Introduction

      You made the right choice twice: Microsoft Office for Mac and this book.

      Take a deep breath and get ready to have a rollicking good time. That’s right — this is a computer book, but it’s fun. What a concept! Whether you’re brand-spanking new to the Office suite or a grizzled Office veteran, we guarantee that reading this book to discover the ins and outs of Office for Mac is fun and easy.

About This Book

      Why write a For Dummies book about Office for Mac? Well, Office for Mac is a big, somewhat complicated suite of productivity applications, so we made Office 2021 For Macs For Dummies a not-so-big, not-so-complicated book that shows you how to perform the most common tasks you’re likely to perform using Office for Mac, all without boring you to tears, confusing you, or poking you with sharp objects.

      In fact, we think you’ll be so darned comfortable that we wanted the title to be Office For Macs without Discomfort, the Very Comfortable 2021 Edition, but the publisher wouldn’t allow it. Apparently, we For Dummies authors have to follow some rules, and using For Dummies and Office For Macs in this book’s title are among them.

      Speaking of dummies, we don’t think you’re dumb — quite the opposite! Our second choice for this book’s title was Office For Macs For People Smart Enough to Know That They Need Help Using It, but you can just imagine what the Wiley folks thought of that. (“C’mon, that’s the whole point of the name!” they insisted. “Besides, it’s shorter this way.”)

      Anyway, the book is chock-full of information and advice, explaining everything you need to know about Office for Mac in language you can understand — along with giving you timesaving tips, tricks, techniques, and step-by-step instructions, all served up in generous quantities.

Foolish Assumptions

      Although we know what happens when you make assumptions, we’ve made a few, anyway. First, we assume that you, gentle reader, know nothing about using Office — beyond knowing what it is, that you want to use it, that you want to understand it without digesting an incomprehensible technical manual, and that you made the right choice by selecting this particular book.

      And so we do our best to explain each new concept in full and loving detail. Maybe that’s foolish, but, so be it.

      Oh, and we also assume that you can read. If you can’t, just ignore this paragraph.

Icons Used in This Book

      Little round pictures (icons) appear to the left side of the text throughout this book. Consider these icons miniature road signs, telling you a little something extra about the subject at hand. Here’s what the different icons look like and what they all mean:

Beyond the Book

      There's even more Office for Mac information on www.dummies.com. This book’s cheat sheet shows you how to create automatic replies to senders in Outlook, check documents for accessibility problems, embed fonts in your Word documents and PowerPoint presentations when sharing, and even check the current weather when viewing your Outlook Calendar. To get to the cheat sheet, go to www.dummies.com, and type Office 2021 for Macs For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box. You'll see not only the cheat sheet but any significant updates or changes that occur between editions of this book.

Where to Go from Here

      Go to a comfortable spot (preferably not far from a Mac) and look through this book.

      In the first few chapters, we describe the basic everyday topics you need to understand to operate your Mac effectively. If you’re new to Macs and Office for Mac, start with Chapters 1–3, which