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Last updated 28 October 2008.

On this page:
Books for a very incomplete collection of tools is covered. I can’t begin to keep up with the tools that technical communicators are using, especially since most of them are Windows-based and I no longer use Windows.
Adobe Acrobat
Adobe FrameMaker
Microsoft Office
OpenOffice.org

See also the page on graphics for graphics tools.

Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat 8 Classroom in a Book
Adobe Press, 2007, 528pp+CD, ISBN 0321470850.
Order from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Adobe Acrobat 8 PDF Bible, by Ted Padova
Wiley, 2007, 1085pp+CD, ISBN 978-0470050514.
Order from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Note: Many free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat are available; if you do not need high-end pre-press capabilities, one of the alternatives may suit you. OpenOffice.org (see below) has quite a good built-in PDF creator.

Adobe FrameMaker

Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8, by Sarah O’Keefe et al.
Scriptorium Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0970473349.
Order from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Adobe FrameMaker 7.0 Classroom in a Book, by Adobe Creative Team
Adobe Press, 2002, ISBN 0321131681.
Order from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
FrameMaker 7: The Complete Reference, by Sarah O’Keefe and Sheila A. Loring
McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2002, ISBN 0072223618.
Order from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Microsoft Office

Special Edition Using Microsoft Office 2003, by Ed Bott and Woody Leonhard
Que, 2003, 1400pp+CD, ISBN 0789729555. Excellent introduction to Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, FrontPage, and PhotoDraw, and how they all fit together, written at an intermediate to advanced level. Comes with a CD containing, among other things, Woody’s Office Power Pack (WOPR), which has many goodies in it.
Order from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Special Edition Using Microsoft Office 2007, by Ed Bott and Woody Leonhard
Que, 2006, 1020pp, ISBN 978-0789735171.
Order from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Special Edition Using Microsoft Word 2003, by Bill Camarda and Neil Randall
Que, 2003, 1248pp+CD, ISBN 078972958X. Includes a lot more intermediate to advanced detail that could fit into a book on Office 2003. If you mostly use Word, and rarely need to get into the nitty-gritty of the other Office applications, this book is probably your preferred purchase, if you (or your company) aren’t willing to buy both books. (Que also publishes special editions for the other major components of Office 2003.)
Order from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Special Edition Using Microsoft Word 2007, by Faithe Wempen et al.
Que, 2006, 1104pp, ISBN 978-0789736086.
Order from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org is the free, open source alternative to Microsoft Office. It runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other operating systems. It is my preferred office suite, and I am one of the volunteer authors/editors of the user guides for the program. These books are not available through Amazon.com, although an earlier version of the Getting Started guide is there.

OpenOffice.org 3 was released in October 2008. It is much improved, with some great new features. You can get OOo version 3 from the OpenOffice.org website. Take it for a test drive. If you like it, keep it! No license fees or other charges.

Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3 by OOoAuthors Team
Friends of OpenDocument, 2008, ISBN 978-1-921320-05-7.
Order a printed copy, or download a free PDF, from the publisher.
Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 2.x by OOoAuthors Team
4th Edition, Friends of OpenDocument, 2007, ISBN 978-1-921320-04-0.
Order a printed copy, or download a free PDF, from the publisher.
OpenOffice.org 2.x Writer Guide by OOoAuthors Team
3rd Edition, Friends of OpenDocument, 2007, ISBN 978-1-921320-00-2.
Order a printed copy, or download a free PDF, from the publisher. Other volumes in the series are also available.
OpenOffice.org 2 Guidebook by Solveig Haugland
2006, ISBN 978-0974312026. The author also has a great blog of tips for using OpenOffice. org.
Order from Amazon.com or from the publisher.

Here is a list of other books on OpenOffice.org, many of them from small publishers or training companies.


Amazon.co.uk gift certificates

Amazon.com gift certificates

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