INTRODUCTION TO WORD PROCESSING

A word processing program is a software program that includes tools for entering,
editing, and formatting text and graphics. The electronic files you create using Word
are called documents. One of the benefits of using Word is that document files can be
stored in a variety of places on your computer, or in the cloud using one drive, and
easily shared with others via disks, emails, or online file storage. Microsoft Word
allows users to accomplish the following tasks.

 Type and edit text.

 Copy and move text from one location to another in the document, or to other
documents.
 Format text and paragraphs with fonts, colors, pictures, tables, and many other
tools.
 Design pages for specific purposes- from personal letters to sophisticated
memos and reports.
 Enhance documents for readability with pictures, charts, graphics, etc.
 Use mail merge features to quickly and easily send customized communications
to customers.
 Share documents securely to others.
 Communicate clearly and professionally with others by using the built-in tools of
Word.
 Title bar: displays the name of the document and the name of the program. Until
you give a new document a different name, its temporary name is Document 1. The
left side of the title bar contains the Quick Access toolbar, which includes buttons
for saving a document and undoing, redoing, and repeating a change. The right
side of the title bar contains the Ribbon Display Options button, which you use to
hide or show the Ribbon and tabs, the resizing buttons, and the program Close
button.
 The File Tab provides access to Backstage view where you manage files and the
information about them.
 The Ribbon contains the Word tabs. Each tab on the Ribbon includes buttons for
commands related to editing and formatting documents. The commands are
organized in groups. For example, the Home tab includes the Clipboard, Font,
Paragraph, Styles, and Editing Groups. The Ribbon also contains the “Tell me what
you want to do” box, which you can use to find a command or access help. The
ribbon also contains the share command, which you can use to easily share
documents.
 The document window displays the current document. This is the space you are
working inside.
 The rulers only appear in the Print Layout view. The horizontal ruler displays left
and right document margins as well as the tab settings and paragraph indents, if
 any, for the paragraph. The vertical ruler displays the top and bottom button
margins.
 The vertical and horizontal scroll bars are used to navigate inside your document.
They contain arrows to help you navigate the document.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE WORD PROCESSOR

A word processor is an electronic device (later a computer software application) for
text, composing, editing, formatting, and printing. The word processor was a stand-
alone office machine in the 1960s, combining the keyboard text-entry and printing
functions of an electric typewriter with a recording unit, either tape or floppy disk (as
used by the Wang machine) with a simple dedicated computer processor for the editing
of text. Although features and designs varied among manufacturers and models, and
new features were added as technology advanced, the first word processors typically
featured a monochrome display and the ability to save documents on memory cards or
diskettes. Later models introduced innovations such as spell-checking programs, and
improved formatting options. As the more versatile combination of personal
computers and printers became commonplace, and computer software applications
for word processing became popular, most business machine companies stopped
manufacturing dedicated word processor machines. As of 2009 there were only two
U.S. companies, Classic and Alpha Smart, which still made them.[needs update] Many
older machines, however, remain in use. Since 2009, Sentinel has offered a machine
described as a "word processor", but it is more accurately a highly specialised
microcomputer used for accounting and publishing. Word processing was one of the
earliest applications for the personal computer in office productivity, and was the most
widely used application on personal computers until the World Wide Web rose to
prominence in the mid-1990s. Although the early word processors evolved to use tag-
based markup for document formatting, most modern word processors take advantage
of a graphical user interface providing some form of what-you-see-is-what-you-get
("WYSIWYG") editing. Most are powerful systems consisting of one or more programs
that can produce a combination of images, graphics and text, the latter handled with
type-setting capability. Typical features of a modern word processor include multiple
font sets, spell checking, grammar checking, a built-in thesaurus, automatic text
correction, web integration, HTML conversion, pre-formatted publication projects such
as newsletters and to-do lists, and much more. Microsoft Word is the most widely
used word processing software according to a user tracking system built into the
software. Microsoft estimates that roughly half a billion people use the Microsoft Office
suite, which includes Word. Many other word processing applications exist, including
WordPerfect (which dominated the market from the mid-1980s to early-1990s on
computers running Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system, and still (2014) is favored
for legal applications), Apple's Pages application, and open source applications such as
OpenOffice.org Writer, K Word, and LyX. Web-based word processors such as Office
Online or Google Docs are a relatively new category graphical use

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR WORD PROCESSED DOCUMENTS

The responsibility of a writer to produce reader-friendly documents extends to layout,

design, and organizational elements surrounding the words themselves. If an email or
report were simply a wall of undifferentiated text running for several screens or
pages, any reader would be daunted by the prospect of having to scale that wall.
Fortunately, writers can use document templates that make those design choices for
them with established styles so that writing a document becomes a matter of just
filling in the blanks; if you work for a company that uses templates for certain
documents, of course you will use them also for consistency and your own
convenience. Even without templates, however, you can use several techniques to help
guide your readers’ eyes across the page or screen to easily find what they’re looking
for. Rather than being optional nice-to-haves, such techniques are crucially important
to how well your document is received.

 TITLES
Headings are a great way to tell people what they need to know quickly. Learn how
to use styles for headings to make your documents easier to navigate .

To add a heading style

 Type the text you want into a Word document.

 Select a sentence that you want to add a header to.
 Select Home > Styles (or press Alt + H, then L), and then select the heading
you want, such as the Heading 1 button.

Word applies a font and color change to help make it clear that this is a title --
the Heading 1 of the article. The next heading type is a Heading 2.

 HEADINGS
Headings make text stand out and help people scan your document. The simplest way
to add headings is with heading styles. Using heading styles means you can also
quickly build a table of contents, reorganize your document, and reformat its design
without having to manually change each heading's text.
 To add a heading
1. Select the text you want to use as a heading. On the Home tab, move the pointer
over different
2. Headings in the Styles gallery. Notice as you pause over each style, your text will
change so you can see how it will look in your document. Click the heading style
you want to use.

 FONT

Font selection is an important consideration because it determines how the audience

will receive a document. Font iinvolves decisions concerning the style
le of type, size, and
even color.

FONT TYPE

FONT SIZE

Size is another important consideration because readers depend on text being an ideal
“Goldilocks” size for readability and are frustrated by font sizes that are bigger or
smaller than that. In a standard written document, for instance, a 12-point 12 Arial or
Times New Roman is the Goldilocks size. If the MS Word default size when you open a
blank document is 11-point,
point, it’s worth increasing it for the sake of those who have
slight visual impairment. Increasing the size much past 12 12-point
point has a similar effect as
a
using the Comic Sans font type: it makes your document appear to be targeting an
audience of children. Of course, situations where you want to increase the font size
abound, such as for titles on title pages so that the eye is drawn immediately to them,
and any time readers are required to read at a distance, such as posters on a notice
board or presentation slides. The he ideal font size for bullet points in a PowerPoint is in
the 30- to 35-point
point range, whereas a 12 12-point
point font will appear microscopic on a
projector
rojector screen, if not invisible, from across the room.
Occasions for going smaller with your font size include footnotes in a report or source
credits under images in a document or PowerPoint presentation. Decreasing font size
to 8-point merely to get all your text to fit into a one-page résumé, however, would
undermine the document’s purpose because, by frustrating the hiring manager trying
to read it, it runs the risk of prompting them to just dump it in the shredder and move
on to the next (hopefully reader-friendly) résumé. In such cases, choosing the right
font size becomes a major life decision. Whatever the situation, strike a balance
between meeting the needs of the reader to see the text and design considerations.

FONT COLOUR

A choice of color may also enter into document design considerations, in which case,
again, the needs of the reader must be accommodated. Used appropriately, a touch of
color can draw the eye to important text. Coloring your name red at the top of your
résumé is effective if few or no other elements in the document are so colored
because your name is essentially the title of your document . Likewise, coloring the
title of other documents is effective if there are no expectations of doing otherwise
(some style guidelines forbid color).

Any use of color for text must be high-contrast enough to be readable. The gold
standard for high-contrast readability is black text on a white background. Grey-on-
white, on the other hand, sacrifices readability for stylishness depending on how light
the shade of grey is. A light-yellow text on a white background is nearly impossible to
read. In all cases, the readability of the text should be considered not just for those
with perfect vision, but especially for those who find themselves anywhere on the
spectrum of visual impairment. For this reason, color should always be used to
enhance a document that is already perfectly organized without it; never use color-
coding alone as an organizing principle in a document read by anyone other than you
because you can never be sure if some readers will be color blind or have other visual
impairments that render that color coding useless as a cause for confusion.

BOLDFACE, ITALICS, AND UNDERLINING

Boldface, italics, and underlining serve various purposes in focusing audience

attention on certain words. Boldface type is especially helpful in directing audience
eyes towards titles, headings, and keywords as you can see at the beginning of this
paragraph and throughout this textbook. Highlighting in this way is especially helpful to
anyone who is visually impaired in any degree. Of course, overusing boldface
undermines its impact, so it should be used sparingly and strategically. Likewise,
italics and underlining have very specific purposes that we will look at under the
banner of mechanics in §5.4 below.
LINE SPACING

Single-spaced lines are common to most documents because they accommodate the
reader’s need to dart quickly to the next line to continue reading a sentence. The gap
between 1.0-spaced lines is just enough to clearly separate one line from another so
the hanging elements at the bottom of letters like j and g don’t interfere with the tops
of uppercase letters on the line below. Some documents such as academic
manuscripts are double-spaced to give readers, who are usually the instructors or
teaching assistants grading them, enough space to write comments and editorial
marks between the lines. Because doubling the line spacing also doubles the number
of pages in a print version, avoid double-spacing documents for audiences who don’t
explicitly require it.

Change the line spacing in an entire document

1. Go to Design > Paragraph Spacing.

2. Choose an option. To single space your document, select No Paragraph Space.

To return to the original settings later, go to Design > Paragraph Spacing and choose
the option under Style Set. This may be Default or the name of style you’re currently
using.

Change the line spacing in a portion of the document

Select one or more paragraphs to update. Press Ctrl + A to select all.

Go to Home > Line and Paragraph Spacing .

Select Line Spacing Options and choose an option in the Line spacing box.

Adjust the Before and After settings to change spacing between paragraphs.

Select OK .

 LISTS

Another technique that helps the reader skim and easily find sought-after content is
numbered or bulleted lists for a series of discreet but related items. Whether you use
numbered or bulleted lists depends on your organizing principle:
 Use Numbered Lists for: Use Bulleted Lists for:

An un-prioritized collection of related A step-by-step procedure such as a

points set of instructions
Sentences under a heading in an A description of a chronological
email or note-form points on a sequence—a series of events
presentation slide (e.g., PowerPoint) unfolding in time
for easier readability Rankings that arrange items in
priority order

You’ve seen numbered and bulleted lists used throughout this textbook (e.g., the two
bulleted lists immediately above and a numbered one in the section prior to this).
Whichever list type you use, ensure each has the following:

 A sentence or phrase introducing and explaining the list and ending with a colon
before delivering the list immediately below it as you can see in the sentence that
introduces this list
 Capitalization of the first letter in each point
 Periods ending each point only if it is a complete sentence on its own, whether it be in
the declarative, imperative, or any other mood ; a list of nouns or noun phrases, on the
other hand, doesn’t end in periods

 Parallelism in the sense that each point in a list follows the same grammatical pattern,
such as only full sentences, only noun phrases, or only verb phrases (or imperative
sentences; recall for more on imperative sentences. The need for parallelism extends
also to lists within a sentence.

 VISUALS
Visuals are anything in pictorial form, such as photographs, drawings/illustrations, clip
art, and graphs and charts. The functions of visuals are to grab the reader’s attention
and to support or provide explanation to the document’s overall message.

Photographs show the actual physical images of objects. Photographs have the
advantage of realism. One disadvantage is the extraneous details in the photograph
that may detract from the message.

Drawings/ illustrations can depict imaginary objects or real objects difficult to

photograph. Drawings can show only the parts the reader needs to see. Drawings give
you the advantage of control by eliminating extraneous detail and emphasizing what
you want to emphasize. Illustrations should be clean and simple.

Clip art is an alternative to drawings. Clip art can be found online.

Graphs and charts provide information, usually statistics or numbers, in an easily

understandable visual form. Graphs and charts should be clear, uncluttered, suited for
the reader, legible, and placed near where they are mentioned in the document.
Graphics and charts must have brief but understandable titles. Some graphs and
charts will have a key that explains symbols used in the visual. Graphs and charts
come in different forms, based on the type of information that is being communicated.
Some of the most common ones are info-graphics, bar charts, pie charts, and line
graphs. If your graphs and charts are in black and white, be sure that readers can
differentiate between the shadings of the different sections of a pie chart or bar graph,
for example.

 Info-graphics is the term to describe the use of visual elements to communicate

complex information quickly and clearly. Info-graphics use recognizable images
to represent specific quantities. For example, instead of using a line graph, a
document designer may use an illustration to represent numerical data. The
illustration adds visual appeal to the information. The Snapshots features used
in USA Today are good examples of info-graphics.
 Bar graphs show comparison at different times, locations, and conditions. Bar
graphs are easy to understand and can be either vertical or horizontal.
 Line graphs display trends over time in amounts, sizes, rates, and other
measurements on lines. Line graphs give an at-a-glance impression of trends
and forecasts of data. You should have no more than four or five lines presented
in a line graph. It is best to distinguish different lines by using different colors or
thicknesses. Show current data with solid lines, and illustrate future data with
broken lines.
 Pie charts are best at showing what parts make up the whole and at comparing
relative sizes of the parts. A good example of a pie chart would be to show the
ethnic background of all of the students in a school. Pie charts are most
effective with six or fewer sections or “slices.”

 GRAPHICS

Graphics are lines, borders, and boxes in your document. These are used to
highlight or draw attention to an area of the document. To emphasize a
particular part of your document, you may place a border around a photograph.
Graphics also are used to separate visual elements. For example, a box around
a newsletter story could separate it from other stories on the page. Small lines
under a photograph’s caption could be used to separate the caption from the
rest of the story. Graphics should be used sparingly. Do not place a box or
 border around each visual element on your page. If you use shaded boxes, make
sure that the shading is not too dark. A shading of 10 percent is usually all you
need. A shading of 20 percent or greater may be too dark to read for the text.

 WHITE SPACE

White space (also called “blank space” or “negative space”) is the area not taken
up with text or images. White space is used to create a sense of openness. Too
many elements on a page can look confusing and detract from the overall visual
appeal of your page. White space separates paragraphs and provides margins at
the edges of your pages. Areas occupied by text or images are called positive
space.