Info 130.10 - Intro to Microsoft Word

Basics of Word Processing

All word processors do certain things the same and these things must be understood if you are to use the programs effectively.

All word processors have the concept of an insertion point. This is typically displayed as a vertical line between two characters. This is where the characters will appear when you type. If you want to add text at the beginning of the document you would move the insertion point to the beginning of the document and start typing.

All word processors do word wrap. Word wrap lets the user type a paragraph as one long string of text without pressing the Enter key. Word wrap automatically wraps the lines according to the margins of the document. If you adjust the margins word wrap will automatically "rewrap" the lines to fit the margins.

Very closely related to word wrap is the concept of a hard return. The hard return tells the word processor that you really want this line to end here and not to append anything else to the line. The hard return is created by pressing the Enter key. You can think of it as you put in the hard returns using the enter key and word wraps puts in soft returns whenever it needs to start typing on the next line. Soft returns will move depending on margins, hard returns are in a fixed position.

Another concept that we have seen in Windows NT is the concept of a toggle switch. If you type on the keyboard the characters appear in lower case. If you press the CAPS Lock key and type everything appears in UPPER CASE. If you press CAPS Lock again what you type is in lower case again. In effect the CAPS Lock key is a toggle switch between lower and upper case. This concept is used in many places in word processors.

One of the most common is in the "mode" of typing. When you type in a word processor you are either in insert mode or overtype mode. Insert mode means that when you type the letters are inserted into the document. Overtype mode means that when you type you are actually over writing the text that exists now.

There are many ways to delete text in any word processor.

  1. The backspace key will delete characters on the Left of the cursor.
  2. The del key will delete characters to the right of the cursor.
  3. You can use the mouse to highlight an area of text by positioning the mouse, click and hold the left button and drag the mouse to the end of the area you want to clear, releasing the left mouse button and hitting delete.
  4. You can also move your cursor to a point (by clicking with the left mouse or moving it with the cursor motion keys), moving your mouse to the end of the point you want to select and holding the shift button down and hitting the left mouse button, then hit the delete key.
  5. The same effect can be achieved by moving the cursor to a point, holding down the shift key and using the arrow keys to select text, and hit the delete key.

Introduction to MS Word

Microsoft Word is one of the most popular Word Processing systems. When you run Microsoft Word you start the Application window. Inside the Application window there is usually 1 document window started. It is not uncommon to have several documentation windows inside 1 application window. Microsoft Word has the standard Windows Minimize, Restore, and Maximize buttons. Each document window it's own Minimize, Restore, and Maximize buttons.

Beyond the standard Menu Bar MS Word gives you two toolbars that provide quick access to the most commonly used functions.

The Standard Toolbar contains buttons corresponding to the basics of Word: Open a file, Save, print ... If you position your cursor over any of the buttons a ScreenTip Word will tell you the name of the button. These are grouped loosely by function.

The Formatting Toolbar give you direct access to the common formating functions such as: Boldface, Italic, ...

The Horizontal ruler is displayed under the toolbars and enables you to change margins, tabs, and indents. The Vertical ruler shows the current position on the side as well as allowing you to set the top and bottom margins.

The Status Bar at the bottom of the window displays the location of the insertion point.

The File Menu gives you the standard File Open, Save, Close, as well as Word Specific items. For Example: 

The Open gives you an open dialog box that is very similar to other applications.

The Save as dialog box

Anatomy of MS Word Window

Spell checkers

Spelling is one of the things that makes people not take your work seriously. Incorrect spelling distracts from what you want to are trying to get across to the reader.

When I was hiring entry level positions I would get a stack of resumes an inch and a half tall. The first cull just reading for spelling mistakes in the cover letter would wipe out 10 to 30 applicants. If they were not interested enough in the job to get the spelling right they had to have a very good resume to be taken seriously.

With modern spell checkers there is no reason to have spelling mistakes. The mistakes are highlighted for you. All you have to do is click to get a suggestion as to the correct spelling.

Often spell checkers have a real problem with people's names. However, you can create you own custom dictionary. If you type in a word like Steve Gallinger for example. When the red area is highlighted you can right click on the word and then on the Spelling ... option. And then add it to your dictionary.

Auto Correct

Auto Correct is a feature that automatically corrects simple typing or spelling mistakes, and Word will automatically correct things line hte into the.

You can change the Auto Correct to help you type things faster. If you type Saint Francis Xavier University a lot you might want to make an Autocorrect that changes STFX to Saint Francis Xavier University

Thesaurus

A thesaurus is an important tool for writers. It helps you avoid repetitive phrases and makes it easier to get your point across when you are looking for just the right word. You get access to the thesaurus from the Tools menu. Click on Tools -> Language -> Thesaurus

Grammer Check

Grammer Check checks the actual grammer of your document and ATTEMPTS to catch mistakes in punctuation, writing style and word usage. If you let grammer check have free reign it will make your language rather bland and uninspiring. But it is good for checking for simple mistakes. Grammer mistakes show up in green.

There is no substitute for a good editor and proofreader. If you don't have a friend willing to do so you have to be willing to read you own papers.

Save Command

There is nothing more frustrating than losing a document after two hours of effort. Develop a practice of saving things at least every 15 minutes. I usually do it once a page, or 15 minutes which ever is first.

Select Then Do

Many operations in Word take place in a select-then-do methodology. First you select a block of text and then you do something with it. There are two basic methods of selecting a block of text.
  1. With the mouse
    1. Click at the beginning of the text with the left mouse button hold it down and drag until you get to the end of the area you want to select and then let go of the left mouse button.
    2. doubleclick on a word and it will select that word.
    3. Ctrl plus a left click anywhere in a sentence will select a sentence.
    4. and others.
  2. With the keyboard. Move your insertion point to the beginning of the area you want to select and while holding the shift key use the arrow keys to select the block.
With the area selected a click of the Right mouse button will give you a menu of actions appropriate to the item you have selected.

Moving and copying text

One of the most important things within Windows is the clipboard. Text can be highlighted and then Cut or Copied to the clipboard and then pasted into the same spot or another. The clipboard is a temporary storage location available to all applications and infact this is often the easiest way to exchange data between one application and another.

Cut, copy and paste are found in the Edit menu in almost all applications and in Word is available on the Standard toolbar.

Undo and redo

We often make mistakes and what to undo what we just did the undo command is found under the edit command in almost all windows applications and is also available on the Word Standard Toolbar.

Redo is the reverse of an undo.

find, replace and goto commands

The find, replace, goto command available under the Edit menu allows you to do quite sophisticated searches for text within your document. If you click The MORE button on the screen it will show you a menu that looks like this.

Consider the following text:

This is a test of the things that will make Word work at it's pattern matching.

case sensitive searchs

Case sensitive searchs tells the computer that you are looking for the Exact match of the text. For example a case sensitive search for Wor would find Word but not work. Without the case sensitive switch selected it would have found both Word and work.

whole words only

The Whole words only allows you to specify that you want to find a complete word. A whole word search for A would abut not that, make, at, pattern, or matching.

wildcard search

There are two wildcard characters that help us do searchs.
  1. * representing 0 or more characters
  2. ? representing any one characters
A wildcard search for t*s would find 5 strings. A wildcard search for t??t would find that and this

Scrolling by mouse and keyboard

You can scroll by using the mouse to move the slider bar or click on the down arrow. This does not move the insertion point just the text being displayed. You will have to click on the position where you want the new insertion point or when you start to type the screen will be repositioned to show the insertion point as you are inserting the text.

Scrolling by using the keyboard is actually moving the insertion point.

View Menu

The View Menu allows us to see different views of the same document.

Typography

Typography is the process of selecting typefaces, type styles, and type sizes. Type should reinforce the message without calling attention to itself. Try to limit the typefaces and the colors.

Typefaces

A typeface is a complete set of characters, including numbers and punctuation.

Characteristics of typefaces.

type styles

Any typeface can be set in different type styles such as: regular, bold, or italic.

font

A font as the term is used in windows is a specific typeface in a specific style. For example: Times New Roman italic, Arial Bold

Type size

Type size is a vertical measurement measured in points or 1/72 of a inch. The measurement is from the top of the tallest letter(say T) to the bottom of the lowerest letter say "y".

Format Font command

Gives you complete control over the typeface, size, and style of the text.

Page setup

The page setup of the file menu lets you change margins, paper size, orientation, paper source and layout.

When you change the paper size in word you must also change the paper size in the printer control panel or you may get unexpected results. The Page setup allows you to change the following attributes of a page

Page Breaks

Just like soft returns and hard returns there are soft page breaks and hard page breaks. A soft page break is inserted by word and will change as required by the formatting of the document. A hard page break is inserted by the typist and will not be moved by word.

If you want a hard page break hold the control down and hit Enter.

Paragraph formatting

A paragraph is a unit of text that Word can manipulate as a block or unit. There are many attributes of a paragraph that can be adjusted.

Alignment

The alignment of a paragraph is the attribute that describes how the lines of the paragraph look on the page. Does the start or end of each line align on the left or right margin or are they ragged.

A paragraph can be aligned

  1. Left - Flush left ragged right
  2. Right - Flush Right ragged left
  3. justified - Flush left and Right
  4. centered - Centered (ragged left and right)

Indents

Indentation is the distance from the margin of the page to the text of the paragraph. A paragraph can be indented in three ways: left, right, or special. There are two "specials" first line indent and hanging indent.

Tabs

The tab key moves your insertion point to the next Tab Stop On the old typewriters, hitting the tab key released the break on the carriage and the carriage would slam across until the break encountered the next "tab" of steel that would stop the carriage. Word tabs are rather more sophisticated you can have left, center, right and decimal tab stops. You can also specify a leader character to draw the readers eye across the page to the next text.

Default tab stops are every 1/2 inch. but you can the alignment and/or the position with the format Tabs command. The alignment of a tab stop allows you to tell where the text is relative to the tab.

Line Spacing

Line spacing determines the space between the lines in a paragraph. You can set line spacing by single, double, line and a half, as well as in points.

Format Paragraph

Format Paragraph command is where you can specify the alignment, indentation, line spacing, and pagination for the selected paragraph(s).

The Line and Page Breaks section of the Format Paragraph Command control what happens to the paragraph at or near a page break.

Two terms that you may not be familiar with are widow and orphan. A widow refers to the last line of a paragraph appearing by itself on the top of the next page. An orphan refers to the first line of the paragraph appearing by itself at the bottom of a page.

Borders and Shading

The Borders and shading allow you to call attention to a paragraph. The tips and Hands on Exercises in the text book are examples of what can be done with borders and shading.

A Compound Document

All of the applications in Microsoft Office are integrated and can share information. They share information via a technology called Object Linking and Embedding(OLE) OLE allows you to generate a compound document containing data(objects) from multiple applications.

One of the most common things for you to include in your documents is clipart or pictures.

Inserting clipart and pictures

Getting Clipart for your documents

The Microsoft Clip Gallery contains over 3,000 clip art images, and the Internet has thousands more. There are sites that have collections of clip art that can be used for a noncommercial use. Here are a few Clip art archives: To save a picture on a web page in Netscape Communicator, position your cursor over the picture you want to save and Right Click. The Right click will bring up a menu and then select "Save image as ...", then save it where you want.

Once you have a graphic, you can then insert it into a word document by clicking on the Insert Menu, then picture, then "From File ..."

Microsoft Clip Gallary

You normally can get to the Microsoft Clip Gallery by clicking on the Insert Menu, then picture, then clipart, you then browse through to find the images you want.

Now you have a picture now what

There are lots of things you can do such as flowing text around the document. Click on the picture then go to the format menu and at the bottom select picture. This gives you a list things you can do with your text and picture. When you clicked on the picture you should see the various sizing handles. These sizing handles allow you to resize and move the document.

Insert Symbol Command

One of the things that make a document look better is the use of typographic symbols rather than ordinary typing. For example a © rather than (C) some substitutions are automatically available like 1/4 and 1/2 via the Autocorrect command. Others like the those in the french character set have to be inserted manually into a document.

MicroSoft WordArt

Microsoft WordArt is an application within Microsoft Office that creates decorative text and adds interest to a document. To Use wordart click on insert, picture, wordart. Select the style and then type in the text.

Resources from the Web

A hypertext document a document that contains a link to another document. Hypermedia is a similar in concept, except in provides links to graphic, sound, and video files. Every document in word is web enabled If you click on the a URL in a word document it will automatically start the web toolbar.

Copyright Protection

Copyright give legal protection for a written or artistic work. Please be careful of acquiring anything off the net. It should be considered as copyrighted material unless it explicitly states that it is in the public domain. Often the clipart sites will state freely that their stuff is freely available for non commercial use. READ carefully.

Copyrighted material does not mean that you can't use it at all. Fair use depends on how much you use and for what purposes you use it. St. FX is a signatory to something called CanCopy which protects the reproduction of original works. According to your textbook, it is fair use to use a portion of the original work for educational, nonprofit purposes, or for the purpose of critical review or commentary. If you use an image or text you should cite the original work in your footnotes and/or bibliography. Not doing so could be considered plagerism by the university and may be grounds for your dismissal from university.

Footnotes and Endnotes

A footnote provides more information about an item, it's original author is the most common usage. The foot of the footnote indicates that appears at the bottom of the page. The Endnote is very similar to footnote but the end indicates that the note will appear at the end of the document. You can tweek them to make them appear at other places. If you use a site as a source then you should note them, it makes your documents look more professional as well as protecting yourself against possible plagerism charges.

Wizards and Templates

A template is a partially completed document tat contains formatting, text, and/or graphics. The templates can be very simple like a very basic letter or very complex like a resume. Word provides templates for: resumes, agendas, fax cover letters. To use them simply open the template and modify the existing text as necessary, while retaining the formating.

A wizard makes the process even easier by asking a series of questions, then creating a customized template based on your answers.

To Start the Resume Wizard select file then New then Other Documents

After you select the Resume wizard it will ask you additional questions. You then complete the resume by entering the specifics you would like.