Let"s face it--we"re not all power users. Most of us use word processors primarily for basic editing and letter writing without devoting our lives to learning every nuance of the software. For the casual user who needs a quick reference tool, Visual Quickstart Guide: Word for Windows 2000, a slim, easy-to-navigate book, will get novices up and running while keeping the average user happy with its image-based approach to instruction. By focusing on the graphics and images you"ll see while using Word, this book foregoes the traditional text-heavy style generally employed in software reference books by actually showing you rather than telling you what to do. Of course, most of us can"t read hieroglyphics, so the author includes step-by-step text that serves more as visual placeholder than carping supervisor. Fluidly crossing the gap from thinking to visualization, Visual Quickstart Guide gets high marks for its intuitive use even if its content appears a bit skimpy. As the main, standard topics covered in other manuals get touched on here (even Web page design), you"ll have no doubts about when you may need more advanced information to proceed. The appendix showing all of Word 2000"s menus and important shortcut keys is a nice touch, rounding off a handy little package. --Rob Lightner