Does Word 2003 ship with a User's Guide or Manual in digital form apart
from the Help file? Awhile ago a book was shipped with Word Software,
but today w/ MS Licensing, only CDs.

TIA!
~Terry

Terry

No manual comes with Word or Office - just a quick install guide. There are
many tutorials on line under Help - but even these aren't that easy to find.

--
Terry Farrell - Word MVP
http://word.mvps.org/

"Terry Drewes" wrote in message
...
: Does Word 2003 ship with a User's Guide or Manual in digital form apart
: from the Help file? Awhile ago a book was shipped with Word Software,
: but today w/ MS Licensing, only CDs.
:
: TIA!
: ~Terry

Hi TF!

That's a bummer! :-( ...Just about every other software program gives
you a PDF on the installation CD to view and print out a User's Guide.
Oh well.

Ciao!
~Terry



TF wrote:
Terry

No manual comes with Word or Office - just a quick install guide. There are
many tutorials on line under Help - but even these aren't that easy to find.

The current thinking on what Microsoft calls User Assistance is that it
should be dynamic. For that reason, even the offline Help file is somewhat
limited (and being increasingly pared down to the most-often-searched-for
information. The rest is available online. If you have a persistent (or even
convenient) connection to the Internet, this can be quite handy because
Microsoft is continuously adding new Help articles that will be found by
searching online through your built in Help task pane. The UA people meet
monthly with Word MVPs to determine the current "pain points" and FAQs so
that they (and we) can write new articles to address them.

If you don't have constant, easy, or fast access to the Internet (as we keep
futilely emphasizing to MS is the case for many users), this can be a
bummer. One thing we have repeatedly suggested to MS is that the added
content be made available in the form of downloadable updates to the Help
file. Perhaps this will be incorporated in a future version.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Terry Drewes" wrote in message
...
Hi TF!

That's a bummer! :-( ...Just about every other software program gives
you a PDF on the installation CD to view and print out a User's Guide.
Oh well.

Ciao!
~Terry



TF wrote:
Terry

No manual comes with Word or Office - just a quick install guide. There
are
many tutorials on line under Help - but even these aren't that easy to
find.

G'Day Suzanne,

I find your comments very informative - had no idea
that MS had so dynamic an approach.

However Beginner Education (BE) is just as important
to me as UA.

BE (for me) is a form of Product Description,
covering topics like:
Here is Word, its MAIN features are...
It will do this.....if you......
As a start, the best way to........however you may also...

(The first Book I bought on Word (v6 - Que?) ran to
1400 or 1600 pages and I never needed another.)

UA (for me) covers topics like:
When I try to use this feature.....this happens.....why?
I am unable to......as advertised....why?
I note that.....Word can.....I need more information.
There seems to be a bug...... (and sometimes there is!)

I strongly believe that the "Boxed" version of Office
should include the PDF versions of...
MS Press - Word xxxx Inside Out
MS Press - Excel xxxx Inside Out
MS Press - Outlook xxxx Inside Out
:
(Each Book includes a PDF copy of itself on the
accompanying CD already.)

As an example, Office 97 Pro came with a printed
book "Developing Applications with Access 97". It
covered (the then NEW) VBA in Access, and was a
priceless guide to Access at that time. It used the
two sample database apps as its basis, and would
STILL give an excellent grounding in the product.
There was an HTML version on the CD. I used it
as a training resource for many years.

I was refused permission to distribute it free to
trainees then and recently - although it has never
been offered for sale.
--
Regards,
Pat Garard
Australia
_______________________

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
The current thinking on what Microsoft calls User Assistance is that it
should be dynamic. For that reason, even the offline Help file is somewhat
limited (and being increasingly pared down to the most-often-searched-for
information. The rest is available online. If you have a persistent (or
even
convenient) connection to the Internet, this can be quite handy because
Microsoft is continuously adding new Help articles that will be found by
searching online through your built in Help task pane. The UA people meet
monthly with Word MVPs to determine the current "pain points" and FAQs so
that they (and we) can write new articles to address them.

If you don't have constant, easy, or fast access to the Internet (as we
keep
futilely emphasizing to MS is the case for many users), this can be a
bummer. One thing we have repeatedly suggested to MS is that the added
content be made available in the form of downloadable updates to the Help
file. Perhaps this will be incorporated in a future version.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"Terry Drewes" wrote in message
...
Hi TF!

That's a bummer! :-( ...Just about every other software program gives
you a PDF on the installation CD to view and print out a User's Guide.
Oh well.

Ciao!
~Terry



TF wrote:
Terry

No manual comes with Word or Office - just a quick install guide. There
are
many tutorials on line under Help - but even these aren't that easy to
find.

However Beginner Education (BE) is just as important
to me as UA.

I can recall when every new version of Word came with a tutorial disk or
book. I found these quite helpful. Now, except for its online articles,
Microsoft leaves this type of documentation to third parties, and quite a
few authors have made a lucrative business of it (think of Woody et al.).
Microsoft's assumption (which is valid to some extent) is that most users of
new versions of Office are not new Office users. Most of us upgrade from
Word 2002 to 2003 (or 97 or 2000 to 2003) and already know how to do most of
what we need to do.

What I would really like to see is an extension of the "What's New in Word
xxxx" KB articles. There's usually one such for each version (though it
sometimes takes a while to come out), but it's mostly a list of the features
with some marketing hype, not any explanation of why you might want to use
the features, much less how to implement them. It could be argued that if
you get a list of the new features and some of them sound interesting, you
can then investigate them in the Help file or in online articles; the
problem with that is that the Help is usually (a) mostly inherited from
previous versions and (b) prepared at the last minute when the feature set
is final and consequently doesn't always have adequate documentation of new
features, and articles about them are often slow to appear because UA is
still figuring them out, too. (Presumably designers and developers, who
dream up these new features, are not qualified to write the documentation.)

Third-party books often focus on new features because the author has almost
certainly participated in beta testing, which focuses on these new features.
The problem here is that, given publishing deadlines (the goal is to have
the books hit the streets at the same time as the software), the
descriptions and instructions are often wrong, either because a feature
received last-minute tweaking or because it couldn't be made to work
reliably at all and was dropped.

To get some idea what all these writers are up against, consider these
analogies:

1. Trying to write a newspaper description (on deadline) of a protean beast
that keeps changing shape before your eyes.

2. Trying to make a fitted wedding dress for a bride who has gained or lost
10 or 15 pounds every time she comes in for a fitting.

See also http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/WheresTheManual.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Pat Garard" apgarardATbigpondDOTnetDOTau wrote in message
...
G'Day Suzanne,

I find your comments very informative - had no idea
that MS had so dynamic an approach.

However Beginner Education (BE) is just as important
to me as UA.

BE (for me) is a form of Product Description,
covering topics like:
Here is Word, its MAIN features are...
It will do this.....if you......
As a start, the best way to........however you may also...

(The first Book I bought on Word (v6 - Que?) ran to
1400 or 1600 pages and I never needed another.)

UA (for me) covers topics like:
When I try to use this feature.....this happens.....why?
I am unable to......as advertised....why?
I note that.....Word can.....I need more information.
There seems to be a bug...... (and sometimes there is!)

I strongly believe that the "Boxed" version of Office
should include the PDF versions of...
MS Press - Word xxxx Inside Out
MS Press - Excel xxxx Inside Out
MS Press - Outlook xxxx Inside Out
:
(Each Book includes a PDF copy of itself on the
accompanying CD already.)

As an example, Office 97 Pro came with a printed
book "Developing Applications with Access 97". It
covered (the then NEW) VBA in Access, and was a
priceless guide to Access at that time. It used the
two sample database apps as its basis, and would
STILL give an excellent grounding in the product.
There was an HTML version on the CD. I used it
as a training resource for many years.

I was refused permission to distribute it free to
trainees then and recently - although it has never
been offered for sale.
--
Regards,
Pat Garard
Australia
_______________________

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
The current thinking on what Microsoft calls User Assistance is that it
should be dynamic. For that reason, even the offline Help file is
somewhat
limited (and being increasingly pared down to the
most-often-searched-for
information. The rest is available online. If you have a persistent (or
even
convenient) connection to the Internet, this can be quite handy because
Microsoft is continuously adding new Help articles that will be found by
searching online through your built in Help task pane. The UA people
meet
monthly with Word MVPs to determine the current "pain points" and FAQs
so
that they (and we) can write new articles to address them.

If you don't have constant, easy, or fast access to the Internet (as we
keep
futilely emphasizing to MS is the case for many users), this can be a
bummer. One thing we have repeatedly suggested to MS is that the added
content be made available in the form of downloadable updates to the
Help
file. Perhaps this will be incorporated in a future version.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"Terry Drewes" wrote in message
...
Hi TF!

That's a bummer! :-( ...Just about every other software program gives
you a PDF on the installation CD to view and print out a User's Guide.
Oh well.

Ciao!
~Terry



TF wrote:
Terry

No manual comes with Word or Office - just a quick install guide.
There
are
many tutorials on line under Help - but even these aren't that easy
to
find.

Hi Suzanne,

There is, I guess, one thing that most people would find
useful in this "incremental" world.

That would be a periodic re-assessment of where we
have arrived at.

A "once again" this is where we are at with Word.....
--
Regards,
Pat Garard
Australia
_______________________

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
However Beginner Education (BE) is just as important
to me as UA.

I can recall when every new version of Word came with a tutorial disk or
book. I found these quite helpful. Now, except for its online articles,
Microsoft leaves this type of documentation to third parties, and quite a
few authors have made a lucrative business of it (think of Woody et al.).
Microsoft's assumption (which is valid to some extent) is that most users
of
new versions of Office are not new Office users. Most of us upgrade from
Word 2002 to 2003 (or 97 or 2000 to 2003) and already know how to do most
of
what we need to do.

What I would really like to see is an extension of the "What's New in Word
xxxx" KB articles. There's usually one such for each version (though it
sometimes takes a while to come out), but it's mostly a list of the
features
with some marketing hype, not any explanation of why you might want to use
the features, much less how to implement them. It could be argued that if
you get a list of the new features and some of them sound interesting, you
can then investigate them in the Help file or in online articles; the
problem with that is that the Help is usually (a) mostly inherited from
previous versions and (b) prepared at the last minute when the feature set
is final and consequently doesn't always have adequate documentation of
new
features, and articles about them are often slow to appear because UA is
still figuring them out, too. (Presumably designers and developers, who
dream up these new features, are not qualified to write the
documentation.)

Third-party books often focus on new features because the author has
almost
certainly participated in beta testing, which focuses on these new
features.
The problem here is that, given publishing deadlines (the goal is to have
the books hit the streets at the same time as the software), the
descriptions and instructions are often wrong, either because a feature
received last-minute tweaking or because it couldn't be made to work
reliably at all and was dropped.

To get some idea what all these writers are up against, consider these
analogies:

1. Trying to write a newspaper description (on deadline) of a protean
beast
that keeps changing shape before your eyes.

2. Trying to make a fitted wedding dress for a bride who has gained or
lost
10 or 15 pounds every time she comes in for a fitting.

See also http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/WheresTheManual.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"Pat Garard" apgarardATbigpondDOTnetDOTau wrote in message
...
G'Day Suzanne,

I find your comments very informative - had no idea
that MS had so dynamic an approach.

However Beginner Education (BE) is just as important
to me as UA.

BE (for me) is a form of Product Description,
covering topics like:
Here is Word, its MAIN features are...
It will do this.....if you......
As a start, the best way to........however you may also...

(The first Book I bought on Word (v6 - Que?) ran to
1400 or 1600 pages and I never needed another.)

UA (for me) covers topics like:
When I try to use this feature.....this happens.....why?
I am unable to......as advertised....why?
I note that.....Word can.....I need more information.
There seems to be a bug...... (and sometimes there is!)

I strongly believe that the "Boxed" version of Office
should include the PDF versions of...
MS Press - Word xxxx Inside Out
MS Press - Excel xxxx Inside Out
MS Press - Outlook xxxx Inside Out
:
(Each Book includes a PDF copy of itself on the
accompanying CD already.)

As an example, Office 97 Pro came with a printed
book "Developing Applications with Access 97". It
covered (the then NEW) VBA in Access, and was a
priceless guide to Access at that time. It used the
two sample database apps as its basis, and would
STILL give an excellent grounding in the product.
There was an HTML version on the CD. I used it
as a training resource for many years.

I was refused permission to distribute it free to
trainees then and recently - although it has never
been offered for sale.
--
Regards,
Pat Garard
Australia
_______________________

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
The current thinking on what Microsoft calls User Assistance is that it
should be dynamic. For that reason, even the offline Help file is
somewhat
limited (and being increasingly pared down to the
most-often-searched-for
information. The rest is available online. If you have a persistent (or
even
convenient) connection to the Internet, this can be quite handy because
Microsoft is continuously adding new Help articles that will be found
by
searching online through your built in Help task pane. The UA people
meet
monthly with Word MVPs to determine the current "pain points" and FAQs
so
that they (and we) can write new articles to address them.

If you don't have constant, easy, or fast access to the Internet (as we
keep
futilely emphasizing to MS is the case for many users), this can be a
bummer. One thing we have repeatedly suggested to MS is that the added
content be made available in the form of downloadable updates to the
Help
file. Perhaps this will be incorporated in a future version.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"Terry Drewes" wrote in message
...
Hi TF!

That's a bummer! :-( ...Just about every other software program gives
you a PDF on the installation CD to view and print out a User's Guide.
Oh well.

Ciao!
~Terry



TF wrote:
Terry

No manual comes with Word or Office - just a quick install guide.
There
are
many tutorials on line under Help - but even these aren't that easy
to
find.