This book is essential for desktop publishing
I first read this book years ago as required reading for an employer and I will continue to share its guiding techniques with others. This should be required reading for anyone who does any kind of desktop publishing.... especially supposed professional pieces!! I would love to see Robin update it as some of the computer application references are quite outdated.
I say the emperor has no clothes
I'm surprised so many people have bought into Robin Williams's edict that two spaces after the end of a sentence (and after a colon) is somehow no longer necessary. In fact, a single space in a proportionally spaced font is quite narrow, compared to a single space in a monospaced font where every character is the same width.
Typing with proportionally spaced fonts started with the advent of the IBM Executive typewriter back in the 1950's. Though the machines used individual type bars and not a unified font "element," characters came in varying widths. The machines had a split space bar giving either a wide or a narrow space. The wide space (left thumb)was used after a sentence or after a colon. The narrow space (right thumb) was used between words in a sentence, after a comma or semicolon.
I really don't care what typesetters do or don't do. I'm a secretary. When I see MSWord documents printed out where the typist has used a single space between sentences, it looks crowded and is more difficult to read, and I always infer the typist never learned the rules of typing.
I also note that I am a constant reader. I just got through reading the latest Sue Grafton mystery novel "T is for Trespass," in hard binding. So I grabbed the book to check the spacing between sentences and, lo and behold, the spacing between sentences (after a period, question mark, exclamation point or closing quotation mark) is double the spacing between words within the sentence, and it looks exactly right that way. Typesetters do, in fact, use more space between sentences than between words within a sentence, which is why properly trained typists have done it forever and still do, Ms. Williams revisionist rules notwithstanding.
The PC may not be a typewriter, but the vast majority of the rules typists have always followed still apply. What's changed is those things you couldn't do on typewriters. Underscoring replaced italicizing things such as titles of books, because typewriters couldn't shift into italics. Now, when using a word processing program, we can italicize, so we should no longer be using underscoring instead. Typewriters had hyphens, but not dashes, so, once upon a time, when typing, we had to use a double hyphen for a dash with no spacing around it, or, alternatively, a hyphen with a space on either side of it. Now we can actually use n-dashes and m-dashes as appropriate. (Though, unfortunately, nowadays I sometimes see dashes used when a hyphen is called for, such as in the middle of a local phone number.)
I admit, I'm old school. I still spell "restaurateur" without an "n" in it when almost everyone is using "restauranteur," which didn't used to be a word. I don't think "alright" is all right. Strange as it has always been, I still spell "supersede" without a "c" in it. And I still put two spaces between sentences when typing, because a single space isn't enough, and I don't like this book for suggesting otherwise.
Robin WIlliams sets the future archetype for technology training
I cannot say enough good things about this woman's writing. She breaks the normal rules of teaching by rote, instead helps to impart a holistic understanding of the pros and cons of the technology, and thus it becomes obvious how to use it to the best effect. I have taught seminars using her books as reference materials, and recommend that everyone should own this book who uses a computer. Most people today learn technology by rote, this does not give a person the understanding necessary to face different software versions, or even different challenges that pop up everyday in the workplace. Many books written on technology are only good as doorstops, as they perpetuate the step by step learning by rote crap. This book, very thin and unassuming in it's length, get's in a user's brain like yeast and expands to help them to be able to comprehend WHY things work the way they do. I hope she writes a lot more books, especially one for Windows users, like her Little Mac Book. She deserves to be famous, successful, and prosperous.
Very outdated but still of some use for beginners
I did pick up one or two useful hints in this book. If you haven't managed to figure out for yourself that two spaces after a full stop (period) just looks plain stupid, then you will probably get a lot of utility from this book. As other reviewers have said - it is extremely short and light on content - you'll probably read the whole thing in an hour.
My main beef with this book is that it is very outdated. It contains solutions for many issues which are now handled automatically by modern operating systems and packages. There is constant mention of packages and keyboard shortcuts for programs that just don't exist anymore, many not even in the memories of most people (does anyone remember Ventura Publisher?)
The copyright notice at the front says 1992, and no printing date was listed. Surely after 14 years and selling so many copies Peachpit Press would have a bright idea to update this book for the present day? Different issues to examine and different ways to generate certain characters. If they had done this I would have found the book three times as useful.
Useful but an extremely short book
Not counting the introduction and appendices, the content is less than 50 pages. There are excellent tips for making a document appear more attractive and some nice "before" and "after" images are provided. Some tips are obvious for proficient users, like use tabs instead of spaces for indenting. That was the case for me, and I found this book to be overpriced for what I got out of it.
(15 reviews)
