BKMO97RK.RVW   990410

"Microsoft Office 97 Resource Kit", Microsoft, 1997, 1-57231-329-3,
U$59.99/C$80.99/UK#56.49
%A   Microsoft ork97@microsoft.com
%C   1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA   98052-6399
%D   1997
%G   1-57231-329-3
%I   Microsoft Press
%O   U$59.99/C$80.99/UK#56.49 800-MSPRESS www.microsoft.com/mspress
%P   1151 p. + CD-ROM
%T   "Microsoft Office 97 Resource Kit"

Unlike the other Resource Kits, this one is not intended for users of
the base products, as such.  The Office 97 Resource Kit is meant for
administrators and support personnel, and provides tools for
installation, configuration, conversion, and other support,
particularly in a networked environment.

Part one is an introduction and chapter one is a very brief outline of
the book.  New features of Office are presented in chapter two.

Part two looks at deploying Office in a (very) large scale enterprise. 
Chapter three outlines a complete but very lengthy program for
everything from purchasing to training.  Various methods of
installation are described in chapter four while five quickly lists
system requirements.  Customization of installation and the product
itself is looked at in chapters six and seven respectively.  Chapter
eight discusses training and support needs.  Some detailed information
for installation troubleshooting is given in chapter nine.

Part three concerns upgrading to Office.  Chapter ten reviews changes
(including those of interest to people developing their own
applications that work with Office programs) to Office overall. 
Chapters eleven through fifteen look in detail at Access, Excel,
Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word.

The same sequence of chapters is used in part four to look at
switching from other applications.  Each chapter starts with some
general discussion, and then works through specific topics with major
competing programs.  Not all of this material is well chosen.  The
book seems to think that WordPerfect users need a tutorial in how to
select text.

Part five again looks at large institutions, this time with a view to
management and workgroup functions.  A fair amount of space is given
to Web and network sharing functions as well.

Part six seems to promise to look at internals of the programs, and
would be, again, more helpful to technical support people or possibly
developers of add-on software.  In fact, the material presented covers
advanced features of the programs, but only that.

For support personnel in a large organization, much of this material
could be quite useful.  Some of the pointers and tips could also be
helpful to very advanced users of the applications, but probably in a
much more limited way.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999   BKMO97RK.RVW   990410