Computer Info – February 16, 2000

This Week’s Program

        This week – Easy CD Creator and Direct CD – for use with CD writeables and CD-rewriteables. Next week Steve West will demonstrate Quicken.

Files (Part 4) -- Organizing Files

        Keep your files in one central location. This makes it easier to backup your files – AND – hopefully, to find your files. Since MY DOCUMENTS seems to be the default folder for many programs today, it would be quite easy to organize your data files within this folder (directory). Create numerous folders within this folder to keep your files of various types together. For example, create a folder for your Word documents, one for your spreadsheet files, one for your pictures, etc.
        Practice Lesson 4 (creating folders under the My Documents folder) -----
                                Open My Computer.
                                Double Click on the icon for your C drive (your hard drive)
                                Double Click on the folder named MY DOCUMENTS
                                From the menu at the top of the window, choose FILE – NEW – FOLDER
                                This will place a folder with the name of it highlighted – do not click on anything
                                        just type what you wish to name that folder. (ex. WORD)
                                Create as many folders as you think you need.

Text Effects in MS-Word 97

        There are many special text effects that you can use in Word 97. To use them, start by highlighting the text that you want to use to create your special effect. Now go to FORMAT then FONT. The Font window has three tabs (or pages).
        The first one is entitled FONT. This page will allow you to choose the style of the underlining – the color of the font – whether you want to do a superscript or a subscript.
        The second one is entitled CHARACTER SPACING. This page will allow you to change the scale of your selected text – by reducing the scale, you might be able to fit your printout to one page rather than one page and two lines.
        The third one is entitled ANIMATION. This page allows you to produce striking effects to your screen copy – things like flashing Las Vegas Lights – or marching red or black ants – and a couple of other ones.

Hidden Text in MS-Word 97

        Whether you will ever find a need for this or not, this is how you produce hidden text in Word and then how you can display it again.
        First, highlight your text that you wish to hide. Next choose FORMAT from the top menu – and then FONT. On the tab (page) labeled FONT – place a checkmark in front of the HIDDEN effect. Then click on OK. Your text will disappear.
        If you wish to review your text again – you must choose TOOLS from the top menu – and then OPTIONS. On the VIEW tab, for non-printing characters, place a checkmark before HIDDEN TEXT. Then click OK. Your text will then reappear.
 
 


ClipArt in MS-Word 97

        Clipart can easily be inserted into a Word document. From the INSERT menu – choose PICTURE – then CLIPART. Choose the piece of clipart that you want inserted into your document. When you have located it, then click on the INSERT button. A very helpful feature of the clipart gallery is the FIND button. This will allow you to search for clipart according to a specific subject.
        Your piece of clipart will now be a part of your document. When you click on the piece of clipart in your document, you should notice that it will have eight little squares around the outside. We refer to these as handles. When you place your cursor over these handles, the shape of your cursor will change to double-headed arrows. If you hold down your left mouse button when you have this type of cursor and drag your mouse, you will be able to change the size of your clipart. BUT be aware, that when you change the size of your clipart with the top – bottom – and side handles, you will be distorting the appearance of your clipart. BUT, if you change the size of it from one of the four corners, then the clipart will be changed proportionally.
        If you click on your clipart and you do not see the PICTURE TOOLBAR – then go to VIEW – TOOLBARS – and place a checkmark in front of the one labeled PICTURE.
        The Picture Toolbar will allow you to make many adjustments to your clipart. You can lighten or darken your picture – apply contrast – crop it – place a border around it and determine how to wrap your text. With text wrapping, you can make your text appear on top of your clipart – or make your text wrap around your clipart. You can even make your clipart or picture into a watermark by choosing the IMAGE CONTROL and then WATERMARK.

Email Picture Too Large

        If your email picture is too large to print right from your email and you don’t have a photo editing program to bring it into --- then use Word 97. First you would have to right click on the picture in your email and choose SAVE IMAGE AS from the menu. Be sure that you remember where you save it and what you name it.
        Open Word – then choose INSERT – PICTURE - FROM FILE. Next you have to locate that picture that you just saved. You will find that when you bring your picture into Word, it will fit onto one sheet of paper.

Easy CD Creator

        This program is shipped with many CD writer and rewriter drives. It easily lets you write files to a CD and later add other files. The screen is divided into two halves – the top half is Windows Explorer (where you view the files on your hard drive – floppy drive or CD drive). The bottom half of the screen is where the files on your CD writeable are located. You drag the files from the top half of the screen to the bottom half to place on the CD.
        The FIRST step in adding files to a CD is to remember that you have to IMPORT SESSION (from the Disc menu). This brings the files that already exist on the CD into the program. This NEEDS TO BE DONE in order to still have ALL of your files accessible after you have written to the CD again.

Direct CD

        A new CD-RW must be formatted first before it can be used for direct transfer of files. It takes 45 minutes to an hour to format one – so do this before you wish to transfer data. After that, you can write to it or delete files from it in the same manner that you do your hard drive.