In this demo with Channel 9's Laura Foy, Microsoft design guru March Rogers shows more of the design features of Office 2010, including how Word makes it easier to work with text boxes and more about animation and editing shapes in PowerPoint. Also: How Stylistic sets enhance fonts in Publisher, and how to customize the look of Visio diagrams. For more of Channel 9's Office 2010 demos check out the Office videos on Channel 9. And, of course, you can learn more by watching "The Office Show: PowerPoint Design."

-- Doug Kim

Need a flyer or a newsletter? We'll show you how Microsoft Publisher 2010 makes creating publications easier with the new building blocks feature, plus we'll show you how to import inventory data from Excel and generate a product catalog in seconds. And for the explosive finale, we've got footage of how one Publisher fan has used it --  literally -- for rocket science.

We loved Gary McKay's Publisher rocket so much we built and launched one ourselves. Well, I don't know if launched is the right word. Let's say we fired it off, and it went up in the air, at least for a little while, before it all ended in smoking wreckage. Gary's works much better.

 If you're inspired too, here are some great links:

Get some of Gary McKay's Rebel Origami templates to try it for yourself.

Learn more about building blocks in Publisher 2010.

Learn more about creating a catalog merge with Excel and Publisher 2010.

If you have ideas and tips you want to share about how to make great publications, write a comment and let everyone know. We'd love to hear from you, and we'd love to hear more about what you think of the show. The folks at Office.com created this in partnership with our friends at Microsoft's Channel 9, where you can find even more videos about Office.

Can we talk? We all know that in the past, Office for Mac hasn't necessarily played that well with Office for PC. On this episode of The Office Show, we'll show you how that's all changed with Office for Mac 2011. More info on the full post...

This Excel-centric Office Show episode shows you how to get better-looking, more meaningful charts without banging your head against the wall. And we've got some amazing things to show you that some folks have done with Excel, including -- speaking of head-banging -- a music video from AC/DC done entirely within Excel. Strange but true! After the break, guest blogger and Excel expert Anneliese Wirth gives you more info on how to explore the new features of Excel.

For your next party, how cool would it be to customize a gift box for every guest? Ridiculously time-consuming right? No, dear Office user, because you have a time-cheating secret weapon for rapid-fire customization: Mail merge. Check out this excerpt from the Office Show Holiday episode, and learn more about how it's done on the full post.

Yes.

OneNote helps me keep track of all my writing, so I can organize ideas and works in progress and find everything.


When the Office Show crew asked me to talk about how I use OneNote when I write poetry, I jumped at the chance.

In Part 1 of this Office Show, Tina and Laura used Office 365 to get their dog grooming business up and running with email, calendars and shared documents. In Part 2, they step up their game and create their own website, edit a Word doc simultaneously and set up a customer database in Access. Cool things for sure, but will it be enough to fight their ruthless corporate dog-washing competitors? Watch to find out...

Huge congrats to author Jennifer Egan, whose novel A Visit from the Goon Squad just earned the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Jennifer was a guest of the Office Show late last year, and spoke to us at length about how important PowerPoint was in formulating her book.

A Visit from the Goon Squad features an entire chapter written in PowerPoint, and to hear Jennifer talk about it, it was a key chapter in forming the structure of the book. She also wrote a special blog post for us, detailing her top tips for storytelling with PowerPoint. Since then, her book has racked up dozens of awards and landed on just about every major "top 10" list, but the Pulitzer is obviously the big one. Congratulations, Jennifer!

-- Doug Kim

In this episode of the Office Show, you'll see how three very creative storytellers use Microsoft Office to realize their ideas. Joannie Stangeland uses OneNote 2010 and a digital pen to capture inspiration and organize her poetry. David Salaguinto uses a Visio template to create comics for his popular "Office Comic." And we'll show you how acclaimed author Jennifer Egan uses PowerPoint to create fiction. She actually wrote a chapter entirely in PowerPoint for her novel "A Visit From the Goon Squad."

Poet Stangeland's daytime gig is writing help articles for Microsoft Word, so you can find her work on  our  Word blog. She also hosts a special video series, " A Writer's Guide to Office," that's all about using Office for people who are serious about good writing. You can also find more great tips on OneNote at Michael Oldenburg's blog.

Salaguinto is the author/artist of the popular "Office Comics" blog, and he's got some special things coming, inspired by this edition of "The Office Show."

And you can find out more about Jennifer Egan on jenniferegan.com, and you can buy the book directly at Amazon.com. You can see her PowerPoint chapter on her website, but do buy the book. It's a powerful chapter on it's own, but seen in the context of the whole story it's a real mind-blower.

Don't forget to check out her 10 Tips for storytelling in PowerPoint which she wrote especially for readers of the Office Blog.

-- Doug Kim