Giving Instructions Using the Mouse and Keyboard


Now that you know how to select text, let s discuss how to tell an Office program what to do with the selection. You can give instructions to programs by choosing commands from menus , by clicking buttons on toolbars , and by pressing keyboard keys in combinations known as shortcuts .

Using Menu Bar Commands

As with other Windows programs, all the commands you use in the Office programs are arranged on menus, which are in turn arranged on the menu bar that sits below the title bar of each program window. The menus are designed so that once you become familiar with the location of the commands in one Office program, you know where to find the same or similar commands in any other Office program.

Because the procedure for choosing menu options is the same for all Windows programs, we assume that you are familiar with it. If you are a new Windows user , we suggest that you spend a little time becoming familiar with the mechanics of menus, commands, and dialog boxes before proceeding.

start sidebar
Different Word views

Word offers several views in which to look at your work, depending on the particulars of the document you are working on. Print Layout view shows you how your document appears page by page. If you will eventually print the document you are working on, you will usually want to work in Print Layout view so that you can see how the document s pages will look when printed. However, if the document is long, Normal view might be a better choice because of its faster scrolling and simpler display. When you are working on documents that you will publish on the Internet or an intranet, you might want to use Web Layout view, and when you are working with an outlined document, you will look at the outline in Outline view. You can switch between views using the view buttons to the left of the horizontal scroll bar or by clicking the appropriate command on the View menu.

end sidebar
 
Information about  

Customizing toolbars, page 15

Office programs go beyond these basics by determining which commands you will most likely use and adjusting the display of commands on each menu to reflect how you use the program.

As a quick example, we ll run through the steps for choosing a command and do some useful exploring at the same time. Follow these steps:

  1. On the menu bar, click View to open the View menu.

    A chevron (a set of down-pointing arrows) at the bottom of the menu indicates that one or more commands are hidden because they are not ones most people use frequently.

  2. Continue pointing to the word View .

    The chevron disappears, and the menu expands to display all the available commands, as shown in this graphic:

    click to expand

    You can also display hidden commands by clicking the chevron.

    In all Office programs, the View menu provides commands for customizing the screen display, but the actual commands vary from program to program. Notice that the icon next to the Print Layout command appears pressed, indicated that Print Layout is the page view currently in effect. Choosing the Normal, Web Layout, or Outline command puts that view into effect and deactivates Print Layout.

  3. On the View menu, click Ruler to hide the rulers.

    Word hides the horizontal ruler located at the top of the workspace and the vertical ruler located on the left side of the document window.

    When the rulers are hidden, you can temporarily view the horizontal ruler by pointing to the top of the workspace. The ruler expands and remains visible as long as the pointer is over it. When you move the pointer away from it, the ruler disappears. Similarly, you can display the vertical ruler by pointing to the left side of the program window.

  4. On the View menu , click Ruler to redisplay the rulers.

    If your rulers are already hidden, clicking the Ruler command the first time displays the rulers, and clicking the command a second time hides them. This type of command is called a toggle command . A check mark on the menu to the left of a toggle command indicates that the command is selected.

  5. On the View menu, click or point to Toolbars to display the submenu shown in this graphic:

    click to expand

    Most Office programs come with many built-in toolbars, each equipped with buttons that are appropriate for a particular type of task. (We ll talk more about toolbars in later sections.)

    You can display or hide a toolbar by clicking it on the submenu, but instead, let s look at another way to accomplish the same task.

  6. At the bottom of the Toolbars submenu, click Customize to open the Customize dialog box.

    This dialog box is multilayered , with each layer designated at the top by a tab like a file folder tab.

  7. If the Toolbars tab isn t displayed, click it.

    You now see the options shown in this graphic:

    click to expand
  8. Select the Control Toolbox , Database , and Drawing check boxes to display those toolbars.

  9. Click Close to close the dialog box.

    Your screen now looks something like the one shown here:

    click to expand

    Notice that toolbars can appear across the top or bottom of the window, down the sides, or floating over the workspace.

start sidebar
Using keyboard shortcuts

If your hands are already on the keyboard, using keyboard shortcuts to access commands can be more efficient than using moving your hand to use the mouse. For example, you can press Ctrl+A to select an entire document instead of clicking Select All on the Edit menu. As you work through this course, you might notice that some commands are followed on their menus by Ctrl+ and another key or keys, designating the keyboard shortcut for that command. The complete list of shortcuts is too extensive to reproduce here, but for more information, see the Help feature.

end sidebar
 
start sidebar
Corresponding buttons

For some menu commands, an icon is shown to the left of the command name . The icon indicates that a corresponding button with the same icon exists for this command on one of program s toolbars. In the case of the four commands at the top of the View menu, the icons appear in the lower-left corner of the window, to the left of the scroll bar.

end sidebar
 

Using Shortcut Menu Commands

For efficiency, the commands you are likely to use with a particular object, such as a block of text, are combined on special menus called shortcut menus . Shortcut menus are also available for window elements, such as toolbars. To access a shortcut menu, you point to the object and then right-click it. Follow these steps to experiment with some shortcut menu commands:

  1. Point to one of the toolbars, right-click to display the toolbar shortcut menu, and click Database on the menu to hide the Database toolbar.

  2. Right-click a toolbar to display the shortcut menu again, and click Customize at the bottom of the menu.

  3. In the Customize dialog box, deselect all the check boxes except Standard, Formatting, Control Toolbox, and Menu Bar, and then click Close .

This latter method is best when you want to display or hide several toolbars at a time.

Using Toolbar Buttons

By default, most Office programs display two of the most useful toolbars ”the Standard and Formatting toolbars ”on a single toolbar row below the menu bar. The toolbars are overlapped and initially display only their most commonly used buttons. As you use the toolbars, they change to reflect the buttons you use most frequently or that you specifically request. After you become familiar with the buttons on the Standard and Formatting toolbars of one program, you ll recognize many of them on the toolbars of the other programs. As you have seen, more specialized buttons are gathered together on the other toolbars. For example, the buttons you use to work with when drawing objects are gathered on the Drawing toolbar.

Most of the commands available as buttons on the toolbars are also available on the menus. So when do you use a button and when do you use a menu command? You can always use a menu command to carry out a particular task, but you can t always use a corresponding button. Clicking a button carries out its associated command using its default (predefined) settings without any further input from you. If a command is not represented by a toolbar button or if you want to use a command with something other than its default settings, you need to click the command on the appropriate menu. Throughout this course, we use toolbar buttons whenever possible because they are often the fastest way to access commands.

Let s check out the toolbars now. As you can see in the following graphic, each toolbar has a move handle at its left end and a Toolbar Options button at its right end. Both of these allow you to display a toolbar s hidden buttons. You can display and hide any toolbar at any time, and you can also move and size the toolbars.

click to expand

Follow these steps to explore the toolbars:

  1. Point to each toolbar button in turn, pausing until its name appears in a box below the pointer.

    This feature is called ScreenTips . You can use this helpful feature to identify toolbar buttons in all the Office programs.

  2. Double-click the title bar of the floating Control Toolbox toolbar.

    The toolbar is now docked above the document, as shown here:

    click to expand

    Notice that when a toolbar is docked along one of the edges of the window, it loses its title bar and acquires a move handle.

  3. Point to the Control Toolbox toolbar s move handle and drag the toolbar into the toolbar row so that it joins the overlapped Standard and Formatting toolbars.

  4. Drag the Control Toolbox toolbar from the toolbar row over the document, where it becomes a floating toolbar again.

  5. Drag the floating toolbar all the way to the right side of the window.

    Just when you think it is going to disappear from the screen, the toolbar changes shape and docks itself along the right edge.

  6. Experiment some more with moving the Control Toolbox toolbar to various positions , and docking and undocking it.

    Double-clicking the floating toolbar s title bar docks the toolbar wherever it was last docked.

  7. Right-click the toolbar, and click Control Toolbox on the shortcut menu to hide it.

  8. Point to the Formatting toolbar s move handle, and when the pointer changes to a four-headed arrow, drag it to the right.

    We dragged until only the Font box, Font Size box, and Bold button are visible, like this:

    click to expand
  9. Press Home to remove any highlighting, and then use any method to select the first occurrence of Tip Top Roofing .

  10. On the Formatting toolbar, click the Bold button.

    Notice that the Bold button now has a dark border around it to indicate that the selected text is bold. If a selection is already bold, clicking the Bold button removes the bold formatting. This type of button is called a toggle button , because like a toggle command, it toggles a specific feature on and off.

  11. Click the Formatting toolbar s Toolbar Options button.

    You see this palette of the hidden buttons on that toolbar:

  12. Click the Underline button.

    Word applies the format to the selected words and adds the Underline button to the displayed buttons on the Formatting toolbar.

start sidebar
Quick toolbar expansion

To quickly expand a toolbar to its full width so that you can see all of its buttons, double-click the toolbar s move handle.

end sidebar
 
start sidebar
Personalized toolbars and menus

The menus and toolbars of Office programs adjust themselves to the way you work, making commands and buttons more easily available as you use them. Commands and buttons you don t use are hidden so that they don t get in the way. As a result, your menus and toolbars might not look exactly like ours, and occasionally we might tell you to choose a command or click a button that is not visible. If this happens, don t panic. Simply open the menu and wait for all of its commands to appear, or click the toolbar s Toolbar Options button to display its hidden buttons. If you ever want to restore your menus and toolbars to their original settings, click Toolbars and then Customize on the View menu and on the Options tab, click Reset my usage data, and then click Close. (You can also change the way the default toolbars are displayed by selecting the Show Standard and Formatting toolbars on two rows option on the Options tab.)

You can customize toolbars to reflect your needs. To add or remove a button, display the toolbar, click its Toolbar Options button, and then click Add or Remove Buttons. Click the toolbar name, and then click the button you want to add or remove. To remove a button that is not available in the Add or Remove Buttons list, hold down the Alt key and drag the button off the toolbar. See the Help feature for more about customizing existing toolbars, creating custom toolbars, and customizing menus.

end sidebar
 



Online Traning Solutions - Quick Course in Microsoft Office XP
Online Traning Solutions - Quick Course in Microsoft Office XP
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 116

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net