When you open the ClarisWorks program, you get a dialog box which asks you what kind of document you'd like to start: if you want to start a new word-processing document, you click on Word Processing and then on OK.
When you already have ClarisWorks open, you can start a new document at any time by selecting New from the File menu.
You can have several documents open at the same time, and swap to a different one by clicking somewhere in the other document window (if you can see it!) or by selecting the document's filename from the bottom of the View menu, where the document names get added on as you open them.
When you have more than one document open,OK: you have the blank page open in front of you. In the title bar, it's called untitled, because you haven't saved it to your hard or floppy disk and given it a filename.
you can also choose from theViewmenu toStack Windows
(so they're all behind the front one, the one you're working on)
or toTile Windows
(so you can see all of them, but in smaller windows -- good for comparing smaller documents, or for cutting and pasting between documents, but usually too small for ongoing work).
It doesn't matter what you write, in word processing.
There are no 'mistakes', no big problems, because you can always change something or fix it up.
When you start writing, you'll notice that the letters are a particular shape and size.
That font is usually Helvetica, point size 12. You can change that anytime:
Edit menu to highlight everything in that document (this also has a keyboard shortcut)[Of course, you can click your cursor in front of something and then hold the button down and drag to the end of the text you want, but the shortcuts above are very useful.] Then you can change your text, anyway you like.
In the Font menu you can choose another font, and keep checking out the appearance of your text until you find the font you want.
'Sans serif' fonts, with no taggy bits on the letters (e.g. Courier), are best used for headings, because they stand out.
'Serif' fonts, with taggy bits that lead the eye from one letter to another (e.g. Palatino), are best for bodies of text; they are more readable.
You can have a lot of fun experimenting with fonts, and getting new ones, but usually you settle down to a few favourites.
With your text still selected, you can choose different sizes in the Size menu.
12 point is normal reading size, and something larger helps for titles and headings.
A poster will need to be in larger point size, since people will have to read it from further away, and people who use reading glasses (like me) and people who are learning to read (like my seven-year-old) are more comfortable with 14-pt (large print) for normal text.
It all depends on who will be reading your writing.
With your text still selected, you can also change the style of the letters, by choosing from the options in the Style menu.
Normal typing is Plain Text.
You can choose more than one option at once, e.g. bold and italic : bold and italic.
Different styles are more useful for titles and headings, as they distract the eye when reading a whole body of text.
However, the occasional bold or underlined or italic word does help you give a word importance in what you are trying to say (emphasis).
You'll notice that the commonly-used styles also have keyboard shortcuts, so you don't have to zoom your mouse up from the text all the time.
If your finger slipped or you chose something you didn't want -- whatever happened, don't panic!!
You can go to the Editmenu and select Undo.
Undo is wonderful -- we need something like it in everyday life!
Undo will take back the last thing you did or command you chose, just one thing.
Some complex things can't be undone, but generally in word processing, including drawing and graphics, each step can be undone.
So as soon as you do something you're not happy with, STOP (aside from jumping up and down and swearing if that helps).
Take a deep breath, and Undo.
Since we all make mistakes or stuff up from time to time, it's no surprise that Undo has a keyboard shortcut ;-)
If you want to change something you've written, that's the best thing about word processors. You can change anything.
Just select a word or portion of text, to change the Font or Size or Style.
When it is selected, you can write in something else, without needing to delete it first.
If you do want just to get rid of it, select it and hit the delete/backspace key.
You can always click your mouse in anyplace in the document where you want to change something, and insert spaces or extra lines or letters or words, or delete spaces or extra lines or letters or words.
Everything can be moved around.
One of the most time-saving ways of moving things around is to use the Clipboard.
This is a piece of memory in the computer which is kept for remembering things you need to set aside, temporarily or for longer.
Quite often people store addresses and bits of information in it, which they might need to get out sometimes.
In that case, you need to Paste the information into the Clipboard.
But for temporary use...let's say you have written:
Because they'd been down the river, the kids were pretty muddy.You can select "the kids were pretty muddy", go to the
Edit menu and choose Cut Edit menu and choose Paste.the kids were pretty muddy. Because they'd been down the river,
You can cut, copy and paste letters, words or whole paragraphs (not to mention drawings or graphics) within your document or between different documents.
So you can Cut or Copy something (so it's still there, but a copy of it goes onto the Clipboard) and Paste it as many times as you like
So you can Cut or Copy something (so it's still there, but a copy of it goes onto the Clipboard) and Paste it as many times as you like
So you can Cut or Copy something (so it's still there, but a copy of it also goes onto the Clipboard) and Paste it as many times as you like
but you get the idea ;-)
Cut, Copy and Paste also have keyboard shortcuts, and can be used anywhere there is text, with graphics, and in many different programs.
If only it worked with Tim Tams!
As always, when you cut out or delete an area of words and spaces
(a space is still a keyboard character, and a whole line of spaces is still a whole line of characters as far as the computer is concerned)the rest of the text moves up to fit; and when you paste in an area of words and spaces, the rest of the text moves down to fit.
When you type on the page, it starts on the left-hand side, goes as far as it can fit in, then moves onto the next line.
You don't have to 'return' it to the next line, like a typewriter.
A computer will wrap the text around to fit in the page.
You can put in whole lines of space by hitting Return again, and space your document out the way you want it to be.
You can also set the text out the way you want it.
First of all, you can centre a heading or title, for example.
You select the heading or title, then align it to the centre.
In ClarisWorks, you have a text ruler at the top of your page, so once you have selected the text you want positioned in the centre, you just click on the button in the ruler which shows all the lines spreading out from the centre.
Of course, you can still align or justify your text from the left
or from the right
Justifying or alignment (lining things up on the left, centre or right) is very handy for setting out your document, and can also be used with drawing objects like boxes (e.g. a flow chart) and with graphics.
It can be very useful to be able to put identifying information at the top and/or bottom of each page of your document:
e.g. title, name, page number.
To create a header at the top of each page, go to the Format menu and choose Insert Header.
Inside the header, which appears at the top of your page, write what you want.
The writing usually appears in bold, but of course you can highlight and change the text to any Font, Size and Style you want.
You can also align the header information to the left, centre or right.
It is a good idea to hit one or more Returns after your Header info, so the rest of the page isn't crowded up against it.
For a Footer, at the bottom of the page, go to the Format menu, and choose Insert Footer.
Inside the footer, which appears at the bottom of your page, write what you want.
The writing usually appears in italic, but of course you can highlight and change the text to any Font, Size and Style you want.
You can also align the footer information to the left, centre or right.
It is useful to have your page number in your footer, so put your cursor after anything you have written in the footer, and go to the Edit menu and choose Insert Page # (# meaning number).
A dialog box comes up, asking you if you want to start at number 1 (which you usually do), and if you want to have normal numbers (or Roman numerals or abc or whatever); usually you just say OK to the way it comes up, which is: start at 1, normal numbers.
and if you're on page 1, the number 1 in italic, 1, appears where your cursor was.
To move the page number over to the right of the page, put your cursor before it, and hit the Tab key until it is just right (delete/backspace to go back one).
Just right?
Now your pages will be automatically numbered!
As with the Header, you don't want the information at the bottom of the page crowding down against your Footer, so put your cursor before your Footer information, and hit the Return key once or twice, which makes 'white space' between the Footer and the page text.
You can change the information in your Header and/or Footer at any time.
There is no anguish like that of someone who has forgotten to save to disk, what s/he has written.
Whether it's a letter, an essay, some homework, a poem, a recipe, a newsletter, creative writing or business, even if it's just part of your document, it's your time and effort, and you don't want to waste it by not saving it.
The Save command in the File menu does the same thing in any program.
The first time you choose it, for an untitled piece of work, it asks you to name the work, tell the computer where you want to store it, and sometimes what kind of filetype you want it to be.
Once you have done that, the computer has set aside a portion of memory for your work (it has to assign a filename to that portion of memory, to keep it for your work), and will only change what's in that memory if you make changes to the document and then Save them, or if you choose to Delete/Trash that file.
Saved work is indeed safe, provided your computer is safe.
Dangers to your computer include children meddling with your work, programs which cause system crashes, power fluctuations, and fire or other damage.
There is software which will encrypt or lock files (protecting them from others), and it is very unwise not to have a good quality surgebuster plugboard protecting all your computer equipment from power problems, but most of all you need to backup any files you would not want to use.
See Starting out on the Internet for information on safeguarding your computer,
and glossary (part 2): information storage for information on disk drives and backing up.
Once you've got your document set up and started, it's a good idea to Save it for the first time.
Then, if you're called away to the phone or the toilet or the front door, and the power fails or a child starts to play with the keyboard, your document has been Saved, and you can open it again when you next get a chance.
I once lost a whole paragraph of a short story (I was most definitely called away to the toilet)(this is a real-life article!) when the power failed, not uncommon as we all know {grrr}.
I wrote another paragraph, but I could never remember exactly what I had written before, so the story wasn't the same!
Anyone who word-processes regularly will have a similar sad story that taught them to Save early and Save often!
As you continue with your document, you Save again at intervals (Save has a keyboard shortcut), say after each paragraph or half-page; more frequently if what you are doing is difficult and is taking a long time.
After the first time, choosing Save again just changes the Saved file, because the computer already knows what you want to call it and where you want to put it.
If you want to Save another copy of your document, maybe with different formatting or information, or maybe in a different place, with a different name or filetype, you use the Save As... command from the File menu.
Save As changes the name
(because if you give another file the same name, you're giving away the first file's storage space which belongs to that name)
When you Save or Save As a ClarisWorks document, it gives you the option to save as a normal document (a one-off) or as Stationery.
Now Stationery is a very useful thing.
It means that if you always use the same Font and Style and beginning and ending on your letters, you can set a document up that way, then Save it as Stationery (in the ClarisWorks Stationery Folder) as, say "Personal Letter".
Then next time you want to write a letter, you open a New file, and you'll notice that the dialog box that asks you what kind of New file you want (word processing, spreadsheet etc) also has a little pop-down menu for Stationery.
There are some useful templates there already, but your "Personal Letter" will now be on the menu.
You choose it, and it opens with all the information you now don't have to write in again.
When it's time to Save your individual letter, you Save it normally, and your Stationery letter is unchanged, stays all setup and waiting for the next time.
At one stage I had a personal letter Stationery file, with my address in a box at the top (colours, too!), other details in a footer, my favourite Font all started... very handy.
For study, you can have the requirements of your particular work all setup in a Stationery file:
Format menu, choose Document)and you're all ready to start your work, without fiddling around with the way the document is supposed to look.
You can create all sorts of Stationery documents, experiment with the sample ones included with ClarisWorks, and delete from the Stationery Folder any you don't want.
You can put borders (edgings) around titles, headings, pictures, or anything you want to make stand out, as long as the border doesn't distract the eye from the text.
Design rule of thumb for borders is:
don't make your border any thicker than the small "l" in the font you are using.
Clip art (etc.) collections have lots of different page borders to use, from vine leaves around the edge of the page to an open scroll, but it's up to you to choose something which is suitable for the message you are trying to get across.
To use a page border for your whole page:
View menu, choose Show Toolsthese tools take up very little room: unless you are 'just typing', it really is handy to have them out in the open
The pointer is for selecting and dealing with objects: things you put onto and move around your page, and adjust in size.
The capital A symbol is for working on the text - it gives you back your normal dog-bone-on-end shaped typing cursor.
The thick cross shape is for working on a spreadsheet inside your document
and the paintbrush is for painting!
You will notice that when you choose a different tool, you will get additional menus or menu opions to work with it.
File menu, choose InsertIf your borders are on a floppy or CD, you need to go to the Desktop, open that disk, and find the border.
If they are on your hard disk, you will need to backtrack through folders (pressing down your mouse button over the name of the folder the computer is showing you, shows you the next ones up, so you can weave your way up and down through folders until you find the one you want).
InsertArrange menu, choosing Transform then Scale by percent: you can make the picture half its size right now (50% both ways), twice its size right now (200% both ways) or whatever you want; you can keep experimenting until it is right for youFont, Size and Style, Style-Text Colour, Cut'n'Paste, and generally setting up your writing the way you want it
Of course, you can put a border around a heading, for example, or around a picture.
In this case, the border is simply a line, which will not distract from what's inside.
that's because white is the default (set or usual) colour for a box
You can also experiment with making boxes with different shadings from that middle pop-out menu under the Paint-bucket.
Then you can select A in Tools, hold down the Option key and draw a Text box inside your shaded box.
Write what you want inside it.
To make it readable against the shaded background, click inside the writing, then go to the Edit menu and choose Select All (it will highlight All the writing inside that box).
Choose the Font you want, make it Bold, and as large
This is a bit of a gimmick in some programs, but you will have seen it in older books. It means taking the first letter of a paragraph or document, making it much larger and indenting it into the rest of the text.
Options menu and choose Text Wrap, then choose Regular(meaning that the text, the writing, will wrap itself around the graphic box, making space for it)
Font you are using, then make it much larger,
Your document is formatted in the way you choose: the Font, the Size, the Style, the number of lines between the writing, colours of writing, how big the margins are...
When you choose Document from the Format menu, you get to make choices for the whole document.
You can, if only one paragraph is going to be indented (be further from the left-hand side), make that change manually by highlighting that paragraph and choosing Paragraph from the Format menu.
However, there is a much easier way to have more choices.
On the right-hand side of the text ruler at the top of your document, there is a pop-down menu that gives you a choice of several different formats.
The best way to find out what they do is to experiment: selecting a line or a paragraph, and trying out each format in turn.
Selecting the "body" format always puts it back to what you have chosen for the whole document.
There are dot points (bullets), for example, and a check list, and a numbered list.
When you want to create your own format, you go to the View menu and choose Show Styles.
A small window with all the current styles appears.
You can click on any of these styles, then click Editto see its format choices listed.
You can then change any of those styles to suit yourself.
To create a new Style, click on Custom, then Edit.
You name your Style, then can then choose (with your strange Styles cursor, shaped like an S and pointer together) from all the normal text options in their menus or normal places
(Font, Size, Style (including Text Colour), alignment, number of lines between, Format-Paragraph for indenting [bringing the text in] on either side)
and then click on Done.
Your customized Style now exists in the pop-down menu on your page.
Although your document will just go on making new pages, and scrolling on forever, you can decide where a page will begin or end.
A document is much easier to read if you don't have to follow a sentence from one page to another.
In order to avoid this, you can click your cursor in where you want the page to end (or the new one to begin) and choose Insert Page Break from the Format menu.
You can undo this with Undo, of course, or by using the Delete key to bring the text on the next page back to the previous one.
Page Break does help set out longer documents, and make them easier to read.
If your document becomes complicated, creating Sections is very useful.
Sections are separate parts of your document, which can have their own formats, and not affect the rest of the document.
Where you wish to create a new Section, you click your cursor in at that point, then choose Section from the Format menu.
You can then choose to start the new Section on that next line, or on the next page etc.
You can make choices about margins and the number of columns, which only affect this section.
Having made your choices, and making sure your cursor is right before where you want your new section to begin, choose Insert Section Break from the Format menu.
You can then go back to Section in the Format menu, and make the choices for what comes after the new section.
Then you make sure your cursor is just after the new section, and choose Insert Section Break from the Format menu.
Your section, which may look quite different from the rest of the document, has been done.
Nothing could be easier, particularly now that ClarisWorks comes with its own Libraries of clip art (handy little pictures for pasting in).
Just like with the page-size borders:
Show Tools from the View menu (if they're not already showing)File menu and choose Library, then choose one Library from the pop-out menuFile-Library-pop-out-menu for another choiceUseArrange-Transform-Scale by percentFile menu and choose Insert insteadCopy any image, then go to File-Library-New, and Paste the image into a New Library, which you then Save under a new name: this way you can collect images in your own Libraries, easily accessible from the File menuOptions menu and choose Text Wrap (regular is more usual)Again, this is a bit of a gimmick, because unless you are setting out a newsletter or something where you are really crammed for space, it's much easier for the eye to read right across the page, and not have to skip down through fragmented lines and then up to the top of the page again.
But of course you can do columns.
Format menu and choose Columns.Insert Column Break from the Format menu.Options - Text Wrap around your graphic or drop-cap.Format-Section, choose options, including how many columnsFormat-Insert Section BreakFormat-Section, choose options, including going back to one column (ordinary page) if that's what you want
Format-Insert Section Break
Format - Insert Column Break, if you want to break the columns at a particular point)
When setting out a newsletter, say, with columns, or a poster, or a wide table made with a spreadsheet or database, the normal "portrait", 'standing up' A4 paper isn't as useful.
It's good for normal writing, because the eye gets tired following very long lines across the page; is more used to going across then down.
However, for any setup which stretches across the page, you can go to the File menu and choose Page Setup, then choose the Landscape option, which shows the paper 'lying down'.
The printer will still put it through pointing the same way, but it will print it across the page instead of down it.
Why have a computer and count yourself? It's what they do best. ;-)
You can count the words in a whole document or in a section of a document..
Remember, when counting for study assignments, that quotations (something someone else has written!) do not count towards 'your words', so estimate roughly how many words of your assignment are quotations, then take that total away from the simple computer count-every-word result.
Of course, you can select every quotation and word-count it separately, then add them all up, then deduct that total from your total word count... but we all have lives out there!
For word count of a whole document, go to the Edit and choose Writing Tools, then Word Count.
For word count of a section of a document, select (highlight) the section you want counted, before going to the menu and asking for a word count.
Remember also, that assignment word-requirements are a guide, not an absolute: close enough is OK.
The number of words requested gives you an idea of how much time and research your lecturer/teacher wants you to put into this one assignment:
Learning to manage time and effort in this way helps a lot in all parts of life..
If any of you out there can type out a whole document without making the occasional 'typo' (typing the wrong lerter by mistake, leaving a lettr out, mixing up lettesr), you're way ahead of me!
The word-processor's spellchecker is excellent for typos and obvious spelling mistakes.
It is definitely your first step in checking your document.
Only the first step? Why?
Because a spellchecker can only pick out words which don't match with its dictionary - it won't pick out any word that is a real word, even if it is a mistake.
e.g. spelling chequer, solder (instead of soldier), to instead of too or two, their instead of there...
anything that is a real English word will be accepted and left there.
So the spelling checker is the first stop, and screens out typos and obvious mistakes.
Second step: read it out aloud to yourself -- this slows you down so you notice over-long sentences, missing punctuation, sentences that don't quite make sense or connect up with each other; it just gives you another view.
Third and final step: ask someone else, preferably someone skilled at language and who understands the work you are doing, to read your document over for you -- this gives you not only a check for errors you might not be aware of, but gives you the reader's point of view, highlighting things that might need more explanation, and giving you general feedback.
e.g. "This bit is really good, and I like the way you describe X, but I don't really understand what you mean by Y."
The spellchecker is only a piece of software, and software can only do what its programmers can make it do, and that is limited by the machine brain, which is so much slower and less flexible than the human brain.
The machine brain -- the 'computer' -- it can count, boy can it count! and it can remember stuff that nobody would want to remember, and it can sift through masses of data that would drive us all to distraction... but it can't evaluate how well you express yourself in language.
Grammar checkers are not the answer either, since communication is not all about mathematical rules for word order.
We can use the spellchecker to save time, then use our own abilities, and those of other people, to edit our document and produce something that makes sense to our audience (which is not, strangely enough, a machine).
To spellcheck? Again, you can spellcheck the whole document or a section
(if you want to spellcheck a section, highlight it first):
go to the Edit menu, choose Writing Tools
and then choose Check Document (or Section) Spelling.
The program will stop at each word which is not in its dictionary (you can Cancel out at any time), and you can choose to:
Skip it (if it's a name, for example, which won't come up frequently)
Learn it (the name of your town, for example)
Replace it with one of the alternatives which the program hopefully offers you (rather like a puppy who has dug up several strange things in the backyard and hopes you will like one of them) or
If you click on the little lever at the bottom right-hand corner of the spellcheck window, the window extends and shows you where the word being checked fits into your document, which is very handy for remembering what the word was supposed to be.
Clicking on that little lever again, collapses that part of the window up again.
The program goes through the document word by word, stopping at anything it doesn't recognize, and then says Done, which not only means finished but also that it has Saved the changes for you.
I've got just the right word -- what was it again?
Dammit, I can't think of the word I want!
Another part of Writing Tools (found in the Edit menu) is the Thesaurus.
If you type in and highlight a word that is close to what you want, then select Thesaurus (which also has a keyboard shortcut), it will give you a lot of optional words and suggestions.
You can click on one and then on Replace -- if you don't like that one, highlight it again and go back to the Thesaurus...
Um, I used the word "word" twice in that paragraph, maybe I can find another word to use: (highlighting "word" and looking at Thesaurus)... it gave me a whole stack of options, but "term" is one of them... you can find the right term in the Thesaurus ;-)
[I liked "rumble" better myself, but I think that's to do with "what's the word on the street".]
The Thesaurus is very convenient.
Other helpful commands in the Edit menu are:
Insert Date -- this will put today's date in where you have clicked the cursor;Insert Date in the right place in your letter to be saved as Stationery, and every time you open it, it will indeed be today's date!
Insert Time -- hard to imagine why you would want the exact time popping up in your documents, but it does it!
Insert Footnote -- when you have typed in something that needs a brief reference at the bottom of the page, select Insert Footnote, and ClarisWorks will put a little 1 (or 2 or wherever you're up to) next to that word, and take you straight down to the bottom of that page to note your information next to that same number.ClarisWorks has a number of Assistants, interactive Help modules which guide you through doing new things.
Balloon Help in the Help menu will pop out an explanation of any menu item in ClarisWorks, or any little button or icon.
The hypertext Help in the Help menu will give you information on how to do just about anything with the program.
But the Assistants actually walk you through doing some things.
In a word-processing document, when you choose Assistants from the Help menu, you can get real and active help to:
I wish I could be there with them, watching you make those blank pages on the screen into what you want to do.
But I am here on the end of the email line, so please don't hesitate to yell if you get stuck -- it's always OK to ask for help ;-)
