arouet.net | where tomorrow’s technology meets yesterday’s genius

TO ASK A QUESTION: If you have a question or need help with Office, please feel free to use the 'Click to Contact' link at the bottom of this page. You'll get a form that you can use to email a question to me. (I had been getting a ton of spam when accepting direct emails, so only emails that use this form will get through to me.)

Please be sure to mention the version of Office you are using when you send your question.

I answer all e-mails that I receive via this form, as long as they are polite :)

Since disabling comments on this site, I'm actually hearing from more of you with questions ... so, as it seems people prefer to email rather than comment, I'm going to leave comments disabled. As always, you can ask me any Office-related questions you have. If the question is outside of my expertise, I'll try to direct you to where you can get an answer.

Follow-up to today's dynamic content webcast

January 24, 2008

Hi, everyone! Well, if you attended today's webcast on getting content into and out of your Office 2007 documents, you know that we had some technical difficulties at the end and weren't able to quite finish - including answering some questions and giving you the promised additional resources.

I have received some of your questions in email and will reply to all of those tomorrow (Friday). If you still have a question to ask - just use the Click to Contact link at the bottom of this page to send me an email.

As for the resources ...

- As mentioned at the start of today's demo, if you have my Office 2007 book (Advanced Documents Inside Out), it contains instruction on how to do everything we looked at today, including a detailed primer on Open XML.
If you don't have the book ... you can get a sample chapter posted on my books page - which happens to be one of the topics addressed in today's webcast ... Content Controls. So - to check out that chapter and get more info - see the my books page at left, or click here.

- For a basic-level introduction to the Open XML Formats, including an introduction to what's contained in the ZIP package of an Open XML Format document - you can check out the first in a series of Open XML courses I'm writing for Office Online Training. It's free and available to anyone: Open XML I: Exploring the Open XML Formats
(The second course in that series - which walks you through basic editing tasks, including replacing images as I demonstrated today - is currently in editing and will hopefully be published pretty soon.)

- To learn more about Office developer technologies in general, including Open XML, check out the Office Developer Center on MSDN. This is a terrific site - it's directed at developers, but there are really good get started pages and a terrific interactive developer map to help you find information easily even if you're just dipping your toe into customization and extensibility options... Office Developer Center

- For a great many resources on new Office 2007 content on every level - check out the genius resources link in the left hand navigation pane on this page, or click here.

*************************************************

If you need an answer that you don't find at one of the links above - or need a resource for something I've not mentioned ... please use the click to contact link below and send me a request.

I also want to mention that we will be re-recording the webcast next week, and then updating the on-demand version you can watch online so that you can see the entire demo without the abrupt cut-off near the end. If you attended today's session, you should get an email when that's posted. But, I'll also post here to let you know when that is available.

Meanwhile - happy Thursday everyone!!

Posted by Stephanie at 06:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

MacWorld and Mac Office 2008

January 18, 2008

Hello all! Well, I was remiss and neglected to post that I'd be away this week ... so if you've sent me questions, I'll reply to those when I return next week.

I've been in San Francisco this week, presenting at MacWorld 2008 about the brand new Office 2008 for Mac. Microsoft launched Office 2008 at the show this week and it's been so much fun to be a part of that. I've had the opportunity to meet many terrific people this week - and had a great time talking with Office users about the way they use the programs and what they can do with the new functionality.

I built the templates that you'll see in Word 2008 and many of the themes you'll see in PowerPoint and Office 2008 ... so I've been working in Office 2008 for quite awhile - and there are some pretty incredible new tools you may want to know about. Check out the Office for Mac website, mactopia.com, for info -- and to check out some of the presentations from MacWorld. The presentations I've been giving this week will be posted there soon, but some other really excellent presentations are already there.

Meanwhile ... you'll find more links about Office 2008 on my links page ... And for those of you who attended my Open XML FIle Formats or Beautiful Documents Made Simple presentations here at MacWorld and want to learn more about the Open XML FIle formats -- you can find links for that as well.

... I look forward to catching up on your questions as soon as I return. Meanwhile - happy Friday and happy weekend everybody!

Posted by Stephanie at 01:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Happy New Year (a bit belated)

January 07, 2008

Hi, everyone! Hope you all had a lovely and relaxing holiday. I just realized I've actually gone a month without a post - which is a personal worst for me :(

I neglected to post that I'd be offline over the holidays, but so I was ... so if you have sent me a help request using the Click To Contact form and it went unanswered, feel free to resend it. I do think I've caught up now, and believe I caught everyone ... but in case I did miss you, go ahead and ping me again.

I'll post something more interesting as soon as I can :) Meanwhile - HAPPY MONDAY everybody!

Posted by Stephanie at 08:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)