WinWord 97

Charles Balch, © 1999

Starting WinWord: Double click on the Word Icon. In UVI labs, the location changes and sometimes disappears! At other locations, have someone who knows what to do write down the exact actions. Try them before the person leaves!

Menus are selected by pressing ALT then the appropriate letter or by clicking on the menu heading. Select menu choices by typing the appropriate letter or clicking on your command of choice. If a menu item is grayed out, some circumstances preclude that choice.

File Commands

New Documents

The easiest way to create a new document is to press the new document button on the speed bar. Select New from the File menu for access to Wizards and Templates.

Retreiving Documents

Use Filethe Menu item, Open to retrieve previously created documents. To convert documents of other types, change the option in "files of type" found at the bottom of the open file menu.

Saving your work:

• Choose Save from the File menu. Remember to do this often!
• Save As allows you to save the file with a different name and/or to a different location.
• Quit: Select Exit from the File menu.

Printing

• Always save your document before printing;
• Preview from the Print menu.
• Select Print from the Print menu.

Working with Text

To Select text:

• Hold the shift button while using arrow keys.
• Point, click and drag.
• >Double click on a word.
• Click on the space to the left of a line.

To Erase Text

• Erase to the left of the text insertion bar with Backspace.
• Delete erases to the right of the bar.
• Select text then press Delete.

Moving text

• Select the text.
• Either click and drag or copy and paste .

Editing Commands

• Spell Check : Select the Spell selection from the Options menu or use the speed bar icon.
• Thesaurus: Select the Thesaurus selection from the Tools menu.

Formatting

• To bold a selection. [B] (hold the CTRL button then press B).
• To underline a selection: [U]
• Adjust font size and font name by selecting the text and using the speed bar or select Font and Style from the Format menu. Pressing [<] or [>] is another way to change the size of hilighted text.
• There are four kinds of line justification. Apply these formats by either pressing the appropriate key while on the line (or paragraph) or selecting from the Format menu.
  • Left [L] A straight Left margin (ragged right)
  • Right [R] A straight Right margin (ragged left)
  • Full [J] Both margins straight (no button)
  • Center [C] Each line Centered
• Tabs are a useful way of lining up text. There are four types of tabs, Left Justify, Right Justify, Center Justify and Decimal Align. To insert a tab, first select the tab type in the gray box to the right of the ruler, then click on the ruler where you want the tab to appear. Move tabs by clicking and dragging on them. Remove tabs by dragging them off the ruler.

Document Areas

• Adjust margins by selecting Page Setup from the File menu and filling in the appropriate areas.<
• Create a footnote by selecting Footnote from the Insert menu. Select Footnote from the View menu to view/not view the footnote window.
• Headers and Footers appear at the top and bottom of all pages and are defined under the View menu. A Header/Footer on the first page is optional and different sections can have unique headers/footers. There are special inserts for page numbers, current date, and total pages available on the footnote toolbar. Use tabs to line up header and footer sections.
• Columns: Select the text you wish to place in multiple columns then select Columns from the Format menu. This will automatically create a section.

Special Topics

• Templates are documents that are used over and over.
  Setup: Create a directory to keep your personal templates and use the Tools/Options/File Locations/User Templates option to modify the location of your template directory.
  Creation: To create a template, design the document that you wish to appear every time that you call the template (consider creating the template by adapting an existing document by removing personal references). Use the File/SAVE-AS/File Type/Template option to save the template. Every time you use File/New you will have the option of using your template.
• Mail Merges are used to send the same information to numerous persons. Mail merges can get very complicated but at their simplest they involve two files: a Main Document and a Data File.
  The Data File contains headers and lines of information that are merged with the Main Document. Create a Data File by typing a header row of the information that you want to use (i.e. Name, Salutation, Address1, Address2, City, State, Zip). Separate each item (field) with a single tab. As you are entering data on each line, be sure to press tab between each item. If the information is blank (i.e. address2) press tab twice to line up your data.
  The Main Document is much like a template. When the Tools/Mail Merge option is selected, WinWord will ask you to define the Data File and Main Document. The Main Document can be a new document or it can be an existent document (it is possible to switch Data Files associated with a Main Document). < BR> Once both documents are created, WinWord provides a new toolbar in the Main Document. Simply insert the desired field wherever you want the fields content to be replaced.
• Inserting Excel tables/graphs should be a simple matter of selecting, copying and pasting the information from your original document. It is not. Pasting an Excel object(s) into a WinWord document will bring all but the fastest systems to a grinding halt. It is best to use the WinWord Edit/Paste Special option. For graphs, select the picture option. For cells (tables), select the Formatted Text (RTF) option. Note this method will keep your WinWord information from being automatically updated.
  It is best to close all but the WinWord and Excel applications when doing this command.
  Remember that you can easily switch between applications by using the ALT-Tab key.
• To insert graphics use the picture option from the Insert Menu. The clip art option gives access to the pictures that were installed with Microsoft Office. The file option is for files that you have gathered elsewhere.
• Converting Word Perfect (and other) documents into Microsoft Word documents in simply a matter of choosing the correct option from the File/Open/File of Type options.
• As a rule, word processors can read files made by application versions that were released after the release that you are using. Almost all word processors have the option to save and open files in the RTF format. This makes RTF as close to a universal format as is available for document transfer. While not as robust for formatting and downright miserable for editing, HTML is the true universal file format.
• Styles and Style Sheets promote consistency within and between documents. With style sheets a number of style decisions are made then named. Thus normal text might have a font size and type, a certain paragraph separation, headers of various levels would also have their own unique look. All portions of the document using a given style would have the same look promoting consistency. The fun doesn’t stop there though. Change the rules for a named style and all portions of the document that use that name are also changed.
  Styles also allow documents to be put into outline format. In outline format, only the section headings of a document are visible. These can be rearranged at will.
• Fields are a powerful way to automate longer documents. They can be both very powerful and take up a lot of time. Here are some selected fields. Bookmarks allow document sections to be named and referred to for page numbers, repeated text, and simple locations.
  Document and User Information fields allow the automatic printing of much useful information. When using the FileName field, it is often desirable to include some field specific switches (found with the Option button) such as the documents path.