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FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual by Geoff Coffey, Susan Prosser

FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual Book Summary
Author: Geoff Coffey, Susan Prosser
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-08-09
ISBN: 0596514131
Number of pages: 800
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
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Book Reviews of the FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual

Customer Review: Mixed Bag
Summary: 3 Stars

Pros:

- The writing style is accessible and easy to understand
- You can download the database examples used in the book.
- It's the best FileMaker Pro 9 book I've seen.

Cons:

- Like a lot of computer books out there, this one is unnecessarily wordy. The publisher said, "I need a 750-page book," and the author complied.

-And you gotta read ALL of it (especially beginners), because important information is distributed like buried treasure.

- The wordiness and lack of consistent structure makes it easy to get lost. Let me give you an example:

This is my first stab at FileMaker Pro. The first chapter shows you how to find records. It starts out nicely with bolded text showing the steps to perform a find. Then it gets wordy. And then it shows a few figures of what you will see. Huge paragraphs of smaller, italicized text accompany the figures.

I skipped the figures and went on. Suddenly, I couldn't access most of my database entries. I went back to Browse mode, like the book told me to do, and still couldn't see them.

Finally, after much digging, I found the crucial step I had missed, buried in the smaller, italicized text of the gargantuan paragraph accompanying Figure 1-17. Inconsistencies like this make the book a tough slog.

I just brushed up on my Access 2003 (I haven't used it in 7 years) with one of those procedure-based illustrated books. It took me 3 hours to get through the 250-page book. It took me about an hour to get through chapter 1 (27 pages) of this book.


I recommend downloading the examples from their website (I doubt you got a CD-ROM with your book). See the Missing CD-ROM link on this book's web page.
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