There are three essential processes involved in creating any document using a word processor: writing, editing, and formatting your document. Most documents you will also want to print out or send to someone using e-mail or fax software.

The three processes

Writing in this case means typing. The biggest favour you can do yourself is to learn to touch-type. In this way, you can concentrate on what's happening on your screen instead of focussing on your fingers hitting the keys. If you can touch-type, you'll learn how to use a word processor much, much faster than the hunt and peck typist.

Editing a document involves making changes to the words in your document: checking spelling and grammar, reordering sentences and paragraphs, choosing the most apt word.

Formatting is the process of making your documents look good: choosing a typeface, adding headings, positioning text on the page, applying a consistent style to a document.

Moving through the processes

You can move through these processes one by one, first typing your words, then going back and making any changes to the text or spelling or sense of the words, and finally applying formatting to the whole document.

More often, though, you'll find yourself doing all three at once – correcting spelling as you type, italicising words for emphasis and so on, and then doing a final edit and format once you've completed the content of your document.

We're going to focus on the first two processes – writing and editing – in this article.

Remember the 3 rules!

Remember, whichever part of the word processing cycle you're focussing on keep in mind the three basic rules we covered in the first article in this series:

  1. Read the screen carefully at all times and notice what's happening there.
  1. Take the pressure off yourself while you're learning by working only on non-urgent tasks.
  1. Save your work constantly.

Getting words on 'paper'

How do you get your words on paper – or, more correctly, on screen?

It's a simple matter of opening a new document and typing.

Almost all word processors start by presenting you with a blank document when you open them. If you don't have a blank document open, you can create one by clicking the File Menu and choosing New from the menu.

The File, New option may give you a choice in the type of new document you create. Simply choose 'blank' document or 'start from scratch' or a similar option – the exact wording is different from one word processor to the next.

The insertion point

With a blank document open, you'll see there's a flashing vertical black line near the top of the document. This is called the 'insertion point', and it indicates the position where text you type will appear in the document. Because this is a blank document, it's right at the top of the page. As you type, you'll notice the insertion point moving to indicate where the next text you type will appear.

Type in a paragraph to test things out. If you've had experience using a typewriter, there's one thing you'll need to keep in mind when using a word processor: you do not need a carriage return to start each new line. The word processor will automatically 'wrap' the current line round onto the next line, adjusting to the margin set. There's no need to hit the Enter key (occasionally labelled Return on some computers) until you come to the end of a paragraph.

A test paragraph

So, try typing the paragraph below, and observe how the word wrap feature works and how your words appear in the word processing window. Don't worry if you make spelling mistakes or other errors. You can go back and correct those later.

By the way, if you're not familiar with typing on a keyboard, to capitalise a letter, hold down the left or right Shift keys and press the letter; to capitilise a string of letters, press the Caps Lock key once, type the letters, and then press Caps Locks to return to lowercase.

Here's the paragraph:

I've been spending a little time in San Francisco. The first thing I noticed is how much better the public transport is there than in Los Angeles. BART is not bad at all. Thank goodness, because many places in the US you are forced to use a car to get around at all.

Once you've finished typing the paragraph, press Enter to begin a new paragraph.

Save your work

Now is a great time to save your work for the first time, too. To save it, click the Save icon in the toolbar or open the File Menu and select Save.

When you save the document, you'll give it a name and when you return to the word processing window, you'll see that name in the title bar at the top of the screen.

Editing the text

Let's try editing the text. Not everyone knows what BART is, so we're going to insert the words 'Bay Area Rapid Transit' in parentheses after BART. To do that:

1. Use the arrow keys to move the insertion point so it's positioned immediately after the 'T' in BART. (You may need to press the Num Lock key if you find the arrow keys are inserting numbers into your document instead of moving the insertion point.)

Most word processing programs will let you move the insertion point faster if you hold down the Control key (usually labelled 'Ctrl') at the same time as you press the arrow keys. Standard shortcuts are Ctrl-Left Arrow or Ctrl-Right Arrow to move the insertion point a word left or right at a time; and Ctrl-Up Arrow or Ctrl-Down Arrow to move to the beginning or the end of a paragraph, or the beginning or end of a page. You'll also find the PgUp and PgDn keys will move you quickly from top to bottom of a screen, once you've typed a little more.

2. Once you have the insertion point positioned, type:

(Bay Area Rapid Transit)

Typing modes

Notice how the words to the right of the insertion point shift over as you type? There are two typing modes in word processors: insert, which is the standard mode and which you've just seen in action, and overwrite. In overwrite mode, anything you type will write over – obliterate – text to the right of the insertion point.

You can switch between modes by pressing the Ins or Insert key on your cursor control pad (below the arrow keys).

Writing more

Continue typing another three paragraphs, pressing Enter at the end of each paragraph:

To tell you the truth, I've had enough of driving. I drove sixteen-and-a-half hours straight, mostly in rain, down the I5 to get to San Francisco from Seattle. Most of the drive is boring, except for the stunning stretch from central Oregon south to northern California.

However, despite the driving overkill, I'm looking forward to the drive back. This time I'll take the coast road, which is much longer, but which is so beautiful I don't care how long it takes me. I'm hoping to spend a week on the road for the return trip.

So, while I'm in San Francisco, I'm sticking to BART and shank's pony!

Inserting text

It appears we're writing a letter, but we've omitted the salutation at the beginning. To insert that, use the arrow keys to move the insertion point to the very beginning of your document.

You've already seen how easy it is to insert words. Inserting a new line or paragraph is just as simple: make sure the insertion point is positioned immediately before the first word in the first paragraph and then press the Enter key. The whole paragraph will move down one line. You can then press the Up Arrow key once to move up to the blank line you inserted, and type:

Dear Eamon,

If you find you accidentally insert too many blank lines, press the Backspace key to delete the extra blank lines and move your insertion point upwards. (Note: the Backspace key deletes characters to the left of the insertion point; the Del or Delete key deletes characters to the right of the insertion point.)

Now, use the Down Arrow key or PgDn key to go to the very bottom of your letter. If the insertion point won't move past the last word in the final paragraph, press Enter to move onto another line.

Type:

More later! Lots of love,

Ray

Fixing mistakes

You've finished the core of your letter. It's now time to read through and correct any mistakes.

Before you read through, you might want to use your word processor's spelling checker to correct any spelling mistakes you've made. Each spelling checker works slightly differently (and some cut-down word processors don't even have one). There should be an icon for the spelling checker in the toolbar, or you'll find it as an option in an Edit, Tools or Proofing Menu.

Cleaning up after the spelling checker

Don't depend on the spelling checker to catch all your mistakes. For example, in the second paragraph you might have typed 'strait' instead of 'straight'. The spelling checker won't pick it up, as 'strait' is a word in its own right. A grammar checker should pick this up, but using a grammar checker on a short, informal document like this is probably overkill (and, besides that, they're not always accurate!).

You can turn 'strait' into 'straight' by using the arrow keys to position the insertion point immediately after the 'I' and typing 'gh'. An easier way to do the same thing is to use the mouse to move the insertion point: simply click immediately after the 'I' and then type 'gh'. You'll find there are almost always two or three ways to perform the same task in a word processor – choose the way that suits you best, but remember to look for the shortcut routes.

Editing alternatives

Notice how, in both the second and third paragraphs, you've used the word 'stunning'. Eamon's going to think you have a limited vocabulary if you keep repeating yourself, so let's change the second 'stunning' to 'beautiful'.

Here are three ways to do the same task:

1. Position the insertion point immediately after the word stunning (using the mouse or arrow keys), press backspace eight times to delete the word, and then type 'beautiful'.

2. Position the insertion point immediately after the word stunning, hold down the Ctrl key and press Backspace to delete the word in one go, and then type 'beautiful'.

3. Double-click on the word stunning to highlight (also called 'selecting') the word. Now, type 'beautiful'. The word you type will replace the highlighted selection.

You can use any of these techniques (they should all work in any word processor), but the third technique is the fastest of all.

Selecting text

The technique of selecting text mentioned in point three above is very important in word processing. You'll use it constantly when you are editing and formatting text. At times, you'll want to select a single word. Other times, you may want to select a sentence, a paragraph or a whole document.

The standard text selection procedures are the same in all word processors: double-click a word to select it; or click-and-drag over text to select a whole series of words, lines or paragraphs.

Other selection options vary between word processors. For instance, you can select a whole paragraph in Microsoft Word or WordPad by triple-clicking anywhere in the paragraph. To achieve the same effect in Microsoft Works 4, you double-click in the margin beside the paragraph. In Lotus WordPro, you hold down the Ctrl key and double-click anywhere in the paragraph.

Discovering editing shortcuts

How do you discover all these shortcuts? Well, you can try the fun way and experiment: click, double-click and triple click all over the place. Hold down the Ctrl key and do all of the preceding, or try clicking with the right mouse button. Don't worry if something unexpected happens: you've saved your work (right?) and you're not working on a document that matters anyway. You can always use the Undo option on the Edit Menu (in most word processors) to undo your last action as well.

Alternatively, you can be more orderly and open the Help Menu, look at Help topics or Contents, click the Index tab (if you're using a Windows 95 word processing program, or use the Search option if you're using a Windows 3.1x program) and do a search for 'selecting text', 'text selection', 'keyboard shortcuts' or 'mouse shortcuts'. That should turn up a whole pile of useful shortcuts for you.

Tidying up

Once you've read through your document and made all the changes necessary, save your document once more.

Our letter doesn't look much at the moment, but we'll go into formatting shortly. Right now, you've learnt the basics of creating a new document, typing in text, editing your work to correct mistakes and make changes, and saving your work.

© 1997  Rose Vines

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Straight on to Part III: Organising your words

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