Basic Guide to Computers
Creating a Word Document Word documents can be used for a variety of purposes from writing reports to creating invitations. Here is a quick guide on creating a Word document: 1. Open Word 2. Type your text 3. Alter the text by changing the font, style, font size & colour
4. Add images
5. Save your document when you are finished!
E-mailing E-mailing is the way many people communicate with each other these days. It involves writing a message and sending it electronically to their inbox, where all their e-mails come into. When you set-up your e-mail account you will chose a unique address which you can give to those you wish to contact you. When they send you an e-mail, it will come into your inbox which is a central area for all your e-mails to come in to. Here is a quick guide to sending e-mails: 1. Click new e-mail 2. Enter the address of the person you wish to contact 3. Choose a subject for your message 4. Write your message 5. Hit Send!
Other features of e-mailing include:
Reply to e-mails and write a response
Forward e-mails on to more people
Attach images, documents or videos to send to other people
Organise your e-mails into relevant folders
‘CC’ or ‘BCC’ someone into an e-mail. This is usually reserved for people who are not directly relevant to the e-mail but it would be good to know.
There are a number of e-mail providers but the main ones are Microsoft Outlook; usually programmed on your computer, Hotmail and Google Gmail; both of which are hosted online so you can access them from ANY computer. Below are some examples:
Surfing the web Surfing the internet can be a daunting thing, but it doesn’t have to be and once you have got the hang of it once, you will be able to do it again and again. You can either use a website’s address to find a specific site or you can use a search engine to find a site related to a topic you are searching for. Here is a quick, concise guide on how to surf the web. 1. Click on your dedicated internet browser. It is likely to look like one of these:
2. Finding the website a. If you have a particular site you are looking to find, start typing it’s address into the search bar at the top of the page here:
And then press either of the return buttons which looks like this:
b. If you are looking to search for something then enter www.google.co.uk or www.bing.com (search engines) into the search bar and press the enter button. Then enter what you are looking for and press enter:
Then select the website you were looking for:
Additional Resources This has been a speedy look at some of the things you can do with your computer. Here are some additional places you can look to get some help with your computing skills:
http://www.which.co.uk/publications/magazines/which-computing/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/
http://www.seniorsguidetocomputers.com/
http://www.computerbeginners.co.uk/