ICT NOTES FOR PRACTICAL.
INTRODUCTION TO WORD PROCESSING (THEORY)
Word processing is the art of
creating, saving, editing, formatting and printing text and graphic documents
using electronic word processors.
Examples of word processors
These include:
●
Microsoft Word, ●
Corel WordPerfect,
●
Lotus WordPro,
●
Apple Pages,
●
OpenOffice.org
Writer, etc.
NB: Text editors are simple word
processors that are generally used to type without any special formatting.
Text editors are mainly used to
create small notes, memos and programs.
Examples of common text editors
●
Notepad,
●
Notepad++,
●
Gedit etc.
PURPOSE
OF WORD PROCESSING
Word processors are mostly used for
writing letters, reports, projects, books, essays, memos, resumes (CVs) etc.
BASIC
TERMINOLOGY
●
Typeface A typeface is the
shape of the characters. Some common typefaces are Times New Roman, Arial, and
Tahoma.
●
Line Spacing refers to the
amount of vertical white space between two lines of text, from baseline to
baseline. Line spacing is measured in
points.
●
Text Alignment refers to the way
lines of text are arranged relative to the edges of a block of text. There are
four types of alignment: left, centre, right, and justify. Justification is the process of aligning text in a document to
both the left and right margins at the same time. Justified text may have extra spaces between
letters within words, so that paragraphs appear as a block with an even
right-margin ending.
●
Indent: An indent is the
amount of white space set in between the margin and the beginning of text.
Examples of indents include the first line indent, hanging indent and right
indent.
●
Formatting Text Formatting text is
the process of changing the appearance of text in a document. Formatting text
involves using commands like bold, italics, underlining, changing font colour,
etc.
●
Editing text: This refers to the
process of making changes to the content of an existing document. Editing text
involves commands like cut and paste, overtype, undo, insert, and delete.
●
Copy – To place selected text on
the clipboard, without removing it from its current location.
●
Cut – To remove selected text from
its current position and place it on the clipboard.
●
Copy and paste
duplicated text, while Cut and paste moves text to a new location.
●
The clipboard The Clipboard is
an area of memory in which you can store copied or cut text, graphics or any
other items temporarily before being pasted into other locations.
●
The paste special feature helps to avoid
pasting text with all its formatting. The paste special feature provides more
control over what to paste.
●
Header - The header refers
to text that appears in the top margin of all pages in a document.
●
Footer - The footer refers
to text that appears in the bottom margin of all pages in a document.
●
Ruler - You can use the ruler
to set the indent, margin and tab markers. Avoid using the space bar to align
text!
●
Tabs Stops – tab stops are
places where text can be made to line up.
You can set a tab stop by clicking on the ruler bar at the desired
position.
●
Hard Copy – A copy of a
document printed out on physical paper.
●
Soft Copy – A copy of a
document that is stored on a disk or other computer storage device.
●
Overtype Mode – Also called
overwrite mode, causes any characters you type to replace
("overtype") the characters at the cursor. You can switch between overtype mode and
insert mode by pressing the insert key.
●
Paragraph – The text
between one paragraph break and the next. A paragraph break is inserted by
pressing Enter key.
●
Save – To write the document's
current state from RAM to a storage device.
●
Proofreading is the process of
reviewing a document to ensure the accuracy of its content. Proof reading tools
include spelling and grammar check (F7), thesaurus, etc.
COMMON
FEATURES OF WORD PROCESSING APPLICATIONS
1.
Word Wrap: this feature
automatically sends a word that does not fit within the margin settings onto
the next line, without the user pressing Enter key.
2.
Find: allows the user to locate all
occurrences of a particular character, word or phrase.
3.
Replace: allows the user to
substitute existing characters, words or phrases with the new ones.
4.
Spell checker: allows the user
to check spellings of the whole document at one time or to check and even
correct the spelling of individual words as they are typed (Autocorrect)
5.
Grammar checker: this reports
grammatical errors, usually by a wavy green line, and suggests ways to correct
them.
6.
Thesaurus: suggests
alternative words with the same meaning (synonyms) for use in the document.
7.
Mail Merge: This is feature
used to create similar letters to be sent to several people. The names and
addresses of each person can be merged with one single main document.
8.
Automatic page numbering: numbers
the pages automatically in a document
9.
Tables: allow users to
organise information into rows and columns.
10.
Multi-columns: arranges text into
two or more columns that look similar to newspaper or magazine
11.
Drop cap – Formats the first
letter in paragraph to be dropped across two or more lines.
12.
Clip art: refers to pre-made images about various subjects used to
illustrate concepts in documents.
13.
Templates: establish the
initial document layouts and formats for various document types.
14.
Printing: allows a user to
obtain a hard copy of a document from the printer.
15.
Word Count: Establishes the
number of words, characters, paragraphs, etc. in a document.
16.
Headers and Footers: Used to
insert text in the top and bottom margin through the document.
17.
Footnotes and Endnotes are used as references that
provide additional information about a word or phrase within a document.
18.
Insert and Delete allows a user to add and remove
portions of text while editing document
COMMON PARTS OF A WORD PROCESSOR
a)
Title bar—indicates the task currently running. On the right hand side of
the title are the minimize, restore/minimize and close buttons
b)
Menu bar—provides the user
with a group of commands that are used to manipulate the document
c)
Tool bars—consist of sets
of command buttons for quick execution of frequently used groups of commands.
d)
Document window—this is the
working area where the document is created
e)
Status bar—Displays
information that the user may need to know such as the current position of the
insertion point, progress, edit mode, etc.
ADVANTAGES OF USING ELECTRONIC WORD PROCESSORS AS COMPARED
TO MANUAL TYPE WRITERS
Advantages:
1.
Word processors
can save softcopies for future use while
with a type writer; a document has to be fully retyped if needed again.
2.
During typing with
a word processor, it is possible to undo a mistake, while any error made with a type writer is immediately impacted on
the printout.
3.
A type writer
prints one character at a time while
a word processor prints many pages at a time.
4.
There is a variety
of quick text formatting features such as bold, italic, underline, colour, etc.
in a word processor whereas there
are limited formatting options with a typewriter.
5.
A word processor
provides grammar and spell check options whereas
a typewriter cannot help in spell checking.
6.
It is easier to
insert graphics and drawings in a word processor yet it is not easy to draw with a type writer.
7.
A word processor
allows the user to type continuously without pressing the enter key at the end
of each line (word wrap) whereas the
user needs to advance the lever of a typewriter manually, at the end of every
line.
8.
It is very simple
to align text in a document to Left, Centre, Right or Justified whereas with a type writer, one has to
manually align the text, which is very difficult.
9.
A word processor
has edit features such as Copy and Paste in which repeatedly occurring text in
a document can be copied to and pasted from the clipboard whereas a type writer has no clipboard.
10.
A word processor
can work on many pages at a go by inserting pages numbers, footers, headers,
watermarks, etc. whereas a type
writer works on one page at a time.
11.
A word processor
can insert drawings word arts and pictures whereas
with a type writer, drawings and pictures can only be drawn by a hand on the
stencil.
12.
With A word
processor, you can use mail merge feature to create a set of documents, such as
a letter that is sent to many customers, by only creating one main document and
inserting different fields for the customers’ details whereas with a type writer, you have to type the each document
separately.
13.
A type writer
requires a lot of strength to strike a key so as to have a strong impact on the
stencil in order to get a reasonably visible printout whereas a computer keyboard has easy-to-press buttons which don’t
require too much strength during typing.
14.
A type writer
makes a lot of noise during its operation as compared to a word processor which is relatively quiet.
15.
A word processor
has a lot of symbols such as Greek, Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew alphabet
character sets whereas a type writer
can only add the English alphabet and commonly used symbols that are currently
calibrated on the typewriter.
16.
A Word processor
can add preformatted elements (templates) by selecting from a gallery of
professional templates e.g. cover pages, resumes, etc. whereas with a type writer it is up to the typist to know the
layout and professional look of document types.
DISADVANTAGES
OF USING ELECTRONIC WORD PROCESSORS
1.
Word processors
cannot be used without Electricity.
2.
Word processors
Use is Expensive due to the cost of computers.
3.
They have led to
Unemployment of typists because one person using a word processor can do a lot
of work in a short time, which would be done by many using type writers.
4.
Many people are
Computer illiterate, and cannot use the program.
5.
Computers have
Viruses, which lead to loss of data in soft copies.
6.
Using word
processors on light emitting computer monitors for long leads to eye disorders,
which isn’t the case with type writers
Word processors require
purchase of hard ware like printers in order to obtain hard copies yet with
typewriters, whatever is typed is permanent and instantly available as a hard
copy: there is no delay for printing or risk of unintended file deletion.
