Technical Word Processing

Dr. Charles Ghilani

Surveying Engineering Program Chair

Penn State Wilkes-Barre

To demonstrate the technical features of word processing such as creation of graphics, equations, lists, and tables.

This course will feature using Word as a technical word processing editor, and explore some of the advantages of WordPerfect.

Page Settings

1. Under the File menu select the Page Setup… command. This will bring up the Page Setup dialogue box displayed to the right.

b. The Gutter value can be used for book/booklet printing. This option can be used to place an additional 0.5² margin on the binding edge of the page. If two-sided copying will be used to create the book/booklet, then the Mirror margins box should be selected. When selected this will automatically cause the margins to be mirrored. The margin settings can be applied to the Whole document as shown, or from the current page forward in the document.

Tool Bar Magic

In this lesson we will setup the tool bars for technical word processing. To do this we need to add the following items to the tool bar for easy access.

Setting up the Tool Bar

The toolbar can be personalized to contain common menu items that are commonly used in technical documents. To add items it is wise to know where the menu items you wish to add are located. For instance, fonts including superscript and subscript are listed under the Format menu item. Let’s add the above items.

b. A Customize dialogue box will be displayed. Select the Commands tab in this box.

(1) On the right side of the box is the Commands: list. You can select any item from this list and drag it to the tool bar using your left mouse button.

(2) Select the W Symbol… item and place it on your toolbar after the underline U icon.

(3) Scroll down further to find the Equation editor icon. Drag it to the

toolbar and drop it after the W icon.

(1) Scroll down the Commands: list box until you find both the superscript and subscript icons.

(2) Drag both icons up to your toolbar and drop them after the U icon and before the W icon.

iii. Explore the other options that could be added to your toolbars, and … add away.

Using Styles in Your Document

Repeat after me, “My word processor is NOT a typewriter!” If you hit the space bar more than once you are doing it WRONG!!!!!

Seriously, a word processor has features to control the appearance of your document. Use of these features will simplify document management. Many of these features are called Styles (see Figure 4). Styles can be used to control your document’s title, headings, paragraphs, and other common layout features. The advantage of using styles is that if you change a style, the entire document will be modified with your changes to maintain a consistent appearance. For this lesson, we will create the page labeled PRACTICE EXAMPLE 1. In this lesson we will learn how to control your document’s appearance and layout by

Creating a Style

From the Format menu select Style… The Style dialogue show in Figure 4 will appear. From the Styles: list, select Title. Once a style is selected, the Description box will display formatting for the style. To create a style simply select the New… button.

Selecting the options under the Format button (shown in Figure 5) can change the formatting of the style. Let’s create a new title style by following these steps.

a. Now select the Font item. Change the font to Times New Roman, its Sty

le to Bold, the size to 24 point, and select the Shadow option. When all the changes are completed select the Ok button.

b. Select the Format button again, and then the Paragraph option. In the Paragraph dialogue box change the alignment to centered and the spacing after to 24 points. After completing these changes, select the Ok button.

c. Note that a shortcut key… can be assigned to this style, or any other style.

5. Now select your new style in the style box and type in the words “PRACTICING STYLES.” If the style box does not contain your new style, select the Styles… option in the Format menu, select your new style, and select Ok.

Now we will modify a style. This process is similar to creating a style. To modify a style select simply select the style you wish to modify in the Styles list and select the modify button. Once in the Modify Style dialogue box you can use the Format button to modify the formatting features for this option. Make the following changes

1. After highlighting the “First Paragraph” style, select the Modify button.

3. Type in two lines of text with this style selected. Note how this formatting is used. Add a second paragraph and note how this style is repeated. Change the style of the second paragraph to Body Text First Indent. Change the formatting of this style as appropriate.

4. Now modify the first paragraph style to provide an indent of 0.15 in. Note how your document changes when you press the Apply or Ok button.

5. Try duplicating the page Practicing Styles using styles to control the formatting.

Lists and Tables to Maintain Order

Lists and tables are handy in creating some unusual formatting. Additionally, these elements can be easily converted to html if Internet pages are created. Below are two common uses of tables.

In these examples, the decimal align tab is placed in each cell so that the numbers are aligned by the position of their decimal points. The use of a table allows the instructor to insert a series of arithmetic problems without changing the document’s formatting.

Equations

The most common items in a technical document are equations. Fortunately, equations are easily created in documents. As an author, you have two options to use when creating an equation. For simple, single-line equations, the use of a symbol font

is your best option since it does not involve a graphic. For more complex equations, an equation editor will allow you to quickly create an equation as a graphical element.

a. Note that italic fonts are used for variables, and the symbol font is used for the – sign. This font creates a much different symbol than a common hyphen.

a. Again the Symbols font converts an “a” to alpha, and provides the appropriate symbols for degrees, minutes, and seconds.

The equation editor is easy to use. If you followed the toolbar menu lesson, simply select the equation editor icon

to bring up the equation editor as shown in Figure 6. If this icon is not in your toolbar, select Insert from the menu, then Object, and finally Microsoft Equation 3.0. Note that this feature does not automatically install from the installation program, so you may need to install it before it is available.

To use the equation editor, use the icons shown in the equation menu bar to select the appropriate symbols and formatting features to enter an equation. The formatting options are

icon contains primes, double primes, overbars, and other similar formatting features.

1. If you make a mistake and it is a formatting symbol, you will have to highlight and delete the entire formatting symbol.

You can highlight repetitive features of an equation, and copy or cut and paste them in the equation editor.

3. You can change the style in the main menu from Math to Text to enter spaces, or text.

Figures

Creating or inserting figures is probably the weakest element in the MS WORD program. Simply stated, its internal graphics program is weak and its formatting of figures is limited. However with this said, it is obvious from this document that it is possible to create a document with these features. Before you start this lesson, make sure the Drawing and Picture toolbars are displayed. If they are not, select the View menu, then the Toolbars… menu item, and finally select the Drawing and Picture toolbars as shown in Figure 7.

For example, consider the screen graphics that has been cut and pasted into this document. To do this, use the screen copy feature of the operating system to copy an image from the screen to the clipboard. Depressing the PrtScn key on the keyboard typically completes this operation. However with older

operating systems, the Ctrl button and the PrtScn buttons must be simultaneously depressed. Once the screen image is captured it can be pasted directly into Word by using the paste option under the Edit menu item. This accomplished, the pasted image can be trimmed to the desired extents using the crop

icon in the image toolbar. This icon will be available once the image is selected. The image can also be pasted into the MS Paint program where it can be modified.

To create an original line drawing in Word, insert a New drawing in the document using the menu option as shown in Figure 8. We will practice this by creating the page shown on page 10.

First press Ctrl-Enter to force a new page in your document. Now type in the Title and Heading as shown on the page. Starting on a new line, insert a new drawing into the document.

In the drawing use the line feature to create a right triangle as shown in the Figure 9.

Now use the text box feature to insert the text in the appropriate locations. Your instructor will walk you through these steps. Note that using the Fill feature of textboxes allows you to place text over the previously drawn lines to break the lines.

After the drawing is completed, use the cropping feature of images to size the drawing box, then position the box using its formatting features. Finally insert the caption.

Styles

This is the first paragraph of a section. It is not indented. It uses 12 point, Times New Roman font, and creates a 3-point separation between this paragraph and the subsequent text.

This is the body text. It main difference from the first paragraph is the 0.15 in. indent of the first line. This paragraph also uses 12 point, Times New Roman font and forces a 3-point separation.

Note that the header of this pages using a TITLE style. Note that this style uses a 24-point, shadow font of Times New Roman. It is followed by a 24-point space. Each section is announced with a Heading 1 style. This style uses a 20 point Times New Roman font with a 6-point spacing between the heading the first paragraph.

Basic Trigonometric Relationships

¨ The sine of an acute angle is equal to the ratio of the length of the leg opposite from the angle over the hypotenuse. For example,

¨ The cosine of an acute angle is equal to the ratio of the length of the leg adjacent to the angle over the hypotenuse. For example,

¨ The tangent of an acute angle is equal to the ratio of the length of the leg opposite from the angle over the adjacent leg. For example

¡T	¡F	1.	Question 1 will scroll to the second line, but because of the use of a table it scrolls under the question.
¡T	¡F	2.	The circles are obtained from the Wingdings symbols. Select W on your tool bar, change the font to Wingdings, and select a circle.
¡T	¡F	3.	Note that the alignment for the table rows is set to Top. This is easy.