MS Word 2000

Word Processing

Word processing refers to the use of a computer program to prepare and print documents. Through this software, a user enters text, views it, changes it as necessary, saves it and prints and shares it.

15.1 word processing packages

Software packages like Word Perfect, Word Star, and MS Word are examples of Word Processing packages.

MS Word

MS Word provides facilities like bookmarks, auto text, auto table, links, pictures, symbols, video clips, header and footer, footnotes, fonts, borders and shading, columns, spell checker, grammar checker, auto correct, thesaurus etc.

Components of MS Word

MS Word has the various components on its window which are:-

Title bar

It is upper most bar of a window having Control Icon on its left. Next to control icon is the name of the program and document. At the right on the title bar are Minimize, Restore and Close Buttons.

Menu bar

Ms Word commands are grouped together in Menus on Menu bar. The menus are File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Tools, Table, Window and Help. To display a command, click on a Menu option or press alternately Alt and the underline letter in menu command.

Tool Bars

Standard and Formatting Toolbars appear below the Menu bar in the form of buttons.

The Standard Toolbar contains various tools which provide access to file management and editing commands.

The Formatting Toolbar contains various tools which are used to format character, fonts and text.

Ruler

Ruler appears below toolbars, Horizontal ruler at the top of working area and vertical ruler at the left.

Scrollbars

 Scrollbars are used to move a document vertically and horizontally . the vertical bar is on the right while the horizontal scrollbar under the window’s working area.

Status Bar

Status bar is located at the bottom of the application window. It displays the status or mode and other useful information about active file.

Entering text into a document

Insert mode

In this mode, text is inserted into the document at the insertion point. When you type any character it appears at the insertion point while the existing text on the right moves forward.

Overtype mode

In this mode, text overwrites the existing text from the insertion point.

Editing a document

Editing is a process of making alterations in the contents of your document. Some editing features are:-

Insert

It is adding text in a document by placing the cursor at the desired position and start typing.

Delete

Deleting is removing text using delete or backspace keys.

Find and replace

The find command allows you to find any word, phrase, or number that exists in your document, the replace command allows you to replace it with something else.

Cut/copy and paste

The cut command is used to move a selected item in a document and copy command is used to copy a selected item. You can paste it any number of times and anywhere in the same document or in any other document.

Spell checker, grammar checker and thesaurus

Spell checker tool check the spelling, lists correctly spelled words and provides auto correct facility to replace the typed word with correct one. Grammar checker checks grammar mistakes. Thesaurus provides a list of appropriate and alternative words.

Formatting documents

Document formatting is a process of improving the overall appearance of a document. All word processing programs have a number of features that make it easy to format your document. This includes margins and indents setting, font, column, header and footers, borders and shading, etc.

Text formatting

Changing the appearance of text in a document is referred as text formatting. There are four different levels of text formatting, which are;

Character formatting, paragraph formatting, section formatting, and document formatting.

character formatting

Improving the appearance of text is called character formatting, it involves selecting typeface, font size and attributes. Character commands can be accessed through the font dialog box on the formatting toolbar, or by using format command on Menu bar or by using keyboard shortcuts.

Typefaces, fonts, and point sizes

Font refers to the physical characteristics of a typed character. These characteristics include its typeface,  point size, style pitch spacing.

Typeface: refers to the design of the characters such as Balochistan Residential College.

Paragraph formatting

Paragraph formatting involves changing indentation, alignment, line spacing and tab settings for a paragraph. All these features allow you to enhance the appearance of your document. Paragraph formatting commands are accessible using mouse or keyboard shortcut combinations.

indenting paragraph

Indenting a paragraph means shifting the body of text within the normal page margin. When you indent a paragraph, you temporarily change the position of text relative to the left and right margins.

First line indent marker

This indent marker sets the first line of a paragraph on the left margin. It avoids the use of tab key at the beginning of every new paragraph.

Left indent marker

The left indent moves the entire paragraph from the left margin.

Right indent marker

The right indent marker moves the entire paragraph from the right margin.

Changing paragraph alignment

Aligning text to the left, right or at the center of the page affects the outlook of your document. The way how the text is aligned with the margins of a document is called justification. Word provides four different types of justification or alignment.

Left justification, aligns text at the left margin.

Center justification, centers the line or paragraph between the margins.

Right justification, aligns text at the right margin.

Full justification, spreads the text entry between the left and right margins by automatically spacing the words in a line.

Changing line spacing

Line spacing allows you to change the spacing between the lines of a paragraph or the document. You can specify various line spacing options from the paragraph dialog box using format menu.

Page/ Print layout

MS Word provides four primary views for working with documents; Normal, Web layout, Print layout and outline. You can select your desired view for your document from View menu.

Normal, Allows to type, edit and format documents, but does not display additional information such as header and footer.

Web layout, displays the document as it would appear if published on the web.

Print layout, allows to display multiple columns, footnotes, header and footer in the document and graphics.

Outline, allows to view and edit the document structure.

There are two more options for view.

Full screen: in Full screen mode, you can type, edit and format a document without Menu bar, toolbars and ruler.

Zoom: it is used to enlarge or reduce the view of a page on screen.

Specifying Page layout

Page layout of a document is affected by many factors including margins, paper size and print orientation. The control of these factors through page Setup is accessed from file menu.

Previewing the document

Before you pass a document for printing, it is better to look at the document that how would it  appear when printed. Word provides the facility to preview document in full page display before printing. To access print preview mode, you can select Print Preview option from the File menu.

Printing the document

Open the document you want to print. If you are satisfied with your document after viewing it in page layout, and Print Preview, then you can send the document to the printer for printing it.