Maybe you’ve noticed: creating simple documents today is so 2009. In this new decade, the emphasis has shifted from designing, creating, editing, and printing real hold-in-your-hands documents to creating content that can be used in a variety of smart, efficient ways. You might create content about a new product, for example, and instead of simply printing a fact sheet that you hand to all your sales reps, you save one version as a PDF, send another in an e-mail message, post some of the content to a blog, include some of the description in a catalog, and forward the Word file to peers around the globe.
What’s more, you’ll rarely create these content pieces alone. The use of teams is growing throughout industries of all types, and with good reason. When you work collaboratively, each person on a team can contribute his or her expertise, without tying up anybody’s time around the clock. Shared review enables many people with many perspectives to provide feedback so the content is the best that it can be. Team work, when it works well, can make a huge difference in the type and quality of materials you create. When team work doesn’t work well, of course, it’s another story. Luckily, Word 2010 includes some great new features that help you to reduce or dissolve collaboration challenges.
Another big change in the way we work has brought about changes in Word 2010. Today, thanks to the advent of the mobile phone and the wanderlust spirit of today’s information enthusiast, we know it’s possible—and we increasingly want—to work anywhere, anytime. You know those moments that seem wasted on the train out of the city? Now you can use them to finish reviewing a document you need to share with your team in the morning. You can access your Word files—and edit, format, review, and share in real time—from any point you have Web or smartphone access.
With these major changes in the way we work and where we work underway, Word 2010 is positioned to be a state-of-the-art word processing program that really is there for you. With the tools you need to produce any kind of content you want and the flexibility to enable you to create, edit, and share that content from almost any point on the globe, Word 2010 pops the lid on anything that was holding you and your creativity back before.
With all that being said, the book you now hold in your hands is a major revamp from previous versions of Microsoft Word Inside Out. As Word users, our need for content creation has been kicked up a few notches, and this book responds accordingly. In the pages that follow, you’ll find that the emphasis on creating all kinds of content, with anyone, from anywhere, flows through the examples, features, and projects. We hope you’ll find examples that speak to the way you use Word every day to accomplish the goals of your business, department, company, or school.
The various parts and chapters in this book help you to explore the whole Word 2010 landscape from a variety of entrance points. The parts focus generally on the types of overall tasks you are likely to want to complete, and individual chapters within each part zoom in on a specific tool or technique (or range of techniques) related to that task. Along the way, you’ll find notes, Inside Out tips, and troubleshooting ideas, as well as some “green” ideas and sidebars offering additional information that can help boost your understand or application of Word 2010 concepts.
The Inside Out series is designed for readers who have some experience with Word and are pretty comfortable finding their way around the program. You don’t have to be a power user or Word developer by any means; you aren’t necessarily a technology enthusiast (like your author) although you do like the idea of using programs in a way that is efficient and effective so you can accomplish what you want to accomplish without a lot of fuss and bother.
For this reason, Microsoft Word 2010 Inside Out touches only briefly on some of the basic topics that you’ll find covered in more detail elsewhere. Although we want the coverage in a book this size to be as complete as possible (we want you to get what you paid for), we also focus in on techniques and topics that are likely to appeal to readers who have already mastered many of the basics in Word.
If you find that you’d like to brush up on Word 2010 basics in addition to taking on the topics you’ll find covered fully in this book, you may want to check out any or all of the following books:
Microsoft Word 2010 Plain & Simple, by yours truly (Microsoft Press, 2010)
Microsoft Word 2010 Step by Step, by Joyce Cox and Joan Preppernau (Microsoft Press, 2010)
Tip
Remember that although nothing replaces the book experience when you need to refer to a technique or look something up in a reference work, there are other learning opportunities available to you online. Visit Microsoft Learning for online learning courses related to Word 2010 and the other Office 2010 programs.
Microsoft Word 2010 Inside Out helps you learn to master Word 2010 in the way you’re most likely to use the program, following a linear process that looks something like this:
Create a new document
Apply a template and make layout choices
Choose your theme for color and style
Add content
Translate phrases and documents
Edit your content and use reference tools
Apply and customize Quick Styles
Add tables, diagrams, art, and more
Co-author and share your documents with your team, near and far
Work almost anywhere with the Office Word Web App
Use Word 2010 for special projects, like blogging, mailings, long documents, and more
Tackle the high-end Word features, including macros and forms
Each chapter provides the detail you need to know in order to accomplish those various tasks successfully, and you’ll find tips and cautions along the way to steer you away from trouble spots and help you optimize the time you spend creating content.
Microsoft Word 2010 Inside Out gives you a comprehensive look at the various features you will use whether you create long or short projects for print or online uses. The chapters are organized according to the types of tasks you are likely to be performing. Here’s the general roadmap for the book:
Part I, starts with the obvious: the way the world has changed in relation to technology and the way we work, and how that is reflected in the new features you’ll find in Word 2010. After a tour of the new features, you explore Backstage view and find out about the best ways to create a new document, apply and tweak a template, set up a page, adjust a layout, and apply themes.
Part II, focuses on the ways you pull together different elements to create your Word document, translate it for a global audience, and edit, proof, and use reference tools as you polish up your words. In this part, you also learn the ins and outs of Quick Styles and find out how to create them on your own. You use the new Navigation Pane to find just what you want when you want it, reorganize content with Outline view, and spend a little time with the streamlined print process.
Part III, shines a light on one of the big improvements in Word 2010. As it becomes easier to grab and insert photos in our documents and content pieces, the overall look of the files we create is improving. Today you can create a professional marketing piece in under an hour that used to take weeks (no kidding) at a commercial print shop. Not only are the cost and quality under your control, but the images you choose to portray and the styles and artistic effects that you select enable your content to rival that produced by expensive firms or elaborate marketing departments. Also in this part, you learn how to add screenshots to your content and reflow text around the art elements on your pages.
Part IV, helps you tackle the challenge of creating content in a global workplace that likely needs that content to be produced in different ways for different audiences. The reality of localizing content is that programs need to include translation tools that are easy to use and extend—and Word 2010 has just those sorts of translation tools. With the new language features in Word 2010, you can choose from a variety of languages and set up multiple levels of control for translations, whether you want to translate entire documents, sections, or words and phrases on the fly.
Part V, moves things to a new level as you consider the different ways you can share the content you create. Whether you are generating an enormous master document that combines subdocuments contributed by a number of team members; blogging for a global audience; or designing and completing mass mailings to your customer base, donor list, or parent population; you’ll find what you need to complete your projects in this part of the book. This part also includes more specialized high-end Word 2010 techniques related to designing and distributing documents that use content controls and automating tasks using macros.
So as you can see, there’s a lot to cover no matter how you plan to produce and offer your Word 2010 content to the world. The great news is that Word 2010 is in sync with the times and can grow right along with you as you stretch your own capabilities to master the features you need. The next chapter gets you started on that path by introducing you to the new and improved features in Word 2010.