Fantastic instructional materials on how to use SharePoint Designer 2007 effectively! I made the mistake early on of buying SharePoint books that focused on infrastructure-related topics on SharePoint. This book provides practical and powerful insights on how to exploit the user-facing capabilities of SharePoint. I was cautious about purchasing a Step-by-Step series book due to my past experiences reading books in the series that had what I believed to be superficial content. This instance broke that mold in style. It was evident that the author not only has book knowledge of the subject, she also has practitioner knowledge. It seemed like she anticipated every question that I had as I read through the book. Excellent work!

I'm a novice to SharePoint Designer so I wanted to find a book that would walk me "step by step" through the process. The content was good but what was frustrating was that the author kept referring to a fictitious company, "Consolidated Messenger..." but the files or links were not available. If a book references files that will enable you to work through scenarios, with accompanying images in the book, the reader should be able to access them.

The Microsoft Office Share Point Designer 2007, loooks and feels like the same for the Office 2007, but the drop back is that you can no make any of the excersices due that it use a site that does not exist on the internet for pracice. I do not recomend this book.
I was planning to used it for a Web Designer Class in the university, but I encounter this big problem. It is imposible to learn if you do not have a way to practice the excercises. I was force to use to used the 2003 Front Page program, that is more simple to use for teaching.
My suggestion to Microsoft Press, please create a local site on the CD provide with the book, so beginers like myself can use it.
DO NOT BUY IT.

Great book for the advanced information worker that needs to do work on Sharepoint.

Supporting Sharepoint in our organization as well as being president of a local Sharepoint user group, I do see one common problem - people using Sharepoint Designer that have no understanding of the underlying technology. So let me reiterate: Sharepoint Designer is for the ADVANCED Sharepoint user.

The reader of this book should have a basic understanding of programming concepts and working with web pages, as it's VERY easy to render a Sharepoint page unusable with relatively "simple" changes. (Don't forget to make a backup first!) Chapter one does a very good job of getting the user started and should be required reading for anyone using SHarepoint Designer.

The biggest plus on the Microsoft Step-by-Step books is that the reader is given the opportunity to learn exactly what they need, when they need it. This book is well written and Penelope Coventry does a thorough job (in my opinion). The CD that comes with the book is a HUGE plus as well, with full examples and test files the user can learn on before making changes to Sharepoint sites.

I also recommend the reader look at Office 2007 books, as the integration between Sharepoint and Office is powerful and can really extend the reach of your Office apps. (I like "So That's How! 2007 Microsoft Office System: Timesavers, Breakthroughs, & Everyday Genius", by Evan Archilla & Tiffany Songvilay)

We are just finishing up our first SP project and this book was INVALUABLE resource. If you are doing SP work you should get this book!

Sharepoint Designer is not only for SP projects, it is also a great xhtml & javascript editor, with nice intellisense! It is making my life much easier.

I know of no other resource that has so much on SPD and I doubt there is anything in print that has more on it.

When you are buying SPD, buy this book as well - you will thank me later!

I'm a designer with a heavy background in web layout and flash programming and design. By no means am I a developer.

I purchased this book hoping it would help me get aquainted with sharepoint. It turns out the book depends heavily on the sample files being set up in a server enviorment, which I've no idea how to do. The examples it walks you through all depend on these files, so if you can't set up the files you won't be able to gain hands on knowlege.

It will help you understand structure and navigation a bit, but so will playing with SP designer.

If you're a programmer, get this, if you're a deisgner, don't bother.

-Austin

I agree with AC, the topics Penelope Coventry covers in this title are covered very well. I found within just a few hours that I was creating new forms and views with the DFWP, styling the output from DVWP and building some nice customised applications.

The style is not like so many other books making you do menial tasks for the sake of step-by-step. Penelope instead has created some thoughtful and interesting exercises, assuming the reader wants to be engaged and create business value as a result of investing time working through the book. A refreshing approach I must say.

I recommend the book to any aspiring SharePoint designer but, would equally recommend some grounding in WSS architecture beforehand.

I bought this first version of this book back in February for my 2nd Customer Deployment of Sharepoint. There are several things you may already know about Sharepoint Designer, but I found this book best used by intermediaries; as Reference Material.
For Beginners I also recommend to have and take the time to use the book because there will be things that will make more sense when you are presented with Business Case situations.
I put the book down for a month and now have started a 3rd customer deployment for a Bio-Tech company that wants to control workflows. Now I am re-referencing the book for additional triggers.
Down the road I can see using Data-Sources to create reports connected to Oracle DBs, but there is not a need right now or security access.
Hence the reference material.

If you are the Chief Designer-Dev of a Sharepoint Implementation this book is a must have for the meager cost.

I purchased this book because it was the only one on this topic available at the time. I am a beginner when it comes to SharePoint, but I am also an experienced web designer. This book is written at my level exactly, and I found it easy to learn from. However, there are some errors in it. For example in several places it says that CSS styles should be contained in a