RETRIEVING AN EXISTING FILE
A document which has been stored on disk can be retrieved whenever needed. To do this, we have to use the Open command from the File menu. The same thing can be done by using the Open Tool. On execution of the Open command, the Open dialog box gets displayed, as below.
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From the above dialog box, we can select the file we want after selecting the appropriate drive and directory. We can then open the file by either double-clicking the filename or by clicking OK.
MORE ABOUT VAVIGATION
Once our document runs into many paragraphs, we need faster methods of moving around in it. Keeping the Ctrl key pressed while using the Left or the Right arrow would move the insertion point one word backward or forward respectively. Pressing the Ctrl key along with the Up and Down arrow keys would help us move up or down by one paragraph.
Along with these short-cuts, we should keep in mind two other important once. These are the Ctrl-Home and the Ctrl-End keys. They move the insertion point to the beginning of the document and to the end of the document respectively.
IMPORTANT KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
- Ctrl + Left :- Move to previous word
- Ctrl + Right :- Move to next word
- Ctrl + Up :- Move to previous paragraph
- Ctrl + Down :- Move to next paragraph
- Ctrl + Home :- Move to the beginning of document
- Ctrl + End :- Move to the end of document
- Ctrl + Del :- Erase word on the right
- Ctrl + Backspace :- Erase word on the left
- Shift + F3 :- Change case
SELECTING BLOCKS OR MAKING SELECTIONS
So far, we have been performing operations like deleting a character or a word. Operations like deletion can be performed on single characters or words, or on larger portions of the text called selections or blocks. To make an operation apply to a portion of text, we have to first select it.
SELECTING WITH THE MOUSE
To select with a mouse, we have to move the I-beam pointer to the beginning of the portion of text, and drag over the area we wish to select. The mouse button is released only after reaching the end of the selection. The text that is selected appears highlighted. It should be noted that the selection is anchored to the point from where the dragging begins. Selection takes place character-wise as the mouse is moved sideways, and line-wise as the mouse is moved down or up.
Double-clicking on a word is a shortcut for selecting that word. Holding the Ctrl key down while clicking selects the sentence the I-beam pointer is on. For larger selections, the I-beam pointer should be placed on the left-hand side of the screen, where it changes to a slanting arrowhead biased towards the right. Clicking when the pointer appears thus woold select the current line. Dragging the mouse up or down at this stage will help select multiple lines. If we double-click instead of click, the current paragraph is selected. The entire paragraph can also be selected by Triple-clicking anywhere in the paragraph.
To select the entire document, we have to hold the Ctrl key down and click when the pointer is the right-biased arrowhead. In the selection area also allows us to select the entire document.
SELECTING WITH THE KEYBOARD
To select with the keyboard, we have to move the insertion point to the beginning of the portion we wish to select. Then, keeping the Shift key depressed, we have to move over the selection using the arrow keys. Holding down the Ctrl key as well as the Shift key while pressing the left or right arrow key will select a word in the respective direction. Doing the same while pressing the up or down arrow key would select the text from that point to beginning or end of the paragraph respectively. Pressing Shift and Home together will select the text from the insertion point to the beginning of the current line. Shift and End will select from the insertion point to the end of the current line.
Shift, Ctrl, and Home pressed together will select the text from the insertion point to the beginning of the document. Shift, Ctrl, and End will select from the insertion point to the end of the document. To select the entire document, we have to hold down Ctrl and press the "5" key on the numeric keypad.
REFERENCE FOR MAKING BELOW SELECTIONS
We can make a document look more attractive by using the facilities provided by Word. Changing the appearance of text by using the various facilities is referred to by the general term Formatting.
Fonts
One of the features we could use to embellish our documents is the use of fonts. Word allows us to change the font used to display text. There are various families of fonts available to us. They are actually typefaces or styles in which the text will appear. Some examples of font families are -
- Arial,
- Courier,
- Times New Roman,
- Script, etc.
Different fonts, if used effectively, can create hard-hitting documents. On the other hand, if too many fonts are used, we might land up creating a very aesthetically unappealing mess. So, different fonts should be used after a lot of thought and experimenting. Since Word supports WYSIWYG, it is very easy to try out different font and gauge their effect in a printed document.
Apart from using different font styles to make our document look more attractive, we can also use different point sizes for various characters. We can make headings larger than the rest of the text to make them more prominent. We can also use small point sizes to display fine print. The higher the point size, the bigger the size of the characters. Examples are shown below,
This is Arial point size 30.
This is Arial point size 8.
We can select the font and point sizes we want from the Font and Sizes drop-down lists, which are the second and third items on the Formatting ToolBar. The choice we make applies to all characters typed after we have chosen a font and/or size. We can also change the font or size of an existing set of characters by selecting them, and then choosing the appropriate font or size.
The keyboard short-cuts for changing the font and the point size are Ctrl + Shift + F and Ctrl + Shift + P respectively.
Attributes
We can also use character attributes to make a document more attractive. The attributes that can be used are emboldening, underlining, italicizing and like. The three most commonly used attributes are available as buttons on the formatting Toolbar, as shown below, stand for Bold, Italics and underline respectively.
We can change the color of the text and apply other effects using the dialog box. We can use different types of underlines like :
- double-underline,
- dotted-underline,
- and underline only the words.
Thus, the font dialog box gives us more flexibility and betters features while changing fonts and attributes.
Alignment
The third formatting technique is alignment. This refers to the way the text appears on the printed page in relation to the margins.
Left Align
To make all paragraph or a text on left side of a sheet you can use this command. The keyboard shortcut key for this is Ctrl + L.
- Open MS-Word,
- Open or Create a document,
- Now select the content which you want to do left aliened,
- Now click on the Home tab,
- Now in Home tab, go to the paragraph section and now click on the Icon of Left-Align text button.
- Now you can see the content is successfully Left-Aligned.
Center Align
To make all paragraph or a text on center-aligned of a sheet you can use this command. The keyboard shortcut key for this is Ctrl + E.
- Open MS-Word,
- Open or create a document,
- Now select the content which you want to do Center-Aligned,
- Now click on the Home tab,
- Now in Home tab, go to the paragraph section and now click on the Icon of Center-Align text button.
- Now you can see the content is successfully Center-Aligned.
Right Align
To make all paragraph or a text on right-aligned of a sheet you can use this command. The keyboard shortcut key for this is Ctrl + R.
- Open MS-Word,
- Open or create a document,
- Now select the content which you want to do Right-Aligned,
- Now click on the Home tab,
- Now in Home tab, go to the paragraph section and now click on the Icon of Right-Align text button.
- Now you can see the content is successfully Right-Aligned.
Justified Text
This command gives your document or content or paragraph, clean & crisp edged look. This command utilization gives your document well polished and professional look.
- Open MS-Word,
- Open or create a document,
- Now select the content which you want to do justify,
- Now click on the Home tab.,
- Now in Home tab, go to the paragraph section and now click on the Icon of Justify Align text button,
- Now you can see the content successfully Justified text.
TABLE OF IMPORTANT KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
The following keyboard shortcuts are commonly used and required for editing purpose so here are mentioned below,
Very often we need to change the case of text. This can be done through the Change Case command. On executing it the following dialog box gets displayed :
Fortunately, Word allows you to quickly and easily change the capitalization (case) of text. All you need to follow the following mentioned steps:
- First of all you need to select the text which you want to alter.
- After it, you have to press Shift+F3. Word changes the case of the selected text.
- You should continue the pressing Shift+F3 until the case is the way you want it.
Very often we need to rearrange paragraphs in a document. Instead of deleting and re-typing a paragraph, we can use WORD's wonderful features that make the task of moving text as simple as child's play. Text can be moved in many ways. We are going to learn two of them - viz. Using the clipboard and secondly, using the mouse.
Moving Text Using the Clipboard
The clipboard is a special area reserved in the computer's memory. It can be used in any Windows application to transfer data. It acts as a messenger or we can treat it as our "middle-agent".
Let us understand how we can use the clipboard to move text from one part of the document to another. The steps explained below can also be used to move text across different WORD documents or for that matter, any other Windows application. For example, a paragraph from a Word Document can be moved to an EXCEL spreadsheet or to a POWERPOINT slide.
Without wasting any further time let us find out how clipboard can help us.
The first step is to select the text we are interested in moving. Once the text is selected it will appear highlighted.
The next step is to choose the Cut command from the Edit menu or we can also click on the Cut icon (scissors) on the Standard Toolbar. This will move the selected text from the current location and place it into the CLIPBOARD.
The next step is to position our insertion point at the new location i.e. where we want the text to be moved. It could be another Word document or another Windows application like Excel.
After the insertion point is at the correct location, the final step is to select the paste command from the Edit menu or we can also click on the Paste icon on the Standard Toolbar.
And what do we have ? The selected text from the clipboard has been placed at the new location. So that is how the clipboard comes in handy ! Now let us see the next method viz. using the mouse.
Moving text using the Mouse
Since using the mouse to move text does not involve the clipboard this method works faster. But be warned - it is a little tricky to master.
The first step as usual is to highlight the text we want to move.
Next, we place our mouse pointer over the selected text. The mouse pointer will change shape into an arrow titling towards the left as shown below :
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Once we get this arrow we start dragging the mouse. ( Remember to keep the mouse button constantly pressed while dragging. ) When we start dragging the mouse, we notice that a little box gets attached to the bottom of the mouse pointer and a faint shadow-like insertion point appears before the mouse pointer as shown below. The box indicates the selected text.
We have to position the insertion point where we want to move the text. Once the insertion point at the correct location, then finally we release the mouse button.
Upon releasing the mouse button we will observe that the text would have moved to the new location and would still be highlighted.
COPYING TEXT
Apart from moving text we also need to duplicate text in a document or also across different documents. Just like moving text, there are several ways of copying text. Once again we are going o learn two of them - viz. using the clipboard and secondly, using the mouse.
Copying text using clipboard
By now we are familiar with the clipboard. Let us learn to use it to duplicate text from one part of a document to another. The steps explained below can also be used to copy text across WORD documents or any other window application like EXCEL, POWERPOINT etc.
The first step is to select the text we are interested in copying. Once the text is selected, it will appear highlighted.
The next step is to choose the Copy command from the Edit menu or we can also click on the copy icon on the standard Toolbar. This will make a copy of the selected text into the clipboard.
The next step is to position the insertion point at the new location i.e. where we want the text too be copied.
After the insertion point is at the correct location, the final step is to select the paste command from the edit menu or click on the paste icon on the standard new location. The original text will remain at the old location now let us see the next method - viz. - using the mouse.
Copying text using the Mouse
Just like we learn to move text using the mouse we can also copy text using a combination of the mouse and the Ctrl key on the keyboard, Again since this does not involve the clipboard, it works faster.
The first step is to highlight the text we want to copy.
Next, we place our mouse pointer (which is originally an I-beam ) over the selected text. The mouse pointer will change shape to an arrow tilting towards the left.
Once we get this arrow, we have to hold down the Ctrl key from the keyboard and at the same time start dragging the mouse. ( remember to keep both - the mouse button as well as the Ctrl key constantly pressed while dragging ). When we start dragging the mouse, we notice that a little box gets attached to the bottom of the mouse pointer and a shadow of the insertion point appears before the mouse pointer. This time a little plus sign also appears to the right of the mouse pointer appears. The box indicates the selected text. The plus sign indicates that we are performing a copy.
We have to position the insertion point where we want to copy the text. Once the insertion point is at the correct location, then we first release the mouse button and then the Ctrl key.
Upon releasing the mouse button and the Ctrl key we will observe that the text would have got copied to the new location and would be highlighted. The original selection would still be existing a the old location.
