Office 2011 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

Office 2011 for Mac is easy to use, but to unleash its full power, you need to go beyond the basics. This entertaining guide not only gets you started with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and the new Outlook for Mac, it also reveals useful lots of things you didn't know the software could do. Get crystal-clear explanations on the features you use most -- and plenty of power-user tips when you're ready for more.

Take advantage of new tools. Navigate with the Ribbon, use SmartArt graphics, and work online with Office Web Apps.
Create professional-looking documents. Use Word to craft beautiful reports, newsletters, brochures, and posters.
Crunch numbers with ease. Assemble data, make calculations, and summarize the results with Excel.
Stay organized. Set up Outlook to track your email, contacts, appointments, and tasks.
Make eye-catching presentations. Build PowerPoint slideshows with video and audio clips, animations, and other features.
Use the programs together. Discover how to be more productive and creative by drawing directly in Word documents, adding spreadsheets to your slides, and more.

6 Reasons to Move to Office 2011 for Mac

Gather a bunch of Mac fans around a water cooler and ask what they want most from Microsoft Office. Two requests soon bubble to the surface: make Office more Mac-like, and give it the same features as the Windows version. Office 2011 for Mac doesn’t completely fulfill both of these (albeit conflicting) desires, but it comes closer than ever. Office 2011 for Mac: The Missing Manual reveals features new and old to make you more productive than ever. Here’s a short list of reasons you may want to move up to the latest, greatest version of Office.

1. A More Mac-like Office

While it still looks like Microsoft, Office 2011 makes great use of the Mac OS X tools you know and love -- Spotlight search, Color Pickers, Mac OS X Help tools, and Finder file windows. You won’t have to relearn standard routines just to be compatible with Windows coworkers.

2. The Ribbon

The most visible change in Office 2011 for the Mac is the ribbon. Yes, the ribbon is similar to the toolbars that Office has had forever, but it’s easier to use because the layout is more consistent. Common commands are grouped logically under tabs. Need more room for your document? Just click the current tab, and the ribbon collapses until you need it again. If you prefer the old ways, Office 2011 for Mac: The Missing Manual explains how to hide the ribbon entirely and create custom toolbars.

3. Out with Entourage, In with Outlook

Entourage, which has been part of Office since 2001, was a fabulous email, calendar, and information management program, but it was never designed to work with the corporate powerhouse Outlook. In Office 2011, Mac fans finally get to join the Outlook nation and coordinate meetings, mailing lists, and tasks with their Windows counterparts. In Office 2011 for Mac: The Missing Manual, you’ll learn how to customize Outlook to match your work style.

4. The Return of Visual Basic

Many Mac fans were disappointed when Visual Basic disappeared in Office 2008. Microsoft got the message, and brought back Visual Basic in all its glory. You can once again use Microsoft’s scripting language to automate and customize Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

5. Broadcast Your PowerPoint Presentation

Want to show your presentation to an audience that’s scattered around the globe? Rather than having everyone burn jet fuel to meet at a Holiday Inn, you can broadcast your presentation over the Internet. Upload your slides to a Microsoft’s free server, and then invite your audience via instant messages or email. You control the presentation, so your audience only sees slides as you click to show them. For sound, you can synchronize the presentation with a conference call.

6. Excel Sparklines

Excel 2011 now includes sparklines -- “small, intense, simple datawords,” as described by statistician Edward Tufte. While full-blown charts are great for comparing the values of different elements, sparklines are better for tracking the changes in a single element. Sparklines fit in a single cell yet express data relationships. For example, a sparkline might tell a doctor how a patient’s glucose level or respiration changes each day. For a meteorologist, a sparkline might express daily changes in temperature or barometric pressure.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent for Newbies and Intermediate Users

By C. J. Singh - January 1, 2011

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Reviewed by C J Singh

As a longtime Windows user, but a newbie to Apple products, I have been comparing guides in the University of California, Berkeley, libraries. After studying David Pogue's Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual ; Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual; iPhone: The Missing Manual: the fourth edition and comparing them with several other guides, I've become a fan of the "missing manual" series. So, I pre-ordered "Office 2011 for the Mac: The Missing Manual" by Chris Grover.

The 789-page missing manual covers, in detail, all four Office applications: Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint. It will serve newbies and intermediate users well. Advanced users are likely to find it too basic, except, perhaps, for an... read more

Really Poor Indexing

By JM - March 26, 2011

I'm sure that what I want to find is in this book (which, I'm certain, did take a lot of effort to write), BUT THE INDEXING IS SO LACKING THAT IT'S A DISCOURAGEMENT TO USE. Out of desperation I've hunted up my OFFICE 2004 for Macintosh, the Missing Manual Series, purchased five years ago. The indexing is better there. Here are just two examples of indexing deficiencies in Office 2011 by Chris Grover, both of which can drive you nuts: 1) Try to find a quick keyboard access to SMALL CAPs from the index. There is no straightforward listing. 2) One more example: Try finding easy access to converting web-style quotes to curly quotes in a lengthy document. Again, there's no direct listing under "quotations" or "formatting characters." I did scare it up under WORD/converting quotes, but "converting" is not the term which first comes to mind when searching the index.... Isn't "quotations" the more natural starting point? I can give other examples of frustration. SORRY, I can't recommend this... read more

If You're Serious...

By Warren Liebold "WLNYC" - January 14, 2011

I like the Missing Manual series. I like their organization and style, their completeness and linkage to expanded online information.

Office 2011 includes a number of significant changes - mostly for the better - from Office 2008 for the Mac and if you're going to be serious about a reasonable level of expertise, a book beyond one of the fine basic treatments is required. This book is logically organized and well written. Enough said. If you only need the basics this is still great but not necessary. If you're going to go for a more thorough understanding of features, this is well worth your consideration.