Launching a Program-and Printing and Saving a Document

Launching a Program and Printing and Saving a Document

That was fun. Now let's try something a little more productive like creating a short note. We'll use Notepad, which is a basic word processor that's part of Microsoft Windows.

Opening Notepad

To open the Notepad program, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button to display the Start menu.
   
   

2. Click the All Programs button to display the Programs menu.
   
   

3. Click the item labeled Accessories, then click the item labeled Notepad.
   
   

4. The Notepad program now launches in its own window, as shown in Figure 4.6.
   
   

   Figure 4.6. Writing a note with Notepad.

   

   
   

Throughout the rest of this chapter and the book, this type of operation will be combined into a single action, as in "select All Programs, Accessories, Notepad."

Writing Your Note

The blank white space in the middle of the screen is a new Notepad document kind of like a blank sheet of paper. To write a note, position the cursor within the window and type the following text, using your computer keyboard:

 This is my very first note in Notepad. 

Printing Your Note

Now let's print a copy of your note. Make sure your printer is connected to your computer, and then follow these steps:

1. Pull down the File menu and select Print.
   
   

2. When the Print dialog box appears (shown in Figure 4.7), make sure the correct printer is selected in the Select Printer section; then click the Print button.
   
   

   Figure 4.7. Printing a document.

   

   
   

Your printer should now come to life and, after a few moments, spit out a piece of paper. When you look at the paper, you should see your note printed at the top.

Saving Your File

Any document you create needs to be saved to your hard disk; otherwise, it won't exist after you close the program. To save your current note as a new file, follow these steps:

1. Pull down the File menu and select Save As.
   
   

2. When the Save As dialog box appears (shown in Figure 4.8), click the My Documents button on the left side of the dialog box; then type my new file in the File Name box.
   
   

   Figure 4.8. Saving a new file in the My Documents folder.

   

   
   

3. Click the Save button.
   
   

What you've done here is saved your document as a file named my new file. You saved it in the My Documents folder, which is where Windows stores all new documents by default.

Closing the Program

To close Notepad, pull down the File menu and select Exit.