Apple Training Series: iWork 08
by Richard Harrington
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Lowest price: $11.45
Binding: Paperback
Other books you might be interested in:
iWork 08
Keynote, Pages, Numbers
Apple's enhanced iWork productivity suite is poised to allow Mac users to create, present, and publish their work with style. iWork '08 offers three powerful applications—Pages ’08, Keynote ’08, and the brand-new spreadsheet program, Numbers '08—for creating everything from newsletters and stationery to polished business presentations to graphics-rich spreadsheets.
This self-paced learning guide, which includes a companion CD jam-packed with practical media files, takes readers step-by-step through essential, real-life tasks for home and office that cover all aspects of iWork '08. The book is both a self-paced learning tool and the official curriculum of the Apple Training and Certification Program, used by schools and training centers worldwide, and is ideal for users of all levels.
Keynote, Pages, Numbers
Apple's enhanced iWork productivity suite is poised to allow Mac users to create, present, and publish their work with style. iWork '08 offers three powerful applications—Pages ’08, Keynote ’08, and the brand-new spreadsheet program, Numbers '08—for creating everything from newsletters and stationery to polished business presentations to graphics-rich spreadsheets.
This self-paced learning guide, which includes a companion CD jam-packed with practical media files, takes readers step-by-step through essential, real-life tasks for home and office that cover all aspects of iWork '08. The book is both a self-paced learning tool and the official curriculum of the Apple Training and Certification Program, used by schools and training centers worldwide, and is ideal for users of all levels.
Average Customer Review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
Detailed tutorial for absolute beginners, February 7, 2008
by Allen Stenger
This is good tutorial on these three programs, with extremely detailed step-by-step instructions. It assumes essentially no prior knowledge of the programs or even of Macintosh software.
Each chapter works through building a complete document, and the book covers most kinds of work that people would typically need. It makes heavy use of the existing templates that come with the programs, which again is probably good for beginners but less useful for professionals or advanced amateurs who want their own formats.
The book sticks closely to the script in going step-by-step through the examples, with few digressions or explanations of why things work this way. It has a lengthy index which seems well-done and would probably be adequate to look up any particular technique you needed. There's a puzzling reference (p. 239) to a mail merge feature--puzzling because the continuing absence of mail merge in iWorks is one of the biggest gripes users have about it. The mail merge mentioned here is just an intelligent drag and drop that puts the lines of the address in the right place when you drag and drop from the address book. You can only do one at a time, though; it's not a true batch mail merge.
The book has a very heavy emphasis on Keynote, the presentation (slideshow) software, with over half of the book devoted to this topic. Pages (word processor and page layout) gets about one-quarter of book, and Numbers (spreadsheets) and an integrated example get the remaining one-quarter. There are two additional chapters on the included DVD-ROM dealing with linked text in documents, camera RAW image files, and multimedia. The DVD-ROM includes all the needed files for the examples as well as the finished documents for comparison.
I wonder about the emphasis on Keynote. I'm skeptical that the absolute beginner that this book is aimed at would do very many slideshows; they would be much more likely to start with page layout.
Very Good Feature: several pages explaining how to get your computer hooked up to a projector. This is a subject that always stumps people and has caused many delays in getting presentations started.
Bottom line: good for beginners, still useful but very slow paced if you already understand slideshows, page layout, or spreadsheets and just want to get smart about iWork.
Each chapter works through building a complete document, and the book covers most kinds of work that people would typically need. It makes heavy use of the existing templates that come with the programs, which again is probably good for beginners but less useful for professionals or advanced amateurs who want their own formats.
The book sticks closely to the script in going step-by-step through the examples, with few digressions or explanations of why things work this way. It has a lengthy index which seems well-done and would probably be adequate to look up any particular technique you needed. There's a puzzling reference (p. 239) to a mail merge feature--puzzling because the continuing absence of mail merge in iWorks is one of the biggest gripes users have about it. The mail merge mentioned here is just an intelligent drag and drop that puts the lines of the address in the right place when you drag and drop from the address book. You can only do one at a time, though; it's not a true batch mail merge.
The book has a very heavy emphasis on Keynote, the presentation (slideshow) software, with over half of the book devoted to this topic. Pages (word processor and page layout) gets about one-quarter of book, and Numbers (spreadsheets) and an integrated example get the remaining one-quarter. There are two additional chapters on the included DVD-ROM dealing with linked text in documents, camera RAW image files, and multimedia. The DVD-ROM includes all the needed files for the examples as well as the finished documents for comparison.
I wonder about the emphasis on Keynote. I'm skeptical that the absolute beginner that this book is aimed at would do very many slideshows; they would be much more likely to start with page layout.
Very Good Feature: several pages explaining how to get your computer hooked up to a projector. This is a subject that always stumps people and has caused many delays in getting presentations started.
Bottom line: good for beginners, still useful but very slow paced if you already understand slideshows, page layout, or spreadsheets and just want to get smart about iWork.
45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent Resource, November 18, 2007
by Jane
Contrary to the other reviews posted on here, I found the content to have the right mix and proper focus. So many of us have been subjected to awful PowerPoint presentations and the info here on Keynote really opens a whole new world to energizing presentations.
The info on Pages and numbers is more than sufficient in getting a handle on the programs and is a great guide to getting into the nuts and bolts of both. For a new MAC conver like myself, I am more than satisfied with the info presented here. Definately a sound purchase.
The info on Pages and numbers is more than sufficient in getting a handle on the programs and is a great guide to getting into the nuts and bolts of both. For a new MAC conver like myself, I am more than satisfied with the info presented here. Definately a sound purchase.
48 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
Sadly Disappointing, November 8, 2007
by David Ross
I purchased and very much learned a lot from the prior book in this Peachpit series, iWorks '06. Since iWorks '08 added a completely new application, Numbers, for which no other book had yet been published, I was very much looking forward to learning as much about Numbers as the earlier book on iWorks '06 had taught me about Keynote and Pages. Unfortunately, there are only two very basic chapters on Numbers, and little new in the chapters on Pages and Keynote. So I bought an entire book for two chapters that don't go much beyond what I had learned myself about Numbers.
Perhaps I should have guessed this would be the case given that the book came out less than 2 months after the release of iWork '08, but I think Peachpit should have warned it's customers that this was a "minor upgrade" at best.
Perhaps I should have guessed this would be the case given that the book came out less than 2 months after the release of iWork '08, but I think Peachpit should have warned it's customers that this was a "minor upgrade" at best.
26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
First Impression, November 16, 2007
by Bob of Maine
I purchased iWork '08 to become familiar with Keynote but mainly to learn how to use Pages and Numbers. The author devotes 211 pages to Keynote, 98 pages to Pages and 51 pages to Numbers. The subtitle of the book is Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. I believe a more realistic subtitle of the book should be Keynote, with passing references to Pages and a nod to Numbers.
25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
Official training course for iWork -- No wonder Macs are so easy to use., December 6, 2007
by Gary R. James
I am very PC literate but new to the Mac platform so actually know very little about OS X. Numbers is new and the rest of the iWork suite is new to me. I bought this book because it is supposed to be the official training course for iWork.
The material in the book is very basic. It does not even warrant a book. In deed the book is not needed. Work the tutorials on Apples web site and you have pretty much covered this book. If you are not very computer literate this book will be of help to you. If you are computer literate (you have used applications) you may be able teach yourself what this book does with Google and the help files.
The material in the book is very basic. It does not even warrant a book. In deed the book is not needed. Work the tutorials on Apples web site and you have pretty much covered this book. If you are not very computer literate this book will be of help to you. If you are computer literate (you have used applications) you may be able teach yourself what this book does with Google and the help files.
