No comments about Exploring: Getting Started with Microsoft Outlook (Grauer Exploring Office 2003 Series).

No comments about Getting Started with Extended Color Basic.

5 comments about Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Word 2000 Automation in 24 Hours (Sams Teach Yourself in 24 Hours Series).

1. I buy as many Office/Word/VBA books as I can get my hands on... You never know where you are going to get that little piece of knowledge that will help. Now you know why I bought this book.

   This book was good, but pretty basic. I expected much more out of it. For what it's worth, I bought this around the same time I bought "Learn Word 2000 VBA Document Automation" - which is a GREAT book on Word programming (probably the only book that shows you how to automate documents in several different ways).

   Anyway, if I were starting out, just learning how to write macros, this would be a great book and would've gotten five stars. I think the title and subject matter are a little deceiving though. It is definitely comprised of introductory material. Happy programming.




2. I am a Visual Basic developer and I bought this book to expand into VBA. The book provides a decent amount of explanation of many topics, but does not go into detail about any of them. Also, the code examples are brief at best and did not help me at all. After working on a project referencing this book for a few days, I was not able to get my Word document automated. I got more help from the MSDN and the Object Browser. If you already know VB, don't bother with this book.



3. I have read this book cover to cover (with my highlighter and pencil at the ready) and I've never been more frustrated in all my life. I work with Word everyday and am looking to automate documents and I can make no sense out of any of it. (Of course, there is a strong possibility that I'm stupid and in over my head - but if you think you're going to learn to create templates and fill-in forms and learn to use If-then-else fields, etc., well, I missed it.)



4. The publisher classifies this book as a "beginning level" on the back cover, so it's hard to complain that this is accurate. However, the web support for the book is gone, and downloads that it draws upon are therefore not available anymore.



5. To be fair, it is not a bad book to learn Word/VBA. The user level is correctly marked as "Beginning", so don't ask too much or criticize too harsh. To learn a new skill, one book is not enough. I like a "simple and easy" book like this to gain the fundamental in less than 3 days, then look for an advanced one. Besides, the source code is still on MCP's Web, but in different place (click SAMS on mcp.com, type the key words of the book title in the search box, you should find it). Lot of readers depends on other people's feedback to decide if they should buy a book, so be responsible to your "review". By the way, I am not the author's friend and not affiliated with MCP, SAMS, or Amazon. I am a reader who knows how difficult to find a "right" book, and don't like to see anybody be mislead.

5 comments about Developing Visual Basic Add-ins.

1. With great excitement I purchased this book, when thumbing through it in the store it looked really promising. It truly does give alot more information than MS does, but it still leaves you confused a bit. The object models are shrugged off to very little commentary and figuring out the complexities of manipulating objects within a large program is not even touched. I had hoped that this topic had finally gotten serious consideration, it appears that this was only meant to be an intro book. I would highly recommend it if you only want to know what an add-in is, but if you want to do some serious programming with addins, you'll need alot more than this book.



2. This book is very clear and well-written. I like Steven Roman's books because they cut through the fog and get down to the essential CONCEPTS. Some of the other reviewers seem to think the book should take them by the hand and do everything in the world for them. I, for one, and tired of bloated 1,000-page plus tomes where you can't see the forest for the trees. What I like about this book is the focus on the ideas.



3. Like others, I purchased this book because I was tired of screwing up my face at the pathetic Microsoft documentation.

   Dr. Roman's explanations and sample code got right to the heart of the matter. Major kudos...




4. I was originally going to give this book 3 stars, but after reading the author's retaliatory comments, the best I could offer is a 2 (and I will never buy one of his books again - crybaby).

   Mr. Roman's earlier book, Learn Word Programming, was excellent. Naturally, this lead me to believe that this book would be just as good. It wasn't.

   I try to suggest other books in my reviews, but there aren't many that cover this exact topic. You might want to check "Learn Word 2000 VBA Document Automation", it has a few projects in there, but they are mainly concerned with Word. Other than that, I guess we will just have to wait for awhile.




5. A highly lucid text indeed on a topic area that not many writers have even attempt to get to grips with. After writing this text, I began to create add-in from memory. It's a shame there aren't more books like it.

No comments about Visual Basic Power Toolkit: Cutting-Edge Tools and Techniques for Programmers/Book and Cd-Rom.

No comments about Microsoft Visual Basic Workshop: Version 3.0/Windows Edition (Microsoft Programming Series).

3 comments about Microsoft Office 97 Visual Basic Language Reference.

1. This five-volume set is a good reference work for VBA programmers and Office developers in general. However, the Outlook section has a serious flaw: it documents the wrong version of Visual Basic. Outlook uses VB Script, not VBA, and all the examples in the Outlook section of this manual set are written in VBA, many using named constants and language elements that will not run in VB Script



2. I bought this only to return it a few hours later. It contains exactly the same text as the VBA help files included with office. So if you want to spend $120 for a printed version of the help files that you got for free, go right ahead. It doesn't even have an index.



3. Yes, this is the online help files on paper. No, there is nothing more here than the help files.

   However, if you are serious about programming, you don't have all of the MS Office 97 references memorized, (and are still unable to get the Win98 multiple monitor technology to work,) this reference source is for you.

   Nothing extra, just the language references in black and white. Where you can use them--off the screen--not in front of your programming environment. Thanks Microsoft!--from those of us who still like to multi-task on and off the system.

4 comments about The Complete Visual Basic 6 Training Course: Student.

1. This is an absolutely great book on Visual Basic 6. It covers the subject well and it has lots of useful code examples and exercises and stuff to help you learn. The problem I have with this package that includes the cdrom Multimedia Cyber Classroom is that it is nothing more than reading the book on screen. I find it punishing to sit in front of a computer screen to read for long periods and would much rather just read the book lying around on the couch or something. The presentation of the multimedia CD is great and it's a powerful presentation that lets you walk through the code examples on screen and even download them to disk. However, you can download the code from their website or even better, type it in yourself (I prefer this because it gets you in the habit of doing things because of the repetition) and run in with the book in front of you. Save some money and just buy the book alone and don't be so lazy...



2. After reading the book through twice, I have found it not only confusing but positivly frustrating. There is no way to follow the code examples straight out of the book and expect them to run in the normal compiler. You MUST use the CD which is poorly laid out and a simulation of a vb enviornment. Code Explaination was cryptic, and Examples although ample were useless because they would not compile. This is the second Deitel book I have read in the past 6 months and both were a poor experience. Even the instructor sent us out to find a better book.



3. Too many books on vb concetrate too much on the interface, rather than on decent code. There is no use in fancy, flashy gui's with poor code behind it. The first half of the book gives you the foundation you need to write good vb code. There are also challenging excercises, too many books stay with "easy" excercises and thereby give the illusion that you master the material, this book keeps you modest.The second part of the book covers subjects to more advanced topics of vb, but not in depth. A negative point is the terrible color used in the book.



4. Pretty good introduction to VB, but programming experience is recommended before attempting VB. Like others have said, the CD is unnecessary and basically is the same as the examples and text in the book. The only nice thing about the CD is you can run the example programs from the book, but it's not that big of a deal. Sometimes there is too much detail, and at other times there is too little, warranting the 4 star rating. Deitel hasn't failed me yet with programming scripture.

No comments about A Primer of Lisrel: Basic Applications and Programming for Confirmatory Factor Analytic Models.

No comments about Compute!'s First Book of Vic.