Understanding Wordprocessing Lessons

Open, close a word processing application. Open, close documents. To start Writer, click on the ‘Start’ button on your Windows machine. Click on ‘All Programs’ and then go to the ‘LibreOffice’ folder in the list of all programs which gets displayed. Click on the ‘LibreOffice’ folder and then click on ‘LibreOffice Writer’. This will start…

Set basic options/preferences in the application: user name, default folder to open, save documents. To set the basic options in the Writer application, click on ‘Tools’ from the main menu bar. From the resulting drop-down, click on ‘Options’. This will open the ‘Options’ dialog box. In the ‘Options’ dialog box, under ‘LibreOffice’, in ‘User Data’…

Enter Text Switch between page-view modes. Writer has three ways to view a document: Print Layout, Web Layout, and Full Screen. To change the view, go to ‘View’ from the main menu bar and click on the required view from the resulting drop-down menu. Print Layout is the default view in Writer. Enter text into…

Edit content by entering, removing characters, words within existing text, by over-typing to replace existing text. To edit content by entering or removing characters or words within existing text, select the text which you want to remove and replace. After this type the new text values. The new text will automatically take place of the…

Change text formatting: font sizes, font types. To change the font size and the font type of the text in a document, right-click anywhere on the document text area and from the resulting menu, click on ‘Edit Paragraph Style’. This will open the ‘Paragraph Style’ dialog box. In this dialog box, under the ‘Font’ tab,…

Create, merge paragraph(s). Paragraphs are very important for the formatting of any document. Paragraphs create proper divisions among the different parts of text and make it look more presentable. In order to create a paragraph, simply insert a line break in the text at the point where you want to divide the text into two…

Recognize good practice in aligning text: use align, indent, and tab tools rather than inserting spaces. While aligning text in a document, it is always advisable to use the different alignment and indentation tools instead of inserting spaces into the document. This is because when we insert spaces into a document, we actually create a…

Recognize good practice in paragraph spacing: apply spacing between paragraphs rather than use the Return key. When creating new paragraphs, it is always advisable to apply appropriate spacing between paragraphs instead of using the return key. This is because when we use the return key more than once to provide spacing between paragraphs, we create…

Add, remove bullets, numbers in a single level list. Switch between different standard bullet and number styles in a single level list. To add bullets or numbers in a single level list, we need to use the same ‘Paragraph’ dialog box which we have been using in the previous sections. In this dialog box, under…

Apply an existing character style to selected text. A character style is a template which is used to define the styling for a character in LibreOffice Writer. A character style can be applied to a character and the character will take up the styling properties defined by that character style. To apply an existing character…

Create a table ready for data insertion. In LibreOffice Writer, we can insert a table into the document. To insert a table, click on ‘Table’ from the main menu bar and from the resulting drop-down menu, click on ‘Insert Table’. This will open the ‘Insert Table’ dialog box. After this, click on the ‘Character Styles’…

Modify column width, row height. To modify column width or row height, click once on any one of the cells of the concerned column or row. After this, click on ‘Table’ from the main menu bar and from the resulting drop-down click on ‘Autofit’. From the resulting menu, click on ‘Column Width’ or ‘Row Height’.…

Insert an object (picture, image, chart, drawn object) to a specified location in a document. To insert an object like an image or a chart to a specific location in a document, first of all bring the text pointer to that location by clicking at that location once. Now click on ‘Insert’ from the main…

Change document orientation: portrait, landscape. Change paper size. In order to change the document orientation and paper size, click on the ‘Format’ button from the main menu bar. Click on ‘Page…’ button from the resulting drop-down. This gives the ‘Page Style’ dialog box. In this dialog box, under the ‘Page’ tab, the ‘Paper Format’ options…

Recognize good practice in adding new pages: insert a page break rather than using the Return key. When adding new pages, it is always better to use a page break rather than using the return key. This is considered as a best practice while working with any word processing software. This is because when we…

Add, edit text in headers, footers. To add text in the header or footer of a document, first of all click on ‘Insert’ from the main menu bar and from the resulting drop-down menu, click on ‘Header’ or ‘Footer’ to insert a header or a footer respectively. Both these options will give a sub-menu having…

Spell check a document and make changes like: correcting spelling errors, deleting repeated words. To spell check a document, click on ‘Tools’ from the main menu bar and from the resulting drop-down menu, click on ‘Spelling and Grammar’. This will open the ‘Spelling and Grammar’ dialog box. This dialog lists all the incorrect words in…

Preview a document. To preview a document, click on ‘File’ from the main menu bar and from the resulting drop-down menu, click on ‘Print Preview’. This will open the preview display of the document as has been shown below. To close the preview, click on ‘Close Preview’. Print a document from an installed printer using…