Will Kelly

After having a great experience reading the MOS 2010 Study Guide for Microsoft Office SharePoint, my next read was the MOS 2010 Study Guide for Word. Microsoft Word has always been a bread and butter application for me as both a technical writer and freelance writer. Things have been a bit slow lately, so I am taking advantage of the time to shore up some old skills and learn new ones.

The book’s tendency to overlap screen captures became a bit annoying after the first 100 pages. To a novice Word 2010 user, this space saving move could lead to a minor bit of confusion. Take the screen captures on page 143 of 317 (iBook edition) which borders on abstract art not clear and concise communications. While I am on the subject of screen shots, fading out the bottom and right sides of them while certainly a special effect made it almost look like a rendering issue on the screen. There were also a few places in the text where the pagination would cut into the middle of a procedure that was also a bit disappointing considering the state of epublishing tools today. These lapses in production detracted from the overall writing of the manuscript and exercises.

I went the iBook route on this book. It’s normally a great reading experience and I like the highlighter and note tools. Unfortunately, this book didn’t make the move to eBook format very well. Going to eBooks was something I started in 2011 as a resolution and kept up in 2012. It is working on wonders on reducing clutter in my home office.

Getting past my disappointments with graphics handling and production, I like the setup of Practice Tasks in the MOS Study Guide series and this guide doesn’t disappoint here keeping up to the standards I saw in the MOS 2010 Study Guide for SharePoint. Each chapter builds up to Practice Tasks that let you test out what you learned in the preceding section.

I want to recommend this book. I really do but the modern impressionist rendering of many of the book’s screen shots are distracting and show poor judgment considering the book’s subject and target audience.. If you need clearly shot screen shots to find your way through procedures than I advise you to pass on this book even though the writing and technical accuracy in it are top notch. After really enjoying the MOS 2010 Study Guide for SharePoint, I felt a little bit let down by this book’s production gaffes.

Have you read the MOS 2010 Study Guide for Microsoft Word?