Office Tools-Open Office. Org Writer-I

Chapter 6

Office Tools-Open Office. Org Writer-I

Word Processor

A word processor is a package that enters text and applies formatting features to create error free documents. The word processing software provides various tools for typing, editing and formatting text. It can be used to produce documents such as letters, memos, reports and mailing labels.

Examples of some word processing software's are:-

• MS word(owned by microsoft)

• Libre Office Writer(open source application or free license)

• Open office writer(open source application or free license)

• Corel WordPerfect(owned by corel)

• and web based word processor such as office online and google docs.

Features of word processor

1. Fast Typing Speed

2. Formatting Features

3. Editing Features

4. Spell check and Grammar Check

5. Drawing Auto Shapes and Inserting Pictures.

6. Mail Merge

7. Object Linking and Embedding(OLE)

8. Allow PDF Conversion of file.

Components of document window:

1. Title bar: The top most bar that appear in the document is the title bar. It shows the name of application and the name of document by default.
2. Menu bar:Menu bar is below the title bar. It has various menu options that are related to all the features that you can perform.
3. Standard Toolbar:Standard Toolbar is below the Menu bar. It has icons related to most common and most frequently used commands like creating a new document, open an existing document etc.
4. Formatting Toolbar:Formatting toolbar is below the Standard Toolbar. It has icons commonly used for formatting features like font type, font size, alignment, font color, highlighting etc.
5. Ruler Bar:Below the formatting toolbar is the Ruler bar. The horizontal ruler bar shows left margin, right margin, tabs and indents. The vertical ruler bar shows top margin and bottom margin.
6. Status bar:The bar at the bottom of the document that shows page number, column and the line number of cursor position.
7. Scroll bar:The scroll bar is above the status bar and on the right side of document window. It helps in moving between the document up or down is called scrolling and moving left or right is called as panning.
8. Work area:The area in the document window where you can enter text is known as the work area.

Creating a new document in writer:

To create a new document there are mainly three ways:

First using menu bar

1. Choose file menu. A drop down menu appears.
2. Choose the option new from the list. A sub menu appears.
3. Choose Text Document option from the sub menu.

Second using shortcut key

• Press shortcut key Ctrl+N for create a new document.

And the third one using standard toolbar

• Click on the new document icon on the standard toolbar to create a new document.

WYSIWYG:

It means what you see is what you get program. This means that the hard copy output of the document will appear same as what you see in the soft copy. Hard copy means paper printed media and soft copy means onscreen media.

Non-printing Characters:

While typing there are some special characters that are not visible on the screen like space, enter and the tab. They are especially when you are apply formatting features for making some complex alignment or margin setting in your documents. You can make these non-printing characters appear on the screen by using show/hide button in the standard toolbar. Shortcut key viewing and toggling between non-printing characters is Ctrl + F10.

Opening an existing Document:

To open a document there are mainly three ways:

First using menu bar

1. Choose file menu and choose the open option. An open dialog box appears.
2. Choose the file from the required path.
3. Select the Open button.

Second using shortcut key

• Press shortcut key Ctrl+O to open an existing document.

And the third one using standard toolbar

• Click on the open document icon on the standard toolbar to open an existing document.

Saving a document:

To save the document from temporary memory to permanent memory for later use.

1. Select the file menu and choose the option save as after typing the document.
2. A save as dialog box appears. Type the name of the file and choose the path, where you want to save the file.
3. Click on the save button.

To save an open document with the current file name choose save option. This will overwrite the last saved version of the file. If you choose save option instead of save as option for the first time to saving a new document the default save as dialog box opens. Shortcut key to save document is Ctrl+S and to save as option is Ctrl+Shift+S. You can create password protected documents by select the 'save with password' check box that appears in the save as dialog box and then click on save button.

Difference between closing a document and exit form a word application:

When you close a document in Writer, the document itself leaves your screen and you can no longer edit it. The program remains open for you to switch to another document. When you exit writer, the entire program closes and must be opened again in order to edit any documents.

If your document is not saved, then writer will prompt you to save the document by showing a message window with 3 options namely save, discard and cancel. Click the save option to save the document before closing. Click discard to close the document without saving. Click cancel to abort the closing and will continue working in the document.Shortcut key for exiting from the writer application is Ctrl+Q.

Page Margin:

A margin is the area between the main content of a page and the page edges. The margin helps to define where a line of text begins and ends. You can check the margin space from the ruler bar on all four side.

There are four types of margins on the page:

1. Left margin: The distance between the text and the left edge of the paper is known as the left margin.

2. Right margin: The distance between the text and the right edge of the paper is known as right margin.

3. Top margin: The distance between the text and the top edge of the paper is known as top margin.

4. Bottom margin: The distance between the text and the bottom edge of the paper is known as bottom margin.

Text Alignment: The text alignment is the arrangement of text within a paragraph with respect to document margins. They are two types:

1. Horizontal alignment

2. Vertical alignment

When the text is aligned in a paragraph with respect to left and right margins, it is known as horizontal alignment. Horizontal alignment is of four types namely left, right, center and justify. Left alignment is the default alignment.

The alignment of text with respect to top and bottom margin of the page is known as vertical alignment. It is used to create a cover page or title page for a document.

Indentation: Indentation refers to the distance of the paragraph from either the left or the right margin. There are mainly four types of indents:

1. Positive Indentation: When the text in inward from the left margin such that the paragraph appears between the left and the right margin, it is known as positive indentation.

2. Negative Indentation: When the text cover the area inside the left margin such that some part of the text appears inside the left margin.

3. Hanging Indentatin: When the first line of the paragraph is indented such that the remaining lines appears inside the first line given an appearance of hanging text.

 

  4. First Line indentation: When the first line of the paragraph is indented differently than the rest of  the lines in the paragraph, is it known as first line indent.

 Word Wrapping: Word wrapping feature in word processor is when you type some text and it goes beyond the right margin, then it automatically moves to the next line without pressing enter key.

Line spacing: Line spacing is the amount of space between lines of the paragraph.

1. Single line: This is the default setting. It applies a single line spacing to the paragraph.
2. Double: It sets the line spacing to 2 lines.
3. At least: This option activates the edit box next to the drop down list where you enter the minimum value to be used for the line spacing.
4. Fixed: Here you can enter the exact value of the line spacing.

Page Orientation: Page orientation describes how each page of your document will appear either length-wise or width-wise while printing.

Header and footer: Header and footer are areas where some text or graphics is usually printed at the top and bottom respectively on each page.

Some important short cut keys:

1. Ctrl + Home: to move to the beginning of the document
2. Ctrl + End:  to move at the end of the document
3. Ctrl + <--: To move one word left.
4. Ctrl + -->: To move one word right.

Insert v/s Over Type Mode: When the insert mode is on, you can insert the text inside the already written text such that when you type the new text, the previous text shifts to the right to accommodate the new text. This is insert mode of text.

If you type the text in between the existing text, then the newly typed text over types the previous text. This means that the previous text gets deleted and the new text gets over written on the previous text. The text does'nt shifts on the right side. This is known as over type mode of text.

Case Conversion: There are four types of case conversion.

1. UPPER CASE OR CAPITALS
2. lower case
3. Title Case
4. tOOGLE cASE

Inserting symbols in a document: The symbols that are not available on the keyboard can be inserted from the insert menu.

1. Select insert menu.Choose the special character option.
2. Select different characters sets form different font available in the font sections.
3. Select the desired symbol and click on OK button.