Additional features of inputting text
  • Mistakes. In most Word Processing programs you are allowed to Undo the last action performed. In Microsoft Word you may Undo more than the last action. When you perform two actions such as deleting text you can Undo both of them. You can Undo the last action performed by itself or you can Undo both actions. If you Undo an action that is not the last action performed, then you must Undo all actions which were performed after it. To see a list of the actions which you may Undo, look in the toolbar at the following two icons.



    The curved arrow icon is a shortcut for Undo. To get a list of the actions you may Undo, click the down arrow icon. As you move down the list notice that all of the actions above the mouse pointer are highlighted.

    There is a corresponding feature to Undo called Redo which will Redo any commands that you Undo. You can find the icon for it on the toolbar next to the icon for the Undo command.

  • Page Breaks. Sometimes it is convenient for you to be able to cause printing to begin on the next page. For instance, if you are printing a title page which is part of your document, then you would put a page break after the title page so that you text will begin on the next page. There are two kinds of page breaks. There is another feature of inputting text which wasn't mentioned last week. That is the use of tab settings. Tab settings are special marks set on a line which can be jumped to in one keystroke, that keystroke being the Tab key. When you start a new Microsoft Word document, there are default tab settings set at every half inch on a line. By going to the Format Menu and selecting Tabs... you can change these settings. You can enter as many tab settings as you want (withing physical reason, that is you can have more tab settings that the number of characters that could be placed on a line. For instance, if you can only type 80 characters on a line, then it would not make sense to try to make 100 or more tab settings on that line.) Once you have made a tab setting at a certain position on a line, you can get to that position by hitting the Tab key. The tab key will move the insertion point across the line until it reaches a tab setting.

    A methodology which is used sometimes in Microsoft Word is that of Select-then-do. That is, for instance, when we selected text to boldface. We first selected the text by highlighting it, and then we performed the action, in this case we boldfaced the text.

    An additional features of Microsoft Word
    You can have Microsoft Word correct common misspellings for you. For instance, if you frequently misspell potato as potatoe, you can have Microsoft Word automatically correct this for you. This feature is called Autocorrect. You can find it under the Tools menu. Autocorrect brings up a dialog box. There is a tab labeled Autocorrect. Here you can choose options.

    Formatting Text

  • To change the font and font size, go to the Formatting Toolbar and click on the arrow to the right of Times New Roman. Times New Roman is the default font. You may click on the arrow to the right of the 10 to change the font size. 10 is the default font size. To make the change to a group of characters, first highlight that group.

  • There are several ways to change the appearance of a word in your document. On the formatting toolbar, there are various shortcuts to some of these enhancements. We have already discussed changing the font and font size. We may also change the appearance of the text by making it boldfaced, italicized, or underlined. There are three buttons on the formatting toolbar which will accomplish these enhancements. The procedure is the same as for changing the font and font size. To change text to boldface: The same procedure can be followed to italicize or underline. One requirement in the word processing assignment is small caps. To accomplish small caps:
  • Aligning text. There are four basic ways in which to align the text on a page. We will discuss margins later, but for the purposes of aligning the text, the left margin is the closest point to the left side of the page at which text may appear. The right margin is the closest point to the right side of the page at which text may appear.. Microsoft Word chooses default margins which can be changed by the user. You can accomplish any of these alignments on the formatting toolbar. Simply highlight a paragraph or groups of paragraphs and click the appropriate button on the formatting toolbar. These buttons appear as the text will appear. You may also click any of these icons when the insertion point is on a blank area, and the text which appears after that point will be formatted based on the icon you clicked.

  • Line Spacing - You may also choose the line spacing in your document. Recall that part of your word processing assignment is to have two pages double spaced. To accomplish double spacing simply go to the Format Menu on the Menu Bar and choose Paragraph. There is a small area in the dialog box labeled line spacing.

  • Autoformat - The Autoformat feature allows you to have Microsoft Word automatically format what you type. You can find the autoformat feature by choosing Tools Autocorrect... . There is a tab for Autoformat.

  • Setting Margins - It is very simple to set the margins for your document. Choose the File Menu on the Menu Bar and choose Page setup... . Notice that this brings up a dialog box. Here you can set all margins for your document.

  • Making a Footnote - Move the insertion point to where you want to make the footnote, then hit Insert Footnote... .

    Additional Ways of Formatting Text

  • Headers and Footers

    A header is a line or lines of text which appear at the top of each page of a document. A footer is a line or lines of text which appear at the bottom of each page of a document. To create a header or footer
    1. Go to the View Menu and select Header and Footer. You will see the following displayed.



    2. You may type your header into the dashed rectangle. You may use any of the formatting tools that are available for normal text. You can also use the alignment icons. If you scroll down on the page or click the following icon



      you will taken to the bottom of the page where you see another dashed rectangle labeled footer. You should exercise caution when creating a footer if you have already put page numbers centered at the bottom of each page.

    3. When you have entered the header and footer, click the Close button.
    Normally a header or footer is not appropriate for a title page. To place a header on all pages except the title page
    1. While the insertion point is sitting on the title page, go to the View Menu and select Header and Footer.

    2. Click the following icon on the Header and Footer Bar.



    3. Check the option Different first page.

    4. Leave all other options at the default values.

    5. Leave the dashed rectangle that is labeled First Page Header blank.

    6. Click the following icon on the Header and Footer bar.



    7. The dashed rectangular box will now be labeled Header. This will be the header that will be used on all pages besides the first page. You may enter a header like you did before, and then click close when you are done.
    Recall that part of your required assignment is to have a header line on each page of your document other than the title page that contains the course name CIS 150 left justified and your name right justified. To accomplish this
    1. Follow the steps to create a header until you get to the dashed rectangle.

    2. Type in the phrase CIS 150 Your Name.

    3. Move the insertion point between CIS 150 and Your Name. Hit the Tab button one time and Your Name will be centered.

    4. Hit the Tab button one more time, and your name will be right justified.
  • Typography

    Typography is the process of selecting typeface, typestyle, and typesize.

    The typeface of text are given names to distinguish them. Some of these names are Times New Roman, Verdana, etc. There are two basic differences in typeface. These are
    1. Monospaced. Monospaced characters all have the same size. An example of a monospaced typeface is Courier New.

    2. Proportional. Proportional typeface is based on the width of a character. Examples of proportional typeface are Arial and Times New Roman.
    We have already discussed some examples of typestyle. These include boldface, italics, and underline. To see the full list of typestyle go to the Format Menu and select Font... You will find a shortcut to Small Caps.

    Typesize is measured in points. A point is 1/72 ". Therefore the maximum point size for most typefaces is 72.

    There are some other ways you can enhance the text. If you go to the Format Menu and select Font..., then you will see that one of the tabs is labeled animation. You have several choices.

    All choices about typeface, typestyle, and typesize can be made using Font...

  • Backups

    A very important principle of doing work digitally is to keep a backup. When doing work on paper we always make copies of anything important in case they are lost or destroyed. This principle applies to digital work as well. You always want to make a backup of anything important. There are a few ways to go about this.
    1. One way is to make backup copies yourself. That is, periodically save your work in two seperate locations in case something happens to your primary copy.

    2. Microsoft Word also gives you the option of creating a backup copy of your document everytime you save it. If you go the Save As... option or use the Save option before you have given your document a name, then you will come to the Save As... dialog box. Click Options and you will see a list of options. One of these is Always create backup copy. You can also find this dialog box by going to the Tools Menu and selecting Options... and then selecting the Save tab.

    3. Microsoft Word also allows you to make backups at regularly scheduled intervals. One of the options on the Save tab is Save AutoRecover info every:. Here you select how often you want a backup copy made.
    Don't rely on the timed backups or the automatic backup when you leave your document. Always save any work you have done before you close a document.

  • Editing Text

    There is another methodology which is common. That is Write now and Edit later. That is when writing a document, go ahead and write the whole document. Then go back and proofread the document to make any necessary changes. There are a few features of Microsoft Word which we have seen that make the job of producing a grammatically correct document free of misspelling. One thing to keep in mind though is that these are only tools which can assist us. There is no substitute for actual proofreading. Therefore, do not rely solely on these tools to make sure that your document is errorfree.
    1. Spelling Checker

      Mirosoft Word has a built-in Spelling Checker which we have seen. If you select the option to have it automatically check your text as you type, then when you type a word it doesn't recognize, it inserts a wavy red line under it.

    2. Grammar Checker

      Microsoft Word also has a built-in Grammar Checker. If you select the Option to have it check grammar as you type, then when you type a phrase which it thinks is grammatically incorrect it will insert a wavy green line under that phrase.
    You can find all available options at your disposal regarding the Spelling Checker and Grammar Checker by going to the Tools Menu and selecting Options... There is a tab labeled Spelling & Grammar.

    1. An additional tool that you might find helpful is the Thesaurus. A Thesaurus is a collection of synonyms for common words or phrases. It can help you find a synonym for a word you are using, and therefore help you be more creative in your writings. This is of particular interest to those who write things such as English compositions because it is very boring to read a paper that uses the same word or phrase constantly. You can find the Thesaurus by going to the Tools Menu and selecting Language, and then moving over to Thesaurus. You can find a list of synonyms and antonyms for the word or phrase and also look up their meanings.
    1. Copy vs. Move

      We have already discussed in previous settings the difference between a copy and a move. A copy take the the text which is selected and places it on the clipboard so that we can place it at another location. A move will take the text which is selected, remove it from its current location, place it on the clipboard so that we can place it at another location. The move is accomplished by the Cut command. After highlighting text, if you click the right mouse button, you get a quickmenu which contains the commands cut, copy, and paste. Recall that the clipboard is a special temporary storage location.

    2. Find/Replace/Goto

      Another very useful feature of Microsoft Word is that it allows to replace all instances of a word or phrase with another word or phrase. You can find this option by going to the Edit Menu and choosing Replace... You can also simply find a word or phrase using the Find tab or jump to a specific part of the document using the Goto tab.