Who this book is for

Microsoft Office Step by Step is designed for use as a learning and reference resource by home and business users of Microsoft Office 365 or the individual Office apps who want to use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to create and edit files, and Outlook to organize email, contact information, and calendar items. The content of the book is designed to be useful for people who have previously used earlier versions of the apps and for people who are discovering the apps for the first time.

The Step by Step approach

This book’s coverage is divided into parts. Part 1 introduces the Microsoft 365 apps and the skills that are common to all of them. Parts 2–5 each provide a thorough introduction to one of the four apps covered in this book. Each part is divided into chapters representing skill set areas, and each chapter is divided into topics that group related skills. Each topic includes expository information followed by generic procedures. At the end of the chapter, you’ll find a series of practice tasks you can complete on your own by using the skills taught in the chapter. You can use the practice files available from this book’s website to work through the practice tasks, or you can use your own files.

Features and conventions

This book has been designed to lead you step by step through tasks you’re likely to want to perform in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. The topics are all self-contained, so you can start at the beginning and work your way through all the procedures or reference them independently. If you have worked with previous versions of the apps, or if you complete all the exercises and later need help remembering how to perform a procedure, the following features of this book will help you locate specific information:

• Detailed table of contents Browse the listing of the topics, sections, and sidebars within each chapter.

• Chapter thumb tabs and running heads Identify the pages of each chapter by the thumb tabs on the book’s open fore edge. Find a specific chapter by number or title by looking at the running heads at the top of even-numbered (verso) pages.

• Topic-specific running heads Within a chapter, quickly locate the topic you want by looking at the running heads at the top of odd-numbered (recto) pages.

• Practice tasks page tabs Easily locate the practice tasks at the end of each chapter by looking for the full-page stripe on the book’s fore edge.

• Detailed index Look up coverage of specific tasks and features in the index at the back of the book.

You can save time when reading this book by understanding how the Step by Step series provides procedural instructions and auxiliary information and identifies on-screen and physical elements that you interact with. The following table lists content formatting conventions used in this book.

Download the practice files

Before you can complete the practice tasks in this book, you must download the book’s practice files to your computer from MicrosoftPressStore.com/MSOfficeSBS365/downloads. Follow the instructions on the webpage.

You can open the files that are supplied for the practice tasks and save the finished versions of each file. If you want to repeat practice tasks later, you can download the original practice files again.

The following table lists the files available for use while working through the practice tasks in this book.

E-book edition

If you’re reading the e-book edition of this book, you can do the following:

• Search the full text

• Print

• Copy and paste

You can purchase and download the e-book edition from the Microsoft Press Store at MicrosoftPressStore.com/MSOfficeSBS365/detail.

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