You made the right choice twice: Microsoft Office for Mac and this book.

Take a deep breath and get ready to have a rollicking good time. That’s right — this is a computer book, but it’s fun. What a concept! Whether you’re brand-spanking new to the Office suite or a grizzled Office veteran, we guarantee that reading this book to discover the ins and outs of Office for Mac is fun and easy.

About This Book

Why write a For Dummies book about Office for Mac? Well, Office for Mac is a big, somewhat complicated suite of productivity applications, so we made Office 2021 For Macs For Dummies a not-so-big, not-so-complicated book that shows you how to perform the most common tasks you’re likely to perform using Office for Mac, all without boring you to tears, confusing you, or poking you with sharp objects.

In fact, we think you’ll be so darned comfortable that we wanted the title to be Office For Macs without Discomfort, the Very Comfortable 2021 Edition, but the publisher wouldn’t allow it. Apparently, we For Dummies authors have to follow some rules, and using For Dummies and Office For Macs in this book’s title are among them.

Speaking of dummies, we don’t think you’re dumb — quite the opposite! Our second choice for this book’s title was Office For Macs For People Smart Enough to Know That They Need Help Using It, but you can just imagine what the Wiley folks thought of that. (“C’mon, that’s the whole point of the name!” they insisted. “Besides, it’s shorter this way.”)

Anyway, the book is chock-full of information and advice, explaining everything you need to know about Office for Mac in language you can understand — along with giving you timesaving tips, tricks, techniques, and step-by-step instructions, all served up in generous quantities.

Foolish Assumptions

Although we know what happens when you make assumptions, we’ve made a few, anyway. First, we assume that you, gentle reader, know nothing about using Office — beyond knowing what it is, that you want to use it, that you want to understand it without digesting an incomprehensible technical manual, and that you made the right choice by selecting this particular book.

And so we do our best to explain each new concept in full and loving detail. Maybe that’s foolish, but, so be it.

Oh, and we also assume that you can read. If you can’t, just ignore this paragraph.

Icons Used in This Book

Little round pictures (icons) appear to the left side of the text throughout this book. Consider these icons miniature road signs, telling you a little something extra about the subject at hand. Here’s what the different icons look like and what they all mean:

Look for Tip icons to find the juiciest morsels: shortcuts, tips, and undocumented secrets about Office for Mac. Try them all and impress your friends!

When you see this icon, you know that this particular bit is something we think you should memorize (or at least write on your shirt cuff).

Put on your propeller-head beanie and pocket protector; these tidbits include the truly geeky stuff. They’re certainly not required reading, but they must be interesting or informative or else we wouldn’t have wasted your time with them.

Read these notes very, very, very carefully. (Did we say very?) Warning icons flag important information. Neither the authors nor the publisher is responsible if your Mac explodes or spews flaming parts because you ignored a Warning icon. (Just kidding — that type of catastrophe won’t happen.) Macs don’t explode or spew (with the exception of a few choice Michael Spindler–era models — true Apple aficionados will know what we’re talking about). But we got your attention, didn’t we? We tell you again: Read the Warning notes very carefully.

Beyond the Book

There's even more Office for Mac information on www.dummies.com. This book’s cheat sheet shows you how to create automatic replies to senders in Outlook, check documents for accessibility problems, embed fonts in your Word documents and PowerPoint presentations when sharing, and even check the current weather when viewing your Outlook Calendar. To get to the cheat sheet, go to www.dummies.com, and type Office 2021 for Macs For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box. You'll see not only the cheat sheet but any significant updates or changes that occur between editions of this book.

Where to Go from Here

Go to a comfortable spot (preferably not far from a Mac) and look through this book.

In the first few chapters, we describe the basic everyday topics you need to understand to operate your Mac effectively. If you’re new to Macs and Office for Mac, start with Chapters 1–3, which make up Part 1. The discussion in Part 1 is so basic that if you’ve been using Office awhile, you might think you know it all — and you might know most of it. But, hey! Not-so-old-timers need a solid foundation. So read what you need and skip the rest.

What are you waiting for? Go — enjoy the book!