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Introduction to Document Design & Word Contents Introduction/Objectives
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Document Creation: The Fundamentals
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The Microsoft Word Environment
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Creating and Editing a Document
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Formatting Elements in Document Design
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Designing Tables
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Combining Type and Space
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Putting the Pieces Together
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Printing/Previewing a Document
149
New Features in Word 2003
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Summary
158
Exercises
158
Toolbars
160
Glossary
163
Document Creation: The Fundamentals
3
Introduction to Document Design & Word Intro/Objectives
In chapter 3, you will learn how to use basic document design principles to create attractive and efficient documents ultimately leading to effective communications. We will identify key concepts such as the characteristics of typography and the use of space, and explain how you can use them to create your ultimate document. In order to put your newfound knowledge to the test, we will also explore Microsoft Word, a word processing application that will help you create and edit professionallooking documents easily and rapidly. Every time you learn about a new design principle, you will put it in practice using Word’s useful writing, formatting, and editing tools. Understanding the principles of document design and learning to use Word is your first step towards the creation of your final document for INTE 290 Inc. The time you spend at this stage organizing your thoughts and creating a solid structure for your document will only make your ultimate work in the other chapters easier. In Chapter 3, you will: • • • • •
Discover what document design means Learn how to use key principles to produce documents Learn to integrate text, tables, and graphics in the most efficient way Become familiar with Word’s writing, formatting, and editing tools Learn to create templates
Document creation is something you are bound to have to participate in no matter what you do or where you work. Whether it is as a recipient or as a producer of information, chances are you will have to deal with documents. Over the course of the semester you will acquire the necessary skills and learn the basic principles involved in the production of good documents. These skills will always be valuable to you, no matter what you will do in the future, whether you pursue graduate studies or enter the job market.
What is Document Design? The concept of document design may seem a little vague to you at first. You may be wondering what type of documents we are referring to or if you are going to have to master complex page layout software over the course of the next few months. The truth is that we are going to look at document design in a general way. During the semester, you will be introduced to basic document design principles that you will then apply using the different Microsoft Office 2003 applications in order to produce documents. In the case of this chapter, you will use Microsoft Word but later on, you will also apply these principles using Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, and Microsoft PowerPoint. But first, let’s look at a few helpful definitions of document design from Karen A. Schriver, who wrote several books on the topic. “Document design is the field concerned with creating texts (broadly defined) that integrate words and pictures in ways that help people to achieve their specific goals for using texts at home, school, or work.”1 She also describes document design as the act of combining words, pictures (including illustrations), and typography to educate, inform, or persuade.2 Finally, she writes that: “Document design combines art and science. The art of document design involves shaping words and pictures in ways that help people to • Recognize the situations in which documents might be beneficial (thus inviting and motivating readers). • Discover how documents can be employed in order to carry out particular purposes and goals (thus supporting readers and their uses for texts).”3 Now that we have a better idea about what document design is, it is important to stress an important thing: good design should be anonymous and invisible. As a vehicle for information, a document is said to be successful when the user/reader receives the message without any comprehension problems and not when the design itself is pleasing to the eye or flashy. The ultimate success of a document thus depends on the combination of well-written content and well-designed graphics. In general, people tend to notice bad documents a lot more than good ones because when a document is well designed, it should disappear by bringing the information to the forefront. As we will see, the only way to create a design that will not distract the reader/user but rather guide them through the information is by selecting the best possible combination of content (text), graphics (images), and typography while respecting the needs of the reader.
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• Interpret the role they are expected to play based on the rhetorical clues set up by the design of the words and graphics.
The importance of good document design Think of all the documents that you look at in a day: the newspaper, your hydro or credit card bill, or the manual to operate your new DVD player. Once you get to work, you may be bombarded with memos, reports, e-mails, or web documents. The point is, without really noticing, you constantly interact with documents.
• Feel about the way the visual and verbal message constructs them as an intended audience. A good example is an anti-drug poster for teenagers. They might view the message negatively because they feel it does not represent them.
This means that the quality and the legibility of all the documents you interact with can have an impact on your daily life. A poorly designed document leads to a break in communication between the producer and the recipient because at their core, documents are communication tools used to transmit or exchange information. When they are badly designed, the message does not reach its intended target and this can have serious consequences. The biggest danger when designing a document is that people might simply decide to ignore it. When you give a document to someone, their first decision is whether they will read it or not. If the document “puts them off ” the chances that they will read it are slim. You can compare this to having someone shouting at you. There is a pretty good chance that you will not listen to them. If a document overwhelms you at first glance or repulses you, you will probably ignore it.
Understanding your audience Understanding how people interpret documents is crucial and can be very useful to you as a designer. To do this, you must understand how people read, both verbally and visually. This can be categorized into two types of analysis: 1. Knowledge-driven or “top-down” analysis 2. Text-driven or “bottom-up” analysis Knowledge-driven or “top-down” analysis considers what the reader brings with them when looking at a document like their knowledge, experiences, feelings, social awareness, and culture. For example, readers might think of other similar texts they have encountered, their perceptions the author’s intentions, and draw on their knowledge of the topic presented.
• View the messenger of the document (e.g., the persona, organizational voice, or corporate identity) and the messenger’s attitude about the reader. An ad against drinking and driving might be viewed differently if it comes from a beer manufacturer as opposed to the government. • Respond to “the idea” of the text as a legitimate form of communication.
Basic Principles of Document Design In its purest form, document design is like a puzzle. It puts together a series of interconnected elements to form a whole and ultimately transmit information and/or a message. Document design can be broken down into four basic principles: proximity, alignment, repetition, and contrast. Let’s look at each one before moving on to more specific characteristics of document design. Proximity The idea behind proximity is that visually, when several elements are grouped together, your eye perceives them as a whole, as related. Using proximity in design can be very useful when you are trying to organize information. Well organized information is more likely to be read and to be remembered. The use of proximity reduces the impression of clutter. Have a look at the two lists of items in Figure 3.1. The list on the left would not be very helpful to you if you were trying to pack your bags to leave on a trip. The list on the right, however, has been organized according to the principle of proximity. Each element has been grouped together under a main category.
Text-driven or “bottom-up” analysis considers how readers interact with visual or verbal signs. For example, they might focus on the meaning of the words, the structure of sentences, pronoun references, pictures, diagrams, charts, graphs, etc. Basically, as readers, our evaluation of any document is the result of a mix of these two analyses. We draw upon our perceptions and our understanding of the clues (words and pictures) presented by the text to formulate an opinion on the document or extract the information we need. Our understanding of these clues often helps fill in the gaps enabling us to get a general picture of what the document is about. This helps us make a quick decision as to whether a text will be useful to us or not. In other words, it is important for producers of documents to spend time thinking about the recipient’s needs. Without going too deep into audience analysis, we can say that as producers of documents, we need to examine how readers:
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• Understand the meaning of the words and graphics based on their thinking, experiences and feelings. For example, a pamphlet describing how to change a diaper might be viewed differently by a new mother and a teenager.
Figure 3.1. Example of proximity
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When trying to achieve proximity, a few guidelines to consider include: avoid too many groupings on a same page; avoid putting elements in corners and in the middle of a page, and do not create relationships with elements that are not related. The goal is to remove the element of guess work; readers should be pointed in the right direction.
contrast. You can use extrabold typefaces to make headlines stand out on your internal news bulletin, for example, or you can reverse the name of your bulletin on a black background as demonstrated in the top header of Figure 3.3. The top one stands out thanks to the white text on a black background. The bottom one does not really stand out and could easily be mistaken for a headline instead of a header.
Alignment Alignment refers to the concept of unity. A good document will strive to create visual ties between the separate elements it contains. All the elements should form a unified, connected, and interrelated whole. This does not mean that they should be grouped only within proximity but that their placement should also make them appear connected.
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To make sure that you have created this unity within the elements of your document, trace an imaginary line to see if the elements of your text are connected as demonstrated with the business card on the right in Figure 3.2. As you can see, it is easier to make sense of the information in the card on the right than the one on the left because the rules of unity (e.g., right alignment has been used) and proximity (e.g., all related elements are grouped together and not scattered as in the business card on the left) have been applied.
Figure 3.3. Example of contrast
Always remember that when using contrast, you have to be bold! If two elements are different, they should be very different. The advantage of contrast is that it makes your document more interesting and thus more readable. It also helps to organize the information visually. Figure 3.4 shows an example of how contrast can help organize information. Although both CVs present the same information, the one on the left is not as clear as the one on the right. The right-hand CV uses contrast and repetition to make some information stand out.
Figure 3.2. Example of alignment
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In general, avoid using more than one type of alignment for text such as centred titles and left-aligned text. Choose one and stick to it. Try to avoid a centred alignment which can make a document look very formal, unless that is your intention. Repetition The idea behind repetition is to unify and add visual interest. You can repeat various elements throughout your document such as colour, shape, texture, spatial relationships, line thicknesses, sizes, etc. The goal is to strengthen unity. For example, if you are creating a newsletter, you may want to use drop caps at the beginning of every article and a line at the bottom of every page.
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Avoid using too many repetitions because it might become annoying or overwhelming. If you use too many repetitive elements, you also run the risk that nothing will stand out. For instance, if you bold every word, all the impact of the heavier text will be lost. For example, if every single element of the right-hand list in Figure 3.1 was bold, the list would not be clear anymore. By bolding only the main categories and capitalizing their first letters, we have created a pattern of repetition that clearly indicates that these are the main groupings.
Figure 3.4. Example of contrast and organization
Now that we have looked at some basic principles of document design, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s explore the Microsoft Word application to put them in practice.
Contrast Using contrast in design is a sure way to create a dramatic impact; our eyes are automatically drawn to contrasted elements. There are several ways to create
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The Microsoft Word Environment
Word Feature
Description
Before getting acquainted with Word, you must first open the program. To do this:
Title Bar
Displays the name of the document you are working on and Microsoft Word. Document 1 will appear until you save the document for the first time
Menu Bar
Contains a list of menus. You choose commands from the menus to perform Word actions
Standard Toolbar
Displays frequently used buttons to perform Word commands
1. Click on the Start menu. 2. Then click on All Programs and select Microsoft Office. 3. From the list of applications, select Microsoft Office Word 2003. The application will open (Figure 3.5). When you create or open a new document in Word, you are presented with a window that looks similar to Figure 3.5. Although there are other ways of looking at new documents, this view shows you the widest array of Word’s features and controls. If your screen does not look like this, select the View menu and choose Print Layout. Figure 3.5 highlights some of the features of the Word workplace. Some of these features are explained in more detail in Table 3.1. Menu bar
Formatting toolbar
Scroll Bars
Allow you to scroll to the right or left of the document by clicking the arrows located on the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen, or up and down using the arrows on the scroll bar on the right side of the screen
Scroll Boxes
Allow you to scroll through large chunks of the window by clicking on them and dragging them to a new location
Text Area
Where text and graphics are displayed
Insertion Point (cursor) Status Bar
Marks the place where your text will be typed
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Standard toolbar
Formatting Toolbar Displays frequently used buttons to perform Word formatting
Cursor
Displays information about the document or a command
table 3.1. Description of some Word features
Understanding and Organizing your Workspace Text area
Before creating a new document, let’s look at the Word workspace and explore and customize some of its features. The cursor Scroll bars
Now that you have opened a Word document, you will notice that the cursor (also known as the insertion point) is positioned in the upper left corner of the screen. This indicates where you are going to be typing. The Status Bar
Views
Status bar
Figure 3.5. Word window
Scroll boxes
The status bar, which is at the bottom of the Word window, tells you that you are working on page 1, section 1, and that you are on the first page of a document, which is 1 page in length. It also tells you that the position of the cursor is 1 inch from the top of the page, on line 1, in column 1. If you scroll through a document without moving the cursor you can sometimes get lost, so the status bar will help you know where you were working before you started scrolling.
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View�s When you first open Word, your document is usually displayed in Print Layout view, which allows you to edit and format text as well as see what your document will look like when you print it. For example, the margin areas, the headers and footers, and the page breaks, will appear on the screen.
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You can change to Normal view by selecting it from the View menu. Normal view is ideal for editing and formatting text, however, it does not present a complete or accurate layout of the page. Some formatting may not be displayed, or may be displayed differently when printed.
When you open a Word document that you have received as an e-mail attachment, Word automatically switches to Reading Layout view.
If you are opening a document primarily to read it, Reading Layout view is the best option. The pages in Reading Layout view are designed to fit on your screen. You can increase or decrease the size of the text without affecting the font size of the document. To switch to Reading Layout view, select it from the View menu or click the Read button on the Standard toolbar. If you would like to switch from Reading Layout view, simply click on the Close button on the Reading Layout toolbar.
Backspace and Delete keys The delete and backspace keys may not look exactly the same on every keyboard.
Outline view is used to help organize the structure of a document. In ��� Outline view, you can choose to see only the main headings in a document, or you can see all the headings and even the text in the document. You can move, copy, and drag headings to reorganize your document. In this view, page boundaries, headers and footers, graphics, and backgrounds do not appear.
Click and Type View Click and Type will only work in Print Layout view or Web Layout view.
Delete key
Figure 3.6. Backspace and Delete keys
To delete several characters: To delete several characters at a time, first select (click and drag across) the characters or words, then press the Delete or Backspace key.
Click and Type
To move text:
You can use the Click and Type feature to rapidly insert text, graphics, tables, or additional objects in a blank area of a document without having to press enter to add blank lines. You can type anywhere on the screen regardless of where you left the insertion point last.
Let’s say you do not actually want to delete a sentence, but would rather move it within a paragraph or document. Instead of clicking cut or copy, first, select the text you want to move using your mouse. Once it is selected, click and hold down the right mouse button and drag the text to where you want it to be placed.
As you move the mouse pointer over your document and click on different areas of the screen, the pointer indicates how the item will be aligned. For example, if you click on the center of the page (e.g., to create a title page), the pointer shape indicates that the item will be centered. To use this feature, simply double-click in an area, start typing text or insert an object and the alignment is automatically applied to the text or object that was inserted.
Undo Command The Undo command is a handy feature in Word that could save you time and frustration. If you erase something by accident or change your mind about a command you have just used, click the Undo button on the Standard toolbar and your most recent action or command is automatically reversed. You can also use the keyboard command Ctrl + Z.
Correcting Mistakes
Creating/Customizing Toolbars
Word certainly gives the accident-prone writer or designer a multitude of ways to correct mistakes, or remove items entirely.
Once you start creating and editing documents in Word you will notice that you have to use a lot of the program’s different commands and features. While it is a good idea to eventually learn as many keyboard shortcuts as you can, Word’s toolbars are a very useful way to put commands at your fingertips. Best of all, Word allows you to create custom toolbars that reflect the kind of work that you are doing.
To delete with the keyboard: One way to delete characters is to use the Delete key (or Del key) on the keyboard. It erases the character to the right of the cursor and moves everything on its right to the left. The delete key is shown in Figure 3.6.
Before learning to create custom toolbars, let’s take a look at how you can call up the default ones provided with Word. Go to the View menu, click on Toolbars, and then choose any one of the preset toolbars.
If you want to delete a character to the left of the insertion point, press the Backspace key on the keyboard. The backspace key is shown in Figure 3.6. Read Close
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Backspace key
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E-mail attachment
Web Layout view is used when you want to create a web page or when you are creating a document that will be viewed on-screen only. In Web Layout view, document backgrounds that have been applied are visible, text is wrapped to fit the window, and graphics are positioned as they are in a Web browser like Internet Explorer or Netscape.
Introduction to Document Design and Word
Undo
If you find that the preset toolbars either do not have features you want, or have too many and take up too much space on your screen, then you should make yourself a custom toolbar.
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1. Go back to the View menu, select Toolbars, and then choose Customize at the bottom. When the Customize dialog box appears, select the Toolbars tab and click on the New button.
9. You can also assign different colours to your buttons when editing them by clicking on the colour of your choice to activate it. If you have made a mistake, simply click on the square again. This resets to the default colour or pulls up the colour editing dialog.
2. When the New Toolbar dialog box pops up, name your new toolbar in the Toolbar name textbox. For the purpose of this exercise, we will name the toolbar Word, but you can name it anything you want.
10. Once you are done, press OK and close the Customize dialog box. The resulting Word toolbar will be similar to Figure 3.8.
3. In the bottom box is a drop-down list which allows you to choose to make the toolbar available only in the document you are working on or to all subsequent Word documents. In this case, choose the document you are working on and then click OK. 4. A new toolbar with the name Word across the top appears on screen but does not have any buttons. To add buttons, click on the Commands tab from the Categories box and select Format.
For the sake of this example we will assume that you need four formatting features (Small Caps, All Caps, Superscript, and Subscript) that are not on the formatting toolbar by default.
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For the exercise
Figure 3.8. Word toolbar with the SC image
5. Scroll down the Commands box and click and drag the Small Caps toolbar button and place it on the new Word toolbar. Select and drag the All Caps, Superscript, and Subscript toolbar buttons and place them on the Word toolbar.
The resulting toolbar can be placed at the top with the other toolbars by dragging it and releasing it over the toolbars already present.
6. Since you are customizing the toolbar, you can change the image of the toolbar to something that you design or to another image by using the options on the hidden menu.
Before going any further, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take a minute to look at the built in help features. Anytime you need information about a Word procedure or command, you can use the Microsoft Office Word Help Menu, the Office Assistant, or Microsoft Office on-line.
7. With the Customize dialog box still open, right-click on the Small Caps toolbar button. The hidden menu appears. Choose Change Button Image. You are provided with a range of images to choose from. Choose the Empty Square image.
Using Help
Using the Help Menu Clicking on the Help menu (Figure 3.9) will make the following window appear:
8. Since the name of the first toolbar button is Small Caps, the image of an empty square is inappropriate. You can edit the image, and even create your own, by selecting Edit Button Image from the hidden menu. Rightclick on Empty Square image and insert the initials SC (Small Caps) in the centre of the empty square by drawing the two letters. To draw the two letters click on each small square to select it in order to form the S and C (Figure 3.7).
Figure 3.9. Help menu
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Searching Help in Your Own Words
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Figure 3.7. Button editor
Introduction to Document Design and Word
Just as Google allows you to search the Internet using your own search terms to try and find things, Word lets you search its built-in help documentation. There are three ways to do this. One way is through the Microsoft Office Word Help window, the second is by using the Office Assistant, and the third is by using the Microsoft Office Online help feature. inte 290 Introduction to Computer Usage
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5. When you choose “Apply bold formatting”, the Microsoft Office Word Help pane appears on your screen with the requested information.
The Office Assistant 1. From the Help menu, select Show the Office Assistant. An animated character of a paper clip on a sheet of paper appears somewhere on your screen (Figure 3.10).
6. When you do not need the Office Assistant anymore, right-click your mouse on the paper clip and select Hide, or go to the Help menu and select Hide the Office Assistant. 7. To return to your document, click the Close button to close the Microsoft Office Word Help window. You can also click the close button of the Search Results task pane if you would like additional space to work on your Word document. By clicking on the Microsoft Office Word Help button the Help Menu task pane appears on the right-hand side of the screen. Within the Word Help task pane, you can use a number of other features such the Help Table of Contents, Search feature as well as obtain the latest new information from the Microsoft Office Online link.
Figure 3.10. Clippit, the Animated Office Assistant
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2. Click once on this animated character and a search box will appear. 3. Type what you want to do in the textbox provided and click on Search. For example, you might want to ask: “How do I bold?”
Creating and Editing a Document Writing an Outline
4. The Search Results task pane will appear on the right-hand side of the screen (Figure 3.11). Click on the search result that interests you.
Before you set up your document, it is important to take a little pause and discuss the actual content that you will be putting into it. So, before you start writing, you should actually have a pretty good idea about two things: • Who is your target audience? • What are you going to say? The importance of target audiences cannot be overstated. Think for a moment about what it is like when you are talking to new classmates for the first time. You know nothing about their educational, cultural or work background; you do not know if they are experts in a field or novices. Now think of that one thing that you are passionate about, maybe it is a sport, some kind of artistic endeavour, cars, computers, whatever it is that you know a lot about. When you are trying to talk about this with a live person you can figure out quickly if they know anything about the subject and then fill them in with details as necessary. The problem is that you will not be able to be there to do the same with every copy of every document you create. The solution is to think long and hard about the target audience. If, for instance, you were writing an article about computers for a computer magazine, it would be pretty safe to assume that your readers will be familiar with the terms and concepts of this topic. But imagine you were writing about the same topic for a newsletter aimed at senior citizens or elementary school children, clearly you would have to use different language.
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Figure 3.11. Help Search Results task pane
Introduction to Document Design and Word
Microsoft Office Word Help
The idea of knowing what you are going to say before you even start writing may seem pretty foreign to you. How can you possibly know what you are going to say before you write it? That attitude might be ok for a large university paper where you have lots of time to rewrite. But for a shorter document that is aimed at giving busy people the most important information in the shortest time possible, you need to have a clear idea of what it is you want to tell them. inte 290 Introduction to Computer Usage
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The best way to do this is to write an outline. An outline can be very elaborate with a detailed list in point form of everything you want to write or it can be as simple as one sentence that describes what needs to be covered in each section. Outlines accomplish several important things for you and your writing; first they let you organize (and reorganize) your thoughts before you actually start the process of writing. Second, they let you know where you might be lacking in information. If you put a topic down and then realize that you do not have much information about it, you now know that you will have to go and do research before it is 2 o’clock in the morning. From a design standpoint, an outline also makes you think about what kind of visual elements you might want to include with the document.
Journalists have known this for years, so they have devised a number of ways to get readers’ attention. • Headline: A headline contains the article’s most important fact so that the readers know exactly what it is going to be about. • Five W’s: When they write an article, journalists try to answer the five W’s: who, what, where, when, and why. Keep this in mind and you will already be a long way to catching and keeping readers’ attention. • Lead: The lead in an article is the first paragraph and is supposed to contain the actual “meat” of the story and probably cover, at least in a superficial way, the five W’s. The details are presented later in the article. As a rule of thumb most editors and journalists try to keep the lead to approximately 30 words. • Inverse pyramid: All journalistic pieces are written in what is known as an “inverse pyramid” format. In this style, you put the most important information as near as possible to the beginning of the article you are writing. This is also very useful when editing because if you need to cut words because your text is too long, you cut from the bottom up without too much impact. While company reports are clearly different from a newspaper article, these style tips can help you make your writing as crisp and efficient as possible.
Inserting a new document When the keyboard key is used to insert a new document, the New Document task pane does not appear. A blank document is automatically opened.
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Finally, here is some advice about making your writing more appealing. As a student, you have learned to write academic papers. This style of writing is perfectly appropriate within a university setting but it can be a bit dry. The ultimate goal when creating a document is that you want people to actually read it. Imagine if every newspaper, magazine, and Internet article was written like a thesis paper. We would all fall asleep.
If you prefer to use a keyboard command, press the Ctrl key and the letter N on your keyboard to open a new blank document. In order to experiment with some of Word’s features, type the following two paragraphs: Founded in 1980, INTE 290 Inc. is one of the world’s biggest distributors of academic textbooks. The company’s founders, John Smith and Jane Doe, have a long and illustrious record as educators and authors. In just over two decades they have developed INTE 290 Inc. from a small company started in a garage to the worldwide distribution giant it is today. INTE 290 Inc.’s mission is simple, to bring high quality educational material to the masses at the best prices, all the while insuring a high return on their investment for its stockholders. INTE 290 Inc. (NASDAQ: INTE) continues to enjoy increased market value, though at a reduced pace, in keeping with the global economic slowdown. Selecting Text Before you can do anything to the text in your document, you first have to select it. There are a number of different ways to select text that you want to edit, write over or move. 1. Position the cursor at the starting point of the text you want to select. With the mouse, click and drag across the body of text. Once the text you want to work with is highlighted, release the mouse. The text now appears in reverse (black background and white text) and you can edit, delete or change it.
New Document Now let’s create a new document. From the File menu, select New. The New Document task pane appears, allowing you to create a blank Word document, a template (a template is a word document with a pre-defined structure such as a CV template or a fax template), or a Word document from an existing document (Figure 3.12).
Figure 3.12. New Document task pane
OR 2. Position the cursor at the starting point of the text you want to select. Hold down the Shift key and, at the same time, press the arrow keys to select the text. Release the Shift key when all the text is selected. Table 3.2 reviews these techniques and shows some other methods to select text.
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By clicking on the drop-down arrow a hidden menu pops up and you can:
Selection needed
Method
To select a word
Double-click within the word
To select a sentence
Hold Ctrl and click anywhere in the sentence
To select an entire line
Click once in the margin to the left of the line that you would like to select
Using the toolbar:
To select an entire paragraph
Click three times within the paragraph or Click twice in the margin to the left of the paragraph you would like to select
Once you have selected the text, click on the Cut button or Copy button. Pasting is accomplished in the same way, you just position the cursor where you want the text to appear and click the Paste button.
To select the entire text
Click three times in the left margin of the document or press Ctrl+A, or simply go to the Edit menu and choose Select All
table 3.2. Text selection shortcuts
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Cutting, Copying, and Pasting Text
• Keep the pasted text’s original formatting • Change the formatting to match that of the destination text • Paste it as plain unformatted text
Keyboard commands Remember that when an action has a keyboard command associated with it, the keyboard command will be indicated in the menu bar.
Now that you know how to select text, you can actually start manipulating it. Basically, when text is selected, there are three things you can do with it: copy, cut, or paste it. Copy is probably the safest to start off with. When you highlight text and copy it, the original text stays where it is, so if you somehow make a mistake you still have the source text you are copying. Cutting text is very much like the name suggests, it is like taking scissors and removing a line of text from a newspaper and then putting it somewhere else. The original source text disappears. Pasting is what you do when you have text copied or cut and you to put it somewhere new.
Office clipboard The collected objects remain on the Office Clipboard until all Office programs running on your computer are closed.
Using keyboard commands: Probably the fastest way to do this sort of editing is to learn the keyboard shortcuts that represent these commands or icons. Once you have the text selected, press Ctrl+X to cut it; Ctrl+C to copy it, and Ctrl+V to paste it. The Office Clipboard All objects that you copy or cut are automatically positioned on the Office Clipboard (Figure 3.14). The Office Clipboard is independent from the Windows Clipboard and will appear as the Clipboard pane on the right side of the document. However, both clipboards share some common functions. For instance, when you copy numerous objects to the Office Clipboard, the last item is always copied to the Windows Clipboard. When you clear all items from the Office Clipboard, the Windows Clipboard is also cleared. The Office Clipboard can hold up to 24 objects. If you try to copy a 25th object when you are using a Microsoft Office program, a message asks if you want to remove the first item on the Office Clipboard and add the new item to the end of the clipboard.
Using the menu bar:
Where this feature can come in handy is if you have a repetitive term or phrase or graphic that you are using in your document. If you cut or copy this item to the Office Clipboard, you then have access to it until you close your document, as well has having access to it in the different applications that make up Office.
You can select the text you want to work with and choose Cut or Copy from the Edit menu. You then position the cursor where you want the text to appear and choose Paste from the Edit menu.
For example, if you were using a corporate logo and you had to insert it in various places in your document, you could copy it and then access it from the clipboard. There are three ways to insert an item from the Clipboard:
There are three basic ways to copy, cut, and paste text.
If you wish to apply special conditions to the text you pasted, click on the Paste Smart Tag that has appeared (Figure 3.13).
1. Place your cursor where you want to insert an item that is on the Clipboard. Double-click on the clipboard item in the Clipboard pane and the clipboard item will automatically appear in that location. OR 2. Place your cursor where you want to insert an item that is on the Clipboard. Click the drop-down arrow of the item in the clipboard that you want to paste and select Paste from the drop-down list. Cut Copy
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Figure 3.13. Paste Smart tag
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Paste
OR 3. Place your cursor where you want the item to be inserted. Click on the item to be inserted in the Clipboard pane and then click on the Paste button on Standard toolbar. The item will be inserted where the cursor was placed.
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To insert a section break, go to the Insert menu and choose Break. The Break dialog box will open displaying a list of section break types. Most of the time the best choice is either a Continuous section break, which gives you a break that starts right after your existing text, or a Next Page section break, which inserts both a section and page break. Choose the best option for you and click OK when you are done. Margins
Figure 3.14. Office Clipboard
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Soft and Hard Returns Those of us old enough to have used typewriters, will remember that at the end of each line you had to hit the enter key to continue typing on another line. Thankfully, with the advent of computers, this is no longer necessary. In Word when you reach the end of a sentence a soft return is automatically inserted at the end of the line to indicate that a natural new line break has occurred. This feature is known as word-wrap.
Using Page Setup Any changes made to the margins using Page Setup will affect the whole page.
When you open a Word document, the margins are automatically set at 1” at the top, bottom, left, and right edges of the page. That said, some computers might have Word set up differently. While you can set any margins that you like, you should keep in mind that photocopiers and printers need about 0.25 of an inch of blank space around the outside of a page. Designers often refer to this area as the “safety margin” or “safety area”. Anything set up to print inside that safety margin runs the risk of not being printed or of causing the contents of the page to be compressed. Changing the margins is simple. If you want to change the margins for the whole document, go to Page Setup located in the File menu and click on the Margins tab. Change the numbers either by selecting and entering new numbers in the different boxes or by using the spin arrows. Repeat this process for every margin you want to change and click OK. You can also select the text whose margins you want to change or position the cursor at the point where you want to change the margins and then select the Print Preview command from the File menu. If you do not see rulers at the top and left side of your document, click the View Ruler button. Then position the cursor on the margin you want to change (Figure 3.15). When you are at the exact spot on the ruler, the cursor will appear as a two-headed arrow. Simply drag the margin to its new location and click the Close button.
However, when you want to start a new paragraph or insert several blank lines into your document, you will have to press the Enter key, which will insert a hard return. Inserting a Page Break When you create a document that spans many pages, Word automatically detects the end of a page and inserts a Soft Page break (similar in concept to a soft return). But Word also allows you to insert your own page breaks anywhere in a document. This is useful when you want a page to end even though it is not full of text. For instance, you might have used this feature for the cover pages of your university papers.
Right and left margins
Inserting a Page Break is simple, position the cursor after the period of the last sentence of the paragraph. From the Insert menu, select Break. The Break dialog box will open, select the Page break option button and then click OK.
Top and bottom margins
An even easier way to do this is to position the cursor after the period of the last sentence of the paragraph, then hold down the Ctrl key and press Enter. Inserting a Section Break
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View Ruler
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Section breaks are a very different affair from page breaks. A section break means that formatting applied to the section before the break will not apply to the following sections. For example, an academic paper many have a title and then a summary underneath, followed by text displayed in two columns. This is done by creating a section break after the summary and then, in the section for the main body text, telling Word to make two columns.
Figure 3.15. Margins in Print Preview
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Page Numbers When you are working on a multi-page document, especially something that might have an index or table of contents, you might find it necessary to have page numbers so that your readers can look things up and then find the necessary page quickly. To insert page numbers: 1. From the Insert menu, select Page Numbers. 2. In the Position drop-down list, choose where you want the page numbers to appear: at the top or the bottom of the page. 3. Then click on the Alignment drop-down list and select the alignment of the page number. The choices available are: left, center, right, inside, and outside. 4. Before you click OK, make sure you uncheck the Show number on first page check box if you do not want the page number to appear on the first page of your document. Headers and Footers Headers and footers are useful to let the reader know what chapter they are reading, or what the name a publication is. For example, newspapers or magazines all have headers or footers that usually consist of the date or name of the publication. To insert headers and footers: 1. From the View menu, select Header and Footer. The Header and Footer toolbar appears as well as the dotted header area. 2. Type the text you want to include in the header. 3. Click the Switch Between Header and Footer button to get to the bottom of the page and type the text you want in the footer. 4. You can also use insert page numbers, date and time using the Header and Footer toolbar. 5. When you are done, click the Close button. Columns One feature that will allow you to make professional looking documents is columns. Newspapers, magazines, and textbooks all use columns separated by what is called a gutter to display text instead of one block of text as in an academic paper. This is done for a number of reasons. First of all, the human eye can get lost when reading long rows of text. Second, it is easier to add a graphic into a column than in the middle of a document because the flow of the text is less disrupted.
Switch between Header and Footer
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When setting up a new document, choose Columns from the Format menu and select the number and type of columns you want from the Preset section. You can also adjust the column width, as well as set up a document with several columns of various widths. For simplicity’s sake, and for readability, sticking with the default settings associated with each number of columns is probably the best way to go.
Introduction to Document Design and Word
You can also choose to apply columns to the whole document or from a certain point onward. This type of document formatting is often seen in academic journals, where an abstract or “executive summary” will be placed in one wide column at the beginning of the document and then the rest of the article is in two columns. Experiment a bit with different numbers of columns and widths. Templates When you open a new document in Word you are presented with a dizzying array of choices of what are called Templates: business related templates, home related templates, schedules and calendars and all manner of other documents and presentations. But what are templates and why are they important? Basically a template is a preset type of document with no content in it. For example, a template could be a form that employees have to fill to be reimbursed for insurance costs. It can be used over and over again to enter new information and the basic structure does not have to be recreated every time. Templates are especially useful if you have a document that you have to produce on a regular basis, like a newsletter or a monthly report. Once you have your template set up all you have to do is change the content. You can use the templates that come with Word, you can use downloaded versions from the Internet, or you can design your own, which we will do in the next section. One place you can turn to for templates is Microsoft’s own Template Gallery (http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/templategallery/). This web site has templates for virtually every conceivable type of document you could ever imagine. The nice thing is that all of them can be downloaded to your computer, opened in Word and edited by you. To make your own template: Simply open a blank Word document and start formatting it the way you would like using the tools that you have learned already in this chapter. Most designers find it useful to use what are called place holders. A place holder is simply a quick way to indicate where all the elements of your document will go on the page. For example, to indicate where your headline is going to go, you might type the text: “Headline goes here” and format it the way you will want the headline to appear ultimately. Keep in mind that a template can include a lot more than just your text elements. It should include any repetitive components that might reappear from one issue to the next such as your company’s logo, the name of the contributors to your newsletter, the headers and footers that never change, etc. You can even include blank spaces for images and caption boxes where you are going to insert your visuals. Once the document is set up, go to the File menu, and click Save As. In the dialog box, choose Document Template from the Format drop-down menu. Let’s say you are creating a monthly Human Resources newsletter that informs employees about benefits. In the Name box, type the name of your template: HR Newsletter. The next time you open a new document you can choose the template HR Newsletter and Word will open an untitled document with all your formatting in place. All you have to do is fill it with content.
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Save often Remember that it is a very good idea to save your work periodically (about every 10 min.) while you are working on your assignment, even though you have not yet finished.
Saving and Closing Documents
Closing a Document
After you finish working with a file, you will want to save it. You can either save it directly to your diskette or to the hard drive and then copy/transfer it to your diskette. Do not forget to make a copy on your diskette! If you are working from home, you can save it to your hard drive.
Merely saving a document does not close it. If you are actually finished working on a document you need to close it completely. If you are getting up from your computer for an extended period of time and you are working on something private, it might be a good idea to save and close your document before you get up from your desk.
Saving a Document When you are ready to save, a thing you should be doing regularly, you can save your document in one of three ways:
If you want to close the document you can choose Close from the File menu or use the keyboard command Ctrl+W. If you have not saved your most recent changes, Word will prompt you to do so.
1. From the File menu, click on Save
Formatting Elements in Document Design
2. Click on the Save button on the Standard toolbar
Now that you know how to create, edit, and save your document, let’s look at key formatting concepts in document design (typography, legibility, and visual organization) as well as various Word features that allow you to apply them.
OR
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Typography 3. Use the keyboard command Alt key + F4 to save your document.
If you are saving the document for the first time, the Save As dialog box will appear (Figure 3.16).
Type is one of the document designer’s main communication tools. The type or types chosen by the designer should make it easy for the reader to absorb the information that is presented. The type should neither be so obvious as to distract the reader, nor should it be so timid as to “put the reader to sleep” or be difficult to read. Type Characteristics Each letter of the alphabet has its own unique style or letterform. Figure 3.17 shows the different components of a letterform. Although you may not need to know this information within the context of this course, it is important to familiarize yourself with the terms if you want to converse with a printing company in the future. The type characteristics will be briefly defined in order for you to understand the differences in type classifications explained later in this chapter.
Saving
Figure 3.16. Save As dialog box
In the File Name textbox, type “INTE 290 Inc. bio” and then click on the Save In drop-down list and click on 3 ½ Floppy (A:) if you want to save the document on your diskette or on Local Disk (C:) if you want to save it on the hard drive.
Save
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If you have chosen 3 ½ Floppy (A:), open the Exercises folder that you created on your diskette in an earlier lesson by double-clicking on it and click the Save button. After the document has been saved, Word will close the dialog box and return to your document.
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Once your document has been saved, you do not need to enter the file name again to save the document. You can simply select File and then Save, or just click on the Save button on the toolbar.
Figure 3.17. Type Characteristics
All letterforms (that is, uppercase and lowercase letters) sit on an imaginary line called the baseline. The height of the uppercase letters, called the cap height, is measured from the baseline to the cap line. The height of lowercase letters, called the x-height, is measured from the baseline to the mean line. For every typeface, parts of some letterforms extend below the baseline (e.g., the tail of a “g” or “y”). The part of the letterform that extends below the baseline is known as a descender. inte 290 Introduction to Computer Usage
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A type family consists of a group of related typefaces unified by a set of similar design characteristics. Most of today’s type families have a range of styles—varying from light to medium to bold to extra bold to black. In addition, most faces are designed with a complete set of italic letterforms as well as special characters and symbols. Today the terms font and typeface are often used interchangeably. Technically speaking, however, a font is the “source” of the typeface. In general, there are two types of fonts: (1) screen fonts, the jagged-looking bitmapped characters comprised of pixels that are displayed on a computer screen, and (2) printer fonts, the smooth characters that are printed. The typeface refers to the complete set of characters, punctuation, and symbols that share a common design. Since Word uses the term “font” instead of “typeface”, we will use that term from now on. To apply a font: Let’s use the text we typed earlier. Open the “INTE 290 Inc. bio” file that you saved to your diskette. Changing one font for another is a simple matter which can be accomplished in one of two ways: 1. Select the text you want to change and from the Format menu select Font. The Font dialog box will open. The Font dialog box displays more character format options than the Formatting toolbar and allows you to see changes in the Preview window (Figure 3.18) before applying them. Select the font you want and then click OK.
Figure 3.19. Formatting toolbar
Font size Typically, type is measured in points, with approximately 72 points per inch. The Formatting toolbar (Figure 3.19) displays the current point size for the selected text. The higher the point you choose, the larger the text will be as illustrated by Figure 3.20. A letter or other kinds of typed material is usually done in 12 points, with section headers being larger. Newspapers tend to use smaller font sizes, 10 or 11 points being the norm.
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Families, Fonts, and Faces5
2. You can also use the drop-down list of fonts in the Formatting toolbar (Figure 3.19). Simply select the text you want to change and then choose a font from the list.
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The vertical parts of lowercase letters such as “d” and “l” that extend above the mean line are called ascenders. Ascenders are usually the same height as uppercase letters, but in some cases they are slightly taller than the cap height (e.g. the letter l in Figure 3.17). Enclosed spaces such as those found in the letters “a,” “e,” “g,” or “o” are called counterforms or counters, as are the partially open spaces in the uppercase “G”. The body of a letterform is the stem and is created by making a stroke. The horizontal strokes that cross stems as in a “t” or an “f ” is called a cross stroke.4
Figure 3.20. Examples of type sizes
To apply a font size: Select the text you want to change with your mouse, choose Font from the Format menu and then change the point size in the Font dialog box (Figure 3.18). You can also select the text you want to change and choose the point size you want to use on the Formatting toolbar (Figure 3.19). Type classifications There are two basic styles of type: Serif and Sans Serif. Each type has its characteristics and purpose. A serif type is characterized by a line or curve that finishes off the end of the letterform. It projects from the top or bottom of the main stroke of the letter (Figure 3.21). Serif fonts are sometimes called Roman. Serifs are said to be useful because they help the reader’s eye distinguish individual letters and provide visual continuity across words.
R
a
Figure 3.21. Serif font
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A sans serif type is, quite simply, a type without serifs (Figure 3.22). Sans serif fonts are sometimes called Gothic. A key feature of most sans serif faces is little variation in the stroke width of the letterforms, providing a uniform, clean, modern appearance. Sans serif fonts are geometric in their construction and generally have better contrast between the plain and bolded versions of their letterforms than do seriffed typefaces. Thus, sans serif may allow better visual distinctions among parts of the text and may signal the hierarchy of the text more easily.
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Figure 3.18. Font dialog box
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Distinguishing between serif and sans serif fonts:
possible. It distorts letterforms by cutting across their descenders and rarely looks nice. Document designers should use italics instead of underlining.
1. Type the following text: Serif fonts are pleasing to the eye and more romantic. Sans serif fonts have a more modern look and feel.
Type Weight
2. Now select the text and apply the Times New Roman font to it. Notice how the letter “a” has a tail and how the overall text seems softer.
The weight of a typeface is its style (Figure 3.23). Many of today’s digital typefaces have a range of weights available (e.g., light, light italic, semibold, semibold italic, bold, bold italic, black, black italic, ultra black, ultra black italic). When you are designing a document, you should always try to select a type family that offers a range of weights. This will give you more flexibility as you try to establish sufficient contrast between the different elements in your document. It will also be a lot easier for readers to make visual distinctions among text elements.
3. Select the text again and apply the Arial font to it. Notice how the letters are more compact and do not have tails. Times New Roman is a serif font and Arial is a sans serif font.
Characteristics of Type: Size and Slant In order to distinguish the different parts of a document, readers may look at typographic cues such as the size and the slant of the text elements. The two categories used to describe the size of a font in relation to its purpose in the document are: text type and display type. In addition, the two types of slants are: roman and italic. Text Type versus Display Type In general, a document’s text is composed of continuous text (the body text) and non-continuous text (e.g., headings, subheadings, headlines, or titles). Type chosen for the body text is often called text type while type chosen for non-continuous text is called display type.
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To apply a font style:
The size of the type is only one of several ways that a reader can distinguish between continuous and non-continuous text. Another way in which display type may be distinguished from text type is by outdenting (i.e., by shifting the position of the type), bolding (i.e., by changing the weight of the type), capitalizing (i.e., changing the case of the type), or by employing a different font (i.e., changing from one style of type to another). Experimenting with the interaction among these five cues—size, position, weight, case, and style—is one of the best ways to develop perceptual knowledge in document design.6
If the INTE 290 Inc. bio text that we used earlier has been closed, open it. You can apply styles in one of two ways: 1. Select the text you want to format or position the cursor where you want to start typing the new text. In this case, select INTE 290 Inc. on the first line and click on the Bold button on the Formatting toolbar. Now select (NASDAQ: INTE) and click the Italic button or the Underline button.
Slant of Fonts: Roman versus Italic
2. You can also use keyboard commands to accomplish the same result. Click Ctrl+B for bold, Ctrl+I for italic, and Ctrl+U for underline.
Most serif and sans serif type families offer two angles or slants of type: roman (the upright or plain style of type) and italic or oblique (the letterforms that tilt to the right). In desktop publishing or word processing programs, roman type is usually called Normal or Plain text. The use of roman to describe the vertical orientation of both serif and sans serif type is sometimes confusing because serif fonts are called Roman-style fonts. Used in this sense, Roman contrasts with Gothic or sans serif style. Generally, speaking, typographers call the inclined versions of serif fonts, italic and the inclined versions of sans serif fonts, oblique. For the purposes of this course, we will use the term italic. Because of the elegance it confers to text, italic type was used extensively in the past to write whole books. However, that practice ended when it was recognized that continuous text set in italics is hard to read. Today the use of italic is generally restricted to providing emphasis within a text set in roman (i.e., plain) type. Thankfully, the development of desktop publishing has enabled the gradual disappearance of underlining —a cue once used by typists to tell the printer to italicize the underlined portion. You should avoid using underlining as much as
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Figure 3.23. Type Weight
OR 1. Select the text you want to format or position the cursor where you want to start typing the new text and then choose Font from the Format menu and select the Font tab in the Font dialog box.
Bold Italic Underline
2. In the Font Style list box select Bold, Italic, or Underline and check the text in the Preview window to make sure that you are satisfied with how it looks. If you are satisfied with the appearance of the text, click OK. While there are many styles of underlining available to you, the styles Single and Words Only are the ones that you should probably confine yourself to, if you use underlining at all. The others can tend to make a document look too busy and basically duplicate what Single and Words Only already do.
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Typographic flexibility, contrast, and distinctiveness Every document designer has preferences when it comes to choosing a set of fonts for everyday purposes. Some like classical fonts while others like more modern options. However, you should always keep three criteria in mind when deciding which font to use: flexibility, contrast, and distinctiveness. Flexibility A flexible font is one that can be used in a variety of documents (e.g., reports, newsletters, presentations) with reliable results. For example, you would not choose a font appropriate for a rave flyer because it would not be appropriate for any other document that you might have to produce. Contrast Contrast should also be an important characteristic when selecting a “favourite” font family. By contrast, we mean the extent of visual differences between the various styles of the font within a given family, especially among the plain, bold, and extra bold (or black). It is especially important to strive for high contrast between the body text and the display text because readers do not always have time to decipher the documents they read. Contrast ensures that headings and subheadings, for example, are visibly salient, allowing readers to scan quickly to retrieve the information they want. Distinctiveness You can use distinctiveness when choosing a font so that it stands out from the rest in a document. A distinctive font does not have to go “over the top” but it should make a statement by helping the document take on an original character. For example, using fonts previously used and still associated with old typewriters, such as Courier or American Typewriter, can create a distinctive headline.
A common problem that occurs when text is justified is that the word spacing, the amount of horizontal space between words, is unequal both among the words on the same line of type and from one line to the next. This can create a disturbing visual effect known as “rivers”, which is an accidental and undesirable amount of white space between words that seems to flow from the top of the page to the bottom. This irregular and uneven spacing not only disrupts the overall sense of continuity of the text but also the visual rhythm of each line. Moreover, rivers may distract the reader and slow the rate of reading. As a consequence, if you insist on justifying your text, you will have to concern yourself with letter spacing, word spacing, and hyphenation. Thus, you may want to ask yourself if it is really worth the trouble. Moreover, because justification has been used for centuries in the design of Bibles, medical documents, government documents, and legal texts, readers may perceive the severe rectangular look it engenders as formal, distant, even unapproachable. Centred alignment is usually reserved for titles and section headers. In your university career you may have used it for title pages. While centering has its place, it is another formatting option that gets overused. To apply alignment: Let’s use the INTE 290 Inc. bio text again. There are three basic methods for applying alignment formatting to any paragraph. To begin any of them you have to select the text or position the cursor where you want to start typing the new text. Then: 1. You can choose Paragraph from the Format menu and select the Indents and Spacing tab. At the top of this dialog box, click on the drop-down list to choose one of the four alignment options and then click OK. OR 2. You can select your text and click the appropriate alignment button on the Formatting toolbar. Select the first paragraph of the bio text and click the various alignment buttons to see how different it looks.
Visual Distinctiveness
Alignment There are four ways to align your text: left, right, centred, or justified. As we have seen earlier, alignment refers to the horizontal position of the text in relation to the left and right margins (Table 3.3). By default, Word aligns your text on the lefthand side or left aligned. This means that on the left-hand side of the page the text will be flush with the margin and on the right-hand side the text will be “ragged” or un-aligned. Some people who have done layout and design for years refer to left alignment as “ragged right”. Justifying a text means to arrange it so that it has straight vertical edges on both the left and right margin, which gives it the appearance of a block. Although business communications have gotten a lot more informal over the years, especially since the advent of e-mail, the proper format for a business letter is what is called “Block” or “Modified block”, both of which use justified alignment.
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OR 3. You can select your text and then use the appropriate keyboard shortcut. Table 3.3 displays illustrations of the buttons and lists the keyboard shortcuts. Alignment
Button
Keyboard shortcut
Left
Ctrl+L
Right
Ctrl+R
Centred
Ctrl+E
Justified
Ctrl+J
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There are a number of formatting options you can use to ensure that the elements in your documents are well organized and offer enough visual distinctiveness so that the reader can have a good idea of what your document is about with a simple glance.
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If you want to insert a tab manually, you can use the tab key. Simply position your cursor before the first letter in the first sentence. Press the Tab key on the keyboard. This will move the cursor by 0.5 of an inch to the right every time you press it. By default, tabs are set to every 0.5 of an inch. To change the default tab measurement, open the Tabs dialog box and change the value in the Default tab stops box and press OK.
Indentation Indenting is often used in the first line of a paragraph to indicate that it is a new paragraph. Some people also use indents to separate long quotes from the body of the text or for other kinds of special text. Word offers you several methods to indent your text. To begin any of them you have to select the text or position the cursor where you want the text to be indented. Then:
Case Switching When editing a document in Word, you may want to change the case of certain characters. For example, in a title, you may have only capitalized the first letter of every word, but then decided you want to capitalize the entire title.
1. You can choose Paragraph from the Format menu and click on the Indents and Spacing tab. If you want to indent from the left and/or right, type in the distance in inches in the Left and/or Right spin box, or use the up and down arrows to modify the value.
Select any text in the bio document that you used earlier and from the Format menu select Change Case. Then select the UPPERCASE option and click OK. Your text should all be in uppercase letters now.
OR 2. If you require a hanging indent (mostly used when writing a bibliography) or a first line indent (to indent the first line of every paragraph of a document), click on the Special drop-down list and select the indent type you want. Then in the By spin box, select the value of the indent. Once you have made your formatting choices, click OK.
Increase Indent Each time you press the increase indent button, the cursor will move right by .5 inch. When you press the decrease indent button the cursor will move left by .5 inch.
Bullets or Numbered Lists Bullets or numbered lists are a great way to display a certain kind of information or to summarize an event or activity into distinct steps. Word offers you several list options. To create a list:
OR 3. Click on the Increase Indent button on the Formatting toolbar if you want to add an indent or click on the Decrease Indent button if you indented too much.
To create a bulleted list, select the text you want to add bullets to or position the cursor where you want the list to begin. Then: 1. Choose Bullets and Numbering from the Format menu. The Bullets and Numbering dialog box will open (Figure 3.25).
Tabs When you want to insert a tab, from the Format menu, select Paragraph and click on the Tabs button at the bottom left-hand side of the dialog box. The Tabs dialog box will open (Figure 3.24). From here you can select the alignment, the default tab stops (distance from the margin to where your tab will end and text will begin) and the leader (the type of space you want to appear into the tab space whether it is blank, periods, dashes, or a solid line). When you are finished, click OK.
2. Click on the Bulleted tab if it is not already selected. Choose the bullet style of your choice and click OK.
Custom lists
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Figure 3.24. Tabs dialog box
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Increase Indent
You can customize any bulleted or numbered list by clicking on the Customize option button in the Bullets and Numbering dialog box.
Figure 3.25. Bullets and Numbering: Bulleted tab
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If you prefer a numbered list, click on the Numbered tab (Figure 3.26) in which case, the following screen appears. Click on the numbered list of your choice and then press OK.
<< Combining colour and fill Figure 3.26. Bullets and Numbering: Numbered tab
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If you want the default bullets or numbering system, it is faster and simpler to select the text or position the cursor where you want the list to begin. Then simply click the Bullets button on the Formatting toolbar or the Numbering button on the same toolbar if you prefer a numbered list.
Figure 3.27. Borders and Shading dialog box: Borders tab
To apply shading: 1. Select the text you want to add shading to and choose Borders and Shading from the Format menu.
You can combine both colour and fill at the same time. Just experiment until you find something you like in the preview area.
2. Once the Borders and Shading dialog box appears (Figure 3.28), click on the Shading tab. If you want to use a grey fill pattern, click on the Style drop-down list and select a pattern, or, if you would rather use a colour, choose the one you want in the Fill area and then click OK.
Borders and Shading There are times when underlining or bolding text is not enough to highlight a section of text. In that case, you may want to separate it from the rest of the document, or you may want to make it stand out in a different way. The Borders and Shading feature was created just for that reason. To apply a border: 1. Select the text and then choose Borders and Shading from the Format menu. When the Borders and Shading dialog box appears (Figure 3.27), click on the Borders tab. You are then presented with five border settings to choose from: None, Box, Shadow, 3-D, or Custom.
Numbering
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Bullets
2. Once you select one of these settings, you have many other options to choose from. You can choose the line style in the Style list box; change the colour of the border in the Color drop-down list or change the width of the border in the Width drop-down list. Finally, if you feel like customizing a border you can do so in the Preview window. Simply click on the side where you want to place the border and repeat it until you have the desired results. When you are done with all your choices, click OK.
Figure 3.28. Borders and Shading dialog box: Shading tab
Colours Changing the colour of your text can be a good way to make it stand out. Remember, however, that your coloured text will appear in black when you print it, unless you use a colour printer.
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To change the colour of the text:
they would add two strips of lead each one point in size, a measurement that is still used today since most word processors are set by default at two points of leading for an average 12-point type size.
Select the text you want to format or position the cursor where you want to start typing the new text and click the down arrow next to the Font Color button on the Formatting toolbar. A drop-down list with all the colours available to you will open. Choose the colour you want and the selected text will change to that colour.
Two numbers are used to express leading: the font’s point size and the baselineto-baseline measurement. Like type size, leading is also measured in points. For example, if your document is set in 10-point type with 12-point leading, it is written 10/12, which means that there are 2 points of leading between every two lines of 10-point type.
OR You can select Font from the Format menu and choose a colour from the Font Colour drop-down list and then click OK. Effects Besides the most traditional type styles such as bold and italic, Word also enables you to apply the following effects to your text:
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SCRIPT SCRIPT OUTLINE STRIKETHROUGH DOUBLE STRIKETHROUGH SHADOW EMBOSS ENGRAVE
When no space is inserted between the lines (as is often the case in the “small print” of a contract), the type is said to be set solid. Type that is set solid gives a dense appearance, is quite hard to read, and should be avoided as much as possible because it might discourage the readers from even looking at your document.
SUB SUPER
When the leading is too small, the text loses its legibility. Moreover, lines of text that are set too close to each other can result in the ascenders and descenders of letterforms touching which makes the text blurry and gives the page a muddy look.
To apply effects:
As a general rule, typographers recommend that you add about 20 percent to the face’s point size to obtain the leading for hardcopy documents. Also, body text needs more leading than headings because headings are easy to see without much space around them.
1. Select the text you want to format or position the cursor where you want to start typing the new text. Choose Font from the Format menu and click on the option you wish to use in the Effects section of the Font dialog box.
Word refers to leading as line spacing and offers a number of predetermined spacing options such as single, double, and so on. When you start Word 2003, the line spacing is set at single. This means that there are no blank lines between the lines of text. Double-spaced text has one blank line between each line of text. You can change the line spacing at any point in your document and decide if your changes will affect the whole document or just the selected paragraph.
2. Check the Preview window to preview the changes and when you are satisfied with the look of the text, click OK. Although these effects are available, they do not always look good when printed, so use them sparingly.
Ensuring legibility Clearly, type has an impact on the legibility and readability of documents. Legible type is large enough without being so large as to be annoying and it is distinct enough so that readers are able to distinguish the various parts of the text. As for readability, it is “the quality that makes the page easy to read, inviting, pleasurable to the eye. The major factors affecting readability relate to the relative proportions of horizontal to vertical space: line width, type size, and spaces between lines, words, and letters.”7 Two main features used to measure legibility are: leading and line length.
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Figure 3.29. Illustration of leading
Spin boxes If you prefer to use an option not listed in the drop-down list, you can manually enter the values in the Before and After spin boxes.
In an academic setting, papers are often double-spaced to give professors space to make hand-written comments. In design, line spacing is often more a matter of making the text look pleasing, easier to read, or fit into the space that is available for a given text. To change the leading to a custom option: 1. Select the first paragraph of the INTE 290 Inc. bio text. Choose Paragraph from the Format menu. Then select the Indents and Spacing tab and select the option you want from the Line spacing drop-down list (single, double, etc).
Leading
2. Once you are happy with what you have chosen, click OK. This will apply your custom spacing to the rest of the paragraph.
Leading (pronounced “ledding”) is the space added between lines of type (Figure 3.29). It refers to a time when typesetters used to insert strips of lead between lines in order to create space so that the text would not be too hard to read. Generally,
3. If you want this change to apply to the whole document, you have to press CTRL+A or choose Select All from the Edit menu before you go to the Paragraph option in the Format menu.
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To change the leading to a precise value: 1. Select the first paragraph of the INTE 290 Inc. bio text. Choose Paragraph from the Format menu. Then select the Indents and Spacing tab and select exactly from the Line spacing drop-down list and then enter a value in the At spin box. 2. Once you are happy with what you have chosen, click OK. This will apply your spacing to the rest of the paragraph. Line Length Line length is the distance between the left and right margin of a line of type. Line length is also called measure or column width (Figure 3.30). When measuring the length of a line, you will be using picas —a larger unit of measurement than the point. Roughly, one pica equals 12 points and there are about 6 picas to an inch. Line length is an important visual characteristic of documents because it affects both legibility and tone. In general, longer lines of type require a larger point size and more leading.
One aspect of vertical space that we have already looked at is leading but, in general terms, vertical space refers to (1) the up-and-down perpendicular distance between the elements on a page, and (2) the top-to-bottom size of visual or verbal elements. This means that vertical space is not only the space between consecutive lines of text, but also the space between paragraphs, between the bottom edge of a picture and its caption, between subheadings and text regions. Vertical space can also point to the depth of a block of text, a picture or a table.8 You should learn to experiment with vertical space early on because variations can have a dramatic impact on the overall appearance of your document and give readers powerful cues about its hierarchy. For example, you can use vertical space to indicate parallel text elements, set off one text element from another, or show internal relationships among text elements. In Figure 3.31, you can see how something as simple as different leading within paragraphs can have a dramatic impact on the way a document looks. The text is exactly the same in both documents but the one on the right is a lot more inviting to read because it does not feel so cramped.
<< Figure 3.30. Line lenght
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As a general rule, you should have about 40 to 70 characters, or roughly eight to twelve words, per line in order for lines of text presented on paper to be easily read. In situations where it is necessary to use a long line length, the leading should be increased to maximize legibility. This advice is intended for body text set between 9 and 12 points. Generally speaking, book design leans toward the higher end of line length (it is common to see 12 to 14 words per line), while the design of instruction guides leans toward the lower end.
Creating Effective Visual Organization Vertical Space and Horizontal Space Vertical space and horizontal space are important elements that you can use to enhance your document.
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Figure 3.31. Vertical space
“Horizontal space describes the left-to-right measurement of (1) the visual or verbal elements, and (2) the space between the elements on a page. In the first sense, horizontal space refers to what is commonly called the “width” of the type or graphic. The second sense of horizontal spacing refers to areas of blank space (measured from left-to-right) between elements of the document. The distance between characters in a word is called character spacing; between words, word spacing; between columns of type, an alley; between two pages, the gutter. Horizontal space, then, is used to characterize the width of objects as well as the distance between them (e.g., indenting is horizontal spacing, as is the distance between a bullet and the text that goes with it).”9 When you use horizontal space to highlight the structure of the content, it has to be very clear that you have not made a mistake and that what the reader is seeing is intentional. For that reason, very obvious horizontal cues are often more effective than subtle ones. Once you have taken vertical and horizontal space into account, you must also consider the interaction of both. Document design is a bit like architecture. As a designer, you have to make sure that the different elements (in this case, vertical inte 290 Introduction to Computer Usage
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and horizontal space) will help readers infer the intended structure of the text in the same way that visitors to a new building should be able to infer where the entrance is from its overall architecture. Additionally, the varying vertical and horizontal space should work together to help define and articulate each another. Figure 3.32 shows how much difference good organization of vertical and horizontal space can make. The form on the left is hard to read and does not invite us to fill it while the one on the right seems more organized and a lot clearer.
Figure 3.32. Interaction of vertical and horizontal space
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Designing Tables
In essence, when you design a table, you have to follow the same basic principles of proximity, alignment, repetition, and contrast. The added challenge is that you have to understand the data yourself before you can present it in an efficient and clear manner. Your role is to create a structure that enables readers to draw the proper conclusions about the data. Let’s look at an example that illustrates the table creation process. Figure 3.33 shows a table with nutritional information about popular sandwiches and salads. As you can see, it is very hard to read. Its design makes it difficult to find the information for a number of reasons: the numbers in the cells do not align; the text in uppercase makes it hard to read; the poor design makes it difficult to make comparisons; and it is not clear at first sight where the sandwiches end and the salads begin. Ultimately, the way the data is structured shows that the designer did not really think about how readers would use the information.
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We have looked extensively at text in the first part of this chapter but, as we all know, documents can also contain other visual elements, such as graphs and tables. In fact, your work in the course will require that you create graphs and tables to include in documents. Designing a document that includes data presents particular challenges because, first of all, data is not always as easy to understand as simple text and, second, in order to present it properly, it must be interpreted, first by the document designer and then by the reader.
Figure 3.33. Example of a poorly designed table
Now let’s look at Figure 3.34 for comparison. By removing the heavy grid, aligning the numbers, and using uppercase and lowercase text, the data is easier to see and read. The two types of food (sandwiches and salads) are also more clearly separated and identifiable. The data as been reorganized to better reflect people’s nutritional concerns by placing the sandwiches and salads from the ones with the least calories to the ones with the most. In other words, the table in Figure 3.34 is a lot more effective than the one in Figure 3.33 because it enables readers to look for information quickly and make comparisons. It is clear the designer took some time to understand the data and gave some thought to how it would be used by readers. The result is not only a lot more pleasing aesthetically but, mostly, it makes the data relevant. In the same way that you should not use images just for the sake of it (we will talk about this shortly), you should not add tables and graphs if they do not support or complement the arguments that you are trying to make in the text. The ultimate goal is to facilitate readers’ understanding of the content, not confuse them with numbers.
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OR 1. You can click on the Insert Table button on the Standard toolbar. 2. Click down on the mouse button and drag across the number of columns (vertical) and rows (horizontal) you want in your table (Figure 3.36). Then release the mouse button.
Figure 3.36. Table Options available with the Insert Table button
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Formatting Tables
Figure 3.34. Example of a well-designed table
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Creating a Table Word provides you with a number of ways to insert a table in your document: 1. From the Table menu select Insert, then Table. The Insert Table dialog box appears (Figure 3.35).
Column width
Selecting You can also select a cell, row, and column by clicking in the table and then using the Select commands from the Table menu.
Once you have created your table, you can add or subtract some rows or columns by clicking on Insert in the Table menu and choosing an action from the dropdown menu. But first you need to select the row or column. To select a row or column: • If you want to select a specific row in the table, simply click within the left margin area of the row you want to select. • In you want to select a specific column, click just above it. You will notice the pointer will change to an arrow pointing down.
2. Select the number of columns and rows you want in your table and then click OK.
By default, the column widths will be equal and a default border will be used. You can change the column width by selecting or manually entering a number in the Column width box.
• If you want to select the whole table, first position your cursor anywhere in the table and from the Table menu, click Select and then Table. To add a row: There are two ways to add a row to a table in Word. 1. You can position the cursor in the row that is directly above or below where you want to insert the new row. From the Table menu, point to Insert, and then click Rows Above or Rows Below respectively. You can also quickly add a row at the end of a table by clicking the last cell of the last row and then press the TAB key. OR Insert Table
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Figure 3.35. Table Options available with the Insert Table button
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2. Just highlight a row and right-click on it. A hidden menu will pop up, where you can choose Insert Row.
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To add a column: 1. If you want to add a new column to the right or the left of an existing column in a table, click and select a column. From the Table menu, point to Insert, and then click Columns to the Right or Columns to the Left respectively. OR 2. Just highlight a column and right-click on it, when the hidden menu pops up, choose Insert Column.
Deleting without losing data If you want to keep the row or column but erase the data, just select the row or column by dragging across it and then press the delete key.
To delete a cell, row, or column: Select the cells, rows, or columns you want to delete. From the Table menu, select Delete and then click Columns, Rows, or Cells. The row or column is deleted along with any data that was in that row or column. You can also highlight the row, column, or cell that you want to delete and simply press the Delete key on the keyboard. If you decide that the whole table needs to be deleted, click somewhere within the table, then from the Table menu, select Delete, and click Table. You can also highlight the whole table and press the Delete key on the keyboard. Changing Table Elements or Table Size Once you have finished with all the other steps of setting up your table, you might realize that it is either too wide or too narrow for the page or column of text that it has been placed in. At this point you can change the actual size of the whole table, the columns, rows, or cells without affecting the data contained within them. To change the size of the whole table: The fastest way to adjust the table is by changing the size of the entire table. If you place the cursor on the table, the table resize handle (small square box) will appear in the lower-right corner of the table. Move the cursor to the table resize handle until a double-headed arrow appears, then click on this arrow and drag until the table is the size you want. The size of the table columns will change automatically. To change the column width: A more precise way to adjust the structure of your table may well be by adjusting the size column width within a table. To do this, place the mouse pointer on the column boundary you want to resize until the pointer changes to two vertical lines with arrows on either side, and then drag the boundary until the column is the width you want. An even more precise method is to enter a specific measurement for your column width. Just click on a cell in the column then choose Table Properties from the Table menu. Click the Column tab and insert the desired column width. You can also make the columns in a table automatically fit the contents by first clicking on the table, then selecting AutoFit in the Table menu and clicking on AutoFit to Contents.
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To change the row height:
Be patient Changing the size of a table takes some time to master. Continue practicing until you get the results you want.
If you find that your table is too high, you can rectify this problem by placing the mouse pointer on the row boundary you want to resize until the pointer changes to two horizontal lines with arrows on either side. Just like resizing a whole table, you can then click and drag the boundary until the row is the desired height you want. You can also change a row height to a specific measurement by clicking a cell in the row. In the Table menu, click Table Properties and then click the Row tab. Click on Specify Height and type a number in the adjacent box. If all this fiddling around seems like too much work, you can also make the rows or columns the same size. Simply select the rows or columns you want to resize. Then choose AutoFit from the Table menu and click on Distribute Columns Evenly to resize columns or Distribute Rows Evenly to resize the rows.
Combining type and space So far, we have looked at methods to use text and graphics in the most efficient manner to create documents. But the true power of document design comes from the combination of type and space. Type and space can work together to: • Set the mood, look, and feel of a document (e.g., formal or informal, urgent or relaxed). • Make the structure of a document more obvious (e.g., hierarchy, partwhole relationships, groupings of related ideas). • Invite readers to scan and navigate the document in certain ways (e.g., topto-bottom, left-to-right, column-by-column). • Give clues about the type of document, that is, its genre (e.g., the graphic clues that distinguish a business letter from a bus schedule). • Suggest how to interpret and use the text (e.g., take this seriously or not, keep it as a reference or throw it away after you read it). • Reveal what the designer and/or editor thought was important (e.g., amount of space devoted to certain items, the position and emphasis given to certain words and pictures, the amount of graphic contrast used to set off certain ideas).10 Let’s look at how text and graphics work together and then at how we can combine all these elements to design the best possible documents.
How Text and Graphics Interact To use or not to use graphics Studies show that using text in combination with images is usually a better way to reach the reader than with text alone. This is especially true in the case of less able or reluctant readers. However, the use of visuals can actually be negative when the chosen images are either distracting or have little to do with the content being presented. Most people resent having to look at visuals that do not enhance the text or confuse the issue altogether. Combining images with text is the key to creating a document that will be helpful and appreciated by your intended readers. Here are a few things to avoid and tips to do it successfully.
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One aspect that can easily create confusion is the distance between a visual and its accompanying text. For example, if you look at a newspaper and there is a picture of a politician on the front page but the actual story is on the back page of section A, chances are you will be confused and wondering what this picture refers to. The same thing can happen in an annual report that groups all graphics and charts at the end of the document forcing you to go back and forth between the explanations of the data and the chart or graphic. In this case, readers are forced to make mental connections using information that is not physically or spatially within proximity, which has the added negative impact of distracting them from the message presented. The only way to solve that problem is to make sure that you always place text and visuals that are related within reasonable distance so that the information is clear at a glance. As seen previously, the graphical elements that you integrate into your document should also be clear on their own. If they are confusing because they are out of the frame of reference of the readers such as a picture of an event in a foreign country for example, a clear caption should accompany them. Five Ways to Integrate Prose and Graphics11 The five techniques that can be used for text and visuals to interact are: redundancy, complementarity, supplementarity, juxtapositional, and stage-setting. A brief explanation of each one is provided below. Redundancy: When you use substantially identical content visually and verbally to tell the same story, thus providing repetition of key ideas. This technique can be useful when presenting a difficult topic or when trying to reach an audience that has little or no knowledge of the topic. Complementarity: When you use different visual and verbal content that complement one another to present key ideas. In this case, the visual information and the verbal information work together to form the whole picture and help the reader understand the same idea. For example, it might be useful to have a map of a remote or little known region in a newspaper article about a plane crash to provide visual information along with the text. Supplementarity: When you use different content in words and pictures, but where one mode dominates the other, providing the main ideas, while the other reinforces, elaborates, or illustrates the points made in the dominant mode (or explains how to interpret the other). For example, a manual describing how to change a filter in a car might have a written and a graphical component. The text can explain in a general manner what you have to do to change your filter while the images might actually show you the location of the filter, as well as how to position yourself and the tools to accomplish the operation. Juxtapositional: When you use different content in words and pictures, in which the key ideas are expressed by a clash, an unexpected synthesis, or a tension between the ideas in each mode; the idea cannot be inferred without both modes being present simultaneously. You will often see this technique used in advertising, which operates by conjoining rather disparate visual and verbal elements. Stage-Setting: When you use different content in words and pictures, in which one mode (often the visual) provides a context for the other mode by forecasting its content, underlying theme, or ideas. For example, in a book about how to organize a wedding, the first page of each chapter could be a picture illustrating the content. So, the first chapter could begin with an image of different invitations on a table to preview the section about this topic; the second chapter could show a wedding
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cake to preview the section about how to choose and order a cake, and so on. Stagesetting text could be an outline, a list of instructional objectives, a flowchart or a summary. Inserting Graphics Within the context of document design, the old adage: “A picture is worth a thousand words”, should probably be amended to: “The right picture is worth a thousand words.” Too often, graphics that have little or nothing to do with the content are used in documents. For example, a picture of a tractor inserted into the middle of this page would be bizarre, no matter how nice a picture it is. That said, an appropriate graphic is a great way to increase interest in your document and to draw in the readers attention. Inserting Symbols Although they are not actually pictures or illustrations, symbols can be used to illustrate a point in the absence of other graphics. Thankfully, some fonts are not actually made up of numbers and letters, but instead are made up of small drawings or symbols. If you want to insert a symbol into the body of your text, simply place the cursor where you want the symbol to appear then choose Symbol from the Insert menu. When the Symbol dialog box appears, select the Symbols tab. If the symbol you are looking for is not shown, select the font you want (Wingdings has lots of great symbols!) from the Font drop-down list. Unlike other Font dropdown lists within Word this one only displays those fonts that are made up of symbols. It is important to note that in some cases some symbol characters may not print out exactly as you might expect. You should always test them before you base your whole document on their use. So, after looking through your choices, either click on the symbol you want to insert and then click the Insert button, or double-click on the desired symbol and then click the Close button. Inserting Pictures Adding pictures to your document is a quick way to spice it up and Word provides you with a fairly extensive collection of clip art. To insert such an image, place the insertion point where you want the picture to appear and select Picture from the Insert menu. The Clip Art task pane will appear (Figure 3.37). 1. Once the Insert Clip Art window is open you can type a keyword in the Search box at the top and click on search. This will show a list of all the clip art pictures that are related to the keyword you typed in. If Word cannot find any pictures relating to what you are looking for, it will say: No Results Found. If this happens, click on Organize clips at the bottom of the Clip Art task pane and browse through the collections manually by clicking on the different categories and then looking at the pictures. 2. Once you find a picture you like, click on it and it will be inserted into your document. If you click on the wrong one by accident, select it in the document and press the Delete key.
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To use the Clip Organizer: 1. Select Organize clips in the Clip Art pane. This will open the Microsoft Clip Organizer dialog box (Figure 3.38).
Figure 3.38. Microsoft Clip Organizer
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2. Let’s look first at an example using the Office Collection. Click on the small + sign next to the Office Collection folder to see all the subfolders within it. The expanded folder list contains all the media files available from Office. Each folder name describes the category of the media files within the folder. Notice that some folders have another + symbol next to them further subdividing the media file category. 3. Try clicking on the Sciences folder. On the right side of the Clip Organizer, click on the drop-down arrow next to the space shuttle picture (Figure 3.39).
Figure 3.37. Clip Art pane
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Using the Microsoft Clip Organizer The Microsoft Clip Organizer (Figure 3.38) contains drawings, photographs, sounds, videos, and other media files that you can insert. Similar to Windows Explorer, the left side of the dialog box, the Collection List, lists the folders that may contain these files. These files can include:
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• Your own media files stored in My Collections • Media files that can only be accessed if you are connected to the Internet; stored in Web Collections • Media files that are included with the Microsoft Office package; stored in Office Collections.
Figure 3.39. Drop-down menu from space shuttle picture
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4. From the drop-down menu, select Copy. Close the Clip Organizer and return to your Word document. If a message asking whether you would like to keep your clips on the clipboard after the Clip Organizer closes appears, click Yes.
To get text to flow around a graphical item, simply right-click on the graphic you want to change. When the drop-down menu pops up, click on Format Picture then choose the Layout tab. You will now see a graphical representation of the different wrapping styles that are available, pick the one you want to apply and click OK.
5. Place the cursor in your Word document where you would like to paste the picture and click on the Paste button or use the keyboard command (Ctrl + V).
Captioning Photos
Very often you will want to go beyond the limitations of the provided Word clip art and might want to insert an image of your own. In that case, go into the Insert menu and click on Picture. A sub-menu appears. Click on From file. Find the image or graphic that you want to insert, select it, and click OK.
Formatting Graphics Once you have inserted a graphic in your document, you might find that it is not exactly where you wanted it to be, or it is bigger or smaller than you expected. The following exercises will explain how to move or resize a graphic. Moving a graphic Moving a graphic is simply a matter of clicking once in the centre of the graphic you want to move (hold down the mouse button). The pointer will change to a four-headed arrow. Now you can drag the graphic to its new location and release the mouse button. Resizing a graphic If the size of your graphic is too small or large you just have to click on it and handles will appear as black boxes on the edges of the graphic. You then move the mouse pointer over the handle you want to drag and it will change to a two-headed arrow. You then click and drag the handle to resize the object. If you click on the corner arrows the graphic will be proportionally resized, where as if you use the top or side middle arrows your image will get stretched. Think back to earlier in this chapter when we discussed Headers and Footers, resizing graphics can come in handy when setting them up. Imagine you are setting up a corporate report or some kind of newsletter. Would it not be nice to have the corporate logo in the header or footer so that it is on every page? Simply select the header or footer you want and then follow the steps to insert a graphic. Invariably the graphic will be way too large, so you should follow the steps to resize it that we covered earlier. Cutting, copying, and deleting a graphic If you want to copy, paste or delete a graphic, you just select the graphic in question and then use the same commands as you would use to do the same actions with text. Text Flow
Paste
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Although it is called different things in different applications and settings, Text Flow refers to the way text wraps or flows around a picture or other graphical item (including tables or charts). What we are talking about here can be seen in magazines or newspapers when text wraps around a photo instead of the photo interrupting a whole line of text.
Introduction to Document Design and Word
Very often when you insert a photo you may want to include some text under or beside it to give credit to the photographer or to explain what is going on in the photo. To do this you simply go to the Insert menu and choose Text Box. Your cursor should now look like a plus sign that you can use to draw the appropriately sized box for your text. Once you are finished drawing the box, a text insertion point appears in the new text box. Type your caption in this box and then click anywhere else in the document to exit the box. You should now apply the same Text Wrap formatting to this text box as you applied to the photo it is associated with. Unfortunately, Word does not allow you to group text boxes with images, so you will have to move the caption and the photo individually. In the next part of this chapter, we are going to look at some practical methods and useful tips that can help you create documents rapidly and efficiently. Just remember that practice makes perfect and that your skills will improve as you work your way through this textbook and the various applications that you have to learn.
Putting the pieces together Creating a Mock-up When they are given a project to work on, one of the first things that document designers do is create a mock-up. A mock-up is essentially a grid made up of columns, rows, and shapes that is used to display all of the elements that are going to go in your document (Figure 3.40). It is very useful to try and figure out how to map out the vertical and horizontal space. Grids are also a great tool to organize the information in your document in a way that will not only make sense to the readers but also guide them through the process of interpreting that information. Ultimately, a mock-up allows you to look at every element as if it is just a shape on the page whether it is text or images. Here are a series of steps to help you create one: 1. Create a surface to work on If you do not have page layout software, the easiest way to create a mock up is simply by hand. For example, if you are creating a 16-page newsletter, take 4 sheets of white 8 1/2 X 11 paper and fold them in two along the longest side. Each half page will represent one page of your document. Adapt the number of pages so that it reflects the size of your document. 2. Make a list Make a list of every single element that you will include in your document. This inventory should include any logos, headers, sub-headers, photos, graphics, tables, captions, body text, itemized lists, pull quotes, etc. 3. Organize the content Organize the content into groups in which the items are related. For example, a photo should go with its caption, a graphic with its explanation, etc. An article might be composed of a header, a sub-header, body text, a photo with a caption, and a symbol that indicates the end of the article. All of these elements should be grouped so that you have a general idea of how many of these groupings you have. inte 290 Introduction to Computer Usage
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9. Test and improve your mock up Before going ahead with the integration of all your elements into your mock up, try to insert one of the groupings that you have identified earlier to see if it stands the test. It is at this stage that you need to fine-tune your mock up. These steps should make it easy for you to create a mock up that will become the structure of your whole document. Although you may think that it takes a lot of time to create a grid, you will greatly benefit from the process when you start inserting your content. Moreover, you can use that structure for all future documents of the same type.
Printing/Previewing a Document People often get through a whole document without ever checking if what they have done will actually print. This is a bad idea for a number of different reasons. If you have applied some kind of formatting that exceeds the printable limitations of the paper you are about to print on, you will not notice until you try and print. One way to avoid this problem, and save paper at the same time, is to use Word’s print preview feature. Previewing documents is simple, choose Print Preview from the File menu or click on the Print Preview button in the toolbar.
Figure 3.40. Mock-up example
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4. Divide the space into columns and rows The best documents are the ones that follow a pattern that is consistent and easy to recognize by the reader. Creating columns and rows within your document is a sure way to unify the visual field and to evoke a sense of proportion, regularity, structure, and rhythm that reassures readers and helps them make sense of the information presented.
You will see your current page displayed on-screen as it would look if you were to print it out. If you select two-page display, the current and following page is displayed. You can scroll forward or backward in the document by dragging the scroll box. It is important to note that you cannot edit your document in print preview mode, if you want to make changes you must first exit print preview by clicking on the Close button.
5. Evaluate the space needed Look at each one of the groupings that you identified in step 3 and evaluate how much space they will need at a minimum and at a maximum. You might have to rethink these assumptions later but at least you will have a general idea of the importance each cluster will have in your document.
Printing your Document Once you are sure you like what you see in Print Preview you have arrived at the point where you can print your document.
6. Are there any exceptions? By exceptions we mean elements that do not fit with the others visually or textually. These can cause trouble down the line if you do not take their particularities into account at the beginning. At this stage, you can choose to reformat the exception so that it mirrors the other elements better or create a special grid just for that element, if it is important enough. For example, if you have a list of events or a historical timeline as part of an article, you might want to highlight it by placing it into a different grid than the one used for body text.
There are several ways to do this in Word. The first is to choose Print from the File menu to open the Print dialog box (Figure 3.41) and then click OK. The benefit of this method over other methods is that the Print dialog box allows you to be selective with your print options, such as the page range (i.e., you may want to print only one page of a multi-page document). When you use the Print button on the toolbar, all the pages of your document will be printed automatically.
7. Experiment with the spatial orientation of the document As we have seen, you can use a vertical, horizontal or mixed spatial orientation in your document. Try different variations to see what best enhances your content while still meeting your communication goals. Do not forget that competing grids do not always work well unless you are trying to emphasize a particular element.
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Print Preview Print
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8. Finalize the mock up One you have experimented with various mock ups, select the one that you think will best meet the reader’s expectations and your organization’s needs, while looking visually appealing. Then finalize the dimensions of your document and the number of columns and rows.
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your protection restrictions and are ready to apply them, simply click on the Yes, Start Enforcing Protection button at the bottom of the task pane.
If you are sure you want all the pages of your document to print and that the printer is set up correctly, you can then just click on the Print button the toolbar or use the keyboard equivalent, Ctrl + P. Finally, if you are in the Print Preview window, you can skip all this and just click the Print button. Troubleshooting your Print Job There are three common problems that often crop up at the point when people print their documents, paper size, orientation, and incorrect margin widths. If you have been working on a legal sized document (8.5 X 14) and the printer you are using only has letter size (8.5 X 11) paper then you either have to change the paper in the printer or change your document to fit the paper size. As well, printers have two orientations, Landscape and Portrait. Think about the last time you saw a painting; portraits tend to be narrower in width and taller in height than a landscape painting. So, while landscape oriented paper might be a good setting for some kind of graph or chart, it really is not the best choice for a newsletter. Both of these settings can be changed by choosing Page Setup from the File menu, then select the Page Size tab and make the necessary adjustments. When you are done, click OK. If the margins are too narrow and you are loosing some of your document off the edge of the page, you should choose Page Setup from the File menu and then select the Margins tab and enter new settings. When you are finished, click OK. Another problem that can crop up is when you have designed your document for a paper size that is larger than the printer can handle. In this case you have to either find a printer that can handle the size or re-design your document to fit the restrictions of your printer.
New Features in Word 2003 Protecting Documents A new and improved feature in Microsoft Word 2003 is the protect documents feature. To protect a document, from the Tools menu select Protect Document. The Protect Document task pane will open on the right-hand side of the screen (Figure 3.42).
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In the Protect Document task pane (Figure 3.42) there are 2 main restriction options: Formatting restrictions and Editing restrictions. The Formatting restrictions option allows you to restrict the formatting of the document to a list of predefined styles that you have applied to the document. The person using or editing the document will only be able to use those styles listed. The Editing restrictions option enables you to restrict all formatting and editing of the document by making your document read-only, allow editing only by having the changes tracked using the Tracked changes option, you could also allow the person to enter comments only or restrict them by allowing them to only fill in forms that are in the document. If you select the Read-Only option you can also allow certain people specific formatting rights by specifying the person and the type of formatting rights in the Exceptions area. When you are finished setting
Figure 3.42. Protect Document task pane
Another new feature in Word (also available in Excel), is the Compare Documents Side by Side feature. With this feature you can compare two Word (or Excel) documents side by side instead of switching from one to the other. You can even scroll simultaneously through the documents. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s try it! Yes, Start Enforcing Protection
1. Open a blank word document and Close the Getting Started task pane. Type the following text in the document:
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In the Protect Document task pane there are 2 main restriction options: Formatting restrictions and Editing restrictions. The Formatting restrictions option allows you to restrict the formatting of the document to a list of predefined styles that you have applied to the document.
Notice that a new toolbar called Compare Side by Side (Figure 3.43) also pops-up on-screen. The Compare Side by Side toolbar has three buttons. Table 3.4 provides a brief description of each. Button
2. From the View menu select Header and Footer. In the footer of the document type: This is document 1. Close the Header and Footer and save this document as Document 1.
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In the latest version of Microsoft Office, there are a few new common features. These features can be located in Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint. Instead of repeating the same feature in each of the subsequent chapters, this section will describe and explain these new features.
table 3.4. Compare Side by Side toolbar buttons
The neat thing about this feature is that you can scroll through both documents at the same time. The following exercise will demonstrate this. 1. Make sure both documents are at the beginning of the document as in Figure 3.43. Make sure that the Synchronous Scrolling button is depressed (if there is a black border around the button that means it is depressed and synchronous scrolling is on).
5. We will now compare these two documents side by side: If Document 1 is minimized, select it so that it is on-screen. From the Window menu select Compare Side by Side with Document 2.
2. Click and drag the scroll box of Document 1. Notice how both document screens move at the same time. Go to the bottom of both screens so that the footers of both documents are displayed. Turn off synchronous scrolling by clicking on the Synchronous Scrolling button. Now click and drag the scroll box of Document 2 until you reach the top of the document. Notice that only Document 2 is scrolling upward. Your screen should be similar to Figure 3.44.
To be compared side by side both Word documents cannot be maximized. If either document is maximized, click on the Minimize button to have the documents placed side by side. Your screen should look similar to Figure 3.43.
Synchronous Scrolling
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Introduction to Document Design and Word
Allows you to scroll through both of the documents at the same time Allows you to reset the window position of both windows back to the compare side by side view Press this button to close the side by slide comparison
Synchronous Scrolling
4. From the View menu select Header and Footer. In the footer of the document type: This is document 2. Close the Header and Footer and save this document as Document 2.
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Close Side by Side
Office 2003 Features Common in Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint
Figure 3.43. Documents 1 and 2 compared side by side
Description
Reset Window Position
3. Open a second blank document and close the Getting Started task pane in that document as well. In this document type the following text:
Minimize
Name
Figure 3.44. Documents 1 and 2 after asynchronous scrolling
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The Research task pane enables you to look up a word in a Thesaurus or obtain a translation of the word.
Office 2003 Features Common in Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint In the latest version of Microsoft Office, there are a few new common features. These features can be located in Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint. Instead of repeating the same feature in each of the subsequent chapters, this section will describe and explain these new features.
2. Type the word: task in the Search for textbox in the Research task pane and press the Start Searching button. You should obtain the following result (Figure 3.46).
Task Panes As you have seen, task panes are used throughout Microsoft Word. There are six common task panes that you will find in each application: Getting Started, Help, Search Results, Shared Workspace, Document Updates, and Research. Each application also includes other task panes that are specific to that application. Earlier in this chapter you were introduced to the Getting Started, Help and Search Results task panes. Here we will review the Research task pane. The Shared Workspace and Document Updates task panes will be explained in the next section. 1. Open a blank Word document. From the Formatting toolbar click on the Research button to open the Research task pane (Figure 3.45).
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Research
Figure 3.45. Research task pane
Introduction to Document Design and Word
Start Searching
Figure 3.46. Search result
A list of available options from the thesaurus is displayed. If you click on the small plus symbol next to the Translation option, the option will list the French translation for the word. From the To drop-down list you can select another language to translate the word to (Figure 3.47).
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Your work colleagues can easily work together on the document either by working directly on the Document Workspace copy or by working on their own copy, which they can update periodically with changes that have been saved to the copy on the Document Workspace site. You create a Document Workspace by sending a message with a document set as a shared attachment. The sender of the shared attachment is the administrator of the Document Workspace and all the recipients (the addresses in the To: and CC fields of the e-mail message) become members of the Document Workspace and are granted permission to contribute to the document. The permissions are set by the administrator. You can open a copy of the shared file on your computer (i.e., locally) and Microsoft Office 2003 will periodically get updates from the Document Workplace site. If your work colleagues have edited or worked on the document and saved their changes to the Document Workplace, those changes will be available to you. If the changes to the workspace copy of the document conflicts with changes you have made to your copy, you can choose which copy to keep. When you are finished editing your copy, you can save your changes to the Document Workspace. Your work colleagues will then be able to add those changes to their own copy. You can use the Document Updates task pane to obtain updates of your workspace document. The Shared Workspace task pane allows you to get updates of your file as well as provide information about the status of the document (whether it is in conflict with another person’s copy or whether it is up-to-date), when it was last modified and set to do items and due dates for those working on the document.
Figure 3.47. Translation option
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If you have access to the Internet you can do research on topics using an encyclopedia and Web search. Document Workspaces Creating a document workspace requires access to a server and an Internet connection. Since we do not have access to either of the two in the Lab, the document workplace will be explained but no example will be included. A document workplace site is a location on a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Service site where documents that are being worked on or accessed by more than one person are stored. By using a Document Workspace you can simplify the process of co-writing, editing, and reviewing documents with other people in real time. This feature is available in Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003.
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Summary
2. Identify if the following fonts are serif or sans serif
We have also highlighted the importance of spending the time to set up your document as early as possible and the advantages of creating a mock-up. The time you spend at this stage figuring out what you want your document to say and imagining how you want it to look like will save you a lot of time later on in the semester. Finally, we learned about the many features Microsoft Word has to offer to put the principles of document design to good use. Continue exploring on your own until you feel comfortable and familiar enough with Word to use it to create your ultimate document.
Exercises Here are a few quick exercises to help you ascertain if you have assimilated all the information in this chapter. The solutions for exercises 1 and 2 are reversed at the bottom of the next page. If you are having problems answering the questions or doing the exercises, you should probably go back and review the chapter. Before you start, close all the programs open on your computer. 1. Try to match each of the following methods to integrate text and graphics (on the left) with the right definition. Method
Definition
1. Redundancy
A. When you use different visual and verbal content that complement one another to present the key ideas. B. When you use different content in words and pictures, in which the key ideas are expressed by a clash, an unexpected synthesis, or a tension between the ideas in each mode; the idea cannot be inferred without both modes being present simultaneously. C. When you use substantially identical content visually and verbally to tell the same story, thus providing repetition of key ideas. D. When you use different content in words and pictures, in which one mode (often the visual) provides a context for the other mode by forecasting its content, underlying theme, or ideas. E. When you use different content in words and pictures, but where one mode dominates the other, providing the main ideas, while the other reinforces, elaborates, or illustrates the points made in the dominant mode (or explains how to interpret the other).
2. Complementarity
3. Supplementarity 4. Juxtapositional
5. Stage-Setting
If you do not have the same answers as in the solution, you should review the section “Five ways to integrate prose and graphics”.
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a) b) c) d)
Font Font Font Font
If you do not have the same answers as in the solution, you should review the section “Type classifications”. 3. Practice making templates of your own. Look at the following template example from the Microsoft Template Gallery: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC010178461033.aspx?CategoryID= CT011389711033. As you can see, several place holders have been created to mark where the elements of the document will be placed. Now try to create your own template. Open a new Word document and apply all the formatting you want then save it as a template. Check to see if you did it right by opening your saved template. If you followed the procedures correctly, Word will present you with a new blank document with all the formatting intact. If it did not work, you should go back and review the section on templates. 4. Try creating a clip art photo album. Open a new document and make two columns, then import as many graphics from Word’s clip art as you want. If you get it right, you will have two rows of graphics. If you get it wrong, you should go back and review the clip art and columns sections.
Solutions: 1. 1.C.; 2.A.; 3.E.; 4.B.; 5.D; 2. a) sans serif; b) serif; c) serif; d) sans serif.
You should now have a basic understanding of the principles involved in the production of documents. As the course progresses and as you create your document for INTE 290 Inc., you should always in mind of two main groups involved in this process: you, the producer but also, the people you are trying to reach, the readers.
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Toolbars
Button
Standard Toolbar Button
Name
Description
New
Creates a new document
Open
Displays the Open dialog box
Save
Saves the document
Permission
Allows you to set the permissions setting on the document in order to vary the levels of document editing rights Sends the contents of the document as the body of an e-mail message Prints the document
E-mail Print
Drawing
Displays the Drawing toolbar
Document Map
Displays an outline of the document headings in a separate pane
Show/Hide
Displays or hides paragraph marks
Zoom Control
Zooms the document
Microsoft Office Word Help Read
Opens the Microsoft Office Word Help task pane Changes the display to Reading Layout
Formatting Toolbar Button
Name
Description
Style
Displays a list of styles
Font
Displays a list of fonts
Font Size
Displays a list of sizes
Bold
Bolds a selected part of the document
Italic
Italicizes a selected part of the document
Spelling and Grammar Cut Copy
Copies selected text
Underline
Underlines a selected part of the document
Paste
Pastes cut or copied text
Left Align
Aligns to the left a selected part of the document
Format Painter
Copies and pastes formatting
Centered
Centres a selected part of the document
Undo
Undoes the last command
Right Align
Aligns to the right a selected part of the document
Redo
Redoes the last command
Justify
Justifies a selected part of the document
Insert Hyperlink
Inserts a link to a file or a Web address
Line and Spacing
Displays a list of line spacing options
Tables and Borders
Displays a toolbar useful when working with tables and borders
Numbering
Creates a numbered list
Insert Table
Inserts a table in the document
Bullets
Creates a bulleted list
Insert Microsoft Excel Worksheet
Inserts a Microsoft Excel worksheet
Decrease Indent
Columns
Displays selected text as columns
Decreases the indent of the selected part of the document Increases the indent of the selected part of the document
Research
Introduction to Document Design and Word
Description
Displays the document as it would appear if printed Allows you to look up a word in a Thesaurus or obtain a translation of the word Checks the document for spelling or grammatical errors Cuts selected text
Print Preview
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Name
Increase Indent
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Button
Name
Description
Glossary of Key Terms in Document Design and Word
Outside Border
Creates a border around the selected part of the document with a selection of borders to choose from Highlights the selected part of the document. Different colours are available from a drop-down list Changes the colour of the selected part of the document. Different colours are available from a drop-down list
Term
Highlight Font Color
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Definition
Ascenders
The vertical parts of lowercase letters (e.g., d and l) that extend above the mean line.
AutoCorrect
Automatically corrects certain spelling errors and typos
AutoFormat
Automatically makes format changes to your document
AutoShape
Enables you to draw simple shapes and arrows
AutoText
Enables you to insert text into your document quickly and without typing the entire entry
Baseline
The imaginary line upon which letters sit in a sentence
Clip Art
Artwork that you can insert in your document
Clipboard
Windows feature that temporarily stores any text or object you cut or copy
Cursor
See Insertion Point
Descenders
The vertical parts of some letterforms (e.g., g and y) that extend below the baseline.
File
Contents of a document named and stored in a folder
Folder
Division of your hard disk. Each folder has a name and folders can be stored inside other folders
Font size
Type size of a font
Font style
Attributes applied to a font such as bold and italic
Font
The â&#x20AC;&#x153;sourceâ&#x20AC;? of the typeface
Footer
Text or graphic at the bottom of each page in a document
Format
To change the appearance of text or graphics
Header
Text or graphic at the top of each page in a document
Insertion point
Indicator that looks like a flashing vertical line. It indicates where the new text will be inserted
Justified text
Text alignment. Spaces are added between words to keep left and right margins even
Landscape orientation
Page layout where text is printed across the long side of the page
Leading
The space added between lines of type
Margin
Space left around each edge of the page
Menu
Drop-down list of commands
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Place holders
Used to indicate where the elements of your document will be. For example, you might create a box that says “logo here” so that you know your company logo will always be placed there.
Ruler
Formatting tool you can use to set indents or tabs
Sans serif
Type of font without serifs
Serif
Type of font that is characterized by a line or curve that finishes off the end of the letterform
Status bar
Gives you information such as page number and insertion point position about the current document
Style
Set of formatting options applied to the text
Symbol
Special character
Thesaurus
Feature to look up synonyms for words in your document
Title bar
Bar that appears along the top window and displays the program name and document name
Toolbar
Contains buttons that give you quick mouse access to many commands and features in Word
Type family
A group of related typefaces unified by a set of similar design characteristics
Weight
Style of a typeface or the degree of boldness applied to it
Endnotes Dynamics in document design, p. 10. Ibid, p. 10. 3 Ibid, p. 11. 4 Ibid, p. 252-253. 5 Ibid��������� , p. 254. 6 Ibid��������� , p. 264. 7 Design: an instrument for change at: http://www.bastoky.com/Design_Change1.htm 8 Dynamics in document design, p. 327. 9 Ibid, p. 328. 10 Ibid��������� , p. 250. 11 Ibid������������� , p. 412-424. 1 2
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to get all the information you need to succeed in the INTE 290: Introduction to Computer Usage course. You will also be able to access information on a variety of topics related to computer usage. E-MAIL US AT INTE290@alcor.concordia.ca
Introduction to Computer Usage
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Introduction to Computer Usage Whatever form they take or purpose they serve, documents are everywhere you look today. The tax form you have to fill every year, the papers and reports you have to hand-in to your professors or your supervisor, and something as simple as a timetable for commuter trains are all documents you have to use in your everyday life. As such, documents are very important tools that help us learn, provide us with useful information and generally support our daily activities. This textbook is for students of INTE 290: Introduction to Computer Usage. The course teaches you not only how to use the Windows XP operating system in combination with basic Microsoft Office applications, but also how to use these tools to produce attractive, efficient, and informative documents. This textbook provides a step-by-step learning process whereby you acquire the tools that you need to accomplish a specific task, when you need them.
INTE 290 Workbook 2005-2006
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The book features: • A quick reference on the principles of document design • Easy to follow sections on how to use every Windows XP Office 2003 applications • Glossaries of key terms
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