WORD PROCESSING
Word processing is the ability to create documents using a word processor. It can also refer to advanced shorthand techniques, sometimes used in specialized contexts with a specially modified typewriter. These were primarily aimed at typists, particularly in offices where other workers sent handwritten notes to be transcribed into documents for printing which were returned for reviewing.
The word processing operators achieved considerable time saving largely due to:-
• The faster typing speeds achieved as a result of electronic keyboards.
• The assistance of the word processing software for functions like layout and spell check, etc.
Today, there are different word processors available; some are proprietary like Microsoft Word, WordPerfect Office, StarOffice Writer, etc., while others are open source like Kwrite, Open office.org Writer, etc. Basic functions in all remain more or less similar and do not require advanced computer or typing skills for use. However, a complete word processor is that which lets us work with text and other features, for example, pictures, tables, artistic texts, to create interesting and meaningful pages. We can make our own posters for bulletin board, type letters and attach them as documents to an e-mail, etc. Since MS Word,an integral component of MS-Office, is one of the programs which provides all these features and many more and is also being mostly used due to its ease of usage, we have taken it as a sample Word Processing Tool.
STARTING THE WORD PROCESSOR
Most of the time, we will be able to start the word processor of our choice from the Program option under the Windows Start menu. Ofcourse, we might also create a shortcut on the desktop to access our word processor.
THE ANATOMY OF APPLICATION WINDOW
The first and foremost task is to get acquainted with the application window of the word processing package that we are planning to use.
As already mentioned, most of the packages allow the user to perform identical tasks; their application windows too appear by and large comparable.
The important components of this are:-
Menu Bar:- Provides menu options like File, Edit, View, etc.
Standard Toolbar :- Contains tools for standard tasks, like saving,printing, cutting, copying, pasting, etc.
Formatting Toolbar :- Provides tools for formatting like bold, italic, underline, etc.
View Buttons:- Provides options to switch between Normal, WebLayout, Print Layout, Outline and Reading views.
Tab stop:- A position we set for placing and aligning text on a page.
Drawing Toolbar :- Provides tools for drawing basic shapes, inserting pictures, changing colors, etc.
Status Bar :- This provides information about the current document.
When we start MS-Word, a blank document opens up. Word names the document as Document1.
We can also start a new document in any of the following ways:-
• Click on New button on theStandard toolbar, or
• Click on New option in the File menu.
After we have started a new document, type in some introductory text into the document. When we start the new document, the insertion point (the blinking vertical line, also called cursor) appears in the first column of the first line. We can just type the text, and it will appear where the insertion point is. But in a document where we already have the text, we can place the insertion point anywhere in the text by clicking the mouse pointing at the desired location
HOW TO SAVE A DOCUMENT?
• Click on Save button on the formatting toolbar, or
• Click on the Save option in the File menu.
The Save As dialog box appears. It’s a good idea to give the new document a name and save it as soon as we create it.
The steps we should follow to save our document are as follows:-
Automatically, we will save our file in My Documents folder. If we need to save in some other location, navigate towards it by clicking on the arrow on the right, and selecting one of the available options.
Select the location. where we want to save the document.
Type the filename as Document New and Type of document as Word Document.
Click on the Save button.
We can cancel the process at any time by clicking on the Cancel button.
HOW TO OPEN AN EXISTING DOCUMENT
• Click on Open under File menu, or click ontool on the Standard toolbar.
• The Open dialog box is seen on the screen. This is similar to the Save As Dialog box.
• Navigate to the folder where our file is located, select the filename.
• Click on Open.
FORMATTING TEXT
Formatting refers to the way our text will look like– the design of the characters, their size, the space between paragraphs, their
alignment, etc.
First, selection of text.
By using the mouse, position the insertion point (by clicking the mouse) at the beginning or end of the block to be selected and then click and drag to the end or beginning of the block.
By using the shortcuts:- Double-click on a word to select it.
Triple-click on a paragraph to select it.
Ctrl+click on a sentence to select it.
There are basically two types of formatting:-
• Character formatting, and
• Paragraph formatting
CHARACTER FORMATTING
Character formatting is the one which we can apply to any individual character or to a group of characters. It has the following options:-
Font:- This decides the appearance of our characters.
Font Style:- We can make characters stand out by making them Bold,Italic or both.
Size:- This increases/decreases
the size of the characters– the size measured in points(72
points=1 inch)
Font Color:- We can apply colours to the characters for printing the final document.
Underline:- We can draw attention to some particular text by underlining it.
Effects:- We can also apply effects to our text. Two most common ones are Superscriptand Subscript. The 2 in 32 is a superscript. To make a character into superscript, we need to select only that character, and click the box against Superscript. Similarly, 1in T1 is a subscript.
There are some formatting features that get applied to an
entire paragraph or paragraphs, but not to any given character or a group there of. Such formatting features are described as Paragraph formatting.
It provides the following
options :-
Alignment-: The alignment of a paragraph may be left,center, right or justify.
Indentation-: Indents are the left and right boundaries of selected paragraphs within a document.
This may be necessary when different paragraphs have different left and right boundaries. For Example, we can see the indentation in poems. The Indentation options available in most word processor are left and Right. Apart from these, we can have special indentation in the form of First Line And Hanging.
Spacing:- This option allows us to have some space before and/or after a paragraph or a group of paragraphs. We can select the paragraph(s) and select or type in the desired value against the appropriate option – Before or After. These values are measured in points. There is also a Line spacing option, which decides on the spacing between the lines of the paragraph. Normally we will type with the value Single for it. But if we want to have more space between the lines, we can select 1.5 lines or double for it.
TO ADD BULLETS OR NUMBERING
Bullets are small dots, squares, dashes or graphics that are often seen before the text (word, line, sentence, paragraph or any other object).
To add bullets,
•Select the object
•Click on Bullets and Numbering From Format Menu to open the Bullet sand Numbering dialog box Click on the bullet of your choice,and click OK.
Instead of a bullet, a number may also precede a group of paragraphs. To do so, proceed as follows:-
• Choose the numbered tab from
Bullets And Numbering of Format menu to view the numbering options.
• Select the numbering option of choice,and click OK.
To remove bullet(s) or number(s) applied to paragraph(s), select the paragraph(s), open the Bullets and Numbering dialog box, and select None in the Bulleted or Numbered tab. Click or ok.
Many of the formatting options
discussed above can be applied through the Formatting Toolbar.
The tools for Bold, Italic, Underline, Shadow, Numbering, and Bullets act as toggles – that is, the desired formatting will be applied if it is not already applied to the selected text, else it will remove that formatting.
USING TABS TO ARRANGE DATA
The tab setting allows us to align the text at a particular point, or to create a tabular layout. Try this out – open a new document and
• type 2 3 4 5 6, pressing the tab key after every digit. Press the Enter key.
• type 22 33 44 55 and 66, again pressing tab key after every number
(type 22, press tab, type 33, press tab, and so on).
A GLANCE INTO VIEWS
Most word processors provide us multiple views: we can select the one that suits the work at hand. We can display our document in one of the five views:-
Normal layout, Web Layout, Print Layout, Reading Layout or Online Layout.
Normal Layout
Normal layout view shows formatting such as line spacing, font,point size and italics.
Web Layout
Web layout view enables us to view our document as it would appear in a web browser such as the Internet Explorer.
Print Layout
view shows how the document will look when it is printed.
Reading Layout
Reading Layout view formats our screen to make reading our document more comfortable.
Outline Layout
Outline view displays the document in outline form. Only headings can be displayed hiding the text under them. We can just move a heading; the accompanying text will automatically move with it.
We can opt for any one of the available views by selecting it from the View menu, or clicking on the appropriate View Buttons.
CREATE A TABLE
Tables provide a neat way to present complex information in vertical columns and horizontal rows of cells. Each cell can contain text – a single paragraph or multiple paragraphs – or graphics. To insert a table:-
• click on Insert in the Table Menu and select onTable from resulting menu.
• This opens up the Insert Table dialog box.
Type in some value for the numberof columns and rows... let us type in the values 5 and 4 respectively.
• We can now see this table on the page – with 5 columns and 4 rows
• Time to type in some text! We can move the insertion point from one cell to another by clicking the mouse at the desired cell. We can also press the Tab key to move to the next cell,or Shift+Tab Keys to move to the previous one. !,!, ! and ! keys can also be used for this.
When a table is inserted, all columns are of same width and all rows are of same height. To change their size, move the mouse pointer to the line separating the rows or columns. If the mouse isat column separator, it will change to; if it is on the line bordering two rows, it changes to. Now drag the mouse to change the size of the column or row. If the cell is selected, then only the size of the selected cell changes instead of the entire column or row.
• Type in the text and adjust the column widths to make a table.
There are times when we need to change the number of rows/
columns after we have inserted the table. There are two options each for rows and columns in the Table menu.
• To insert columns, use the options Columns to the Left Or Columns to the Right under the Insert option of Table menu. Put the insertion point in any cell at the column adjacent to the location where the newcolumn is to be inserted, and select the appropriate option.
• For rows, the options are Rows Above And Rows Below. We can use these like we did for inserting columns.To delete row(s) or column(s), we can utilise the Delete option under the Table menu. The Various alternatives under this option are seen.
Select cell(s) in appropriate row(s) or column(s), and click on the choice to delete Rows or Columns as desired. To delete the entire table, put the insertion point somewhere in the table and click on Table under Delete option. Two or more cells can be merged into a single cell. Alternatively, a single cell can be split into several new cells. These options are also available under the Table menu as seen in the figure above.To merge cells, select two or more cells and click on Merge Cells. Tosplit cell(s), select the cell(s) and click on Split Cells.... The
Split dialog box appears, soliciting the number of rows and columns into which we would like to split the cell(s).
The easiest and quickest way to decorate the table:-
Click on Table Auto Format...under the Table menu. Table Autoformat dialog box appears.
Let us decorate the table we
had created:-
Any word processor will allow us to copy or move text/graphics fromone part of the document to another or from one document to another.
If the same text is appearing in more than one place, the copy optioncan save us from quite a lot of trouble. If we want to reorganise the document by changing the position of certain text, we need not delete the text from existing location and re-type at the new location– just move it from its current location to the desired location.
To copy or move, proceed as follows:-
• Select the item to copy or move. This can be a character, a few words, some paragraphs or a graphic.
• If we want to copy, click on
Copy from Edit menu. Alternatively, we can click ontool on the Standard toolbar.
• If we want to move, click on
Cut from Edit menu. Alternatively, wecan click ontool on the Standard toolbar.
• Place the insertion point at the destination location (this may bewith in the same document, or in another document), where wewant the text or graphic to be copied or moved.
• Click on Paste from Edit menu. Alternatively, we can click on tool on the Standard toolbar.
To delete some text or graphic, select the same and simply press the Delete key.
CHECKING SPELLING AND GRAMMAR
Checking spelling and grammar in a document after we finish typing and editing the text is very useful. We can check for possible mistakes and then confirm each correction. In Microsoft Word, we can start the spell checker by clickingon Spelling and Grammar option under Tools
menu.
When the spell checker finds a spelling mistake, a dialog box or task pane is displayed and the first misspelt word found by the spelling checker is selected.
We can resolve each error that the program finds in different ways:-
• We can use one of the words suggested by the word processor and click Change.
• We may want to change the word ourselves. Click the word on the document (not in the Spelling and Grammardialog box) and edit it. After fixing the error, click on Resume.
• The indicated word may actually be the correct one, but not available in the Dictionary; for example, the name of the town Shillong. To include such word into the word processor’s dictionary, click Addto dictionary. If, we would like to ignore it, click Ignore once. If wewant to ignore all instances of such cases in the document then click Ignore All.
We can resolve each misspelt word, the word processor flags thenext misspelt word so that we can decide what we want to do.
After the program finishes flagging the spelling mistakes, it begins showing us the grammatical mistakes. We can proceed in a similar fashion to correct those also. Alternatively, we can check spelling automatically while we type. In that case, we can be more confident that we won’t need to correcta lot of spelling mistakes when we are ready to deliver our document. Word flags misspelt words by underlining them with a wavy red line so that we can easily spot them. We can right-click the misspelt word to see suggested corrections onthe resulting shortcut menu.
Similarly, the grammar mistakes are flagged by a wavy green underline– we can correct these just as we corrected the spellings.
SETTING PAGE LAYOUT
When a document is to be printed, the word processor has to be told as To how the document should appear on the page, i.e., its paper size,margins, layout of the paper, etc.To alter the page setup, click on Page Setup under the File menu. In the resulting Page Setup dialog box, set the margins to the requiredvalues. Let us set the margins as Top – 1 inch, Bottom – 1 inch, Left –1.25 inchandRight – 1.25 inch.
Apary from the four margins, we may set the following:-
•Gutteris the space left on one sidefor stitching and binding – givean appropriate value, if required.
• The orientation decides whetherthe page will be printed length wise (portrait) or across itsbreadth (landscape). In otherwords, Portrait is taller than it iswide; Landscape is wider than itis tall. The orientation buttons themselves are quite self-explanatory.
In the Paper tab, select the paper size on which we are going to printthe document. There are standardpaper sizes like letter, A4, legal etc.
Either we can select one from theseor we can enter the width and height of the paper we are using. Click OK once we have typed inthe values for margins, chosen the orientaion, and selected the paper size.
MAIL TO MANY IN SIMPLE STEPS– THE MAIL MERGE
We use mail merge when we want to create a set of documents thatare essentially the same except that each contains some unique elements. For example, in a letter to invite friends to a birthday party, the date of invitation and the text there of will be same every where, but the address and greeting line will be different in each letter.
Using mail merge, we can create:-
• A set of labels for envelopes:- The return address is the same on allthe labels or envelopes, but the destination address is unique oneach one.
• A set of form letters, e-mail message or faxes:- The basic content isthe same in all the letters, messages or faxes, but each contains information that is specific to the individual recipient, such as name, address or some other piece of personal data. Creating each letter, message, fax, label, envelope, etc. individually would take hours. That’s where mail merge comes in. Using mail merge all we have to do is create one document that contains the information that is the same in each version. Then we just add some place holders for the information that is unique to each version. The word processor will take care of the rest.
THANK YOU
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