NOTES 04 - Word Processing I

Word Processing I - Introduction to Microsoft Word

Do you remember when we used to take a TYPING class? It wasn't THAT long ago! I had a college TYPING class in 1981. The main difference between TYPING and WORD PROCESSING is that in WORD PROCESSING we do not press the ENTER key at the end of a line. Let's start by taking a look at some important terms:

Insertion Point: (also called a cursor) The blinking vertical bar that indicates where the next character you type will appear. Note that when the mouse pointer (normally the shape of an arrow) is over a text area, the mouse pointer changes to an I-beam. The I-beam is different than the insertion point!

The I-beam is not the insertion point! In the past, you have probably been editing a long document and had the insertion point at the top of your document. As you proofed your document, you scrolled up and down, and eventually got to a point in your document where you wanted to type a correction, then, without thinking, you just started typing. What happened? The document instantly jumped to the point in your document where the insertion point was located - up at the top of your document, not where you were. The letters you typed appeared at the top of your document, at the insertion point. You had an I-beam down where you were reading, and wanted to make a correction. This is a common mistake. We've all made that mistake. Just remember that you have to click your mouse while your mouse is in the shape of an I-beam in order to move the insertion point to that location.

Word Wrap: The automatic movement of the cursor and word to the next line when the word would otherwise not fit on the line. A soft return is entered when WORD WRAP occurs.

Hard Return: When the user presses the enter key. Word inserts a paragraph mark ¶. You can click the Show/Hide button on the standard toolbar to turn this non-printing character on or off. Sometimes you want the paragraph mark visible so you can know where you have pressed the ENTER key and inserted a hard return.

Keep in mind that hard returns will not move if your document changes. If you change the margins or font size, your text will automatically wrap to the new margins, EXCEPT WHERE YOU HAVE ENTERED A HARD RETURN! This is the main reason to NOT press the ENTER key when you get to the end of a line. You may have copied and pasted information from a Web page into a Word document and found lots of lines that only had a few words on it, then it jumped to the next line. This is because the hard return on the Website was pasted into your Word document.

Soft Return: Computer inserted return when word wrap occurs. 

When do we use a hard return?

1. end short lines
2. insert blank lines
3. end a paragraph

Save vs. Save As: SAVE will update the current file with recent changes. SAVE will automatically (without asking you) overwrite the original file and replace it with the current version in RAM. SAVE AS will ask you to give the file a new name. If you save a document for the first time, Word will automatically take you to the SAVE AS dialog box so that you can give it a new name. We often use the SAVE AS command to save a file in a different location.

We can use the SAVE AS command to save a file in a different file format. For example, if I had an older version of Word on my computer at home and wanted to work on a file I created at work, I can use the SAVE AS command to save the document from work in an older format. Then, I can open the file using my older version of Word at home. This is also true if you had Word Perfect at home. Also, you can save a Word document as a Web page from the SAVE AS dialog box. 

Font or Type Style: Style of type for the letters in your document. 

Type Size: Fonts are measured in points. 72 points equal one inch. If you wanted to use letters that were about an inch tall, you would specify a type size of 72 points. Use 36 point type for letters approximately a half inch tall. Typewriter size type would be approximately 12 point type. Word defaults to 10 point type - a little smaller than 12 point. 

Cursor Movement keys:

Left and right arrow keys move the insertion point left or right, one character at a time. Hold down the CTRL key while tapping the left or right arrow keys to move one word at a time. The HOME key moves the insertion point to the beginning of a line. The END key moves the insertion point to the end of a line. CTRL + HOME moves the insertion point to the top of a document. CTRL + END moves the insertion point to the end of a document. PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN move the insertion point up or down a screen at a time. The UP and DOWN arrow keys move the insertion point up or down a line at a time.

Insert vs. Overtype Mode: Toggle between insert and overtype modes by pressing the Insert (or Ins) key on your keyboard. The default mode is Insert Mode. Overtype mode is called Typeover mode in some other word processing programs. When you are in the insert mode, when you type letters, all of the letters to the right are shifted forward in your document - it inserts the letters as you type. When you are in overtype mode, the letters you type will type over the existing letters in your document - erasing each letter as you type. 

Delete key vs. Backspace key: The delete key erases characters to the right of the insertion point. The backspace key erases characters to the left of the insertion point. They both do the same thing - just in a different direction! 

Selecting Text: Power users learn the keyboard shortcuts to select text. If we hold the SHIFT key down, we can use the cursor movement keys above to select text. For example, we could hit CTRL + HOME, then hold down the SHIFT key, then hit CTRL + END. Of course we could select all the text in a document much faster by knowing the SELECT ALL shortcut CTRL + A in most Windows applications.

Why save documents several times while typing?

1. the power may blink - anything in RAM is lost
2. your computer might freeze up
3. you may accidentally erase something important
4. I've even accidentally knocked the power cord out of a computer during classes, as I walked around the room helping students with problems - Don't laugh! It was NOT funny!  :-)

Spell Checker: Word has a built in spell checker to help us with misspelled words. We still have to proof read documents because the spell checker simply checks every word to see if it is in the dictionary. If it is not in the dictionary, Word puts a red wavy underline under the word it could not find in the dictionary. This does not necessarily mean that the word is misspelled. The word could be a proper name or a street name, or any number of other correctly spelled words that do not appear in the dictionary. Also, some misspelled words will appear in a Word document without a red wavy underline. If we misuse a word, as long as that word is in Word's dictionary, it will not be marked with the red wavy underline. For example, if I typed "I went too the store.", Word would not mark the word TOO as misspelled, even though I misspelled it by holding down the o too long. This is because Word simply checks every word to see if it is in the dictionary.

Here is a good example of some text that Word would NOT mark as misspelled:

Default Margins: Word uses default margins of one inch top and bottom and one and a quarter inch on the left and right. This is important because if we create a term paper, and are told to follow the MLA style, we would need to change the margins to one inch top, bottom, left and right.