Book Review: Professional SharePoint Designer 2007

Finally, a book (and a great one in that) covering SharePoint Designer! I recently finished reading Professional Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007, authored by MVPs Woodrow Windischman, Bryan Phillips, and Asif Rehmani. With Microsoft making SPD 2007 available as a free download, it’s important that users of the product understand how to use it properly.

The authors did an incredible job covering the aspects of SPD from multiple perspectives. I enjoyed how they even included sections on developing solutions with Visual Studio. It was apparent those sections were added with the intent on getting readers familiar with the various options and methods they have available for developing extended functionality outside SPD, so don’t be disappointed if you don’t feel it’s advanced enough – remember that this isn’t a core development book.

The one thing I loved the most about the book was the style of writing; the authors did a great job simplifying walking through the features of SPD without losing my attention. The level of detail and simplicity was balanced very well throughout the book. I learned a lot of things reading this book and I believe any user, no matter how good he/she is with SPD, can learn a new thing or two from reading this book as well.

SharePoint Designer 2007 is a tremendous and powerful software. With Microsoft making it available to download for free, users need to have a strong understanding of how to work with it, and more importantly, how to avoid running into problems with it.