Standard Grade Computing Studies
Unit 4 – Word Processing
Name: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Class: . . .
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General Purpose Packages
Contents
WP 1 Word Processing Basics
what a word processor is used for
what hardware it uses
entering text
conventions for typing
editing - inserting, amending and deleting text
wordwrap
headers and footers
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WP 2 Format of a Document
alignment of paragraphs
changing the way text appears on the page
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WP 3 Page Layout
changing a page from portrait to landscape
changing the size of a page
changing the margins of a page
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WP 4 Document Editing 1
Spell checking
Grammar checking
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WP 5 Document Editing 2
Looking for a word in a document
Changing a word throughout a document
Choosing when to change a word in a document
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WP 6 Document Editing 3
Standard paragraphs
Adding a page break
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WP 7 Document Layout
Importing a table
Making your own table using tab
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WP 8 Mail Merge, Templates and OCR
Mail Merging
Creating a Template
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
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Word Processing
WP 1
Word Processing Basics
In this chapter you will learn about the following:•
•
•
•
•
•
•
what a word processor is used for
what hardware it uses
entering text
conventions for typing
editing - inserting, amending and deleting text
wordwrap
headers and footers
Definition: A word processor is a piece of
applications software, used to organise text
documents.
It mainly uses a keyboard for input.
Output will first appear as softcopy on a monitor,
and then as hardcopy later from a printer.
Documents may be saved to media using backing
storage devices, such as to disc using a disc drive.
(You will find full explanations of these pieces of
hardware in your Systems notes.)
When we type text from the keyboard we are entering
this text.
The conventions (or rules) when entering text are:•
•
•
•
•
one space between words
no spaces before punctuation marks
one space after a comma
one space after a full stop
press return twice for a new paragraph
Standard Grade Computing Studies
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Sometimes when we enter text we make mistakes.
Header
Fixing these mistakes is called editing.
Editing can come in three forms - inserting,
amending and deleting.
inserting
adding in extra text
amending
changing the text eg. spelling
deleting
taking text out
Example
The quick browne fox jumps the the lazy dog.
over
The word browne has to be amended to brown
The word over has to be inserted
The word the has to be deleted
When we enter text in a word processor, we do not have
to guess where the line will end.
The software contains a facility called wordwrap.
Wordwrap automatically moves a word on to the next
line if it won’t fit at the end of a line. This is so that
words will not be split.
You will notice the same text appears at the top of every
page of this booklet. This is called a header.
You should always put a header, with at least your
name on it, on all of your documents.
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Word Processing
At the bottom of every page is the page number. This is
part of the footer. Other text may also be added here
to be repeated on every page.
You should always put a footer, containing at least the
page number, on any documents longer than one page.
Homework / Written Exercise 1
1
Here is a list of words from Chapter 1
You should be able to match them to their
definitions, which appear below them.
word processor keyboard
monitor
media
header
backing store facility
footer
inserting
amending
deleting
wordwrap
an input device used to enter text
_______
an entry at the top of every page
_______
applications software to organise text
_______
where software and data are stored
_______
changing spelling of a word
_______
an operation the software can carry out
_______
an entry at the bottom of every page
_______
an output device to see data on a screen
_______
adding in extra text
_______
facility to automatically stop words being split _____
device to load or store data
_______
removing unwanted text
_______
Footer
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2
Here is the first line of a popular nursery
rhyme with errors. Write down what has to be
inserted, amended and deleted.
Three blind mouse, see see how run
6
insert
_________________
amend
_______ to ________
delete
_________________
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Word Processing
WP 2 Format of a Document
In this chapter you will learn about the following:• alignment of paragraphs
• changing the way text appears on the page
When you enter text in a word processing document, it
will run from left to right.
The edge of the text will be even on the left hand
side of the page.
This is called left justified, or left aligned.
This line is left justified.
If you are entering a heading, you may want it to appear
in the middle. This is called centre aligned or just
centred.
This line is centred.
If there is a picture on the left of a page, you might want
the text to the right. This is called right justified, or
right aligned.
This line is right justified.
For columns in a magazine, both sides might be even.
This is called fully justified, or fully aligned.
The text would look
like this if it was
fully justified or
aligned.
These formats can be applied to single paragraphs,
pages or whole documents.
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When you enter text in a word processing document, it
has a size, a style and a font.
Its size is how big it is in points:-
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18
24
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Its style can be :- plain, bold, italics, underlined etc.
Its font is how the text is formed:- Arial, Georgia,
Papyrus
The styles, fonts and sizes you can use depend on the
software and also the printer you have available.
Some fonts are meant for printing, some only look good
on screen.
Some are also larger than others with the same point
value. Which you use is a personal preference.
Different styles etc. can be used for emphasising
text -be careful- you can overdo it.
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Homework / Written Exercise 2
Here is a list of words from Chapter 2
Use them to complete the sentences below
Left justified
right justified
full justification font
style
emphasis
alignment
points
centred
1
The way text is formed is called the _______.
2
Headings are often _________.
3
Justification is another word for ___________.
4
_____________ text is even on the left.
5
The size of text is measured in _________.
6
_____________ text is even on the right.
7
The _______ of text can be bold, italics etc.
8
_____________ text is even on both sides.
9
Changing styles etc can help with __________
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WP 3 Page Layout
In this chapter you will learn about the following:• changing a page from portrait to landscape
• changing the size of a page
• changing the margins of a page
When you have entered your text the next stage is to save
and then to print.
Usually, this print will be portrait.
This means it runs this way
Sometimes you might want your page to run this way
This is called landscape and you can easily change
from one to the other in the Page Setup.
This dialogue box will also let you change the size of
paper you are using.
This is especially useful for us, in the UK, because a lot
of software is written for the American market and their
paper is a different size - called US letter.
Every page has four margins - top, bottom, left and
right
These can be altered to suit your own preference.
Exercise
Use a ruler to find out the margins on this page
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Left ________
Right
________
Top ________
Bottom
________
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Homework / Written Exercise 3
Answer the following questions , in sentences.
1
In which two layouts can a page be printed?
2
Explain the difference between portrait and
landscape.
3
Where do you change from portrait to
landscape?
4
What else can be changed in the page setup?
5
Why might a user want to change paper size?
6
How many margins does a page have?
7
Where are these margins?
8
What are the default settings for the margins on
the word processing software you are using
a) in school
b) at home
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End of Section Questions
1
A head teacher is using her computer to prepare a
note for staff at her school.
a)
b)
What kind of applications package should
the head teacher use to prepare her note?
The head teacher wishes to make three
changes to the note as shown below.
From: Head Teacher
of
To: Heads/\ Department (Maths, Computing,
Gaelic).
Subject: Prelims
h
Teachers of John Smith please note that be
will miss the prelim exams due to a family
bereavement.
Please arrange for him to sit them at a later
date.
Complete the following sentences by choosing the
choosing the words from the list below.
inserted amended deleted
The word of should be
__________
The word Gaelic should be
__________
The b in the word be should be _________ to
an h.
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Angus used a word processor to design a poster
for a local dance.
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Grand Dance
Glenaber Village Hall
September 12th 1999
8.30pm
Entry £6.50
refreshments
Suggest three things that he can do to improve
the appearance of the text of the poster.
3
Catriona suggests that Angus’s poster would look
better in landscape and with wider margins.
Explain what he means by the two terms in bold.
4
Eilidh has written a six page essay for her English
assignment.
a)
What should she add to stop her hardcopy
becoming mixed up?
Her teacher decides to publish a section of Eilidh’s
assignment in the school magazine.
b)
Which alignment style would you
recommend and why?
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General Purpose Packages
WP 4 Document Editing 1
In this chapter you will learn about the following:• Spell checking
• Grammar checking
Often when we enter text we misspell words because we
hit the wrong key.
Within the word processing software is a facility to deal
with this type of errors.
It is called spell checking.
The spell checker has a list of correctly spelled words in
its dictionary. When a document is checked, the
software compares each word you have typed to words
in this dictionary.
If a match is found the word is “passed”, if not, an error
message is shown. This is usually accompanied by a list
of possible alternatives.
The user can then either…
1. Choose one of the alternatives
2. Enter their own alternative
3. Leave the word as it is and do nothing
4. Leave the word as it is and add it to the dictionary
People’s names, addresses, technical words etc can be
added to a dictionary, but so can mistakes.
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Word Processing
Errors in the sentence caused by typing a word twice or
use of homophones (to, too, two etc.) may “pass” - there
is no substitute for proof reading the document by
another person.
It is also best to check the dictionary selected is UK and
not USA.
Grammar checks work in a similar way - picking out
badly phrased English and offering better phrasing. A
style of writing, such as formal or casual, can be chosen.
However, they can be very picky.
Homework / Written Exercise 4
Answer the following questions , in sentences.
1
Explain how a spellcheck works.
2
What type of errors might a spellcheck detect, that
you would not class as an error?
3
How can the user remedy this problem?
4
What type of errors will the spellcheck allow
through that you would want to eliminate?
5
How can the user remedy this problem?
6
What does a grammar check offer the user?
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General Purpose Packages
WP 5 Document Editing 2
In this chapter you will learn about the following:• Looking for a word in a document
• Changing a word throughout a document
• Choosing when to change a word in a document
If you want to find a specific word or phrase in a
document you use the search facility.
Once you have found this word or phrase you may wish
to change it. There are two ways to do this - a global
change or a selective change.
If you want to change every occurrence of a word in a
document you use a global change.
If you want to be able to decide whether or not to make
a change at each occurrence of a word in a document
you use a selective change.
Both of these have advantages and disadvantages.
If the hero in a novel is to have their name changed a
global change is very quick.
However, many words in English occur within others
and then a selective change may be a better idea.
For example
I have booked a 14 day holiday in July.
After a global change would become
I have booked a 14 night holinight in July.
In practise, you will use a combination of both.
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Homework / Written Exercise 5
Answer the following questions , in sentences.
1
What word is used to mean finding a word or
phrase in a document?
2
Which type of change will automatically change all
occurrences of a word or phrase?
3
What does a selective change allow the user to do?
4
State an advantage of global changes.
5
State an advantage of selective changes.
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WP 6 Document Editing 3
In this chapter you will learn about the following:• Standard paragraphs
• Adding a page break
In long, legal documents like insurance policies
standard paragraphs are often used.
These are written beforehand, contain the correct
language level or style, typed up and checked for errors.
Then they are stored in a library file.
This means they can added to a document very quickly
without having to worry about legal jargon, spelling and
so on. (The original creator may have a far higher
knowledge of the subject area than the person putting
the final document together.)
As we type, the word processing software will fill a page
and when it is full start a new one automatically.
This can leave a single line of a paragraph at the bottom
of one page or the top of the next. This is very awkward
to read.
To avoid this happening the typist can force a page
break at the beginning of a paragraph from within the
software.
This will move the entire paragraph to the next page.
Forcing page breaks are also used to start new chapters.
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Homework / Written Exercise 6
Answer the following questions , in sentences.
1
When might a standard paragraph be used?
2
Where will a standard paragraph be stored?
3
Why would you use a standard paragraph?
(Give 2 reasons)
4
What does ‘forcing a page break’ mean?
5
Why would you force a page break?
(Give 2 reasons)
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General Purpose Packages
WP 7 Document Layout
In this chapter you will learn about the following:• Importing a table
• Making your own table using tab
In a business report a table of figures or information
may be required.
Usually this will have been created already in the
spreadsheet or database.
Instead of wasting time retyping the table, it can be
imported and then formatted in the word processor.
If you wish to add a table of figures or information
directly onto a document you can use the tab key at the
top left of the keyboard.
When you press this key, the text cursor will move a
preset distance across your screen. If this spacing does
not suit your purpose, you can simply select/ highlight
the text and set your own tab spacing from the ruler.
Different tabs stops are used for text and numbers.
Many modern word processors now include a special
facility to create and manage a table within a
document like this…
These are table cells
They can be
of different
widths
They can be of different heights
Cells can be merged together to make wider
or deeper cells to suit your layout
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Homework / Written Exercise 7
Answer the following questions , in sentences.
1
Why might you import a table of figures or
information?
2
How do set your own tab spacing in a document?
End of Section Question
1
Hanan runs a business to organise parties for
people. She is responsible for organising the
invitations, the location and food.
Hanan helps customers to choose some of the
wording for their invitations from a collection of
standard paragraphs.
a)
What is meant by a standard paragraph?
Hanan has typed out the invitation for a children’s
party. She has typed “Cocoa the Clown” several
times in the invitation, then realises that it should
be “Coco the Clown”.
b)
It is possible to change “Cocoa” to “Coco”
throughout the invitation in one operation.
i)
Name the feature that would enable her to do
this.
ii)
Describe how Hanan would use this feature
in this example.
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c)
When Hanan first started her business, each
invitation was produced on a typewriter.
Give one reason why Hanan prefers to use a
word processing package.
Hanan uses the spell check feature in her word
processing program to look for mistakes in the
invitations.
Here are three lines from an invitation which
Hanan has to spell check.
Miss MacKay requests the pleasure of your
company as she celebrates her 25th birthday on
Saturday 18th June 2004. She hops to see you
there.
d)
In line 1, the spell check queries a word spelt
correctly. Which word does it query and why
did the program suggest a possible error
here?
e)
In line 3, the word “hops” should have been
written as “hopes”. Why did the spelling
check not find the error?
f)
Hanan is writing a five page report about her
business.
She makes a hardcopy of the full report. She
then makes changes to the last three pages.
How can Hanan print out only the pages that
have changed?
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g)
What facility of the word processing package
should Hanan use to add details of pricing to
her report?
h)
After the prices have been added, Hanan does
not have enough room for all of the next
paragraph of her report. What would you
advise her to do?
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Credit Only
WP 8 Mail Merging, Templates
And OCR
In this chapter you will learn about the following:• Mail Merging
• Creating a Template
• Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Many businesses send the same letter (called a
standard letter) to all of their customers or potential
customers.
The only differences between one letter and another are
the personal details. These personalised letters are
created using mail merge.
Creating this type of letter requires two applications word processing and database.
The database is created holding all the personal details.
For example: title; name; address; town; postcode.
A letter is then designed on the word processor with
field markers, in appropriate places, to hold the data
from the database.
Finally a mail merge is performed where the field
markers are replaced with the actual field data.
When printed, a personal letter for each customer is
automatically produced, one for each record selected in
the database.
Companies often buy lists of potential customers to
send them a mail shot or junk mail in this way.
In school we use mail merge to produce report cards,
permission letters for trips etc.
Standard Grade Computing Studies
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Templates
A template is an outline document that has been
prepared in advance. It uses a standard layout.
These are used when data has to be entered in a
consistent format from several sources.
Many word processing packages come with a selection
of templates for you to use.
In school we use them for punishment exercises,
homework letters, praise postcards etc.
OCR Software
In business, client details might be entered on a form.
The text from this form, or any other page, can be
converted to a word processed document using a
scanner and optical character recognition
software (OCR).
The text is analysed by the software to look for shapes
of letters. Each time it recognised a shape it stores that
letter in a separate text document.
Any difficult to read fonts, sizes that are too big or too
small or styles like italics may be misinterpreted, as can
certain words - modem may be read as modern.
Handwritten forms are best filled in block capitals,
typed pages are best in a common, plain font at about
size 12.
Once the text document has been created and saved it
can be edited in the same way as any other text
document with the word processor.
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Word Processing
Homework / Written Exercise 8
Answer the following questions , in sentences.
1
Which two types of software are required to create
a standard document?
2
In which piece of software are personal details
entered?
3
How are the positions of this data indicated in the
word processed file?
4
What happens to these when mail merge is
performed?
5
If there are 80 Standard Grade students in S3,
how many merges do I have to perform to print
each one a report card?
6
How to companies obtain lists of potential clients?
7
What is a template?
8
Why are templates used?
9
State two examples of the use of templates.
10
State the hardware required for OCR.
11
State three types of mistake that OCR software
might make when reading a document.
12
When might you use OCR?
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End of Section Questions
1
Bank of Bishopbriggs asks customers to complete
applications forms as shown below.
Bank Account Application Form
(Please complete this form in block capitals)
NAME:
ADDRESS:
POSTCODE:
TELEPHONE NUMBER
ACCOUNT APPLIED FOR
The information on the forms can be entered
into the bank’s computer using Optical
Character Recognition.
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a)
Name the hardware device that is required
for Optical Character Recognition.
b)
What is meant by “Optical Character
Recognition”.
c)
Why is it necessary for the form to be
completed using block capitals?
d)
What name is given to this type of form?
e)
Why is this type of form used?
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2
Bishopbriggs Travel keeps information on hotels
all over Scotland. Every year they contact hotels
individually to see if any of their details have
changed. The letters are all similar, with just the
entries for each hotel changing.
Outline three steps required in the production of
these letters so as to minimise the work involved.
3
Iona is a secretary for a software development
company. She sends out many standard letters
to customers.
a)
What is a standard letter?
b)
What is the name of the process in which
information from a datafile is inserted into
the standard letter?
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