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 animal on the cover of Essential SharePoint is a wombat. Averaging about 40 inches in length and weighing about 55 pounds, this Australian marsupial is the largest of the burrowing animals; as such, it is compared to the badger, but it is most closely related to the koala. Because wombats walk with an awkward waddle, they appear to be docile and slow, but are actually quite alert and agile-when necessary, they can move over short distances with the speed of an Olympic sprinter. Although wombats are not particularly territorial, they do prefer solitude, so are known to mark their often-overlapping feeding grounds by rubbing trees, sometimes to a polished appearance, and to leave their distinctive cube-shaped dung atop elevated items such as rocks, mushrooms, and even upright sticks.

Jamie Peppard was the production editor and copyeditor for Essential SharePoint. Chris Downey proofread the book. Sanders Kleinfeld, Sarah Sherman, and Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Ellen Troutman Zaig wrote the index.Emma Colby designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is an original illustration from Animate Creation. Karen Montgomery produced the cover layout with Adobe InDesign CS using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.

David Futato designed the interior layout. This book was converted by Judy Hoer to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano, Jessamyn Read, and Lesley Borash using Macromedia FreeHand MX and Adobe Photoshop CS. The tip and warning icons were drawn by Christopher Bing. This colophon was written by Jamie Peppard.