TOPIC 2: WORD PROCESSING

- Traditionally, documents like letters, memos and minutes were handwritten or created mechanically using
typewriter
- These traditional methods had shortfalls such as cumbersome and caused a lot of redundancy
- Nowadays, documents are processed using computer-based application called word processing
Describing electronic word processing
- Electronic word processing is an art of creating, saving, editing, formatting and printing text and graphic-
rich documents using an electronic word processor software
- An electronic word processor software is an application software that enable the user to create, edit, format
and print text-rich documents
- Examples of common word processor are:
1. Microsoft word
2. Corel wordPerfect
3. Lotus Word Pro
4. Apple Works
5. OpenOffice Writer
- These softwares have graphical user interface that enable functionalities such as graphics, email, mail merge
and web development which are not fond in traditional word processing

Advantages of electronic word processors

- Mostly, word processors are used for writing reports, letters, project reports, books, essays, memos and CV
- Some of the advantages of electronic word processor over traditional word processing methods are:
1. A document can be stored for future use unlike in typewriting where the same document requires retying
2. Typing using word processor is easier and more efficient due to automated features such as wordwrap,
autotext and autocompletes
3. Most word processors have superior editing tools such as thesaurus, autocorrect, spelling and grammar
checkers
4. Electronic word processor provides predefined features for generating headers, footers, index, footnote
and reference
5. Word processors have superior document formatting features such as underlining, bolding etc.
6. Most word processor have ability to create and import text and graphics from other programs
7. With electronic word processor, it is possible to print, multiple copies at once
8. Word processor provide templates that can be used to quickly create good documents. Templates are
preformatted blueprints on which documents are based
Common features of a word processor
- Regardless of the type of word processor you may be using, the following features are common in almost all
word processors:
1. They allow the user to create file, save it and open it again for reuse, edit and format
2. They have editing tools such as spelling and grammar checker, thesaurus and autocorrect features
3. They provide predefined features for generating headers, footers, indexes, footnote and reference
4. They can be used to import tables, text and graphical objects from other programs

Choosing word processor

- The following are factors to consider before choosing word processor:
1. The type of operating system
2. Its user-friendliness i.e. ease of use
3. The formatting and editing features. They should be good and varied

Working with word processor

- Microsoft word processing software is the most commonly used when tying
- Microsoft word is a member of Microsoft office suite that consist of the following integrated programs

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  Ms. Word for typing documents
 Ms. Excel for making calculations
 Ms. Access for storing information
 Ms. Publisher for designing publications e.g. Newspaper, books
 Ms. PowerPoint for making presentations
 Ms. Outlook for emailing
- Currently, there are 8 Ms. Office suites and that is Office 97, Office 2000, Office, 2003, Office 2007, Office
2010, Office 2013, Office 20216 and Office 2019
Starting Microsoft Word
1. Click start
2. Click Get Office
3. Choose Word
4. Click the Blank document
- After successfully opening, you get the window below:

Microsoft screen layout

1. Office button: Clicking it displays the office button menu which commonly used commands such as New,
Save, Open and Print
2. Main tabs: They have labels such as Home, Insert, Layout, reference, Mailing, Review and View and under
each ribbon there are commands
3. Work area: Is space where all the document preparation and editing is done
4. Ruler: Microsoft word document has vertical and horizontal ruler that has the following functions:
 Helps the user to set tabs and indent
 Position text and objects
5. Status bar: Is an interactive part at the bottom of the screen that act as communication link between user and
the program.
6. Scroll bars and buttons: Are horizontal and vertical bars that the user drags to scroll up, downwards to the
right or to the left

Creating a word document

- There are two options when creating word document:
1. Using blank document
2. Using template
- Once you create a document, you can start typing your text at insertion pointer
- Insertion pointer is a character at the top left corner of the work area
- Notice that when the when the cursor reaches the end of the current line, it is automatically wrapped at the
beginning of a new line. This is referred to as word wrap
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 Saving a document
- As you create a document, you need to save it. You use Save As button or Save button to save the document
- Save As button allow you to save a new document, give it a name and specify the storage location while Save
button is used to save changes made to the documents
- To save the document, proceed as follows:
1. Click Microsoft Office button and click Save As
2. Click Browse to select location
3. Select the location or drive where the file will be saved
4. Type the name of the file
5. Click Save button

Protecting a document with a password

- A password is a combination of characters that prevents others from opening and changing a document
without permission
- To create a password
1. Create or open the document you want to protect
2. On the Office button menu, choose Save As
3. Click the down arrow on the Tool button
4. Click General Options
5. Type in the password to open
6. To protect against modification, type in a password in the password to modify
7. Click Ok
- You can also put a password by
1. Click Office Button
2. Select Info
3. Click Protect document
4. Select Encrypt with Password
5. Type the password and then click Ok
Closing document
- Click Office button
- Click Close
Exiting from Word
- Click the X at the corner of the window or press Alt + f4
Editing a document
- Editing refers to making necessary changes to an existing document
- Microsoft has inbuilt tools for editing such as
1. Spelling and grammar checker
2. Undo and redo
3. Find and replace etc.
Highlighting a block of text
- The purpose of selecting or highlighting text is to enable the user to manipulate the block of text
- You can select using a mouse or keyboard
Selecting with a mouse
1. To select a word, double click the word
2. To select a sentence, position the mouse pointer at the left margin ant click once
3. To select a paragraph, place the pointer at the beginning or end of the paragraph until it turns I-beam and drag
down and up
Selecting with a keyboard
1. To select a word, put the pointer at the beginning or end then press Shift + Right or Left arrow
2. To select one line, press Shift + Up or Shift + Down arrow keys
3. To select an entire page, Press Shift + Page Down or Shift + Page Up
4. To select entire document, press Ctrl + A

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Editing modes
- There are two editing modes in word processor and these are
1. Insert mode
- In this mode the text inserted between words or characters pushes the existing text away without replacing it
2. Typeover/overtype mode
- In this mode, new text that is inserted between existing words or character automatically replaces the existing
text by deleting it.
Deleting text
- To delete character from right to Left, press the insertion pointer on the right and press Backspace key
- To delete character from left to right, press the insertion pointer on the left and press Delete key
Restoring deleted text
- Press undo command to restore what has just been deleted.
Copying and moving text and objects
- Copying means creating a duplicate of text or an object while moving means changing the position of text or
an object in a document
 Highlight the text
 On the Home tab click Copy or Cut
 Position the pointer where you want to copy the text
 Click Paste
You can use keyboard shortcut to copy by pressing Ctrl + C and to cut press Ctrl + X and to Paste Press Ctrl + V

Find and replace

- When you want to search for a word, click Home tab then click replace command
- Type the word in Find What box
- Type the word to replace with I the Replace with box
- Click Replace All
Advanced search option
The search options include
1. Match case: This identifies the text that matches in case with the find what box. It matches the case
2. Find whole words only: searches for a word or phrase that is whole. If it is part of another word, it will not
find
3. Use wildcards: Wildcards are specialized symbols such as * and ? that are used to replace a set of words with
certain character in common e.g. j*
4. Sound like: Searches for a word which are similar in pronunciation like fair and fare
Proofreading
- Proofreading refers to checking whether the document has type error or grammar error.
- The two tools fools for proofreading are:
a. Spelling and grammar checker
- Is an inbuilt tool that helps the user to correct spelling errors and incorrect grammar structures.
- To use spelling and grammar checker
1. Click Review tab then Selling and Grammar
2. Use the dialog box that appears by choosing one of the following options:
 Change: to correct only the highlighted incorrect word
 Change All: to correct all occurrences of the misspelled word
 Ignore once: To retain the g=highlighted and continue
 Ignore All: to retain all the occurrences of the same word
 Click Add to dictionary: to add the word into the custom dictionary

b. AutoCorrect
- Autocorrect automatically detects the wrongly spelt or capitalized words and replace with the correct word
- To use Autocorrect feature follow the procedure below:

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 1. Click File
2. Select Word Option
3. Select Proofing
4. Select AutoCorrect option
5. In the autocorrect dialog box, type the word you want to autocorrect in the Replace text box and the correct
word in the With box then click Ok
Using the Thesaurus
- This is editing tool that helps the user find words or phrase with similar meaning(synonyms) or opposite
meaning (antonyms) to the one selected
- To use thesaurus:
1. Select the word
2. Right click the word and point to Synonyms
3. Select the synonyms from the presented list
Undo and Redo
- Undo reverses the most recent executed command while Redo revert back to the cancelled action
- Click the undo or redo options on the Quick Access Toolbar or use he shortcut below: undo Ctrl + Z and
Redo Ctrl + Y

FORMATTING WORD DOCUMENT

- Formatting refers to enhancing the appearance of a document.
- The main purpose of formatting document is to make the document look more appealing/attractive
- You can format text, paragraph, pages or the entire document.
Formatting text
- Formatting text refers to features such as changing font (type, size, colour), underline, bolding, italicizing and
making character superscript or subscript.
- To format a text, we highlight the text and apply the formatting
- For example
a. Font type and font size: font type refers to the handwriting while font size refers to the size of the character.
You can change this by selecting from the list on Home tab in the font group
b. Bolding text: Bolding makes the selected text appear darker and thicker. To make text bold, select the text
and click B command on the HOME tab.
c. Underline text: this refers to placing a line at the bottom of a word or phrase. To underline, select the text
and click U command on the HOME tab
d. Italicising text: itelicise means to make the text slant forward. Highlight the text and click I on the HOME
tab.
e. Changing the font colour: This is the colour of the words. You can change by highlight the text and click
font colour.
Using keyboard shortcut
- You can also use keyboard shortcut for example
1. To bold = Ctrl + B
2. To italicise= Ctrl + I
3. To underline= Ctrl + U
4. To select the whole document = Ctrl + A
5. To undo = Ctrl + Z
6. To redo= Ctrl + Y
7. To copy= Ctrl + C
8. To Cut= Ctrl + X
9. To Paste = Ctrl + V
Change case
- There are 5 ways you can change case:
1. Sentence case: All first character in the sentence are in uppercase (capital letters)
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 2. Lowercase: All characters appear in small letter
3. Uppercase: All characters appear in capital letters
4. Title case: All first characters of each word in a sentence appear in capital letter
5. Toggle case: It changes upper cases to lower cases and viceversa
Superscript and subscript
- Superscript appears just above the rest of the characters while subscript appears just below the character.
- Example of superscript is 2 in cm2 whereas example of subscript is 5 in 25
- To make superscript or subscript, highlight the text and click x2 and x2 respectively.
PARAGRAPH FORMATTIG
- A paragraph is a separate block of text dealing with a single theme
- Some of the formatting features you can apply to a paragraph are: alignment, drop cap, indenting, line spacing
and page breaks

Alignment
- Alignment is arrangement of text in relative to left, centre or right margin
- The five alignment options are:
1. Left
2. Right
3. Center
4. Justified
5. Distributed (force justified)
Left alignment
- In left alignment, lines of text are lined up evenly along the left margin but unevenly at the right margin
Right alignment
- In right alignment, lines of text are lined up evenly along the right margin but unevenly along the left margin
Centre alignment
- In this, lines of text are centred unevenly both in the left and right margin.
Justified
- In justified, lines of text are lined up evenly in both the left and right margin
To align text
1. Highlight the text
2. On the Home tab, select either left, Centre, right or justify command
Drop caps.
- This is making the first character in the sentence large.
- The main purpose for adding drop cap is to attract readers’ attention
- To add drop cap, follow the procedure below
1. Highlight the paragraph
2. Click insert
3. Click Drop cap
Indenting paragraph
- Indentation refers to moving the text away from the margin.
- The three indenting options are:
1. first line indent: indent the first line in the paragraph
2. Full indent: indenting the whole paragraph
3. Hanging indent: indenting the rest of the text except first line
Setting tabs
- Tab stops refers to constant interval stops for the insertion pointer when a tab key is pressed.
- Tab is used to create columnar data
- By default, the tab stops at 0.5 of an inch
- We can change the default by:
1. Click page layout

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 2. Click the arrow at the corner of the paragraph group. A dialog box appears
3. Click Tab button at the bottom corner
4. Specify the tab stop eg 1, 1.5, 2 etc
5. Specify the tab reader option if you want
6. Click Set tab button and click OK
We can also set tabs using a ruler
1. On the corner of the horizontal ruler is a tab alignment, click the tab button to choose the required tab type.
2. Set the tab stop by clicking where you want it to be on the ruler
3. Drag the tab stop to the position you wish on the ruler.
Table below gives explanation of each tab button

Button Name Purpose

Left tab Text is left aligned

Centre tab Text is centred

Bar tab Insert a vertical line at the tab stop and align text to the
right
Decimal tab Text is aligned at decimal character
Right tab Text aligned right

Line spacing
- Line spacing refers to vertical distance between lines of text.
- The default line spacing is single spacing
- Character spacing refers to space between characters in the text
- To change line spacing, proceed as follows
1. Highlight the text
2. Click line spacing on the Home tab
3. Select line spacing like 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 etc
Bullets and numbering
- Bullets and numbering are used to create ordered list
- To add bullets or numbering
1. Highlight the text
2. On the Home tab in the Paragraph group, click either Bullets or Numbering
3. In the drop down list, select a bullet or Number style
Page and document formatting
- Page ad document formatting refers to formatting individual pages or entire document
- It includes:
1. Subdiving a page into columns
2. Page setup
3. Page numbering
4. Inserting headers and footers
5. Inserting footnote and endnote
Columns
- Columns subdivide a page into several sections
- To set a column,
1. Highlight the paragraph
2. Click Layout
3. Click columns in the Page set u group
4. Select number of column
- If you want to add a line between, select More columns and click Line Between

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Setting columns and section breaks
- Columns and section breaks are used to force the insertion pointer to move to a new column or section in a
page.
- This allows the user to apply more than one format on the same page
- To insert a column break:
1. Highlight the paragraph
2. Click Layout
3. Click Breaks
4. Select the type of breaks and then click OK
Specifying page margin
- The margins determine how far the text starts from the edge of the page
Specifying page orientations
- The term orientation refers to the positioning of the page in relation to the text.
- The two types of page orientations are:
1. Portrait: in this orientation, texts and graphs are printed with the longest side placed vertically.
2. Landscape: in this, text and graphics are printed with the longest side printed horizontally.
Page size
- This specifies the size of the page e.g. A1, A2, A3, A4, A5 etc.
- To specify Margin, Orientation and Page size, Click Layout then select Margin, Orientation or Page size.
Inserting headers and footers
- Headers are lines of texts that appears at the top margin of every page while footers appear at the bottom
margin of every page.
- To insert Header or Footer
1. Click Insert tab
2. Select Header or footer
3. Select the kind of the Header or Footer style.
- For one to go back to the normal working area from header or footer, either
1. Double click inside the work area
2. Click close Header/footer
Inserting page Numbers
- Page numbers are used to organize a large document for ease of reference.
- To insert Page numbers, proceed as follows:
1. Click Insert
2. Click Page numbers
3. Select a page numbering style from the drop down list
Inserting Footnotes and Endnotes
- Footnotes and Endnotes are used in large documents to explain, comment on or provide references for text in
the document.
- Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page while Endnotes appear at the end of a section or document
- To insert footnote or endnote
1. Click reference tab
2. Select Insert footnote or Insert Endnote
3. Type the text for footnote or endnote
Generating table of contents and indexes
- Table of contents (TOC) is a list of topics in a document and the pages where the topics appear.
- It is placed in the first pages of the document
- An index is a list of terms used in the document and the pages where the terms appear.
- To generate table f contents:
1. Click reference tab
2. Click table of contents
3. The table of contents will be automatically inserted

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Creating and manipulating tables
- A table is made up of rows and columns of cells.
- It is used to organize and present information
Creating table
1. Click where you want to insert the table
2. Click Insert tab
3. Click table command
- There are three ways of creating table
1. Using the table boxes
2. Using insert table
3. Using draw table
Formatting and editing table
Inserting and delete rows or column
- To insert row or column,
1. right-click the row/column
2. click Insert command.
3. Choose the command you want e.g. Insert Row above or Insert Colum to the Left
- To delete a row/column
1. Right-click the row/column
2. Click Delete command
3. Select Entire Row/Column
Merging cells in a table
- Merging refers to combining more than one cell in a table.
- To merge
1. Select the cells to be merged
2. Right-click them and then select Merge Cells command
Splitting cells in a table
- Splitting cells refers to subdividing a cell or cell into more cells.
- To split cells
1. Select the cells to be split
2. Right click the cells then click Split cells command.
Table conversion
- You can convert a table into line of text and vice versa
1. Select the text you want to convert to table
2. Click Insert tab
3. Click Table commands then select Convert Text to Table, specify number of rows and columns
4. From Separate text at, specify whether the table will be defined by paragraphs. Commas, etc
5. Click OK
Importing tables
- This lets users import tables from other applications or an existing file.
Performing arithmetic calculations in the table
- In Microsoft, it is possible to perform mathematical calculation such sum, product and count
- To perform calculations in a word table:
1. Click in the cell the result is to be displayed
2. On the Table menu, click Formula
3. Type a formula such as =SUM(ABAVE0
4. Click OK
Sorting table content
- Sorting means arranging data in ascending or descending order
- To sort contents
1. Highlight the data

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 2. Click Sort or
3. select type of data to be used when sorting
4. click either Ascending or descending
5. click OK
using advanced features in word
generating merged documents
- Mail merging is the process of generating personalized letter or labels such as envelop by merging two files;
a main document (e.g. letter or envelop) with a data source such as an address book.
- The processes or tasks involved in creating a merged document are as follows:
1. Create the main document such as letter
2. Create or get a data source i.e. the address book
3. Connect the main document to the data source
4. Merge the main document and the data source
5. Produce the personalized letters
The procedure for creating merged document are as follows
1. Create the main document you want to distribute such as letter
2. Click Mailing tab
3. Click Select Recipient and then click Type New List
4. On the New list Address dialog box, type the information needed
5. Click OK and type the name of the data source and click SAVE
6. Click Insert Merge Fields
7. Insert all the required fields
8. Click Finish & Merge then Edit Individual letter
Inserting Graphics and special symbol
- The term graphics refers to a non-text images generated by a computer.
- This include photographs, drawings and graphs
Types of objects
- There are different types of objects that can be created in word processor and these are
1. Drawings
- These are objects drawn using the tools on the insert tab.
- Examples are: circles, rectangles or arrows
2. Pictures
- A picture is an object that has been captured using a camera or scanner
3. Charts
- A chart is a pictorial representation of related data. It helps to interpret data easily. Examples of charts are Pie
chart, bar chart etc
Inserting a clip art or a picture from Gallery
1. Position the pointer where you want the picture to be
2. Click Insert tab
3. Click Picture
4. Choose the Picture from the computer
5. Click the picture and then click Insert
Editing and formatting pictures
- You can edit and format picture by adjust brightness, contrast, change to black and white or crop image
- Cropping refers to hiding unwanted details so that they do not come out when printing
- To crop an image, follow the procedure below
1. Double-click the picture
2. On the format tab, click Crop
3. Click crop and then drag the picture to hide unwanted parts
4. Release the mouse when all parts you do not want are hidden
Inserting symbol
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 - A symbol is a special character that is not included on the standard keyboard
- For example, ®, § etc.
- To insert a symbol:
1. Put the mouse to where you want the symbol to be
2. Click Insert tab
3. Click symbol
4. Click more symbol
5. Select the symbol and click Insert then close
Printing word document
- The main purpose of word processor is to create document for distributing
- A document can be distributed electronically or as printed hard copy.
- To print a document, the computer must be connected to either local printer or network printer.
Page setup
- Page setup prepares a document for printing setting Margin, orientation, print quality etc
- To do printer setup, proceed as follows:
1. Click File the click Print
2. In the print dialog box, select the page setup options such as page size, margin etc
3. Click Ok
Using print preview
- Print preview will help you to confirm that all details to be are within printable area.
- To check Print preview,
1. click File the Print Preview
2. check the document in the preview window
3. click close Print preview
To print a document, follow the procedure below
1. click File tab, then click Print
2. in the print dialog box, specify
a. the type of printer
b. whether to print whole document or page ranges
c. number of copies to print
3. click OK
Troubleshooting printing related problems
- some of the printing problems you may encounter are:
1. lack of two-way communication due to poor installation of printer software (drivers) or the printer is off or
not connected
2. paper jam due to use of poor quality paper or papers folds
3. poor quality printout due to poor quality ink or toner used

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