Computer Training for Elders. As the name suggests, the first task for computers was performing calculations Today, computers are more often used for.

Word Processing BasicsComputer Training for Elders

As the name suggests, the first task for computers was performing calculations

Today, computers are more often used for writing, just as typewriters are

What Is A Word Processor?

The “application” that allows a computer to be a writing tool is a word processor

Word processors are programs (instructions) that tell the computer to record what you write, and show it on the screen


As you will see, word processors can do much more than simply showing what you write

They can also help you write better, change what you’ve written, and help you find what you’ve already written


Our training is based on Microsoft Works, a low-cost word processor that can exchange documents with other, more powerful “Office” tools◦If you are writing only for yourself, this

doesn’t matter

Do I Have A Word Processor?

◦If you are planning to send your writing to family members, they need to be able to read what you’ve written◦Works files can be read by most

common word processors

Do I Have A Word Processor?

Move the tip of the mouse pointer over the Start Button in the lower left corner of the screen

Click (press and release) the left mouse button

The Start Menu should appear

Start Your Word Processor!

On the Start menu, click on “All Programs

Find the Works Folder

When the Start Menu changes, look for the for the “Microsoft Works” folder


Move the tip of the of the mouse pointer over the folder, so that it changes color


Click the left mouse button once to “open” the folder


Below the folder, you will see a list of icons with names starting with “Microsoft Works…”


Look in this list for the item labeled “Microsoft Works Word Processor”


Move the tip of the mouse pointer over the icon and click the left mouse button once


oYou will briefly see a window with the words “Microsoft Works”

oThis will disappear, and be replaced by the Works Word Processor window


The Works Word Processor

This window has a lot of things in it, most of which you can ignore

It also has some things that you are already familiar with from earlier lessons


In the top right corner, you’ll see the window controls for minimize, make full screen, and close that are in all windows

These work exactly the same as in any other window


In the top left corner, you’ll see the name of the document, and “Microsoft Works Word Processor”

Until you save your document (we’ll talk about that in a little while), it is called “Untitled Document”


In the very corner, you’ll see what looks somewhat like a pencil and paper.

This is the icon for Works Word Processor documents, which you’ll see on the desktop


Just below the window name, you’ll see the “Menu Bar”

You will use the menu bar to tell the program what you’d like it to do


A Windows Menu is like a menu in a restaurant◦It offers you choices of what you can get◦Not all of the options are always available


A Restaurant may have more than one menu◦Breakfast Menu◦Dinner Menu◦Dessert Menu


In Works, we’ll mostly use the File, Edit, and Tools menus


Most of the window is taken up by the white rectangle at the bottom

This is the “document” that you will be working on◦A “document” is like a piece of paper◦You can put information on it, file it,

and look at it again later



When you start the Works Word Processor, it creates a new document

Sometimes you want to continue working on something that you were writing, and have put away

You do this with the “Open…” command

Getting a Place to Write

Move the tip of the mouse pointer over the word “File” on the menu bar, so that the bar changes color

Click the left mouse button once


This will open the File menu, just like before

Move the mouse pointer down so that its tip is over “Open…”


The menu will show a colored bar over the selected command



This will open a special window called a “File Dialog Box”


The Open File Dialog

The File Open Dialog is similar to other windows, but has a special purpose

The File Open Dialog

It shows you documents that you’ve saved◦You’ll learn to do that

in a little bit


You can “select” any Works Word Processor document to open and continue working on, or simply to read


To open a Word Processor document, move the tip of the mouse pointer over the name of the document


As you move the mouse pointers, the current document will be a different color


When you have the mouse pointer over the document you want to work on, click the left mouse button once


The screen behind the name will change to a darker color◦This means that the

document is “selected”


Now, move the mouse pointer to the lower right corner of the Open Dialog, to the “Open Button”


With the tip of the mouse pointer over the button, click the left mouse button once


The Open Dialog will disappear, and be replaced by the document you selected!


When you are working in your word processor, there are two different cursors on the screen

One is the mouse pointer, which you’ve seen and used already

Typing Into Your Document

The other is the “Insert cursor,” which shows you where your words will appear

If you look carefully in the white area of your word processor, you will see a short vertical line blinking “|”


This line is the “insert cursor” and is where text you type will appear


You can move this “Insert Cursor” using the mouse

To move the insert cursor, you place the tip of the mouse pointer in the area you want your typing to appear, and click the left mouse button once


Let’s try thisMove the mouse pointer to just

before the “C” in “Chapter 1”Click the left mouse button once◦The blinking “Insert Cursor” should

now be just before the “C”


Move the insert cursor back to the beginning of the document


Once you’ve placed the insert cursor where you want it, the mouse position doesn’t matter◦Just park the mouse out of your way,

and you can begin typing


When people say that they don’t know how to type, they generally mean that they don’t touch type.

Touch typists only look at the screen. Their fingers know where the keys are.

But I Don’t Know How To Type!

If you are planning to make your living typing, this is important

If you are writing to your friends, it doesn’t matter how fast or how slow you type.


For now, just use the “Columbus Method”◦Seek out and Discover

With practice, you will start to learn the location of the keys, and be fast enough


Let’s type:◦I have a higher and grander standard of

principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.

As you type, you’ll start to run out of room on the line


On a typewriter, you’d hear a “Ding” and think about moving down to the next line

In a word processor, you don’t have to do that

The End of the Line?

When more text won’t fit, the computer will automatically move words down (including the word that you are typing), and keep going.

The End of the Line?

As you write (type), you occasionally want to change what you have already typed

That Wasn’t What I Wanted to Say…

Sometimes you want to add something that you remembered

Sometimes you want to “unsay” something that was better left unsaid


Sometimes you just typed the wrong key

With your word processor, you can do all of that, and more!


In order to understand the next few slides, we have to understand how to think about what you see on the computer screen

You can think of your writing as being on a very long piece of paper, stretching from ceiling to floor

A Brief Detour

But you can only see part of it at one time.

Think of a screen sized piece of cardboard with a hole cut in it that sits on the paper

A Brief Detour

Most of the controls for what part of the document you are looking at don’t move the paper, they move the window

When you use a control to move “up,” the words on the screen will move down

A Brief Detour

After you have typed for a while, your writing won’t fit on the screen any more

With a typewriter, you’d have to put in a new sheet of paper to continue

I Know It’s In Here Somewhere

In the word processor, your writing just moves up the screen (the window moves down), and you get more space

But you need to be able to get back to what you wrote earlier

I Know It’s In Here Somewhere

On the right side of the word processor window, you will see a bar reaching from the bottom of the screen to the top

The Scroll Bar

This has a number of important parts

The Scroll Bar

At the top and bottom you will see small arrows pointing up and down

These are the “scroll arrows” that move your window up and down in the document

The Scroll Bar

Between the two arrows there is a box called the “thumb”◦Think if it like a holding a

book with your thumb between the pages

The Scroll Bar

The entire tool, including the arrows, the thumb, and the track it slides in, is called the scroll bar

The Scroll Bar

The easiest way to move the window is to click on the scroll arrows to move the window up and down through your document

The Scroll Bar

Each click on an arrow moves the window by one line

The Scroll Bar

If you want to move faster, you can click in the track just below the up-arrow, or just above the down-arrow

The Scroll Bar

This will move the window one full screen at a time

The Scroll Bar

When you move the window, you don’t move the insert cursor

If you type something, it will appear at the last place you typed

The Scroll Bar

Before you start typing, you need to tell the computer where to put your writing

Move the mouse pointer to the place in the document that you want your new text to appear

The Scroll Bar

Click the left mouse button onceThis will move the insert cursor to

this new location

The Scroll Bar

One of the things computers are very good at is paying attention to detail, and keeping track of where things are

I Can’t FIND It!

If you know that you saw (or wrote) a word or phrase in document, but can’t find it, let the computer find it for you!

I Can’t FIND It!

To ask the computer to find something, move the mouse pointer to the word “Edit” on the Menu Bar so that it changes color

I Can’t FIND It!


The Edit Menu will appear

I Can’t FIND It!

Move the mouse pointer down the menu until the word “Find…” appears


I Can’t FIND It!

The menu will disappear, and the “Find Dialog” will appear on the screen

I Can’t FIND It!

To use the find box, click once in the box next to “Find what:”

I Can’t FIND It!

The insert cursor should appear in the box (the blinking vertical line “|” )

I Can’t FIND It!

Type the word or words you want to find in your document◦Type “decorum”

I Can’t FIND It!

Move the mouse pointer over the “Find Next” button and click the left button once

I Can’t FIND It!

Each time you click the button, the word processor will move to the next place that the word you are looking for was used, and “highlight” it

I Can’t FIND It!

I Can’t FIND It!

When you have finished searching for words, click the “Cancel” button to close the Find window

I Can’t FIND It!

The basic rule of your computer is, “First tell me what you want to do something to, then tell me what you want me to do”◦First, what object; next, what action

Noun, then Verb

In order to change something that you have typed, you have to first “select” the words that you want to change

The first step is to move the insert cursor to the words or letters to be changed

Noun, then Verb

Two lines below the word “decorum,” locate the word “anything”

Move the insertion cursor to just before the letter “a” of “anything”

Noun, then Verb

You may notice, at this point, that the mouse pointer changes.

It changes from an arrow to something called the “i-beam” pointer

Noun, then Verb

The i-beam makes it easier to place the insert cursor between two letters

Just place the vertical line of the pointer where you’d like the insert cursor to appear and click the mouse

Noun, then Verb

You do this by first scrolling (with the scroll bar) until you can see the word that needs to be changed

Noun, then Verb (fix this slide)

Next, move the mouse pointer to the beginning of the word you want to change, and click the mouse button once

Noun, then Verb

The insert cursor (flashing bar) should appear at the beginning of the word

Hold down the shift key with your left hand (you can’t use Caps Lock for this)

Noun, then Verb

Press the right arrow key to move the insert cursor over the word you want to change

Noun, then Verb

Each time you press the arrow key, another letter will change color

This is one way of “selecting” text

Noun, then Verb

One of the features of a word processor is that it makes room for what you are typing

If you place the insert cursor before a word, and start typing, the words after the cursor move over to make room

Making the Change

Because you have “anything” selected, let’s replace it with the equivalent “no matter which”

Just type the words on the keyboard, and they will replace the word “anything”

Making the Change

If you have selected text, the letters you type will replace whatever was selected

But if you keep typing, the words after the insert cursor will move over to make room!

Making the Change

Sometimes, when you are typing, you fingers don’t go quite where you wanted

Or, you and Mr. Webster might disagree about how a word is spelled

Your Word Processor has a tool to help in these cases

Another Kind of Oops

As you type, your word processor compares the words you have typed with internal “dictionary”

If Works doesn’t recognize a word, it puts a wavy red line under it

Spell Checking

Works doesn’t know Mrs. Rachael Lynde’s last name, so each time it is written, Works places the wavy line under it

Spell Checking

The red line doesn’t mean that the word is misspelled, only that Works doesn’t recognize it

It also won’t recognize unusual names or slang, for example

Spell Checking

But, Works does more than just tell you that it doesn’t know that word

It will help you fix it!

Spell Checking

We’ve added an error to Anne of Green Gables for this class

If you are not at the top of the “Anne” file, move back to the top.

Spell Checking

In the second line of the first paragraph, find the word “holllow” (the error we added)

Move the point of the mouse pointer over the word “holllow” which Works thinks is an error


Spell Checking

◦This moves the insert cursor to this word

On your keyboard, find the “Menu” key

Press this key once

Spell Checking

You will now see the “Spell Check” menu next to the word that Works doesn’t know

Spell Checking

At the top of this menu will be a list of words that are “like” what you typed

Spell Checking

If one of these is the correct choice, you can choose it by moving the mouse pointer over the word and clicking the left button once

Spell Checking

The correct word will replace what you typed in the document

Spell Checking

If the word is a word, but Works doesn’t know it, you can add it to the word processor’s dictionary

“Lynde” is the correct spelling of the character’s last name, but Works hasn’t read this book

Spell Checking

Move the mouse pointer over the word “Lynde” in the title of the chapter

Click the left mouse button once to move the insert cursor into the word

Spell Checking

Press the “Menu” key to show the Spell menu

Spell Checking

Move the mouse pointer over “Add” on the spelling menu and click the left mouse button

Spell Checking

The menu will disappear, and so will the red line.

From now on, Works will know that Lynde is correctly spelled

Spell Checking

However, “Lynde’s” is still not recognized, because Works doesn’t know how to handle “possessives”

Repeat what you did to teach Works about “Lynde” on any example of “Lynde’s” that you can see

Spell Checking

Sometimes, after you’ve written something, you decide that it would be better if this paragraph came after that paragraph instead of in front

Let’s Rearrange the Furniture…

Without a computer, you’d just have to write it all out again

With a word processor, you can move things around

Let’s look at how you can do this


Look in your Works file for the words “that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place”◦These words start near the end of the

second line of the first paragraph of the story


We start by telling the computer what we want to do something to ◦Noun, then verb

We do this by “selecting” the words we want to move


Move the mouse pointer to just before the word “that” and click the left mouse button once


Next, hold down the shift key with your left hand, and use the arrow keys to “select” the entire phrase◦Notice that you can use the down

arrow to select a line at a time


When you’ve “selected” the whole sentence, move the mouse pointer to the word “Edit” in the toolbar


Click the left mouse button once, and the “Edit Menu” will appear


Move the mouse pointer down to the word “Cut”



The menu will disappear, but so will the selected words!


It’s not really “gone,” it’s just been moved to a special place called the “clipboard”

The computer’s clipboard can hold sentences, documents, or just about anything else on your computer


But, like a real clipboard hanging on a wall, when you open the clip to put something new in, whatever was there fall on the floor and is lost

The computer clipboard holds only one thing at a time


But we can put whatever is on the clipboard somewhere new

Move the mouse pointer to just after the word “road” in the first sentence

Click once to move the Insert Cursor here


You should see the insert cursor flashing just after “road”◦Note: you won’t want “road” to be part

of your next word, so type a space


Open the Edit menu again, and move the mouse pointer to “Paste”




The text from the clipboard will now appear at the place where the insert cursor was flashing


If you decide that what you just did was the wrong thing, you can “undo” it.

Open the “Edit” menu

I Didn’t Mean to do That!!!

The first option is “Undo Typing”◦(The “Typing” part will

be the last thing that you did, which isn’t always typing)


Click “Undo” to undo the last thing that you did


It’s unlikely that you will finish your life story in one session of typing

It’s not likely that you’ll even always finish a letter without a break

Anytime you are leaving a writing project, you should save your work

Saving Your Work

This can be done easilyMove the tip of the mouse pointer

over the word “File” in the menu bar

Saving Your Work

Click the left button once, and the “File Menu” will appear

Saving Your Work

There are two options on this menu that will save documents:◦Save◦Save As…

Saving Your Work

“Save” means “Put me back where I came from, with the same name I already have.”

Saving Your Work

“Save As…” means “Give me a new name, and a new home.”

Saving Your Work

Of course, if you are saving a new document, it doesn’t have either a name or a home yet

Saving Your Work

In that case, “Save” and “Save As…” do exactly the same thing

Saving Your Work

In your home, you probably have lots of different pieces of paper with information on them

In my home, we have recipes, phone numbers, bills, pictures, and more

A Brief Detour Into Organization

We don’t put all of those things in the same place, because it would be hard to find them later

Your computer works the same wayYou could just put everything into

your “Documents” folder, and your computer will offer to do that for you


But after a while, it gets hard to find things

So, it’s better to make piles of the same kind of thing


Your computer has two kinds of containers◦Documents◦Folders


Documents hold your letters, your web favorites, your recipes, and anything else that you’ve created or saved on your computer

Folders hold your documents, and can hold other folders


On the screen, documents generally look like a piece of paper with one corner folder over

Folders look like a file folder standing on edge


A folder can hold lots of documents and folders

If you use folders to place all of the documents on a subject together, it will be easier to find them

Now, back to saving your work…


Since we just changed a classic, we probably don’t want to give it the same name.

Saving Your Work

Instead, we want to give it a name and home, so we click on “Save As…”

Saving Your Work

The File Menu will disappear, and the Save As window will appear

Saving Your Work

At the top of this window are some controls that are important

The “Save In:” box shows where you are saving your document

Saving Your Work

To the right of this, you can see a small folder with a green arrow pointing up

Saving Your Work

This means “Show me the folder that this folder is inside of”

Saving Your Work

To the right of this is a another folder, this time with a red “circle” on its corner

Saving Your Work

This means “Make a new folder inside this folder, and let me name it”

Saving Your Work

At the bottom of the window is an area labeled “File name:”

This is followed by the “selected” text “Anne”

Saving Your Work

Before you save a document, you should give it a name that tells you what it is

Saving Your Work

◦“My vacation 2008” is good◦“Bob” is not as good.◦“X3F79” is not very useful

Saving Your Work

Type the new name for your document◦It will replace the name that is already

there

Saving Your Work

Next, move the tip of the mouse pointer over the “Save” button to the right of the file name

Click the left button once

Saving Your Work

The “Save” window will disappear, and your document will be saved with the name you gave it

Saving Your Work

If you want a paper version of your document, to send in the mail or to give to a friend, you just print it

Move the tip of the mouse pointer to the word “File” in the menu bar

Making It Real (Printing)


This will cause the File Menu to appear


Move the mouse pointer to the word “Print…”


This will make the “Print” window appear


Print!

Move the mouse pointer to the “OK” button near the bottom right corner

Click the left mouse button onceIn a few moments, your document

should appear in your printer

Print Your Work

Now that you are done with your word process, you should put it away

To do this, move the mouse pointer over the word “File” in the menu bar


Tidying up after yourself

On the file menu, move the mouse pointer over the word “Exit”



Microsoft Works will disappear, and you will see your desktop, ready for whatever is next


Computer Training for Elders. As the name suggests, the first task for computers was performing calculations Today, computers are more often used for.

Documents

open slide

screen slide

selected slide

available slide

desktop slide

later slide

untitled document slide

open command slide