Microsoft Office Resources
Categories: Information
“Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw, and he never has the same problem twice!”
–The Arrogant Worms
Terry Pratchett has a line from one of his books about how clichés become clichés; he claims that they are the hammers and saws in the toolbox of conversation. It’s a good metaphor, and something that I think can be applied to other things as well. For example, I think it works very well for our various software suites: the Office products (Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, etc.) are clearly the hammers, saws, screwdrivers and so on – the basic tools that you’ll use almost anytime you’re working on your computer.
Recently we’ve added another set of tools with the licensing of Adobe’s Creative Suite. In our metaphor, these are specialist tools: the coping saw, specialized screwdrivers, perhaps a brass hammer. In a previous post, I talked about where to find good information about those tools, but what if you need help with the basic tools? Perhaps there’s something you don’t understand about one of the Office suite’s components. Perhaps you’re trying to do a particular thing, and you’re having trouble getting where you want to go. What options do you have?
First, you can always call your support specialist. We have a decent amount of knowledge on MS Office, although there are gaps in our knowledge; as support specialists, we tend to be more focused on installing/maintaining/fixing rather than using the tools.
Second, you can check the repository of how-to documents we’ve created at our support site. We’ve covered a lot of the things OCES people want and need to do in Office, although by no means all of it. We’ve got a lot of step-by-step instructions ready for download and use. You should check them out.
Third, there are some good sites on the Web with tutorials for the Office suite. Microsoft naturally has a good set of tools, covering several versions of Office, including mobile versions. Another site I recently found, thanks to a former co-worker, is GCF Learn Free. They’ve got a nice suite of tutorials on the Office applications, and if you poke around on the site, you’ll find that they cover a lot more than just Office.
Office is a great set of tools for our work, and the more we know about it, the better off we’ll be. If you’ve got things you want to learn about, I hope you’ll let us know and that you’ll check out the options I’ve mentioned here.