What's New in Microsoft Office 2010

About This Course

Get up to speed on the latest version of Microsoft Office 2010! In these lessons, you'll explore all the new features of Office as you work with Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, and Access databases.

As you master each program, you'll explore both the new 2010 features and those added in 2007. If you're still using Office 2003 or 2007, you'll learn how to transition smoothly to this newer version—and if you're already using Office 2010, you'll discover ways to work more quickly, efficiently, and confidently.

In Word, you'll learn all about the new 2010 File tab. After that, you'll see how to manage your documents in Backstage View and work with the new Picture SmartArt layouts. Then you'll find out how to make your documents more accessible to all users with the Accessibility Checker, and learn how to find anything in your documents quickly with the Navigation pane. Finally, you'll discover that working in a multicultural world is easier than ever with the new Mini Translator.

In Excel, you'll see what the File tab does and find out how to save your worksheet as a PDF file. Next, you'll learn how sparklines let you illustrate your data in a compact format, discover how slicers allow you to summarize data quickly, and delve into brand-new formatting options.

In PowerPoint, we'll look at the new File tab and then move on to SmartArt picture layouts and the new Picture background removal feature. In addition, you'll see how video styles can make your videos look spectacular and how the Transitions tab can make slide show transitions easy. You'll also master new animation effects, examine how to organize long presentations using sections, and learn how to create a video from any PowerPoint presentation.

In Access, you'll learn how to use the new data type parts to quickly add pre-made fields to a database, and explore application parts (which are like templates you can add to your databases). You'll see how Access 2010 lets you use themes in forms and reports, and how you can share your Access tables, forms, and reports by publishing to other formats and exporting objects to the Web.

Before you know it, you'll be using each MS Office 2010 program with ease, accomplishing your work faster, and creating documents that look better than ever!

About The Instructor

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Barbara Clemens.

Barbara Clemens has been a software product manager, editor, writer, and teacher since 1984. She has worked with educational publishers Addison-Wesley and Course Technology to create software textbooks for colleges and universities. She has edited, revised, and written many Microsoft Office texts and has co-authored two textbooks on new versions of Office: Upgrading to Microsoft Office 2007 and Upgrading to Microsoft Office 2010. She holds a B.A. in English, an M.A. in English as a Second Language, and a Masters in Business Administration. She has worked as a university English instructor, computer trainer, and consultant, and is known for teaching computer software using careful, clear, and understandable instructions.

Syllabus

A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week 1

Wednesday - Lesson 01

Microsoft Office 2010 carries on the "new tradition" of Office 2007, with its easier-to-use screen design that features tabs instead of menus and toolbars. In this lesson, you'll get familiar with Word 2010, which can act as a gateway to all of the other Office programs. And in the process, you'll create a simple but great-looking flier.

Friday - Lesson 02

No matter what kind of documents you create in Word, making them attractive will always help to get your message across. So in this lesson, we'll format a report using the new Quick Styles, color and font theme combinations, and some easy art elements. And we'll play with SmartArt, which lets even artistically challenged folks create gorgeous graphics in a snap.

Week 2

Wednesday - Lesson 03

Today's lesson is all about putting the final polish on your Word documents before printing and sending them out. We'll explore a new spelling feature, a new navigation tool, and how to document sources using footnotes and citations. Finally, we'll look at a new translation feature and learn where to find Word settings.

Friday - Lesson 04

Today's lesson is all about Excel! In this lesson, we'll review the Excel ribbon and its various commands. You'll enter and format some data in a simple worksheet. And because calculations are the heart of most worksheets, we'll cover a couple of helpful new formula entry techniques and see how to create a chart!

Week 3

Wednesday - Lesson 05

In this lesson, we'll focus on the appearance of worksheets. We'll look at how cell styles can make data easier to understand, and we'll use themes to change the overall look of a workbook. You'll learn how to format charts with layouts, styles, and special effects that will give each chart a distinctive look. And you'll even learn how to create a special type of chart that summarizes data in a small amount of space. Finally, we'll discuss how conditional formatting can make large amounts of data understandable, so everyone can quickly see the story the data has to tell.

Friday - Lesson 06

If you ever need to manage lists of data, whether names and addresses or inventory lists, this is the lesson for you! Excel now calls lists tables. Today, you'll learn to create and modify tables using new Excel 2010 and 2007 features, including calculated columns. You'll locate and sort data and then find out how to filter it to display only the information you need. Finally, you'll analyze and filter data using PivotTables and slicers. Who knew that analyzing a list of data could be so rich with possibilities?

Week 4

Wednesday - Lesson 07

If you're looking forward to using PowerPoint to persuade people, this lesson is the place to start. We'll begin with a quick tour of the new PowerPoint interface. Then, we'll create a text slide while we get oriented to the screen layout. Next, we'll apply slide layouts and use them to insert and modify graphics. It won't be long before you're using PowerPoint like a pro!

Friday - Lesson 08

In this lesson, we'll learn some of the really neat ways to format text and graphics in PowerPoint. We'll add custom fills, borders, and special effects. Then, we'll customize pictures, including removing backgrounds and adding pizzazz to shapes using 3-D formats. We'll add a video clip, and customize how it will play during the presentation. And finally, we'll add special effects to the video to bring our presentation to life.

Week 5

Wednesday - Lesson 09

Ready to finalize the appearance of your slide show? Today, you'll learn how to change the background of any slide and customize a background using clip art. After setting slide transitions, you'll work on animating slide objects so they enter and exit your slides in visually interesting ways, and we'll discuss using slide show sections to "chop" your presentation into manageable pieces. You'll also learn how to preview handouts so you know what you're getting before you print, and how to save your presentation as a video that you can put on the Web!

Friday - Lesson 10

The final Microsoft Office program we'll examine is Access 2010. You'll explore Access tabs by creating a database and entering a little data. And at the same time, you'll discover how to navigate the ribbon's tabs, and you'll meet database tables, forms, reports, and queries. The Access basics have never been easier!

Week 6

Wednesday - Lesson 11

Did you ever think you could make a database look nice? Well, today you're going to learn how to do just that. In this lesson, we'll focus on new Access tools for formatting datasheets, forms, and reports. To start, we'll see how to perform basic worksheet sorting and filtering. Then, we'll discover how the new Layout View and Office themes make it simple to manipulate our data so it can tell us more in less time. Finally, we'll learn about a great new kind of form and end up with some new ways to work with your report data. You're on your way to being an Access expert!

Friday - Lesson 12

Here in our last lesson, we'll tackle queries, which help you pull important information out of databases. What does this mean? It means that it's easier than ever to extract data when you need it. We'll also explore the powerful new control layouts. And finally, we'll see just how easy it is to transport data elsewhere—we'll export data to both PDF and Excel formats. Then, along with our data, we'll be on our way.

Requirements

Microsoft Office 2010 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access) SP1 (software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins); Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7; Internet access, email, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader).

Note: This course is not suitable for Macintosh users. The course assumes a basic knowledge of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access 2003 or 2007. However, all tasks are taught using simple explanations in an easy step-by-step format, so even someone who has little practice at using some features will still be able to master the basics of Office 2010 and complete the course.

Note: "Starter Version" and "Web App" versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Excel 2010 will not work with the full version of Word and Excel taught in this course.