Microsoft® Office Visio® 2003 Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft))

Dig into Visio 2003—and discover how you can really put your business diagrams and technical drawings to work! This supremely organized reference packs hundreds of timesaving solutions, troubleshooting tips, and workarounds all in concise, fast-answer format. It’s all muscle and no fluff. Discover the best and fastest ways to perform everyday tasks, and challenge yourself to new levels of Visio mastery!

• Explore better ways to visualize your business—from organization charts and floorplans to business process diagrams
• Get expert tips for using the ready-made templates—or create your own shapes and solutions
• Use Visio to collaborate with coworkers, including creating brainstorming diagrams
• Track and manage projects with timelines, Gantt charts, and PERT charts
• Plan and map out your Web site
• Diagram databases, computer networks, and software systems
• Add Visio drawings to other Microsoft Office programs for more powerful spreadsheets, slides, and other communications
• Extract and reuse data from Visio drawings with XML, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Access*Produce precisely scaled architectural plans and engineering schematics; easily import CAD elements

CD features:

• Complete eBook in PDF format
• Extending Visio, a catalog of Visio resources with links to third-party tools and demos
• Microsoft resources and demos, including Insider’s Guide to Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 eBook
• Microsoft Computer Dictionary, Fifth Edition, eBook—10,000+ entries

A Note Regarding the CD or DVD

The print version of this book ships with a CD or DVD. For those customers purchasing one of the digital formats in which this book is available, we are pleased to offer the CD/DVD content as a free download via O'Reilly Media's Digital Distribution services. To download this content, please visit O'Reilly's web site, search for the title of this book to find its catalog page, and click on the link below the cover image (Examples, Companion Content, or Practice Files). Note that while we provide as much of the media content as we are able via free download, we are sometimes limited by licensing restrictions. Please direct any questions or concerns to booktech@oreilly.com.

 (5 customer reviews)

This book is what used to be called a "manual" that came "free" after you spent a few hundred dollars on software. If you are looking for a manual, this is a good choice, but if you want to learn how to use the program with this, please don't. The examples it showed were not consistent within the chapter, so you could not follow along by trying to try out the concepts after reading easily.
I'll keep the book as a reference, but I'm a bit upset about spending money for it. I'll try the "Step by Step" book, but those are generally not very in-depth.

Here is the good: This book is a fast read. It contains lots of useful information and you should read it.
Here is the bad: It skims over a lot of information. So you get little nuggets throughout the book but not an in-depth review of how to do something. Basically, it will make you dangerous with Visio but not an expert. However, you will be able to do a lot more after reading the book than before. I've used Visio 2003 for about five years now and I learned two new things about Visio I didn't already know. Useful things. Thus, the four stars.
Here is the ugly: It doesn't tell you ANYTHING about how to work with the most important aspect of Visio - Visual Basic for Applications (or VBA for short). VBA is THE most important aspect of Visio because with VBA you can draw your own shapes, store those shapes for later use, and pull them out when you need them. It doesn't show you how to create a form using VBA. Just one step through example would have been enough for...Read more

I am always satified with the Inside Out Series, this book is very helpful for every level.