Software Reference

Appeared in the May/June 2009 edition of Editing Matters, the journal of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders

This sizeable work (think telephone directory) was self-published by our own Matthew Strawbridge, and is a labour of love – if that's the right term – if ever I saw one. Matthew has painstakingly gone down all the highways and byways, as well as the side roads and little lanes, to explore every menu, every option, every button that Word 2007 possesses, so that you don't have to.

Why would anyone do such a thing? The blurb explains that this is not a user manual but a 'serious reference for power users, for whom the online help is not detailed enough'. Power users are envisaged to be Word trainers, helpdesk support staff and Microsoft Office programmers – not you average SfEP member, then.

Having said that, there's so much to be got out of this book, if you're a serious Word user, for editing, particularly if you're confident enough to wade into the swirling waters of Visual Basic, the macro programming language. This is because the book is heavily cross-referenced to the relevant Word commands; indeed, Chapter 9 is a complete alphabetical list of built-in commands, and even includes old ones (in grey type) that should not be used in new macros.

Chapter 1, on basic concepts, is especially useful for filling in the gaps that we all have in our knowledge – I'd learnt half a dozen new things by the time I reached p5! Matthew's tips are particularly handy, and are often backed up with reference to Microsoft Knowledge Base articles. Two examples are instructions for turning off the Mini Toolbar, which appears like a ghost when your cursor hovers over selected text – irritatingly causing me to format text accidentally – and, more seriously, a warning of a bug in the Document Map feature when used in large documents.

Chapters 2–8 painstakingly list all the features and commands for the Office button, the ribbons, task panes and dialog boxes. Chapter 10 is a table of all the default keyboard shortcuts and their commands, while Chapters 11 and 12 cover field codes and fonts, respectively, including a comprehensive list of symbols. There are seven appendixes, listing, for example, all the default words that are replaced by the AutoCorrect feature and an explanation of all the puzzling shapes that your cursor can turn into when handling, for example, graphics, as well as a chart of the 'invisible characters', such as the grey square brackets that indicate a bookmark has been inserted.

Don't buy this publication if you're getting frustrated because the Tools menu has disappeared in the new ribbon interface and you can't find AutoCorrect. I wouldn't recommend this book if you are just feeling your way with Word 2007 – use Microsoft's interactive tutorial or buy a good 'how to' guide such as Word 2007: The Missing Manual (Pogue Press, 2006) if you want to learn about using wildcards or extended text, for instance – and the blurb makes it clear that this book is for experts. But if you want to save yourself some time finding out what all those ribbon and dialog options mean, and maybe incorporate them into useful macros, then this book has no equal.