Applications programs

Word processor  |  Spreadsheet  |  Database

When WORD is opened you will be presented with a blank page. All what you have to do is start writing. Of course you don’t have to worry about overflowing the text line because the program will take care of breaking it up appropriately. After writing your first document you have to save it; if you don’t and turn off the computer what you have written will be cancelled and nothing will remain. However the program asks you what you want to do of the document the moment you shut off WORD without having saved it first. If you intend to keep the document you will be prompted to tell the computer where you want to save it. By default it will be saved as a file in a folder called My Documents (but if you use the Italian version of Windows and WORD this is called Miei Documenti). Give a name to the document and choose the file’s destination: it will be saved with a .DOC extension, this is to tell Windows that this document is a WORD file. From now on the document you have written will be available for you to do whatever you like: you can open it again and modify it, or print it, or send it via e-mail or fax.

Important editing functions

As you can see in the image above, WORD can be customised with a number of editing functions that appear as icons on th etool bar.
Some of the most frequent editing tools are CUT, COPY, PASTE and COPY FORMAT.
To copy words, protions of text, images, or just about whatever you have in your document, you can click on the COPY icon or hit Ctrl+C; this will memorise what you have copied in the clipboard and you can paste it any place you want by clicking on the PASTE icon or hitting the keys Ctrl+V. However, if you wish to delete something in order to copy it somewhere else, use the CUT command (the scissors icon) or hit Ctrl+X. Finally, clicking on COPY FORMAT (the brush icon) you can format text as you wish: to do so, position your pointer on the word whose format you want to copy; click on COPY FORMAT icon; move pointer to word or text you want to modifyand highlight it with your mouse, and finally release the mouse button. The text will show the new format (font, character size and colour).

 The following icons are for NEW DOCUMENT, OPEN DOCUMENT, SAVE, E-MAIL, PRINT AND PREVIEW.
Just click on the appropriate icon to carry out the task you need. 
For printing, however, it is better to follow a longer procedure: select "Print" from the Menu file (or hit Ctrl+Caps+F12), a dialogue box will pop up where you can define your settings for the printer (colour or balck&white, number of pages, number of copies and so on). If you click on the PRINT icon directly, the printing process will start right away with its default settings, or the latest settings you have used, and often this is not what you want.
Once you have almost finished your document, you can use the PREVIEW function. This enables some other modifications to the document and shows the page as it will really look like when printed out.
An added feature in Word2000 is the possibility to send your document via e-mail directly from the program, a very useful shortcut now that the Internet has become widely popular with the general public.

To modify the type of printed character, called font, you can select the font name (for example, Arial, Times New Roman, Courier, etc.) by clicking on the font name: a pull-down menu will show you a list of fancy characters. Also, you can define the font sizeby using the pull-down menu that is next to it.
Letters and words can can also be formatted in various other ways: for example they can appear in bold, italics or underlined and clearly they can also be printed in different colours.

It is worth mentioning here that the zoom function that is on the standard tool bar of WORD can be used to zoom in and out the text, this way even if you decide for a very small font size you don't have to kill your eyes to read what you are writing. Simply select a higher value on the pull down menu or directly type in a value in the box.

Another important feature is the SPELLING CHECKER and vocabulary, whereas the GRAMMAR CHECKER is highly unreliable yet and therefore not so useful. Normally most modern WORD versions for Italy feature both an Italian and English in-built vocabulary that may be an invaluable helping tool for synonyms and antonyms, especially when using a foreign language. To activate these functions, position the pointer on the word you want to chack and hit Caps+F7, or alternatively right-click on your mouse and work through the pop-up menu.

If you use Microsoft Word often it would be advisable to customise your toolbar. You can do so by clicking on Strumenti > Personalizza and then choose the icons you want to place on the toolbar for quick access. This way you will not need to go through too many clicks on the menus.