Word 97 Macro & Vba Handbook

Rating:
Summary: One of the best! Keeps you from blind alleys.
Review: I especially valued the in-depth reminders in Part I - The Keys to Automating Word which takes you back over styles, templates, and automatic features. This was important for me because it reminded me of features that I had forgotten, preventing me from burning hours of midnight oil trying to invent something using VBA that was already built into Word.

Rating:
Summary: A good introduction to the subject but no more.
Review: The book is most useful for users of Microsoft Word who have had some programming experience but are not familiar with the Visual Basic Language. Many chapters are spent in describing basic skills, but the chapters that explain how to use the skills to develop useful applications are cursory. The CD ROM is disappointing in that it simply repeats code in the book that is easily typed in anyway. It could have been useful in providing sophisticated examples of VBA implementation so that readers could see some examples of real-world programming techniques. The book is a good place to start learning VBA, but there is still a need for a more advanced treatment.

Rating:
Summary: I recommend it for beginners and intermediate readers
Review: The ideal audience for this book is a person who is trying to learn Word 97 macros and wants a good introduction into Visual Basic for Applications. This book does not assume you know anything about the topic.

But if you are a Word expert, this book is still very useful to learn Word 97 macros - just skip the first 140 pages on Word concepts and go right into the macro and VBA stuff. There are 650 more pages that cover a lot of ground.

So far I have read through the first half of this book. I have found the explanations clear and straightforward. There are also tutorial exercises to work through, which is a great way to learn.

I would say this book gives a good, thorough treatment of the topic. It will give you the skills to write fairly powerful Word macros. But if you are already an experienced Visual Basic programmer, you may want to look elsewhere for a more technical explanation of advanced topics.