April 1, 2000

This is one of the very best training guides I have ever seen. In case you are not familiar with the Shelly Cashman Series let me quote a short blurb from the Preface. "The Shelly Cashman Series offers the finest text books in computer education. We are proud of the fact that our Microsoft Power Point 4, Microsoft Power Point 7 and Microsoft PowerPoint 97 textbooks have been the most widely used presentation books in education."

Since I wanted to learn PowerPoint I figured a book geared for education would be the place to look. I was not disappointed, this is Microsoft Certified courseware as well and a National Bestseller (for good reason). Well my raves are usually at the end, but I just couldn't wait, it really and truly is that good.

You may have noticed words like, Microsoft certified, courseware, well don't let these words fool you, there is no "Professor Speak" or "Geek Talk" in here. It is easy to follow and includes tons of practice exercises. I'll show you the presentation layout first, then how every project ends.

Presentation:
Every project presents a real world problem or objective then presents the complete solution. For example, in Project 2 the exercise is to make a presentation to students showing them how and where to get financial aid.

Step-by-Step, Screen-by-Screen instructions, in full color, are used. I called and got permission to show you a scanned sample (of course it isn't big enough to read, you wouldn't want to violate copyright I'm sure) but you can see all the screen shots used. Every page does not look like this, that wouldn't allow for the richness of content that this book presents, but it is still chalk full of illustrations.

The author states that every single screen shot is correct because it is produced only after performing a step. Seems to me every author should do it this way. When I do a tutorial this is the technique I use. I really don't know how someone could expect not to miss steps if they don't perform each step before writing and adding images. That probably explains the frequent missing steps I've found in many online tutorials. You will appreciate the thoroughness and accuracy of this guide.

At the end of most of the Step-by-Step sequences an "other ways" box specifies the other ways to do the same task.

There are also marginal annotations that provide background information about a topic, which adds depth and perspective

Extensive student activities are at the end of each project. This is what really makes this resource valuable in my opinion. A topic isn't really learned and understood until you "make it your own" by doing it yourself. This section is so impressive I'm going to give you yet another list of what is included at the end of every project.

• You'll find a project summary
• A listing of the tasks that were just completed and the page numbers where you can go back.
• Apply Your Knowledge - A web page for each project with questions and reinforcement activities. This is an exercise, which has you open and manipulate a file, which you can get from the Internet.
• In The Lab - There are 3 in-depth assignments per project, which you'll apply your newly gained skills to solve.
• Cases and Places - There are up to 7 unique case studies that require students to apply their knowledge to real world situations.

Here is a list of the 6 projects included

1. Using a design template and auto layout to create a presentation
2. Using outline view and clip art to create a slide show
3. Using embedded visuals to enhance a slide show
4. Creating a presentation containing interactive OLE documents
5. Creating a self running presentation using animation effects
6. Using Visual Basic for applications with PowerPoint

There is also a special Web Feature so you can distribute your presentation to a remote audience

Even the Appendixes are packed with information
A. How to use PowerPoint Help system
B. Publish offline Web pages to a Web server
C. Resetting PowerPoint tool bars
D. Microsoft Office Specialist Certification Program

And it all ends with an alphabetical Quick Reference Summary.

If you want to learn PowerPoint and become an expert user than get this book, it is the best. I just wish I could find more like this one in the graphics field.

Copyright 2000