Any good book on iWork 06? My wife and I just got a new iMac and we'd like to get a book on iWork 06, iLife 06 and OS X. Thanks.
-ken
Hi Ken,
I'm not sure about any definitive books, but I have used the Apple iWork tutorials website. The site provides lots of iWork-101-type lessons and is a great starting point for new users. Forgive me if I'm insulting your intelligence!
Thanks. I suppose that is a good place to start and at a good price too.... :-)
-ken
Hi Ken,
I recently made the switch to Mac in September w/ a simultaneous purchase of a Black Macbook and a 24" iMac. The main lure other than the overall stability of OS X for me was the iLife suite, so I was eager to learn everything about it that I coudl. So I bought a book for iLife and also a couple on OS X. Here's what I got:
The Macintosh iLife '06 by Jim Heid - This is the most useful book I bought for my iMac. I'm pretty sure it's the best selling iLife book out there, and it makes sense. It's up to date w/ everything in iLife, and iTunes (although the iTunes info is based on 6.0, ie. before movies, games were added, but most of the stuff is still applicable). The layout is great. It's colorful and the pages are high quality giving good reproduction of screen shots. The instrcuctions are clear and intuitive and it's really well written - in a very lightly, humourous type of way. He also throws in some helpful tips and shortcuts along the way. From what I read on Amazon reviews, it seems this author usually provided an instcutional DVD/CD (can't remember which) with the books but it's missing in the '06 edition. He explains that in this book there were some issues in his personal life that kept him from being able to do so but he makes up for it by supplementing to his website that accompanies his books. (www.macilife.com)
The Missing Manual Mac OS X Tiger Edition by David Pogue - This is a fat 800+ page manual to OS X that you'd use mainly as a reference. It also has sections on iLife but I found Heid's standalone iLife book more helpful for that. But Pogue also writes in a very humurous readible manner and the rest of the chapters are very valube to someone starting out in OS X. It basically covers everything there is to cover in OS X and divided into sections/chapters in such a way as to not overwhelm you. All the OS X apps like iCal, Bonjour, iSync, Safari, etc. are explained. Also, system stuff like networking, system settings, and even some advanced Unix Terminal info is provided. I really liked having this one around.
I also bought 2 books I wouldn't neccassirily recommend as much. One is The Missing Manual Switching to the Mac by David Pogue and Adam Goldstein. This is basically a shorter version of the OS X missing manual. It's highlited for switchers but many of the chapters are the same exact words as the corresponding chapters in the Mac OS X book. The only exception is a section which compares some Mac features to the corresponding Windows features. This section was helpful in the begining and could be helpful depending on what programs you use. There is a section in which many programs are listed and they address specific problems with using those on a Mac. But for the most part, you can get a lot more about OS X in general from just buying the OS X Missing Manual.
The other one I bought that was probably unneccessary is Cool Mac Apps by Robin Williams. This book focuses on the actuall apps that come w/ OS X rather than the OS itself. While it has been very handy, most of that stuff is covered in The Missing Manual or Heid's iLife book since it basically covers iLife and the other apps like iCal, Safari, Mail, etc. The pics are black and white and the format isn't as nice as Heid's and the info is less than The Missing Manual.
So in summary, I would mostly recommend Heid's iLife '06 book (or you can take your chances and wait on the '07 version - not sure how long that will take) and the Missing Manual Mac OS X (and again here you could wait for the Leapord edition but who knows how long that will take either). The other two may be worth checking into, but are probably overkill if you buy the first two.
As for iWork, sorry, I don't have any experience with any books, but I agree w/ the previous post that the online tutorials have been helpful for iWork.
Comments
Any good book on iWork 06? My wife and I just got a new iMac and we'd like to get a book on iWork 06, iLife 06 and OS X. Thanks.
-ken
Hi Ken,
I'm not sure about any definitive books, but I have used the Apple iWork tutorials website. The site provides lots of iWork-101-type lessons and is a great starting point for new users. Forgive me if I'm insulting your intelligence!
For Pages go here
For Keynote, go here
Thanks. I suppose that is a good place to start and at a good price too.... :-)
-ken
rshogg,
Thanks. I suppose that is a good place to start and at a good price too.... :-)
-ken
Hi Ken,
I recently made the switch to Mac in September w/ a simultaneous purchase of a Black Macbook and a 24" iMac. The main lure other than the overall stability of OS X for me was the iLife suite, so I was eager to learn everything about it that I coudl. So I bought a book for iLife and also a couple on OS X. Here's what I got:
The Macintosh iLife '06 by Jim Heid - This is the most useful book I bought for my iMac. I'm pretty sure it's the best selling iLife book out there, and it makes sense. It's up to date w/ everything in iLife, and iTunes (although the iTunes info is based on 6.0, ie. before movies, games were added, but most of the stuff is still applicable). The layout is great. It's colorful and the pages are high quality giving good reproduction of screen shots. The instrcuctions are clear and intuitive and it's really well written - in a very lightly, humourous type of way. He also throws in some helpful tips and shortcuts along the way. From what I read on Amazon reviews, it seems this author usually provided an instcutional DVD/CD (can't remember which) with the books but it's missing in the '06 edition. He explains that in this book there were some issues in his personal life that kept him from being able to do so but he makes up for it by supplementing to his website that accompanies his books. (www.macilife.com)
The Missing Manual Mac OS X Tiger Edition by David Pogue - This is a fat 800+ page manual to OS X that you'd use mainly as a reference. It also has sections on iLife but I found Heid's standalone iLife book more helpful for that. But Pogue also writes in a very humurous readible manner and the rest of the chapters are very valube to someone starting out in OS X. It basically covers everything there is to cover in OS X and divided into sections/chapters in such a way as to not overwhelm you. All the OS X apps like iCal, Bonjour, iSync, Safari, etc. are explained. Also, system stuff like networking, system settings, and even some advanced Unix Terminal info is provided. I really liked having this one around.
I also bought 2 books I wouldn't neccassirily recommend as much. One is The Missing Manual Switching to the Mac by David Pogue and Adam Goldstein. This is basically a shorter version of the OS X missing manual. It's highlited for switchers but many of the chapters are the same exact words as the corresponding chapters in the Mac OS X book. The only exception is a section which compares some Mac features to the corresponding Windows features. This section was helpful in the begining and could be helpful depending on what programs you use. There is a section in which many programs are listed and they address specific problems with using those on a Mac. But for the most part, you can get a lot more about OS X in general from just buying the OS X Missing Manual.
The other one I bought that was probably unneccessary is Cool Mac Apps by Robin Williams. This book focuses on the actuall apps that come w/ OS X rather than the OS itself. While it has been very handy, most of that stuff is covered in The Missing Manual or Heid's iLife book since it basically covers iLife and the other apps like iCal, Safari, Mail, etc. The pics are black and white and the format isn't as nice as Heid's and the info is less than The Missing Manual.
So in summary, I would mostly recommend Heid's iLife '06 book (or you can take your chances and wait on the '07 version - not sure how long that will take) and the Missing Manual Mac OS X (and again here you could wait for the Leapord edition but who knows how long that will take either). The other two may be worth checking into, but are probably overkill if you buy the first two.
As for iWork, sorry, I don't have any experience with any books, but I agree w/ the previous post that the online tutorials have been helpful for iWork.
Hope this helped!