NOS : Certificate in Computer Applications
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Now you are familiar with the basics of Ms-Word. After invoking Ms-Word, the next step is to create a file or document in which you can work. By default Ms-Word opens a new blank document when you start it. As you have seen from fig. 9.2 in the previous lesson, you noticed a blank work area where you can straight away type your text.

However, let us close this work area by clicking the left mouse button at file on the main menu bar and then at close. The work area will disappear. Now, suppose you want to create a new document.

At the end of the lesson you would be able to do the following functions

• creating a file
• opening an existing file
• insert text in a file
• editing the document
• deletion of text
• copying
• moving
• undo/repeat the last command
• replacing text
• save and exit

You can create a document by clicking on file from the menu bar and then selecting New. Ms-Word will prompt you to choose a document or a template as shown in Fig. 10.1. In Ms-Word there is a keyboard equivalence of each command. In each option of the main menu you notice that an alphabet of that option is underlined (F in file, E in edit, V in view, etc.). If you type that alphabet while pressing the ALT key that particular option is invoked. For example, you can type in Alt+F to open the file option from the main menu.

Choose the default Document and General and then click on OK. A blank document will be displayed where in you can type the text. Ms-Word gives a temporary name to this file as ‘Document 1’, until you save that document with a file name.

Instead of clicking File and New you can directly open a new document by clicking at the NEW icon on the standard tool bar (the first icon on standard tool bar). Ms-word provides the facility that as you take the mouse pointer to a particular icon a message will pop up. For example, as you take the mouse button to the first icon on the standard tool bar, you will suddenly find NEW written there.

After you create a document, you can start typing the required text. The text will appear on the screen at the current location of the cursor. Ms-Word will automatically take care of the right margin of the text. The insertion point moves automatically to the next line. If you want to start a line or paragraph at the middle you have to press Enter key .

Before you start edit, the cursor must be brought to the desired location. Following are a few of the keys that can be used to move around in a document

Press	Name of key(s)	To move cursor to
	Left arrow	Left by one character
	Right arrow	Right by one character
	Up arrow	Up by one line
	Down arrow	Down by one line
Ctrl +	Ctrl and left arrow	Previous word
Ctrl +	Ctrl and right arrow	Next word
Ctrl+Home	Ctrl and Home	Beginning of a line
Ctrl+End	Ctrl and End	End of a line
Page Up	Page Up	Up by one page
Page Down	Page Down	Down by one page

When you enter your text, you are likely to make mistakes. Corrections of these mistakes are called editing. While editing the need may arise to

• Delete a part of the text.
• Move a block of text from one place to another.
• Copy a block of text from one place to other place.

Word provides facilities for all those editing activities but the work rule is to select the text first and then perform the action. Text can be selected using the mouse or the keyboard. The following table illustrates the methods, which basically follows click and drag rule.

10.7 INSERTING, REPLACING AND DELETING CHARACTER

Ms-Word usually inserts characters at the insertion point.

To insert characters, position the cursor at the required point and type them. Word automatically reformats the paragraph and moves words that do not fit on the current line to the next line or form the current page to the next page, as the case may be.

Suppose you have typed some text. Now you want to replace it with some other. What you have to do is to highlight the text by dragging the mouse. Next type in the new material. Ms-Word will overwrite the existing material with the new material.

By pressing either the backspace or the Del key, a character is removed from the document. The Del key deletes a character in the current cursor position while backspace deletes the character to the left of the current cursor position and moves the cursor one position to the left.

Select the block of text to be deleted by dragging through the mouse. Then you can press Del key. Another method is to select Edit from the menu bar and then select clear.

If you want to shift the text from one place to another in the document, you can do so by moving the text. Select the block of the text you want to shift. You can move the text using the toolbar, the menu bar or the drag function.

After you select the text, click on the Cut button in the standard toolbar (the icon with a scissors) and then bring the cursor to the new location where the text has to appear and click on the Paste button in the standard toolbar as shown below :

Select the text to be shifted. Choose the Cut option from the Edit menu. Bring the cursor to the new location where the text has to appear and then choose the Paste option from the Edit menu.

Select the text to be shifted. Click anywhere in the selected text and then drag it to the desired new location and leave it there.

If you want to copy the text from one place to another in the document, you need to highlight the block of the text first. Select the block of the text you want to copy. You can copy the text using the toolbar, the menu bar or the drag function.

After you select the text, click on the Copy button in the standard toolbar and then bring the cursor to the new location where the text has to appear again and click on the Paste button in the standard toolbar as shown in the above Fig.

Select the text to be copied. Choose the Copy option from the Edit menu. Bring the cursor to the new location where the text has to appear and then choose the Paste option from the Edit menu.

Select the text to be copied. Click anywhere in the selected text and then drag into the desired new location and leave it there.

Select the text to be copied as a block and then either you can press the Del key or you can select the Clear option from the Edit menu.

10.10 UNDO-REPEAT

Many times, it is required to undo previous command and also to repeat previous actions. For this you can use the undo and redo options of the edit menu. Undo reverses the changes made in a document.

1. State True or False

1. To open a file, you can type in Alt + F.
2. Instead of clicking File and New you can directly open a new document by clicking at the 'new' icon on the standard tool bar.
3. While deleting a text the need may arise to move a block of text from one place to another.
4. By pressing either the backspace or the Del key a character is removed from the document.
5. If you want to copy the text from one place to another in the document, you need to highlight the block of the text first.

10.11 FIND AND REPLACE TEXT

It is a very standard and powerful feature of any word processor. Ms-Word gives a facility using which any word or text can be searched throughout the document and it can be replaced with the required word or text. To find and replace text, click on Edit from the menu bar. A dialog box as shown in the Fig. 10.5 will be displayed.

Following steps are to be followed to execute Find and Replace command.

• Type the text to be searched. For example, we type NOS if we have to find it.
• Click on Find Next. (This will allow you only to find a text, not to replace it with something else.)
• Click at Replace on the top left hand corner. (You will find another box where you can type the text which will replace the existing text)
• Type the text, which will replace the text.
• Click on Replace or Replace All, as per the requirement.
• Click on close to resume editing.

10.12 SAVE AND EXIT

When you are finished with your document, it will not be stored automatically. In order to save the document on to the disc for future use, you have to click on File from menu bar, and then selecting Save option (Fig. 10.6).

When you save a document for the first time you have to click at Save As. You will find a dialog box as in Fig. 10.7.

Here you have to specify the file name, the directory and the drive in which the document has to be saved. In Fig. 10.7, the file is saved in directory ‘unitrev’, the file name is ‘m2’ and it is saved as a word document. Remember that Ms-Word offers scope to save your file in different modes such as text only, word perfect, earlier versions of Ms-Word, etc. Once you have specified the file name, directory, and document type, you have to click at Save.

When you are working with a document, Ms-Word can save your document, periodically. You have to choose the option of Auto save and its period also. You can enable the Auto save by clicking on Tools from the menu bar and then selecting the Options option. Select the Save button from the dialog box as shown in the Fig. 10.8

Fig. 10.8 Auto Saving

Once you click at Save you will find a screen as given in Fig. 10.8. Here you can specify the time (in minutes) when you want Ms-Word to auto-save the document. In the Fig. 10.8 the time is adjusted to 5 minutes. This means that for the file ‘m2.doc’ the computer will save automatically every 5 minutes. The advantage of auto-save is that in case of a power failure, the work lost is at most of 5 minutes.

At times, you do not want your important documents to be opened by others. Ms-Word offers you the scope of providing a password to open the file. As you can see from Fig. 10.8 there is a separate box where you can type in the password you want to give. Ms-Word will show an asterisk (*) for every alphabet or number. In Fig. 10.8 we have given a password ‘GHXT’; hence the 4 asterisk. Remember that while assigning a password Ms-Word distinguishes between lower case and capital case. So you cannot open a file with password GHXT by typing in ‘ghxt’.

In order to open an existing document you can click on File from menu bar and then choose the Open option. The open file dialog box will be displayed as shown in the Fig. 10.10

Here you can select the directory and the drive from where you have to open the document and then selecting the file name from the file list box and then click on the OK option to open the document.

You can also click on the Open File tool from the standard toolbar to open a document. This will also display the same ‘open file dialog box’ from where you can use the similar steps to open a document.

Once you are finished with your work you need to exit from Ms-Word. This you can do by clicking on the File from the menu bar and then selecting the Exit option. If the document is not currently saved Ms-Word will ask whether to save the file or not by displaying the following dialog box (see Fig. 10.11). You have to click on the option Yes to save the changes. Once you come out of the Word, the Windows screen will be displayed and there you can continue to work on windows or you can exit from Windows and switch off your machine. However, do not switch off your machine without exiting from Ms-Word, this may result in loss of valuable data.

At the end of this lesson you learnt the procedure of creating a new document. Now you are in a position to start typing on the new document and make corrections for the error. Ms-Word can delete a character, word, line or paragraph and replace with required text. Also you can move the selected part of the text to another place by the "cut" and "paste" commands. At the end of the lesson discussed the procedure of saving a document and exit out of Ms-Word.

1. Describe the steps to open a new document.
2. Explain the steps to find the word ‘NOS’ and replacing it by ‘National Open School’.
3. List steps to save a document.
4. How will you open an existing document for editing?

1. (a) True (b) True (c) False (d) True (e) True

1. (a) i (b) iii (c) i

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