How To Compute© - Lesson Four

Now is the time to express yourself. Write your elected and appointed officials about issues, conditions and solutions important to you. Build a website so when the world is ready to hear what your have to say, your word is up. Enjoy yourself.

THE CLOSET

New Document – A document is a page or series of pages that you want to appear on your computer screen at the same time, i.e. a five page report, a one page letter, a 50 page book, etc. Anything you want connected with the same page up and page down movement. To start a new document click on FILE – NEW – and choose either NORMAL or (and it’s best to play here for awhile until you learn) click on any of the many pre-formatted documents available.

Location Lines – Lines tell you where you are on a page. They go straight across from margin to margin. In word processors, in order to go from one line to the next, you don’t have to hit the ENTER key to go to the next line, only at the end of a paragraph. The computer returns automatically. That’s called word wrap as it wraps words elements on your page. At the bottom of your window is listed how low your page number, section, how many pages in the document, how far down you are on the page, line and column number, etc. Example: Page 1 First Page Sec. 1 First Section; 1/22 Page 1 of 22; At 1.3” from the top of the page; Ln 4 5th line of text Col 40 – 40th letter on the line.

Clip Art – Pre-drawn pictures that comes with your program, you can buy or download additional ones, or make your own (like in Microsoft Paint or Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw) and place them in your document. Click on INSERT – PICTURE – CLIP ART (or if it is in a picture file, like from your digital camera, click FROM FILE or SCANNER or CAMERA, etc). Choose an image, then click INSERT or double click on the image in the dialogue box. Change size using corner arrows.

Writing Tools - Thanks to computers, our writing ability is not limited to our current educational level. Writing tolls include a spelling and grammar checker, a thesaurus, foreign language dictionaries (sold separately) and standardized document hyphenation. To utilize these tools, click on TOOLS then SPELLING & GRAMMAR or LANGUAGE (for the Thesaurus) and follow the directions. When writing, sometimes listening to your work helps with edits. Download Microsoft Reader and have it read your documents to you in one window with another window open that has the material you’re working on. Click between windows when you are editing.

Clipboard or Scrap Memory – A temporary memory within Windows that allows you to remove or duplicate information to be placed somewhere else or discarded. The Clipboard holds many pieces of information at a time. Click on EDIT – Office Clipboard - This shows you what is on the clipboard. It easily transports information from one program to another operating within Windows.

Cut – Removes a letter or a block of words/numbers from their position within a document and places that information on the clip board. To cut a piece of text, a picture or text, put what you want to affect into the computer’s attention, and do one of 3 things to cut: click on the scissors in the tool bar, or hold down the Ctrl key and hit the letter X, or use the menu bar and click on EDIT – CUT. With the item in the temporary memory, you can then paste it somewhere else.

Paste – Take something off of the clipboard and puts it in a location of your choosing.

Ruler – Real life measurement for where work and pictures will appear on a piece of paper. They are generally on top and on the left of the screen. If you do not see rulers when you type click on VIEW – RULER and that will turn them on. There are little tabs on the ruler that represent pre-set tabs. Just move those tabs to quickly adjust a tab position.

Style Sheet – Pre-formatted look to a document. Click on FORMAT – STYLE and set up the look for your page.

Zoom – A way to look close up or overview of what you are working on. Click on VIEW – ZOOM and under Zoom To choose your perspective or use the % number on the icon bar.

Editing symbols - A dot between words means a space and this symbol ¶ is for return or enter. That symbol is on the standard toolbar. An arrow represents a tab space.

HELP

WINDOW’S HELP

WINDOWS – START – HELP
Look up your specific question in the index or browse CONTENTS.

WORD HELP

On the menu bar click on HELP - MICROSOFT WORD HELP
and ask your question.
Or, you can just hit the F1 (first function key) key and ask your question.

Also, you can find additional information under Help in
OFFICE ON THE WEB.

Functions that have short cut key combinations like Ctrl C for copy have the short keys listed next to the feature on the drop down menu bar. Just put what you want into the computer’s attention and hit the control keys or buttons to do the job.

LET’S GET BUSY

SETTING MARGINS & PAGE LAYOUT

Both of these functions are in the same dialogue box. Click on FILE PAGE SETUP. Under the tab labeled MARGINS you will see four settings for Top – Bottom – Left and Right. Adjust these numbers to the inch equivalent in the appropriate box by either typing in the measurements you want or using the up and down arrow keys next to the measurements. If you want your margin set with a left offset for binding, then an adjustment can be made in the GUTTER box. Also under the margins tab is a setting for where to apply these numbers, either THIS SECTION, THIS POINT FORWARD or WHOLE DOCUMENT.

Under the tab marked PAPER SIZE you’ll find your page orientation. If you want a page to be tall side up, that is called Portrait. If you want it to be short side up, that’s Landscape.

Another way is to first place the computer’s attention in front of what you want to affect. Move the ruler at the top of the page by placing your mouse on the edge tab until you hit the spot where a double arrow appears pointing left and right. Click the mouse button down and hold it in the down position. Drag the mouse over to where you want your new margin. Once there, let it go. The text will automatically move within the new margin setting.

SAVING

Click on FILE – SAVE. In the box next to the phrase File Name give your file a name and assign it to a folder. Click on save. This saves your file onto your hard disk. If you want to give a file a new name or location, use SAVE AS. To make a web page, use SAVE AS WEBPAGE.

CHOOSING HOW THE TYPE LOOKS

Formatting text characters is about how the letters and numbers look, what typeface is used, its size, style, special effects, etc. First type in your information in a comfortable type size and face, then choose your presentation type. In choosing a font, first think about what is the ultimate goal of your communication. Do you want to say it in a normal Garamond or Times Roman format, to you want to be artsy Forte o or Matisse icr or in a script writing like Palace Script MT. Your computer can print in many fonts, Lucida Sans, Impact or Algerian. Times New roman is a good standard business choice. In summary, place the text you want to affect in the computer’s attention, and make your style (format) choices.

Different sizes and types add to the dynamics of a document. Use headlines where you can. Never assume anyone is going to read the whole document. Yet, with headlines you can still get your point across. Ask yourself if you had to say all of the material that you are about to put into the computer in one or two sentences, what would they be? That’s your headline. Then choose a typeface that accurately reflects the intention of your correspondence.

The bigger the type, the easier it is to read. A good business size is between 12-14. So, if you’re experiencing vision stress in any form, go for the larger type sizes, especially during data entry. You can change back to a smaller size later, after you’ve made sure your words are correct.

A great way to build your type is highlight some text and FORMAT – FONT. The dialogue box that comes up gives you a preview of how your choices look. For instance, an example of superscript with it’s smaller characters raises (10^th) or sub script, with its smaller characters lowered (H₂O).

A short cut through the tool bar is styles, type font and type size are on the Formatting tool bar. Highlight and Click to see the different types of looks.

WORD ART

Click on INSERT – PICTURE – WORDART. A small gallery of designs show up. Click on the design you want then click O.K.. A dialogue box will come up for you to put your words in and choose the type size and style. Try a few. When you finish, click OK. To change the colors, double click on the WordArt and make your choices.

For original design, click on INSERT-OBJECT-WORDART” (may read Microsoft Word Art). A dialogue box comes up on the screen. Type the words you want in the art. Toward the top of the screen are your other design options. The first one is for the shape, the second one for the typeface and the third for the type size. Just click the down arrow in each category to see your options and choose what’s right for you. The buttons on the right are about bold, italic, direction, etc.

Move the WordArt object using drag and drop to where you want. Resize it using the corners or the sides by clicking on the edges and dragging it to the size you want. Be careful about the aspect ratio (proportions) as it can be stretched in many ways. If you make a mistake, no problem, just hit the UNDO button (bent arrow button in either direction) and when it gets where you want it to be, go forward from there.

APPLYING OR REMOVING CHARACTER FORMATS.

A character format determines how something looks. Like type style, size, if it’s bold, underlined or italic. Highlight the areas you want to affect. Highlight what you want to change the look of. Then click on FORMAT - FONT. A dialogue box will open and show you the options including superscript and subscript, which raises or lowers letters, underline, etc. After you make your selection, click O.K.

ALIGNING HEADLINES

HIGHLIGHT the text you want to align. On the tool bar, click on either the LEFT, RIGHT, CENTER OR JUSTIFIED (Text even on both sides, like in a newspaper.) Or, click on FORMAT, PARAGRAPH and work with an even more fine-tuning of your paragraph’s status. i.e. spacing, indenting and hyphenation.

BULLETS AND NUMBERS IN A LIST

Highlight THE AREA YOU WANT TO AFFECT. On your Tool Bar click on the icon that has either numbers or dots on it, depending on if you want a numbered or a bulleted list. For a greater deal of fine-tuning, HIGHLIGHT the area you want to affect. Click on FORMAT – BULLETS AND NUMBERING. This box has three tabs for you to look at BULLETS, NUMBERED, MULTILEVEL. Choose a style that reflects the message your document is getting across.

CHOOSING HOW THE PARAGRAPH LOOKS

As in formatting text, formatting paragraphs is about how a paragraph looks. Issues such as indenting, centering, spacing and tabs are addressed here. The steps are HIGHLIGHT – FORMAT – PARAGRAPH – then make your choices. Click on O.K.

PROOFING TOOLS

Spelling – There is an icon that reads ABC with a check mark under it. Click that button and the spell checker begins or just hit the F7 key. Follow instructions on the screen. You can also click on TOOLS – Spelling.& Grammar.

Grammar – click on TOOLS, SPELLING AND GRAMMAR. Mis-spelled words have a squiggly red underline under them and grammatically incorrect phrases or words have a green line. These lines do not print out.

Thesaurus – Highlight the word you want to look up. Then click on TOOLS – LANGUAGE - THESAURUS.

FINDING AND REPLACING

This handy feature can save you hours of proof reading. Say you want to use a letter that you wrote to Mr. Jones and send a revised copy to Ms. Smith. Using the EDIT – REPLACE (Ctrl H) functions of the word processor fill in the dialogue box. You can replace everywhere it says Mr. Jones in your letter with Ms. Smith. To find a word or section you want to work on click on EDIT - FIND (Ctrl F) and tell it what you want. Then click on find next.

DROP CAP

ike the first letter in many bibles, a drop cap gives a page a sense of class. It makes the first letter bigger than the rest. Highlight the letter you want to drop. Click on FORMAT – DROP CAP – and choose the look you want.

THEMES & STYLES

Themes are pre-formatted, like a stencil, designs for documents. Insert – Theme and make your choice. Styles are preformatted paragraph structures that make the same type of look for all paragraphs with that style name. There is a list of available themes and styles off of the Format menu list.

EDITING TOOLS

CUT

Click on the button that has a scissors on it. The text that is highlighted will disappear into what is called the clipboard portion of the CPU. (Ctrl X)

COPY

Click on the button next to the scissors that looks like two pieces of paper. The original stays in place and a copy is placed onto the clipboard (or HIGHLIGHT – EDIT – COPY). (Ctrl C)

PASTE

PLACING TEXT IN ANOTHER LOCATION. Place what you want to paste in the clipboard. Click the mouse on the position where you want the text to reappear. Click the PASTE button which looks like a little clipboard with a piece of paper falling off. (or HIGHLIGHT – EDIT – PASTE) (Ctrl V)

Using drag-and-drop editing, HIGHLIGHT the area that you want to either cut off of a page or make a copy of to be deleted or replaced later in another location. Cut or Copy. Cut means to remove as if using a pair of electronic scissors and Copy leaves the original in place and puts a copy of what was highlighted into the temporary memory. Then place the computer’s attention where you want the copied material to be, and then click EDIT – PASTE. A short cut from the icons: CUT looks like a scissors, COPY looks like two pieces of paper next to each other and PASTE looks like a clip board with a piece of paper falling off of it.

PRINTING AND FAXING

The easiest way to print is to print the entire document. Confirm your printer is on by seeing the printer’s on light. Move your mouse to the bottom on the standard tool bar that has a little printer on it. Click on the button and the entire document will print out.

To print just a few pages or to set the number of copies you want to print click on FILE, PRINT. Read the dialogue box and make your choices, i.e. pages 5, 7, 9 or 5-10. Then click on O.K.

You can also print to another file. If you are working with a Microsoft Word file and you want it to be an Adobe .pdf file, with any of a number of programs, you could print your file as an Adobe file and have the file read to you over the computer’s speakers.

Also, if your computer has a modem, and you want to send a fax, click on FILE, SEND TO, FAX RECIPIENT. A fax wizard comes up. Give it the information it requests and send the fax.

HOW TO MAKE A LINK TO THE WEB

Highlight what you want to be your link, a word, phrase or picture, whatever. Click on INSERT - HYPERLINK (or Ctrl K) and put in the complete web address for where you want the link to take folks.

HOW TO MAKE A LINK WITHIN A DOCUMENT

A link within a document is called a Bookmark. Think of it as an anchor, a place marked in the document where links can be made to. When you create a Table of Contents, it creates bookmarks to the main sections. That’s why you can click on an item in the Table of Contents and link to a page in the document.

You can add your own bookmark by highlighting where you want the bookmark to be. Click on INSERT – BOOKMARK and then give your bookmark a name. To link to the bookmark use the same procedure for a hyperlink, just click on the bookmark section and choose the name you gave your location. If it’s not on the list, reinsert the bookmark and do the link again.

The web allows folks, whatever they do best, to sell their products and services on the web. For example, Ms. Edith Akuna crochets thinking caps and rasta crowns, for sale on the web. Maybe you know craftspeople in your community who have product to sell on the web. With basic computer skills you can start a business selling your own or other people’s products on the web either on their own site or on any of the many auction sites like E-bay. You can also put up pages for donations to your favorite good works, like your house of worship, education, health and housing groups, etc.

Once you get going to where you have a profit, you can start farming out work to your neighbors.

Go back over the lesson in your lab time and click the links and visit those sites.