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.

read more »