Microsoft Office is the most widely used productivity software in the world, but most people just know the basics. This helpful guide gets you started with the programs in Office 2013, and provides lots of power-user tips and tricks when you’re ready for more. You’ll learn about Office’s new templates and themes, touchscreen features, and other advances, including Excel’s Quick Analysis tool. The important stuff you need to know: Create professional-looking documents. Use Word to craft reports, newsletters, and brochures for the Web and desktop. Stay organized. Set up Outlook to track your email, contacts, appointments, and tasks. Work faster with Excel. Determine the best way to present your data with the new Quick Analysis tool. Make inspiring presentations. Build PowerPoint slideshows with video and audio clips, charts and graphs, and animations. Share your Access database. Design a custom database and let other people view it in their web browsers. Get to know the whole suite. Use other handy Office tools: Publisher, OneNote, and a full range of Office Web Apps. Create and share documents in the cloud. Upload and work with your Office files in Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

The world’s most popular spreadsheet program is now more powerful than ever, but it’s also more complex. That’s where this Missing Manual comes in. With crystal-clear explanations and hands-on examples, Excel 2013: The Missing Manual shows you how to master Excel so you can easily track, analyze, and chart your data. You’ll be using new features like PowerPivot and Flash Fill in no time. The important stuff you need to know: Go from novice to ace. Learn how to analyze your data, from writing your first formula to charting your results. Illustrate trends. Discover the clearest way to present your data using Excel’s new Quick Analysis feature. Broaden your analysis. Use pivot tables, slicers, and timelines to examine your data from different perspectives. Import data. Pull data from a variety of sources, including website data feeds and corporate databases. Work from the Web. Launch and manage your workbooks on the road, using the new Excel Web App. Share your worksheets. Store Excel files on SkyDrive and collaborate with colleagues on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Master the new data model. Use PowerPivot to work with millions of rows of data. Make calculations. Review financial data, use math and scientific formulas, and perform statistical analyses.

Get up to speed on Microsoft Project 2013 and learn how to manage projects large and small. This crystal-clear book not only guides you step-by-step through Project 2013’s new features, it also gives you real-world guidance: how to prep a project before touching your PC, and which Project tools will keep you on target. With this Missing Manual, you’ll go from project manager to Project master. The important stuff you need to know Learn Project 2013 inside out. Get hands-on instructions for the Standard and Professional editions. Start with a project management primer. Discover what it takes to handle a project successfully. Build and refine your plan. Put together your team, schedule, and budget. Achieve the results you want. Build realistic schedules with Project, and learn how to keep costs under control. Track your progress. Measure your performance, make course corrections, and manage changes. Create attractive reports. Communicate clearly to stakeholders and team members using charts, tables, and dashboards. Use Project’s power tools. Customize Project’s features and views, and transfer info via the cloud, using Microsoft SkyDrive.

Unlock the secrets of Access 2013 and discover how to use your data in creative ways. With this book’s easy step-by-step instructions, you’ll learn how to build and maintain a full-featured database and even turn it into a web app. You also get tips and practices from the pros for good database design—ideal whether you’re using Access for business, school, or at home. The important stuff you need to know Build a database with ease. Organize and update lists, documents, catalogs, and other types of information. Create your own web app. Let your whole team work on a database in the cloud. Share your database on a network. Link your Access database to SQL Server or SharePoint. Customize the interface. Make data entry a breeze by building your own templates Find what you need fast. Search, sort, and summarize huge amounts of data in minutes. Put your info to use. Turn raw info into well-formatted printed reports. Dive into Access programming. Automate complex tasks and solve common challenges.

Big and small projects alike include schedules, budgets, communications, and changes. This guide teaches readers how to track and adjust schedules and budgets, test scenarios, and understand the impact of changes.

This second edition of the bestselling Learning XML provides web developers with a concise but grounded understanding of XML (the Extensible Markup Language) and its potential-- not just a whirlwind tour of XML.The author explains the important and relevant XML technologies and their capabilities clearly and succinctly with plenty of real-life projects and useful examples. He outlines the elements of markup--demystifying concepts such as attributes, entities, and namespaces--and provides enough depth and examples to get started. Learning XML is a reliable source for anyone who needs to know XML, but doesn't want to waste time wading through hundreds of web sites or 800 pages of bloated text.For writers producing XML documents, this book clarifies files and the process of creating them with the appropriate structure and format. Designers will learn what parts of XML are most helpful to their team and will get started on creating Document Type Definitions. For programmers, the book makes syntax and structures clear. Learning XML also discusses the stylesheets needed for viewing documents in the next generation of browsers, databases, and other devices.Learning XML illustrates the core XML concepts and language syntax, in addition to important related tools such as the CSS and XSL styling languages and the XLink and XPointer specifications for creating rich link structures. It includes information about three schema languages for validation: W3C Schema, Schematron, and RELAX-NG, which are gaining widespread support from people who need to validate documents but aren't satisfied with DTDs. Also new in this edition is a chapter on XSL-FO, a powerful formatting language for XML. If you need to wade through the acronym soup of XML and start to really use this powerful tool, Learning XML, will give you the roadmap you need.

Puzzles and brain twisters to keep your mind sharp and your memory intact are all the rage today. More and more people -- Baby Boomers and information workers in particular -- are becoming concerned about their gray matter's ability to function, and with good reason. As this sensible and entertaining guide points out, your brain is easily your most important possession. It deserves proper upkeep. Your Brain: The Missing Manual is a practical look at how to get the most out of your brain -- not just how the brain works, but how you can use it more effectively. What makes this book different than the average self-help guide is that it's grounded in current neuroscience. You get a quick tour of several aspects of the brain, complete with useful advice about: Brain Food: The right fuel for the brain and how the brain commands hunger (including an explanation of the different chemicals that control appetite and cravings) Sleep: The sleep cycle and circadian rhythm, and how to get a good night's sleep (or do the best you can without it) Memory: Techniques for improving your recall Reason: Learning to defeat common sense; logical fallacies (including tactics for winning arguments); and good reasons for bad prejudices Creativity and Problem-Solving: Brainstorming tips and thinking not outside the box, but about the box -- in other words, find the assumptions that limit your ideas so you can break through them Understanding Other People's Brains: The battle of the sexes and babies developing brains Learn about the built-in circuitry that makes office politics seem like a life-or-death struggle, causes you to toss important facts out of your memory if they're not emotionally charged, and encourages you to eat huge amounts of high-calorie snacks. With Your Brain: The Missing Manual you'll discover that, sometimes, you can learn to compensate for your brain or work around its limitations -- or at least to accept its eccentricities. Exploring your brain is the greatest adventure and biggest mystery you'll ever face. This guide has exactly the advice you need.

Microsoft Project is brimming with features to help you manage any project, large or small. But learning the software is only half the battle. What you really need is real-world guidance: how to prep your project before touching your PC, which Project tools work best, and which ones to use with care. This book explains it all, helping you go from project manager to project master. Get a project management primer. Discover what it takes to handle a project successfully Learn the program inside out. Get step-by-step instructions for Project Standard and Project Professional Build and refine your plan. Put together your team, schedule, and budget Achieve the results you want. Build realistic schedules, and learn how to keep costs under control Track your progress. Measure your performance, make course corrections, and manage changes Use Project's power tools. Customize Project's features and views, and transfer info directly between Project and other programs

Among its many amazing applications, Google now has web-based alternatives to many of the applications in Microsoft Office. This comprehensive and easy-to-follow new book enables you to explore Google's new office applications in detail. Once you do, you'll be in good company -- more than 100,000 small businesses and some corporations are already looking to take advantage of these free Google offerings. Google Apps: The Missing Manual teaches you how to use three relatively new applications from Google: "Docs and Spreadsheets", which provide many of the same core tools that you find in Word and Excel; and Google Calendar and Gmail, the applications that offer an alternative to Outlook. This book demonstrates how these applications together can ease your ability to collaborate with others, and allow you access to your documents, mail and appointments from any computer at any location. Of course, as remarkable as these applications are, Google's office suite is definitely a work-in-progress. Navigating what you can and can't do and -- more importantly -- understanding how to do it isn't always easy. And good luck finding enough help online. Google Apps: The Missing Manual is the one book you need to get the most out of this increasingly useful part of the Google empire. This book: Explains how to create, save and share each of Google's web-based office applications Offers separate sections for Docs and Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, and Gmail Demonstrates how to use these applications in conjunction with one another Gives you crystal-clear and jargon-free explanations that will satisfy users of all technical levels Many of you already use Gmail, but do you know its full potential? Do you know how you can increase its power by using Gmail with Doc and Spreadsheets and Google Calendar? You'll find out with Google Apps: The Missing Manual. You'll also come to understand why large corporations such as General Electric and Proctor & Gamble are taking a long, hard look at these applications.

Microsoft's Windows Vista is the much-anticipated successor to the Windows XP operating system. David Pogue offers help for using the system with this manual.