Office X for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

introduction 11

Figure I-3:

When you read “Choose View

→

Toolbars

→

Drawing” in

a Missing Manual, that means: “Click the View menu to

open it; click Toolbars in that menu; choose Drawing in

the resulting submenu.” (If you read “Choose Edit

→

Preferences

→

Mail tab,” that means you should click

the tab called Mail in the dialog box that appears.)

About→These→Arrows

Throughout this book, and throughout the Missing Manual series, you’ll find sen-

tences like this one: “Open the System folder→Libraries→Fonts folder.” That’s short-

hand for a much longer instruction that directs you to open three nested folders in

sequence. That instruction might read: “On your hard drive, you’ll find a folder

called System. Open that. Inside the System folder window is a folder called Librar-

ies. Open that. Inside that folder is yet another one called Fonts. Double-click to

open it, too.”

Similarly, this kind of arrow shorthand helps to simplify the business of choosing

commands in menus, as shown in Figure I-3.

About MissingManuals.com

At the missingmanuals.com Web site, you’ll find news, articles, and updates to the

books in this series.

But if you click the name of this book and then the Errata link, you’ll find a unique

resource: a list of corrections and updates that have been made in successive print-

ings of this book. You can mark important corrections right into your own copy of

the book, if you like.

In fact, the same Errata page offers an invitation for you to submit such corrections

and updates yourself. In an effort to keep the book as up-to-date and accurate as

possible, each time we print more copies of this book, we’ll make any confirmed

corrections you’ve suggested. Thanks in advance for reporting any glitches you find!

About This Book

12 office x for macintosh: the missing manual

In the meantime, we’d love to hear your own suggestions for new books in the Miss-

ing Manual line. There’s a place for that on the Web site, too, as well as a place to sign

up for free email notification of new titles in the series.

About This Book

Writing complex software is never easy—and few compa-

nies write more complex software than Microsoft. It’s no

wonder then, that the original version of Microsoft Office X

had a few bugs—all right, 1,500 of them. It’s also no won-

der that few companies issue more “Service Releases” and

updates than Microsoft—with the possible exception of

Apple.

Bottom line: You’ll do yourself a big favor by making sure

that you have the most updated versions of both Office X

and Mac OS X. As of August 2003, the latest Office X up-

date is 10.1.4. To get it, go to www.microsoft.com/mac and

look under "Quick Downloads" at the right of the page.

The 10.1.4 download page instructs you to download the

10.1.2 update first, if you haven't already.

By the time you’ve downloaded and installed both of these

updates, you’ll be the proud owner of every update and fix

that Microsoft has ever made to Office X, including the first

and most important update, Service Release 1. Among other

things, you’ll find that Word crashes a lot less often.

(Incidentally, the download page lets you choose between

a .hqx and a .bin version of the installer file. Install the .bin

compression; the .hqx version is for older Mac systems,

like OS 8—and if you had Mac OS 8, you wouldn’t be using

Office X!)

As far as your Mac goes, you can use Mac OS X version

10.1, 10.2, or (when it’s available) 10.3. Visit Apple.com or

use Software Update to make sure you have the most re-

cent update of whatever version you have, though (10.2.6,

for example). These little double-decimal updates are free.

Note, though, that like most programs, Office X runs much

faster and more smoothly in Mac OS X 10.2. If you value

your time, seriously consider taking the Jaguar plunge. (If

you’re upgrading to 10.3, “Panther,” be sure to check for

additional Office updates while you’re at it.)

There’s no downside to installing the Service Release and

the subsequent Office updates. In fact, this book assumes

that you’ve already done so. Using Office X without SR1 is

just asking for frustration.

Office Up to Date

UP TO SPEED