Mouse Clix

By: Hobie Lunin

"So all my best is dressing old words new."

With those words of Shakespeare, I offer this week's column about Word Processing. Anyone with Windows 95 and later should have WordPad in their Accessories. This is a basic word processing program and I intend, in the following, to guide a beginner through the process of learning how to use the buttons you see on the tool bars.

If you click on Start and point to Programs, point to Accessories and then click on WordPad you will be presented with a "new" word processing page. The flashing vertical line that you see in the upper left is called the "Insertion Point" and will always be the place where the letters appear when you start to type. Near the top left, click on View and make sure that Toolbar, Format bar, Ruler and Status bar are all checked. If they are not, Click on the ones that aren't.

Let's start with the bar just above the ruler, the Formatting bar. The first window is for the font style. You may pick from a wide selection of typefaces. To see what they look like you can type a sentence and highlight it by double clicking in the left margin and then selecting different fonts until you decide which one you like. The most popular for general office letters are Arial and Times New Roman. In the next window to the right you can select a size of type. Normally 10 will be the default size but I think it is a little small. You may want to choose 12 or 14. The next three "buttons" are "B" for Bold, "I" for Italics (letters are slanted to the right) and "U" for underline. If you click on any of these buttons, the button will look like it is depressed and will give reality to the command. Clicking a second time will take the command away. For example, after typing a letter and you want to make a word bold, you would double click on the word to highlight it and then click on bold. (To remove the highlight, click your cursor on a blank place on the page.) The fourth button with an "A" and artist's pallet on it allows you to change the color of the type.

The next buttons are for the alignment of your sentences. The default is Align Left, however if you are making a poster you may want to use Center for the words in your heading. Align Right is available but is not often used. The last button (at least on my edition of WordPad) is Bullets. These are small round dots that accent a list of items you may be making. When clicked on, each time you tap Enter to make a new line, the software will place a bullet on that line.

On the toolbar above that, the first icon on the left is New. If you want to start another file while you already have one open, click on New, it brings up an empty page. The other screen is still there behind the first one so if you minimized or close the one you can see, the other will still be viewable. The next button is Open and that will open a list of all your files in WordPad so that you can have a look at another file if you want, or by changing the Look in field, you can bring other compatible files in your computer to the screen. Save moves whatever is done from the Memory to your Hard Drive. If it already has a name, it will just save all your changes to that point, if it is a new file, you will be asked to name it. To find it again you must click on Open.

The next button is Print (looks like a printer), and this will allow you to print the page. The next is Print Preview which, when clicked, will show you what the page will look like when printed so that you can change the layout if you want. After that one is Find. This allows you to locate a word or words in your letter so that you can change them, e.g., if you made an error. Cut copy and paste, the next three are editing tools. If you decide you want to move a word or a sentence or a paragraph, highlight it, then click on Cut. Move your insertion point to where you want the word(s) to appear and then click on Paste. At anytime, if you make a mistake, you can click the next button that is a curly arrow to the left. This is Undo and will undo the previous action.

The next button is Date and Time and the computer will enter that after you click on it and choose the format you want. It will then put the time and date wherever you have the Insertion Point.

At the very top line you will see File on the left and this contains many of the items already explained. Page setup will give you a chance to change your margins, the paper size and whether you want to keep the sheet vertical (portrait) or have it printed on the paper sideways (landscape). Next, View will allow you to remove any of the tool bars you are not using. Insert, in addition to the date and time will allow you to put a photo or any other object onto the sheet as long as you can find it in your computer folders. Format allows you to change the indent on each paragraph in addition to font attributes already discussed. Help is next on that line and will be worthwhile looking through for tips and tricks you can use in WordPad.

I bet Shakespeare would have appreciated that!

Hobie Lunin is a Computer Instructor and Consultant, and will answer questions at hlunin@email.com. To see previous columns and other information, go to http://mouseclix.tripod.com