What Microsoft Office Training Is Best For You?

Ubiquitous as the Office Suite is, it's hard to believe that there once existed a time - within the office - where it didn't exist, and everything was still very much pen, paper, and typewriters.

Although it seems like Office has been around forever, we're not born with knowledge of it - we just have computer software training at a younger and younger age.

Depending on our upbringing and the fast-paced world of software development, we may all be at different stages of knowledge when it comes to Office. If you last worked on Office 2003, you're going to find the 2010 version much different, perhaps even confusing. If you find yourself in the position of looking for a training company to take you to the next level of Office skill, here are some things you may wish to consider in the process.

1. Try to learn more complex software for simple tasks

It's true that if you're going to just do word processing, for example, then you may get away with a training session on WordPad or another basic text editor. This is all well and good for your current job, but why not take a step forward and get trained on the latest version of Word?

Not only will you then have word processing skills under your belt, but a full training course would also include basic desktop publishing, mail merges, letter writing and the like. You may not be using these things now, but it's better to have the training so that it can benefit you in the future.

2. Look to the future and learn in advance

When looking at a selection of Office courses, do a little research and see if it might be worth waiting a while in order to get the most up to date version. If Microsoft are about to release Office 2012 for example, then hang fire on getting trained on 2010 because your training will quickly be out of date. In addition, try to see what changes you'd be best learning about - the leap between Office 2003 and 2007, for example, was relatively huge - whereas the difference between 2000 and 2003 was minimal.

3. Try to get training on more than one part of the suite

Office is designed to be interlinked and the various components can work together, so it's worth your while getting trained up in more than one part of the suite, for example, both Word and Excel. A spreadsheet can be created in Excel and then the corresponding chart could be published as an image in word, or even embedded in a PowerPoint presentation, too.

It may be a little more expensive to have more training in more than one part of the Office Suite, but it will be worth its weight in gold when writing your CV or approaching prospective employers and showing off your IT skills.

Any training company will usually do a consultation with you and discuss your training needs. If you go in with a general idea of your current knowledge, and what you want your skills to include in the future, it should be easy to select which part of the Office suite is best for you to learn. One thing is certain, though - it's not going to go away, and the more training you have, the better!