Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The bird on the cover of Office 97 Annoyances is a dodo. The dodo lived in the Mascarene islands in the Indian Ocean, primarily on Mauritius. These flightless birds are believed to have been related to pigeons, but scientists have found it difficult to categorize them. Our knowledge of the dodo's appearance is based on descriptions from sailors and explorers who settled the Mascarene islands in the 16th and 17th centuries, and who were fascinated with these peculiar-looking birds. The dodos' plump bodies were covered with grey feathers, which ringed their bare faces like a hood. Because they were flightless, their wings had regressed to a tiny size, and their white tail feathers had become a small, curly tuft. Most remarkable was the beak, which was large, strong, hooked, and light green or pale yellow. The dodo used its powerful beak to open hard fruits and snail shells.

The dodo was extinct by the beginning of the 18th century. The Europeans who settled Mauritius and the other Mascarene islands hunted the dodo for food, sport, and as curiosities. Several attempts were made to bring live dodos back to Europe with them, with varying degrees of success. The European settlers also introduced animals such as cats, dogs, pigs, and rats to the islands. These animals hunted the dodo, trampled their nests, and ate their eggs. Prior to the arrival of these various foreigners, the dodo had no natural enemies, and so had no defense mechanisms. ... Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book, using a 19th-century engrav ing from the Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover layout was produced with Quark XPress 3.3 using the ITC Garamond font. Whenever possible, our books use RepKover™TM, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding. If the page count exceeds RepKover™'s limit, perfect binding is used.

The inside layout was designed by Edie Freedman and Nancy Priest and im plemented in FrameMaker 5.0 by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. The illustrations that appear in the book were created in Macromedia Freehand 7.0 by Robert Romano. This col ophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary.