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TELECOMWORLDWIRE-10 July 2001-REVIEW:Microsoft Office XP -- Inside Out (C)1994-2001 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD http://www.m2.com This book is aimed at users starting to use (or who are already using) the new Microsoft Office XP software suite. It is especially aimed at providing an easy to understand guide for users wishing to upgrade from older versions of Office. At first glance the 1582 pages that make up this book may seem a bit daunting to the novice user but, once the contents list is studied, readers will find out that it is broken down into manageable sections, each focussing upon one of the various facets of the Office suite. After a brief introductory section around 380 pages are solely devoted to Word. Excel is then put into the spotlight with its very own 240 pages. The rest of the Office applications then line up for their chance to be the main focus of attention - these include PowerPoint, Outlook, FrontPage, Access and Publisher. One of the most useful aspects of this book, in my opinion, is that each software product is often mentioned in relation to the others. This give more of a view of what the Office suite can do as a whole, something that may not be possible with reading a single book about Word then a single book on Excel and so on. Purchasers of this book will also find that the use of shorter sections means that they can concentrate on learning just one application at a time, rather than all of them at once. This task gets easier the further you get through the book as on more than a few occasions an added feature in Word will be remarkably similar to the equivalent added feature in Excel or PowerPoint. The book also comes with a CD featuring an HTML interface, Microsoft add ins, third party utilities, demos and trials, macros, sample code, the electronic version of this book, sample chapters from other Microsoft Press books, web links, Microsoft demos, interactive tutorials and extra files and templates. The electronic version of the book is particularly handy! CONCLUSION:A very worthwhile book to have in anyone's collection, even the professional. With so much information on the entire range of the Office suite it is likely that everyone could do with refering to this book at some time in their XP usage. Title:Microsoft Office XP -- Inside Out Author:Michael Halvorson and Michael J. Young Published by:Microsoft Press ISBN:0-7356-1277-3 Price:GBP44.99 Reviewer:Ian Sanderson ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected]))