2010.
Getting right to work in Office 2010
I must admit I was puzzled to see a chapter titled "Common Tasks in Office" that dealt not with text or calculations but with embellished fonts, illustrations and photos. It's meant to demonstrate the tools that are common to all Office applications, but wouldn't it have been more logical to do the illustrations with a word processing document rather than with clip art? One look at the table of contents would demonstrate that Word gets more attention than the other elements of Office 2010. After that diversion, though, the book gets right down to business.
There are three versions of Office 2010 (Professional Plus 2010, Professional 2010, and Home and Business 2010) with different components, and Microsoft Office 2010 Plain & Simple goes into detail about most of them. Word has three sections; Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook each have two sections; Publisher, Access and OneNote have one section each. The specialized tools InfoPath, SharePoint, and Communicator, found in the Professional Plus version, get brief descriptions included in other chapters. Each Office 2010 component program's explanation begins with the basics and then moves along, step by step, to the more complex tasks. By the time you've seen the basics thoroughly explained, you've definitely gotten the confidence to move on. The book doesn't spend a lot of time going through things most Windows users already know about, which means there's more space to concentrate on teaching the reader how to get the most out of the software. As with other books in this series, Microsoft Office 2010 Plain & Simple can be read in any order, and it can be used as a reference book for anyone who wants to know how something works. However, since each section builds on the information in previous sections, I'd recommend reading the entire chapter devoted to the program you're learning, beginning to end.
Making Office 2010 uniquely yours... and keeping it that way
Since not everyone works the same way, and since the Office' working environment can be custom-tailored to each user in so many ways, the section on Customizing and Securing Office is bound to get heavy use. Just deciding what you do and don't want on the Ribbon could easily occupy a lot of time, without this clearly illustrated guide close at hand. Likewise, the sections dealing with protecting, recovering, and digitally signing files are an essential reference tool. Working with Office is definitely not a simple matter of installing the program and going right to work—a clear understanding of things like AutoSave and AutoRecover could save a lot of anguish over possibly lost or deleted work. That alone would be worth the cost of the book.
Verdict
Microsoft Office 2010 Plain & Simple is a clearly written, clearly illustrated, step by step guide to everything nearly everyone will need to know to be successful with Microsoft Office 2010. Microsoft Office has grown over the years and has become much more sophisticated software, offering features for both the beginner and the advanced user. With books like this, beginners will be confident to keep trying new things, and more advanced users may well find ways to make tasks they've already mastered easier to do.
