Computer Literacy

[CLC3509]
Module 3: Word Processing

Continuing Professional Development Unit

University of Namibia
UNIT 1: Introduction to Modern Word Processors

Upon completion of this unit you should be able to:

• List and identify the different parts of the Word 2016 Window.
• Apply formatting changes such as text type, text colour and text size.
• Use the format painter feature to copy formatting from one part of a
document and to apply it to another part of an identified document.
• Produce professional tables and edit existing tables according to given
criteria or instructions.
• Use the office assistant to resolve problems and find solutions to common
issues in Microsoft word or the office suite.
• Show the results of documents produced by printing such documents.

Before attempting this module you should attempt

and complete the first module, Introduction to
Computers, of the ICT Literacy course.
Prescribed Reading
Starting with Microsoft Word
• There are many versions of the popular Microsoft Word, the word processing
programme introduced in this unit. The earliest version was released in 1983.
Since then, there have been many versions, each one bringing significant
advances never seen before. In this module, we are going to be using
Microsoft Word 2016.
• Before we start, let us open the Microsoft Word 2010
application.

To launch or open Word 2016 on your computer:

 Click the Start button

 Click on All Programs
 Click on Microsoft Office
 Click on Microsoft Word
Introduction to Modern Word Processors

The application will be launched, displaying the default document shown in the Figure below
 The Ribbon
.

•The Ribbon contains shortcuts to commonly used commands or functions in Microsoft

Word. There are usually seven menu items in a document (Home, Insert, Page Layout,
References, Mailings, Review and View).
•Each menu item has an individual ribbon that contains shortcuts to word features. Click on
the icons (pictures) to use the shortcuts.
The Title Bar

• The Title bar is found at the top of the document window, it contains the quick access toolbar
on the upper left corner, the name of the document (Document 1 in this case) and the name of
the application used to create the document (Microsoft Word). The close, maximise and
minimize buttons can also be found on the right most corner of the title bar.
The Ruler

•The ruler can be found at the top of the page and on the left hand side of the document. The top
ruler is known as the horizontal ruler and the left ruler as the vertical ruler. The ruler is used for
adjusting the working area and aligning the text and content on a page.
Microsoft Word Help

• This is a handy feature that is used to browse or search for up-to-date topics on how to use any
of the features available in Word. If you have any questions or you need instructions on how to
complete a certain task in Microsoft Word, you can use this Help feature.
The Dialog Box Launcher

• The dialog box launcher is used to display hidden menus or further options under a specific
section. An example is the dialog box launcher found in the Font section. When clicked, it
launches a dialog box with additional options for the fonts, as shown below:

Figure 2: Font Dialog box

The Status Bar

• The status bar is found in the bottom left hand corner of the document. It displays information
about the active document such as number of pages in a document, the current page, and the
number of words used in that particular document.
View Buttons

• The view buttons are used to change the layout of a document. There are four main view,
namely: Print Layout View, Full Screen Reading, Web Layout, Outline and Draft.
The Document Area

• The document area is white area of the document window where one can type the desired
text and insert objects
Zoom Control Buttons

• The zoom control buttons are used to increase the size of the document area. This can be done
by clicking on the plus or minus button or alternatively by clicking and dragging the slider to
the left to decrease the size of the document area or to the right to increase the size of the
document area.
Minimize Ribbon

• The minimize ribbon button is used to minimise the ribbon, clicking on this button will remove
the bulky looking ribbon, giving you more space to work with. Once the ribbon has been
removed your window will have the appearance shown below.
 Activity

• See the manual for the activity

Creating and Saving a Document

• Now that you were able to identify the different parts of the Word
window, let us turn your attention to working with the Word application.
In case you have closed it, open it again using the steps you learned from
the previous section:
 Click the Start button
 Click on All Programs
 Click on Microsoft Office
 Click on Microsoft Word

• Once you have opened a new document, you are going to type some text
in the document and save it on the desktop with a file name “Word
Exercises”.
• Begin by entering some text in the document, (e.g. your name and
surname) as shown in the example in the next slide.
•Now that we have entered text in the document we are going to save the file. Remember that Saving
is the process of storing documents so that you can use them later.
•It is therefore important that you know how to save your documents to avoid losing data.
To save a file:
•Click the Save icon on the Quick Access Toolbar, or
•Click on File tab, then choose Save or Save As, or Press CTRL+S

•Doing any of the above three actions will launch the Save As dialog box shown in the Figure below:
• The Save As Dialog box allows you to navigate to the appropriate location where the file must
be saved. The most commonly used locations are shown on the left hand side of the window.
The default location for most files is the “Documents” folder. For this particular file want the
file to be saved on the desktop. You should therefore change the location to the desktop, by
clicking on the “Desktop” icon below “Favorites”
• The file location has now been changed to the Desktop. We only need to now
specify the name of the file that we want to save on the desktop.
• Highlight the name that word has automatically generated for the file in the File
name section, and enter the desired name (i.e. Word Exercises).
• Once you are done, click on the Save button to save the file. Your file has now
been saved on the desktop.
Opening a Document

• Now that you were able create and save a document, it is time to also
learn how to retrieve and access saved documents. In this section, we
will verify that the document that we saved in the previous section
was indeed saved to the desktop, and open it. To verify that this is the
case, close all open windows and locate the file on the desktop. If you
cannot find the file on the desktop, follow the steps outlined in the
previous section again. If it is on the desktop, do one of the following
to open it:
• Double Click on the file, or
• Open Microsoft Word as you learned in the previous sections, and:
• Click the File tab, and select and click on Open
• Navigate to the correct folder (i.e. the Desktop)
• Click on the name of the file (i.e. Word Exercises)
• Click on the Open button
Using the Ribbon

• Now that you have opened your document, we are going to learn how to use the Ribbon. As
explained already, the Ribbon is located below the Title bar, and it is made up of various tabs,
each with different groups of buttons that perform related tasks. To perform a task, you click
on the button associated with that task.
• To see how this is done, we are going to make changes to the text in the open document by
changing the case. Changing the case means making a change from small letters (also known
as lowercase) or to capital letters (also known as uppercase). Before we can make any changes
to the case or size of our letters we need to highlight the text that we want to apply the
changes to, therefore highlight the text in the document titled “Word Exercises” as
demonstrated in the Figure below:
Change case dropdown
The Ruler

• The ruler in Word 2010 is a small, but equally useful feature. There are two rulers, a vertical
ruler and a horizontal ruler.
• The ruler displays the margins of a document, the white area on the ruler is the active margin
in which we can type text and insert content.
Copying, Moving and Pasting Text

• Word processors give us as computer users a great deal of flexibility. We can duplicate the text,
move text around in a document and between documents and edit text in any other manner
that we see fit. In this section, we learn about the features offered under the Clipboard. Before
we start, let us first look at the icons found in the Clipboard:
Copying Text

• Copying is basically the same as duplicating text. Before we can copy we need to select text to
copy.

• Once we have selected the text that we want to copy the next step is to click on
the Copy button on the home ribbon (alternatively, press CTRL+C).
• Although you cannot see that anything has happened, the text you just copied
has been added to the virtual clipboard. You now need to select a section of
the document were we want to the text to be copied to (pasted).
• As an example, to paste our copied text at the end of the document, we follow
the following steps:
• move to the last paragraph and click below this paragraph
• Click on the Paste button on the ribbon (or press CTRL + V)

• Once you click on the paste button the copied text will be pasted in the area
selected, as shown below. Note that the paragraph beginning with
• “The Namibian classroom environment” has now moved from the first to
• the third paragraph.
Formatting Text

• Formatting is the process of changing the look and

appearance of text or other objects in a document. In
terms of Text, Microsoft Word allows you to specify
this appearance using the commands found in the Font
dialog box. In the Font dialog box, you can specify the
Font face, the size, colour, background colour, text
effects, and apply other formatting styles such as Bold,
Italics underline, subscript or superscript to text.

NB: Please refer to the manual for more information

Activity
• Refer to the manual for the activity
Formatting Paragraphs

• Paragraphs allow us to subdivide lengthy texts

and to arrange the structure of our documents.
To create a new paragraph, we simply:
• Place the cursor at the point where the
current paragraph should end, and
• Press the Enter key twice.
• Deleting a paragraph is equally easy. We:
• Place the cursor at the point where the
paragraph should be joined to the
previous paragraph, and
• Press the Backspace key, until the two
paragraphs are merged.
Aligning Text

• Text alignment allows you to specify how a paragraph may be aligned or arranged on a page.
Rather than using the Spacebar or Tab key to change the appearance of your text, it is
generally considered good practice to use the paragraph aligning features to layout text on a
page. Microsoft Word allows you to align text to the left, right, on the centre and to justify
the alignment.
Left alignment is used to align text to the left. To do that, perform the following steps:
• Select the paragraph that you would like to align to the left
• Click the Align Text Left button of the Paragraph group on the Home Tab (or press
CTRL+L)
Right alignment is used to align text to the right. To achieve that, perform the following steps:
• Select the paragraph that you would like to align to the right
• Click the Align Text Right button of the Paragraph group on the Home Tab (or press
CTRL+R)
Centre alignment is used to centre the paragraph. To do that, perform the following steps:
• Select the paragraph that you would like to align to the centre
• Click the Centre button of the Paragraph group on the Home Tab (or press CTRL+C)
• Justify is used to align text both to the left and right margins. Justify adds space between
words that are essential for ensuring that the paragraph is aligned both on the left and right.
To achieve that, perform the following steps:
• Select the paragraph that you would like to align to the right
• Click the Justify button of the Paragraph group on the Home Tab (or press CTRL+J)
Line Spacing

• Line spacing refers to the amount of vertical space between the lines of
text in a paragraph.
To apply line spacing:
• Select the text to which you would like to apply line spacing
• Click the Line Spacing button on the Paragraph group of the Home tab
• Choose the desired option

• To apply spacing before or after a paragraph:

• Select the paragraph to which you would like to apply the spacing
• Click the Line Spacing button on the Paragraph group of the Home tab
• Choose the desired option (Add Space Before or Add Space After) paragraph.

Please note that if you would like to specify the exact spacing that should be added, you
need to click the Line Spacing Options of the Line and Paragraph Spacing button of the
Paragraph group.
Applying Shading

• Shading applies a background color to the entire paragraph, rather

than a single word. To apply an orange background color to a
paragraph:
• Place your cursor at the beginning of that paragraph
• Click the arrow next to the Shading button on the Paragraph group of the Home tab
• From the drop down list, select the orange colour.
Creating a bulleted list:

You can either insert the bullets before you start typing, or first type the text and
then insert the bullets. Here is how you do it:
• If you already have the text, highlight the text first. Otherwise click at the place where
the first item of the bulleted list must appear.
• Click the bullets icon (insert) on the Paragraph group of the Home tab
• Click on the next paragraph that needs to be bulleted and click on the
• bullets icon (insert ) again. Keep repeating this step for each item until the list is
complete.
Note: This method inserts the default bullets. If you would like to specify the
specific bullets that you want to use, first Click on the arrow next to the Bullets
button, and choose the bullets that you want to use.
Creating a numbered list

As with bullets, you also insert the numbering before you start typing, or you first
type the text and then insert the numbering. Here is how you do it:
• If you already have the text, highlight the text first. Otherwise click at the place where
the first item of the numbered list must appear.
• Click on the numbering icon on the Paragraph group of the Home tab

Note: This method inserts the default numbering. If you would like to
specify the specific numbering (e.g. Roman or alphabetic numbering),
Activity
• Refer to the manual for the activity
Applying Styles

• Styles are a set of built-in, pre-formatted collections which you can apply to your
text for consistent formatting across a document. They include pre-formatted
headings, quotes, captions, titles, etc. Each style has specific characteristics such
as a font face, font size, colour, line space, bold, italics, shading, etc., which is
applied to the text whenever that style is selected.

To apply a style, such as Heading 1, to a text, do the following:

• Select the heading that you want to apply the style to
• On the Home tab, in the Styles group, Click the heading style that you want. If you don't see the
style that you want, click the More button to display additional Styles.
Working with Tables

• Tables allow us to organize and display data in a manner that is easy to follow. A table is made
up of columns and rows and you can use it to organize your data and improve your data
presentations. The basic unit of a table is a cell, which is a place where a row and a column
intersect. You use a cell to enter data in your table. Microsoft office allows you to easily create
and manage tables.

To create a table:
• Click on the Insert tab on the ribbon
• Click on the Table button as shown below. A drop down menu will be shown.

• Select the number of columns and rows for your table by moving the pointer over the number
of rows and columns required. As you move over the rows and columns you will notice that
the selected number of rows and columns are inserted on the page.
Merging cells

• Merging refers to a process of combining two or more items. When it comes to tables, it refers
to combining two or more cells to turn them into one bigger cell.
• To see how this works, first create another table with 5 rows and 5 columns. We want to enter
the title of our table in the first row of the table. Before we can do this we need to merge all
cells in the first row so that it becomes one cell. To achieve this:
• First, highlight the first row by moving the mouse pointer to the rows left most border, and double
clicking on it

• Right click on the highlighted row.

• Select Merge Cells from the drop down menu to merge the cells. The cells in the first row will be
combined and will appear as shown below.

• Now that the cells have been combined, we can proceed to enter a table title in the first row. Let
us name this table “Personal Time Table”
Changing the text direction in a table

• Alignment enables us to basically place the text on the right hand side, in the middle or to the
left of an active cell.

• Text direction, on the other hand, allows us to choose whether the text is entered from the
left or the right hand side and whether it is displayed horizontally or vertically.
Inserting and editing images in word

To insert an image from a file stored on the computer:

• Place your cursor at the beginning of the first paragraph, and Click on the Insert tab

• Next click on Picture, and the Insert Picture dialog box that will enable you to select the
image will be launched.
• Locate any sample picture from the Pictures or My Pictures folder (e.g. C:\Users\Public\
Pictures\Sample Pictures)
• Click Insert
Wrapping text around an inserted image

• Wrapping is a process whereby we place the text around the image, on

top of the image or above or under an image. It is basically the
arrangement of text in relation to an image. There are different
wrapping options, we shall explore some of the more popular options
in the following sections.
Tight wrapping
Tight wrapping places the text around the graphic or image that has been
applied in a document. Any existing text and future inserted text will be
placed around the image.

To wrap text around an image:

• Right click on the image you want to wrap text around
• From the drop down menu, select Wrap Text and Click on Tight
Top and Bottom Wrapping
• Top and bottom wrapping moves text to the top and bottom of an image or
graphic. The text is placed at the top of or the bottom of a graphic when you
wrap it this way.
To apply this wrapping style:
• Right click on the image you want to wrap text around
• From the drop down menu, select Wrap Text and Click on Top and Bottom
Wrapping text behind a graphic
• The wrap text behind option allows us to place text behind an
inserted image or graphic.
• To wrap text in this way click on the image or graphic, right
click on the image or graphic, select wrap text and choose
behind text
Page Numbering

• Page numbers make it easier to work with a document with multiple

pages, reports, tests, memos and books are easier to use if they have
numbered pages.
To insert page numbers:
• Click on the insert tab.
• Click on Page Number. A drop down menu will appear.
• Select the position of the page number (e.g. bottom of page)
• Select the first option by clicking on the numbering format labelled as “ Plain Number 2”
• The page numbers will be inserted at the bottom of the screen.
Applying Page Borders

• Applying page borders to pages is just as easy. However, when applying

page borders, we need not select the document text first.
• To apply page borders:
• Click on the Page Layout tab.

• Next select the Page Borders button. The page borders dialog box shown below
will appear.

• Click on Box
• Next select the line Style

• Choose a Colour and Width of the line.

• Now we need to choose were we are going to place the page border. We can apply borders to
all the pages in the document, the active page, the first page only or all pages excluding the
first page. Choose This section-First page only
• Click OK.
• The page border will be applied to the selected section as shown in the next slide
Inserting auto shapes

• Auto shapes are shapes such as circles, triangles and squares that can be used to draw special emphasis to text in a
document.
• Auto shapes are a handy way for us to integrate visual elements in our documents. We can use common auto shapes such
as circles, squares and triangles individually or we can combine them to create logos and custom shapes.
• Inserting auto shapes is a simple undertaking.
• Select Insert.

• Click on Shapes

• Select an auto shape. Note that there are categories for all the auto shapes.
• Go to the Block Arrows category and select the Down Arrow.

• Click on the page and hold down your mouse button, move down while holding your mouse button and let go of the mouse. The shape selected will be
inserted
The Find and Replace Feature

• Word is suited for working with big documents with several hundred pages or those with a
handful of pages. When working with particularly large documents such as those with a
couple hundred pages you might find that you need to find a specific word or phrase quickly.
To do this you can use the find and replace feature to search for text and alternatively to
replace it with something else.
• Refer to the manual for more information on this
Page Orientation

• Page orientation refers to the layout or display of a page in a

document. There are two main orientations that we can apply to a
page in a Word document. These are Landscape and Portrait.
• To apply a specific orientation to a page:
• click on the Page Layout tab.
• Click on the orientation button.
• Now select the “landscape” or “portrait”orientation to apply it to the document.
Printing

• Printing is usually the last action after we have created a document that is why it
placed last in this unit. Printing allows us to put words and images on paper so
that we can share them with others.
• Before we can print we need to give the computer a few basic instructions that
will enable it to print our document. To initiate the printing of a document
• The print menu will pop up. Enter the number of pages that you want to print.
Note that if you only want to print one copy of the document you can leave the
default.

• Select the printer that you want to use for printing the document. Note that
sometimes there might be more than one printer installed and connected to a
computer.
• Enter the pages that you want to print. You can specify individual page e.g pages 1,3,5 (for pages one, three
and five) or a range of pages 2-8 (pages two to eight meaning all the pages between 2 and eight will be
included in the printing). Note that if you want to print all the pages in the document you can skip this
particular step.

• Indicate the number of pages that we want to print on an individual sheet of paper. We can place more than one page on a
sheet to save paper.
• Click on the Print button to print the document.