Once Upon A Time... Where Is Office Software Documentation, AKA Manuals? Word, Excel, PPT, Access

I just reviewed John's excellent article again. The help system today is nowhere near as helpful as it once was.

The problem remains that you have to know what the jargon is to have a hope of getting to much of the help.

Other problems users have are simply because the designers of Word never dreamed that someone would try to do something the way they are. There is no way, though, that the problems arising from that are going to be covered in a manual. They probably would not be covered in a functional online help system, either.

I urge almost anyone having frustrations with using Word to go through Shauna Kelly's series of short written tutorials.

• Basic Concepts of Microsoft Word - from Shauna Kelly

Two other sources I recommend, even though they are dated are the MVP site and my own UsersGuide site which is based on the Legal Users Guide to Microsoft Word which was released with Word 2000.

• Word MVP Site
• Basic Formatting in Microsoft Word

Here are some of the sites by very knowledgeable Word users sharing their expertise:

• Microsoft Word Help, Tips and Tutorials – Making the most of Word in your business | ShaunaKelly.com
• Tutorials by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
• My MVP FAQs - Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
• Microsoft Word Tips by Graham Mayor, MVP
• Microsoft Word Help, Tips and Tutorials @ The Anchorage
• Word Macros and Tips - Lene Freedborg, MVP
• John Korchock - Best Practices - much about PowerPoint, some about Word - Start here and look at Older Posts (John has a plethora of pages that you can reach from here but I am not aware of a general page listing them.)
• The Macro Zone - Jay Freedman, MVP

For a book covering a lot, I still recommend Word 2010 Bible by Herb Tyson even though it was written for a version of Word no longer in support. It is well written and is helpful with most of the features in Modern versions.

Microsoft Word 2016 In Depth by Faithe Wempen is another good resource. My understanding, though, is that the market for such books is not really strong enough to pay authors who know the subject to take the time to write a book that will be considered obsolete before it is published.

These days there are a number of good videos on YouTube, but sorting them out from real drek is a challenge. Here are three YouTuber's I often recommend and always watch:

• Deborah Savadra (Legal Guru)
• Laura Townsend (This should not be a video and the link is to a list of videos.)
• Kevin Stravert (not as focused, but informative and accurate)

The people here with a "badge" of MVP could easily write books about Word. Some have, I am confident. Generally, the collective knowledge shown here of how Word is working in the real world exceeds that on the Microsoft campus. Unfortunately, this forum also has a share of folks who do not share that knowledge.

Microsoft gave up manuals more than 20 years ago, I believe.

On Word, alone, the manual would fill a bookshelf. By the time it would be printed, it would be out of date.

The Help feature is supposed to replace manuals.

Note, this is not the place to get any changes made in Word nor the attention of developers at Microsoft. This is an independent user-to-user support forum. MS does not see anything you post here. The way to get their attention is through the feedback mechanisms.

• How do I give feedback on Microsoft Office?
• Word Feedback Portal – allows a public feedback that can be voted on
• Microsoft applications Feedback Portal (pick an application)
• Send Feedback to MS Developers
• Bonus Reading related to MS Feedback system

My personal preference is to use the Word Feedback Portal. If you do, please get a share link and post it here so that others seeing this thread can go there and vote and comment.

If you have a specific question about Word, please post it here. There are many volunteer users, who like you have been frustrated by the lack of documentation, who will be happy to assist you.

Former Word MVP John McGhie wrote https://wordmvp.com/FAQs/General/WheresTheManual.htm many years ago, but it is even more true today. As Charles said, a complete manual just isn't possible. I have relatively exhaustive paper manuals for several earlier versions of Word (Word 2.0, Word 6), and even they refer the user to Word's built-in Help for further information. Unfortunately, there is no "built-in" or onboard Help any more, and the search in Word's Help is much less useful than Google. You can buy a third-party manual to learn basic stuff, but I always found that the more complex questions I had were never covered by these books.

That's why the experience and expertise of longtime users who populate these forums is so valuable. If you have a specific question, please ask it, as clearly as possible, with screen shots as appropriate, or perhaps a sample document (uploaded to OneDrive or another sharing service and made public). We are here to help.