Fireworks 4 for Windows & Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guide)

This one goes way beyond the others. It's all in the details. Details on how to save files. Details on how to slice objects. Details on how to create rollovers. Details on optimizing. Details on everything.

I've been carrying my copy around so much that the cover is about to fall off.


Wonderful start   April 6, 2002
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I wanted to learn Fireworks quickly so I purchased this book. It was much more than expected. I didn't expect a beginners book or a quick start book to teach everything. But this book was succinct and to the point. I was able to get a grasp quickly and move on to a design type book which emphasized the creative aspects of Fireworks in more detatil. Hand in Hand with the Fireworks 4 f/x and Design book, I was able to increase my Fireworks skills tremendously. I'd highly recommend both books used in tandem if you are a beginner.

There are plenty of tips and notes along the way as well as some Photoshop differences to ease the transition for Photoshop users. Since using Fireworks, I now want Photoshop to work the same way. For web graphics Fireworks rocks! But it did take a bit of time to realize the power of FW vectors and to stop thinking "Photoshop".


Not Great   March 1, 2002
 2 out of 3 found this review helpful

Some aspects of this book frustrated me.

While the instructions and the pictures are helpful, you need to know something about the Fireworks interface in order to follow the instructions. The author tells to you use a certain command, or to display a certain menu, but gives you no clue as to where to find it.

I found myself spending a lot of time looking for sample files that I could use to follow the instructions in this book. A CD with sample files, or a Web site where you can download sample files would have made the book much easier to use.


VISUAL QUICKSTART? PERHAPS TOO QUICK IN WRITING THE BOOK   January 6, 2002
 4 out of 8 found this review helpful

Ack, I'm beginning to HATE these VQS guides.
This book is more straightforward than the DW VQS, however, often it leaves you hanging and wondering.
Peruse thru some chapters at your local bookstore, and you'll see what I mean. I've come to realize these budget books are no good.

How good can a $20 book possibly be? But unfortunately, there aren't too many beginner-intermediate FIREWORKS books out there.

I recommend you read FIREWORKS F/X and Design after you torture yourself thru this book. If you find a better book, let me know, but I doubt b/c I've searched enough. PLAYING WITH FIRE isn't that great; if you're smart and compare PLAYING WITH FIRE to the F/X book, you'll quickly see the F/X book is by far better. Slightly more difficult, but hey, you want to learn FIREWORKS or not?


Fireworks 4   January 3, 2002
 1 out of 2 found this review helpful

Fireworks 4 is an excellent book to teach yourself vector graphics, bitmapped graphics and how they concern each other and their use on the web. Fireworks 4 is a "paint" program that deals with the new type of graphic format, .png (ping), that will eventually take over where the .gif format left off but without the liscensing hassles the gif format carries now. Pngs can promise and produce better images than its gif predicessor can and this book is the perfect example to show you how. With its pictorial format, its easy to understand and hard to put down as lessons and examples easily appear on your screen like you had nothing to do with it. Great Book for learning about png graphics and how they fit with Macromedia's Dreamweaver HTML editor. Le Guepe (Dan Newell)