Editing your document

Most of today’s word processing programs provide “full-screen” editing. That means you can move the cursor to any position on the screen and change the text that appears there. You just move the cursor to that position and begin typing. If you are in insert mode, each new character you add will be inserted at the cursor position and the characters that follow will be pushed to the next position. If you are in type-over mode, each new character you enter will replace the character at the cursor position. The rest of the characters on that line will not be moved.

Deleting Text. Most word processing programs have been programmed so that one or more keys on the keyboard can be used to delete text. Most computer keyboards have a Delete key that is usually used to delete the character that is at or to the right of the cursor position. Each time you press the Delete key, the next character is deleted and the characters that follow on the line are moved one position to the left. Since the spacebar, the Tab key, and the Return key insert invisible characters into your document, they too can be erased using the Delete key. With most word process­ing programs, the Backspace key is also used to delete characters. However, the Backspace key generally deletes charac­ters to the left instead of to the right.

Formatting Your Document. All word processing programs have a number of features that make it easy to format your document. This includes features for setting margins, tabs, and indents. Modern word processing programs also generally include options that give you a way to format special headers and footers that will appear on every page of the document automatically.

Setting Margins, Tabs, and Indents Setting Margins. Word processing programs provide a way to set the left and right margins for each document. The margins are usually set by entering a number, in inches or other unit of measure for left, right, top, and bottom margins.

The Ruler Line. Some word processing programs provide a visual representation of the current margins, indents, and tab settings by displaying a ruler line. A ruler line is a horizontal line across the screen with the margins, indents, and tab settings noted along it.

With some word processing programs, you can insert additional ruler lines throughout the document to change the formatting for text that follows it.

Setting Tabs and Indents with a Mouse. Some modern word processing programs take advantage of the mouse’s pointing and dragging capabilities by providing a ruler line that lets you set the tabs and indents more directly by positioning special markers along it.

Notice that there are small pictures, known as icons, displayed along this type of ruler line. After highlighting areas of text (by holding down the mouse button and dragging the mouse pointer across the text area), you can reset the indents, tabs, and other formatting features by clicking on the ruler’s icons with the mouse. For example, you could use the mouse to drag the left-indent marker to the right until it is positioned under the ruler’s one-inch mark. As a result, the text that is highlighted will be indented one inch.

Setting Alignment and Line Spacing. Many of today’s word processing programs give you a great deal of control over your document’s alignment of text and line spac­ing. Most provide a way to align your lines of text along the left margin, leaving the right ends of the line ragged. This is left justification. Some programs let you align the right margin, leaving the left end of the text lines ragged. This is right justification. You can also set paragraphs as full justified: the program adds spacing between words or letters on each line so all lines will end evenly at the margins. Finally, you can center each line of text.

Different word processing programs provide different ways to set text alignment. You can set the alignment for all text in a document, for a block of text that follows a ruler line, or for a block of text that has been highlighted. Some word processing programs also let you set the line spacing for the entire document or for selected paragraphs.

Saving Your Document. Modern word processing programs give you a chance to save your work to disk at any time. Experienced users don’t wait until they have finished entering text and editing their document before saving: they save periodically as they work.

Save Your Work Often. There are good reasons for saving your work often. If something happens to the computer’s power supply, you could lose all the work you did since the last time you saved. When you are working on a document, a record of what you enter is kept in the computer’s memory. If the computer is turned off, or if there is even a momentary interruption of power to the computer, this memory will be erased and all your work will be lost if you have not saved it.

Save to Disk Options. With most word processing programs, your document is not permanently saved to disk storage until you name and save it using a Save or Save As option. Some programs require that you specify a name for the disk file when you start the docu­ment; others don’t ask for the name until you choose the Save option. Either way, with most word processing programs, you have to select the Save option to save the file on disk.

Printing Your Document. Word processing programs include spe­cial features that communicate the docu­ment’s text and formatting to a printer that is attached to your computer. To use a printer with your word processing program, you may have to tell the program what type of printer you are using. Most word processing programs provide spe­cial subprograms called “drivers” for each type of printer that the program can use.

Background Printing. With some word processing programs, if used with suitable computer systems, you may be able to continue working on your document while printing. This is known as “background” printing. With some systems, you can even use other programs while your document is being printed.

Other Word Processing Features. Today’s word processing programs often include a great variety of additional editing and formatting features. Each new revision of a specific word processing program will likely add at least a few new features to make the program more attractive to potential buyers. While many of these features are not commonly used with simple documents, some can be invaluable when your document becomes more complex. Some of the more common editing and formatting options are described in the following sections.

Block Operations. Once you have entered some sentences and paragraphs in your document, you may find that you want to copy or reorder some of them. If your word processing program does not have the capability to deal with blocks of text, you would have to reenter it all over again.

A Two-Step Process. Managing blocks of text in word processing is a two-step process. First, you have to specify the text block you want to work with. This is usually done by highlighting the text block. Second, you choose a block operation that acts on the selected text block.

First, the user highlights the block of text. This can be done by positioning the cursor at the beginning of the block, selecting a “start block” option, and then moving the cursor to the end of the block and choosing an “end block” option. With most programs, the block will be highlighted. If you are using a mouse, you can usually highlight the block by dragging the mouse pointer across the block of text while holding down one of the mouse buttons. The sec­ond step in the above example shows that the user then selected a Move Block option. At that point, most programs would ask you to specify a location for the block. Once the location is specified, the highlighted block of text will be moved to the new location. Once a block of text is highlighted, it can also be copied. This leaves the original block of text in place and places a copy of it in the specified location. Also, once it is highlighted, a block of text can also be deleted.

Search and Replace Options Searching for Text. In longer documents, it may be difficult to find a particular word or sentence. For that reason, many word-processing programs provide a way to search for one or more characters the document.

Replacing Text. In addition to searching for characters, many word processing programs provide a way to replace the found text with different characters For example, you may want to change every occurrence of the words “Patent 1993” with “Patent applied for 1992” throughout an entire document Using the Search and Replace option, you can specify a search for the first phrase replacing it with the second. You can choose to replace the text the first time it is found, or you can replace it throughout the document

Headers and Footers. Most modern word processing programs provide a way to enter a line of text that will be printed at the top of each page of your document (a header) and another that is to be printed at the bottom of each page (a footer) Such programs often give you a way to automatically insert the current page number in the header or footer

Spell Checkers. A spell checker is a special feature of some modern word processing programs that is used to check the spelling of words in your document against a dictionary of words that can be accessed by the program.

Thesaurus. Some word processing programs even give you access to a thesaurus to show you some alternatives to a selected word. As with spell checkers, the program attempts to locate the word in a dictionary of synonyms. If found the program displays a set of alternative words.

Mail Merge is a name for a set of special word processing features that make it easier to prepare form letters. Using these features, you can leave blank areas in a letter (for example, the inside address and the salutation). To personalize the letter, these blanks can be filled automatically just before each letter is printed by instructing the program to insert names from a list of names another computer file.

Macros. To avoid the need to constantly repeat of ten used keystrokes, some word processing programs give you a way to store a series of keystrokes as a macros. You can usually start the stored keystroke sequence by pressing one special key or a combination of two keys.

Help. Many word processing programs provide a special option to give you help with all the program’s features. When you choose the help option many programs will display a list of word processing topics for which help is available.

Page Preview. A number of new word processing programs now provide an option that allows you to see on-screen exactly what your document will look like when it is printed. This page preview option lets you view each individual page of your document so that you can see if the margins and centering are right, and if the headers and footers look the way you want them to. For complex pages with multiple columns and a variety of text styles and sizes, this option is valuable for examining the balance of each page before printing.

12. Ответьте на вопросы:

1. What keys are used to delete characters?

2. What options are included to help the user in formatting a document?

3. What ways do word processing programs provide to set text alignment?

4. Why is it necessary to save the work often?

5. What is known as “background” printer?

6. What operations can be done with the highlighted block of text?

7. How can different words or characters be replaced throughout the document?

8. What does page preview option allow you to do?