Editing the Document

Text Editing

There are many changes you can perform to your text. You can insert new information, delete old information, cut, copy, and paste text, or correct mistakes you just performed using the Undo feature.

To edit your text, you first have to place the flashing I-beam cursor at the location where you want to make the change. The flashing I-beam cursor is exactly what the name implies: An I-beam that flashes at a certain location of your text, indicating the point where the change will take place. Thus, every time you want to perform a change in your text, the first thing you have to do is placing the cursor at the appropriate location.

There are two ways you can move the cursor: You can either use the mouse to point and click at a certain location, or the arrow keys to move the flashing cursor up, down, right, and left.

Delete

Sometimes, either because you accidentally made mistakes or because you changed your mind about what you have written you will want to delete text.

• Pressing the Delete key will delete the character to the left of the cursor.
• Pressing the del key will delete the character to the right of the cursor.

In many cases, however, you will want to delete a whole sentence, paragraph, or even a number of pages of your document. In these cases, deleting one character at a time is time consuming. Instead of pressing and holding the Delete key:

1. Click and hold where you want to start highlighting text.
2. Drag the mouse through the text.
3. Release the mouse where you want to stop highlighting text.
4. Press the Delete or del key.

Note: If you press and hold the Delete key, Word will keep deleting text until you release the key.

Select All

Word also allows you to perform a change in the whole document at once, no matter how long it is. In some cases you will want to highlight the whole document in order to perform a change (e.g., a change in the font, line spacing, etc). In such cases, Word facilitates the process with the Select All feature. Thus, if you need to highlight the whole document at once, simply:

Choose Select All from the Edit menu.

Insert

While you are typing your text, you will often need to correct simple errors, such as misspelling of a word, or you may want to add new information to the text. To do this:

1. Place the cursor where you want to insert new text.
2. Begin typing.

Cut and Paste

While you view your document you may decide you either want to add some information, or that some information is redundant and should be deleted, or certain information should be moved/copied to other sections of the document. Word enables you to perform all these operations.

To move or relocate text within your document, do the following:

1. Highlight the text you want to move.
2. Choose Cut from the Edit menu. Word moves the highlighted text into its Clipboard (memory). where you want the text pasted.
3. Choose Paste from the Edit menu.

Word relocates the highlighted text back into your document.

You can also use this method to move text from one document into another. Once information is in the Clipboard, simply Open another document or application and Paste the text within it.

Copy and Paste

To duplicate text within your document, do the following:

1. Highlight the text you want to duplicate.
2. Choose Copy from the Edit menu. Word duplicates the highlighted text into its Clipboard.
3. Place the cursor where you want text to be duplicated.
4. Choose Paste from the Edit menu.

Word places a duplicate of the copied text back into your document.

Undo

Word gives you the option of correcting your mistakes, but only if you don't wait too long. If you change your mind about something you've just done, or accidentally delete something, you can Undo the mistake for most Word features. To undo your mistake:

Choose Undofrom the Edit menu.

However, you must Undo all mistakes immediately. Do not press any additional keys or continue any other tasks. Word only remembers the very last thing you do.

NOTE: Word will undo your mistake as long as the Undo feature is accessible. If Undo is not accessible, Word will say Can't Undo.

Character Formatting

You have probably noticed these boxes at the top of Word's editing screen:

They will aid you in formatting characters in your document.

Font

A font is a unique group or collection of alphabetical and numeric characters, plus several special symbols (#, $, @, etc.). The concept of fonts comes from the typesetting environment.

Character format options include changes in the font, size, style, case, and position within a line. Making these changes is very simple. The main thing to remember is that in order to change text, text must be highlighted.

To highlight something means to 'select' it. To make character format changes you might first highlight the text you wish to change by dragging the mouse through the text. To make changes in your text, follow the procedure below:

1. Highlight the text you wish to change.
2. Click on the button or select the menu item of your choice (see options below).

   

Note: If you make a character or a paragraph format change while typing, the format change is maintained until you change it again.

Case Change

Word 5.0 offers a new Change Case command which allows you to convert the case of text in your document. In order to change the case of text, do the following:

• Choose Change Case from the Format menu.

When the following dialog window appears, you have several choices:

• Click on UPPERCASE to convert the highlighted text to all uppercase letters.
• Click on lowercase to convert the highlighted text to all lowercase letters.
• Click on Title Case to capitalize the first letter of each word.
• Click on Sentence case to capitalize the first letter of the first word in each sentence.
• Click on tOGGLE cASE to reverse the case of highlighted text. Uppercase letters will become lowercase and lowercase letters will become uppercase.

Paragraph Formatting

This section will explain the following group of symbols:

Paragraph formatting options include line spacing, line justification, and tabs and indents. The process of changing the format of a paragraph is very similar to that of changing the format of characters. The main difference is that, instead of selecting the entire section of text you wish to change, you only need to have the cursor in the paragraph you wish to modify. Do the following:

1. Place the I-beam cursor in the paragraph you wish to modify.
2. Click on the button or select the menu item of your choice.

If you wish to modify a number of adjacent paragraphs you do need to make sure that at least part of every paragraph that you wish to change is highlighted.

Below are the paragraph formatting options available to you from the Ruler:

• Word by default left justifies your document. This is indicated by the highlighted left alignment icon on the Ribbon bar. Whenever you want your text to be left justified you have to make sure this icon is highlighted.

• Text which has been typed can be centered. This feature is very useful when you want to type headings, the title of your paper, etc. To center your text, click on the centered alignment icon.

• Right alignment text is a creative way of presenting correspondence with a special look. You may have seen it on greeting cards, and on poetry. To right align your text click on the right alignment icon.

• If you want your text to have equal margins in both sides you have the choice of applying justification. To justify your text, click on the justified icon.

Tabs & Indents

Tabs

Like a typewriter, a word processor utilizes "tab stops". When you press tab in Word, your cursor will move to the next tab stop. Like the typewriter, you can set the tab stops wherever you want along the ruler. In addition to this, Word sets "default" tab stops at every half inch. Therefore, if you just type tabs, you will move the cursor to the right every half inch.

To set a tab at a specific spot, follow this procedure:

1. Place the cursor in the paragraph (or highlight at least part of every paragraph you want to effect)
2. Click on the tab icon of your choice (see below for descriptions)
3. Click on the ruler where you would like that tab to be placed.

Indents

Your document has margins (e.g., top, bottom, left, right). But within those document margins (see next section, Document Format) you can tell one or more paragraphs to use different margins. For instance, block quotes usually need to be indented and your bibliography needs to have what they call a "hanging indent" (the first line is flush left and it scrolls indented).

These paragraph formatting options can most effectively be accomplished by using the indent markers. These indent markers look like triangles at the ends of the ruler. You'll notice that the left side has two little triangles instead of one larger triangle like the left side. This is because you can have Word scroll text to a different position from where it starts. For instance

To change the way a paragraph's margins and scrolling look, do the following:

1. Place cursor in paragraph (or highlight at least part of every paragraph you want to effect)
2. Adjust the indent markers (hold down shift to move scroll indent marker independent of the first line indent marker).

Document Format

Page Orientation

Word enables you to change the orientation of the pages of your document. To do this:

1. Choose Page Setup from the File menu.
2. Click on the wide/landscape icon.

   

3. Click on OK or press the Return key.

The orientation of the pages of your document has changed. You can verify this in Print Preview.

Document margins

Sometimes you will want to present your document with margins different from the ones Word uses as default. Margins in your document can become narrower or wider, depending on what you instruct Word to do for you. To change the top, bottom, left, and right margins of your document, do the following:

1. Choose Document from the Format menu. A Document window will appear giving you access to changing each margin.

   

2. Use the Tab key or click with the mouse to move from field to field within this window. Measurement changes must be made in inches using decimals for any fraction of an inch.
3. After you have performed the measurement changes, click OK.
4. Check the Ruler bar for the triangle guides which designate the left and right margins.

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