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Word
Processing (Overview and
Tips) |
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to Advice.......... to Index
Tip1
Save it before you
lose it
As soon as you have
brought in Word and even though the document is blank, save it with a
recognisable name to an appropriate folder. By doing this, you can do quick
saves (File, Save) as you work on the document - and thus avoid the most common
mistake of all - working for hours on
something without saving and then for some reason, losing the lot.
Tip2
Worry about the
content and not how it looks
After saving the blank document with a name & location - DON'T WORRY ABOUT the look or form of the text/headings..etc - just concentrate on typing the content and getting what you want from your head to the page - worrying about the format at this stage robs your creativity and train of thought - the format is nearly always something that can be done later after you have completed the content on the page. See Select and Do
Tip3
Use of the Enter
key:
Paragraphs
As you type a paragraph always
let the words wrap down at the end of a line. Pressing the Enter key at the end
of a line makes the line into a single line paragraph.
Typing a complete
paragraph in this manner would lead to a structure which may look like a
paragraph but will be in actuality a series of single line paragraphs and you
will not be able to carryout normal paragraph formats such as justifications
(left,right centre, justify).
Address or Verse
Lines
One of the only times
you should us the Enter key at the end of a line is for short address or verse
lines.
Blank Lines
Pressing the Enter key
as already stated completes the end of a paragraph, it places an invisible 'end
of paragraph' mark at that point. Pressing the Enter key repeatedly, will give
paragraphs with no content, in other words what appears as blank lines.
Pressing the Enter
key with text selected
A common error that
most of us have made at some point is to select text (so it appears
backgrounded . See Select and Do), then forgetting that it is selected we press the Enter
key to enter the end of paragraph or place a blank line - the result is - the
text disappears - it is deleted. Pressing the Enter key with a selection is a
alternative way of deleting - take note of this.
Tip5
Typing mode
As you type the cursor
is pushed to the right.
If there is text
already placed to the right it is also pushed to the right and will wrap down
at the end of a line if you keep typing. This is the default 'insert' mode.
(you can use Tools, Options to set the 'overtype' mode which replaces text in
place).
Auto page creation
Continuing to type
will push other elements to the right and subsequently down the page. Once the
end of a page is encountered, Word creates a new page. Be aware of this when it
comes to printing. You may think you have only one page of text, but another
blank page below could have been created as elements are pushed to the right
and down.
Manual page creation
You can force a new
page to be created by inserting a page break (press the Ctrl key with the Enter
key: Ctrl+Enter, or using Insert, Break,
Page Break)
Tip6
Working with WordArt
or graphics
If you have a blank
page and want to place WordArt or graphics on it, then use the Enter key to
enter blank lines before inserting that element. This will ensure that after
placing the Wordart or graphic, you will still be able to access lines above or
below the inserted element.
Tip7
Unwanted Files
After using Word for
some while you will find that you have many dead files which are no longer
necessary. You could use 'My Computer' to delete them, (see 'Windows 95').
You can however,
delete files whilst you are using Word, which is less trouble.
The delete operation
can be done during your normal File, Open
operations.
When you use File,
Open and before bringing a file, you will see the open dialog box with all the
files listed in your folder. If you see a 'dead' file on the list:
- right click it, to
get the drop-down list
- Press down the
shift key on your keyboard (to ensure that the file will not be deleted
into the Recycle Bin, or leave it if you want to delete into the Recycle
Bin)
- Click 'Delete' on
the list.
Just as in the Window95 operating system and its GUI (Desktop), SELECT and
DO is one of the main components of working with a word processing package.
For the purpose of this discussion, I will use WORD97 as an example, but
most tips apply equally to Word6, Word7 for Win95, and indeed most other
non-Microsoft major word processing applications.
Having typed the main body of text into a document, you can begin to
think about it's look or format.
This is achieved by selecting words, sentences, paragraphs, a whole page,
or a whole document. Once the selection is made you can do multiple things with
it.
Select a word
- Double-clicking on a word
will background it (select it)
- or single clicking inside
the word, so that the keyboard cursor ( | shaped) rests in it, will select it
Select a line
- Move the mouse cursor to
the left and level with the line so that it changes from a I shaped to a
white arrow. At this point click the left mouse button. The whole line
will be selected.
Select a paragraph
- Single click anywhere in
the paragraph then Treble click the mouse.
Select any given numbers of
lines or paragraphs
- Move the mouse cursor as
with selecting a line (white arrow). Instead or single clicking the mouse
and letting go, this time click and hold down the button. Next drag down.
As you drag down lines will be selected (backgrounded). Continue dragging
until you have selected the required number of lines.
With the line(s) selected you can now click on a tool (say Bold), then on
another (say Font) and another (say Justify)....etc...etc
The form of, look of, or the Format
(the correct term) of a document, makes a great deal of difference to how the
document is understood.
It is also judged by others as the degree of experience, you have with
word processing.
One aspect quite often overlooked (but not by the skilled Word user) is
the subject of 'Styles'.
You may type a phrase from the left margin, bold it and underline it and
then call it a heading - BUT IT IS NOT.
Look at the style box on the toolbar, it shows 'Normal'.
If you click the arrow at the right of this style box you will see a list
of styles within which there are different heading styles.
Now if you select your text, then select say Heading1 style, this WILL
become a real heading.
Why bother with this ????
Firstly each heading style has a constant font type, font size, is
underlined or not, italics or not...etc.
Later in the document, say on page 2, you may want another Heading1, 2 or
3.
Now you don't have to go back to page 1 to see what the format was, just
type the text for the heading and select the relevant style.
'Heading Styles' - essential for auto
creation of Table of Contents
Secondly, there are other automatic functions that will not work unless
you have styles (Heading Styles) in your document.
A most dramatic one is the creation of a Table of Contents.
With Styles in your document, you simple use Insert, Indexes and Tables, Table of Contents, OK...and the contents table is
fully created for you in seconds.
Furthermore as you make changes to the document, select the Table and
press F9 and it will be updated for you.
'Heading Styles' - essential for Outlines
Thirdly, 'Heading Styles' are also essential for Outlining (View menu, Outline
-a method of viewing just the level (the heading style number) of a large
document).
For example you can just view Heading 1's of a very long document and
immediately get a good idea of the main points of the document. This is not
only useful for yourself but also when demonstrating the document to someone
else (e.g. the Boss).
Other Formats
Once you have SELECTed text then
there other formats you can DO.
Bullets, Numbering, Indenting (left or right),
background shading...etc...etc
You need to try these out in order to get used to them.
Inserting a bookmark, means that you can quickly move to a point in a document.
This page has several bookmarks in it - (of course they are not visible).
If you wish to quickly move to a definite point in a document,
firstly go to that place and then use Insert,
Bookmark, type in a new name and click OK.
Now at any point in the document you can quickly jump to the bookmark by
using a hyper link.
Example: You may have placed a Bookmark at a point in a document (e.g.
'Menu', or 'Costings Section')
In this case select the reference (e.g: that point in the main text which
referes: see 'Menu' or see 'Costings Section' ).
At this reference use Insert Hyperlink
or the Hyperlink tool on the toolbar.
Select the bookmark name in the bottom of the two 'Browse' boxes then
click OK. Note: The top Browse box is for hyperlinking to a different
document
To move to a different document
Place a book mark in the destination document and then place the
hyperlink at a reference point (or graphic) in the first document, this time
using the first 'Browse' box in Insert Hyperlink.
If you have a PowerPoint
file and you want to bring the graphics/diagrams into Word.
- Select the diagrams in your PowerPoint page then
use Edit, Copy to copy them.
- Start Word, using an existing document or a new
document.
- Position the cursor where you want the diagrams
to appear.
- Use Edit, Paste Special (note Paste will not give an
accurate representation of the diagrams).
Getting Started with Word97 - (36 page html document)
If you don't care to save the web pages from this site in order to learn Word, then here is a 36 page booklet on 'Getting Started with Excel'. To save downloading time is has been zipped up. The file is wordgs1.zip and is 224KB zipped (324 unzipped).
Download instruction:
Click the wordgs1.zip in the download box below, chose Save to
disk, select a temporary folder (or My Documents) to download the zip file
to, allow to download (on a 56K modem this should take about 2-3 minutes). When
downloaded is completed, you can close the your browser and pull out of the
Internet. To see how to unzip and use the file see below before downloading
|
DOWNLOAD |
Unzipping the file on your computer:
Next, will be the use of Winzip (if you haven't got Winzip click here download and then run setup). Using My Computer or Windows Explorer, locate the zip file (wordgs1.zip) and click it (double click in Win95ver2/Win98). This will start Winzip.
In Winzip, click the Extract button (to unzip the file) and decided into which folder you want the 61 files from the zip file, to be unzipped to. Note: It would be better to firstly use My Computer to create a new folder calling it for example ' Word Lesson1 '
Viewing the file on your computer:
Close Winzip, use My Computer /or within Word97, locate gs2(1).htm and open it. This is an HTML file, a web page. If you open it via My Computer it will automatically run Internet Explorer to view the web page. If you open it via Word97, it will be converted and you can view it as it, or use File, Web Page Preview, to view it in Internet Explorer.
Finally in the file there are links (usually in blue), these hyperlinks allow you to jump to another place in the 36 page web document. You can use the Web toolbar's back arrow, to go back to the original location.
This 36 page html document is better than buying an expensive 200-400 page book on Word, but although is gives easy to follow instructions on Word Basics covering many different areas you will need know, it is not an advanced document.
Comments:
I hope that you find this and the use of my web-site for your Word study, worthwhile. If you have any comments to improve this aspect of the site, or their any errors or dead links, email me at michael_small@lineone.net (no file attachments unless previously agreed between us)
