Microsoft Office 2000 User Specialist Study Guide

You may not have known this, but there are professional certifications for computer users as well as programmers and administrators. The Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS) rating tells potential employers that your skills as a user of the Microsoft Office 2000 programs (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, PowerPoint, FrontPage, and PhotoDraw) have been tested and proven. With proof of your skills in hand, you don't have to expect employers to hire you as just another drone computer user. Microsoft Office 2000 User Specialist Study Guide shows you what you need to know to pass the application exams. Though it was written before the exams became final, the material here correlates closely with Microsoft's published exam objectives.

The emphasis in this book, as in the exam objectives, is on procedures. You have to know what steps to follow in order to protect an Excel spreadsheet with a password, say, or print an envelope under Word. The authors typically present an objective and then quickly list the relevant steps (choose this, click that) with a supporting screen shot, where appropriate. They then follow the how-to material with a brief commentary on more exotic variations of the procedure. Each section concludes with a testing protocol similar to those that appear on the exams. In one test, you're asked to create a new PowerPoint presentation, then add various graphical and multimedia elements to it. The authors present a comprehensive statement of the skills expert users have. --David Wall

Topics covered: All concepts, facts, and skills that appear in Microsoft's published exam objectives for the seven Office 2000 Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS) exams.