Maria’s Guides

Get brand new books for less than $5 each.

When I moved my office back into my house six months ago, I traded three rooms of space for one. In a way, that’s good. It means I can accumulate less junk. But it also means I have less room to store the author copies of books I’ve written.

Author copies are a number of free copies of an author’s book that the publisher gives to the author for free. The idea is to give the author copies he/she can spread around on speaking gigs and to clients. I don’t do many speaking gigs anymore and I don’t do any consulting, so I don’t have clients. As a result, I’m usually stuck with about half the author copies I get.

I need room in my closet, so I’m giving away a bunch of books. Here’s the catch. To get a book:

• You must have a mailing address in the U.S. (Sorry, but I’m not willing to deal with the post office’s paperwork for overseas shipping.)
• You must cover the cost of shipping, handling, and packaging. I’ve calculated that at various flat fee rates, depending on the size of the book. The most you’d pay is $4.95.

To make things easy, I’ve set up Buy Now buttons that work with PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can contact me with the names of the books you want and I’ll send you a fax number to fax in credit card information. You can also contact me if you want more than one copy of a title; I can probably get you a better deal on shipping than the flat rate per book.

I have a limited number of copies of these books. They will be distributed on a first come, first served basis based on when I get payment. I cannot hold books to wait for payment. As I run out of books, I’ll remove them from this list. So if it isn’t listed, it isn’t available here. When they’re all gone, I’ll remove this post. If I have new titles to give away, I’ll add them to this post.

If you’d like to have the book autographed — after all, why not? — you can use a field in the PayPal form to enter the name of the person you want it autographed to. It makes a unique gift.

There’s just one book left:

Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide

ISBN 0-321-30457-8

Computer Platform: Mac OS X Only

Retail Price: $21.99 US

You Pay Shipping Only: $4.95

Information from Microsoft’s Web Site.

This update fixes an issue with beta expiration functionality. The issue causes the converter application to become unusable well ahead of its intended expiration date. This update is highly recommended for all users of the Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 0.1 (Beta).

With the Office Open XML Converter, you can convert Office Open XML files to a format that is compatible with Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac and Microsoft Office v. X for Mac. You can choose to convert and open one file, or convert a large number of files.

More information on Microsoft’s Web Site.

Oh. Gee. Thanks.

I got an e-mail message from my editor, Cliff, today. He wanted me to send him a Word 2007 file to test a converter on his Mac.

I don’t use Word 2007 regularly. That’s a Windows program. I’m primarily a Mac user. I still use Word 2004 on my Mac. But I do have Office 2007 installed on my Windows PC, which is running Vista. I needed it to write about Excel 2007 for Windows. Of course, Word is part of the Office 2007 package, so I had that, too. I guess no one else at Peachpit does. But that doesn’t surprise me, because Peachpit is a publisher and uses mostly Macs.

I fired up my PC, started Word, and created a short document with some formatted text. I saved it to my Public folder, which I then opened from my Mac. I called Cliff into iChat, I pasted the document’s icon into iChat, and sent it to Cliff.

The whole time I was wondering why I didn’t know that Word 2007 for Windows files couldn’t be opened from Word 2004 for Macintosh. Could it be because my Word for Windows books were not revised for Word 2007? (Too many other Word books out there.)

The Converter

Cliff sent me a link for more information about the converter. I followed it to an entry on the Mac Mojo blog, “Mac Mojo : Get converted“:

…We are developing the product [Office] for versions beyond 2008 with broad investment in native Mac OS X architecture as well as adoption of a new, next generation document format: Office Open XML.

We’ve made great progress, and as previously promised we’re releasing some of this new functionality in a form that you can start using right away: Beta release #1 of the Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac is now available for download.

So the converter is just a beta.

I followed the link and found myself on the Microsoft Macintosh Downloads page. A link marked Office File Format Converter Beta (Word) brought me to a page with details about the converter. The information around the Download link told me that the file was 24.9 MB in size and that it would take 2 hours and 10 minutes to download with a 56K modem. Since I only have a 512K connection to the Internet (remember, I live on the edge of nowhere), I started that download right away.

The resulting file is a disk image that, when opened, displays an installer. When I got the installer going, I was quick to notice that it was installing over 8,000 files on my hard disk. Can I repeat that? Eight thousand files.

What ever happened to plugin-like converters that hid as single files in a specific folder where you could find and delete them when you had to?

The application, which is only 3.9 MB in size, is installed in the Applications folder. I double-clicked it, saw a little information screen that told me what it did, and was presented with the Office Converter window. I dragged the Word 2007 file I’d created for Cliff into the window, and waited. About 3 seconds later, I was told that the conversion was successful. (The test file had 18 words in it and two kinds of formatting were applied to some of them.)

The test file was not converted to a Word 2004 format file. That might make too much sense. Instead, it was converted to an RTF file. When I opened it, I found all formatting intact. There was also a blank area for a header and footer, which I didn’t even know RTF supported. Here’s what it looks like in TextEdit.

Why the Wait?

If you can read the sarcasm in this post — I really have tried to tone it down — it’s because I don’t understand why Microsoft had to change Word’s file format in the first place. I also can’t understand why they waited nearly five months from Office 2007’s initial release to come up with a converter for Mac users and the rest of the world. Remember, Word for Mac users aren’t the only ones who can’t read the new Word 2007 format; none of the existing Word converters for Mac and Windows work for Word 2007 files.

Perhaps Microsoft believes that its user base should take the extra effort to save files in previous Word formats when they need to share with non 2007 users. If so, Microsoft needs to understand that the average user doesn’t know the first thing about the type options available in the Save As dialog — no matter how many authors write about it. They save it in the default format and they’re done. What’s worse is that if they open a document created in an older format and attempt to save it with a different name, Word defaults to the new format, then displays a dialog that could easily confuse many users.

In case you can’t read that (I had to reduce its size to fit it in the text column here), it says:

You are about to save your document to one of the new file formats. This action will allow you to use all the new features in Word 2007, but may cause changes in the layout of the document.

Click OK to continue, or click Cancel and select the “Maintain compatibility with Word 97-2003″ checkbox to preserve the layout of your document.

So you do click OK and possibly have changes in the document’s layout? Or do you miss out on the new features? And what about Word 2004 for Macintosh?

Word 2004 isn’t even mentioned here. But if you use the Word 97-2003 format, Word 2004 on a Mac can open the file. (Why didn’t they just call it Word 97-2004 format?)

More Testing Needed

Obviously an 18-word file is not much of a test. But I don’t have any very complex files created with Word 2007 to run through the converter. If I do get some time to create and test a complex Word 2007 file with the converter, you can read about it here.

Information from the Microsoft Web site.

This update contains several improvements to enhance security and stability, including fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code. In addition, this update includes all the improvements released in all previous Office 2004 updates.

System requirements

To install this update, your computer must meet the following minimum requirements:

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.2.8 (Jaguar) or a later version of Mac OS

Improvements for all Office 2004 applications

• Security is improved
  This update fixes vulnerabilities in Office 2004 that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code.
• Performance is improved when dragging objects to application windows
  This update fixes an issue that causes an increase in utilization of system resources when you drag a file or object to an Office application window.

Improvements for Word 2004

• Version numbers display correctly
  This update fixes an issue that prevents Word from displaying its complete version number in the About Word dialog (for example, 11.3.5).

Improvements for Excel 2004

• Reliability is improved
  This update fixes one issue that, when you open Excel, causes the application to unexpectedly open workbooks or other files.

Improvements for PowerPoint 2004

• Stability is improved
  This update fixes an issue that causes PowerPoint to quit unexpectedly when opening presentations.

Improvements for Entourage 2004

• Performance is improved
  This update fixes an issue that caused Entourage to stop responding for several minutes during ordinary use.

More information

If you have technical questions or problems downloading or using this update, visit the Microsoft Support page at www.microsoft.com/mac/support to learn about the support options that are available to you.

Information from the Microsoft Web site.

This update contains several improvements to enhance security and stability, including fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code.

System requirements

Before you install this update, make sure that the Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.3 Update is installed on your computer. To verify that you have installed this update, select the Microsoft Component Plugin file in the Microsoft Office 2004/Office folder on your hard disk, and then on the File menu, click Get Info.

Additionally, your computer must meet the following minimum requirements:

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.2.8 (Jaguar) or a later version of Mac OS

Note: To verify that your computer meets these minimum requirements, on the Apple menu, click About This Mac.

Improvements for all Office 2004 applications

• Security is improved
  This update fixes vulnerabilities in Office 2004 that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code.

Improvements for Entourage 2004

• Junk e-mail filter list is updated
  This update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac with a more current definition of which e-mail messages are considered junk e-mail.

More information

If you have technical questions or problems downloading or using this update, visit the Microsoft Support page at www.microsoft.com/mac/support to learn about the support options that are available to you.

Information from the Microsoft Office Web Site

This update contains several improvements to enhance security and stability, including fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code. In addition, this update includes all of the improvements released in all previous Office 2004 updates.

System requirements

To install this update, your computer must meet the following minimum requirements:

Operating system: Mac OS X 10.2.8 (Jaguar) or a later version of Mac OS; if you want to use Spotlight, Sync Services, or smart cards, you must be running Mac OS X 10.4.3 (Tiger) or a later version.

Note: To verify that your computer meets these minimum requirements, on the Apple menu, click About This Mac, and then click More Info.

Important note about Exchange mailbox synchronization

This update fixes a synchronization issue in versions of Entourage that were updated with Office 2004 SP2 (11.2.0). The issue might cause data loss when Entourage attempts to synchronize with an Exchange mailbox that was moved to a different Exchange server (by your system administrator, for example). Without this update, folders might appear to be duplicated, and messages, events, and contacts might be deleted the first time Entourage attempts to synchronize with the moved mailbox.

If you notice that your mailbox contains duplicate folders or is missing messages, events, or contacts, your mailbox might be affected by a synchronization issue. Quit Entourage immediately and do not install this update or open Entourage again until after you read Knowledge Base (KB) article KB 909574 on the Microsoft Web site at support.microsoft.com, which contains specific instructions for this situation. In addition, contact your system administrator for assistance. If you do not have these issues in your Exchange mailbox, you can install the update now.

Improvements

The following improvements fix numerous security and stability issues in Office 2004.

Improvements for all Office 2004 applications

• Security is improved.
  This update fixes vulnerabilities in Office 2004 that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code.

Improvements for Word 2004

• Compatibility with RTF documents is improved.
  This update improves compatibility with recent changes to the way Rich Text Format (RTF) documents are created by Microsoft Office Word 2003 for Windows.

Improvements for Excel 2004

• Standard deviation is calculated correctly in PivotTable reports.
  This update fixes an issue that causes standard deviation calculations to produce inaccurate results when the calculations are used in PivotTable reports.

Improvements for Entourage 2004

• Calendar events scheduled on or after March 11, 2007 display correctly in all calendar views.
  This update fixes an issue for users of Mac OS X 10.4.5 or later that causes any calendar event scheduled on or after March 11, 2007 to display on a time slot that is one hour ahead of its original start time. This issue affects all meetings that occur on or after March 11, 2007, including recurring meetings.
• Japanese postal code dictionary is updated.
  The Japanese postal code dictionary is updated with the latest information as of June 2006.

For more information, visit http://www.microsoft.com/mac/autoupdate/description/AUOffice20041133EN.htm