Computer Info – December 13, 2000

This Week’s Program

        John Watkins will again host the meeting. He hopes to touch on a lot of topics. He will show you how to create CHRISTMAS STAMPS and CORRESPONDENCE CARDS. He will be bringing in a USB hub with lots of extra ports for everyone to see. He might even talk about keeping a tidy desktop by putting your icons in folders. And he hopes to talk about setting up multiple phone numbers or accounts in your dial-up networking.

Christmas Notelets

        What is a Notelet? A notelet is like a quarter fold greeting card – you place a picture, clipart and/or text on the front panel. The person who is going to use them, would then open up the notelet and write a letter on the back (which when opened up would be the entire 8 ½ by 11 sheet). The notelet is then folded back up with the decorated front panel out and placed in an invitation envelope. Basically, this is the English style of notecards.
        Now, how to make them. We are going to do this in Word. The first thing we want to do is FILE – PAGE SETUP. This will allow us to change the margins. Set all the margins (top – bottom – left – right) to zero (0). On the tab for PAGE SIZE, be sure that it is set to LANDSCAPE. Click on OK. You will get an error message stating "One or more margins are set outside the printable area of the page" – just click on IGNORE. Now you will see your page with the cursor in the top left corner showing that you now have access to the entire sheet of paper.
        Change your view so that you can see the entire page. Notice on the toolbar where you see a percentage showing – there is a down arrow to the right of this – click on that and you will have numerous choices including one for WHOLE PAGE.
        Be sure that your rulers are turned on. Notice at the top of the page and the left side of the page there should be a ruler. If not, to turn it on – choose VIEW – RULER.
        John did the demonstration by inserting a table – 1 x 2. That method will work – but I found it difficult to write the steps for doing it. So Wes gave me a better idea – which may not be as accurate – but you can print a few to troubleshoot if you wish. From the DRAWING toolbar (if you do not see the drawing toolbar – go to VIEW – TOOLBARS – DRAWING), choose the LINE tool. Now draw a line vertically on your page from top to bottom at 5 ½ on the ruler (if you hold the SHIFT key down while you draw the line, it will be a straight line). Choose the LINE tool again and draw a line horizontally on your page at 4 ¼ on the ruler. This will divide your page into approximately four equal parts. You can print one to test – and then fold it to see if your lines are where they should be.
        Now its time to save your template so that you can use it again. From the main menu, choose FILE – SAVE AS – change the SAVE AS TYPE to a Document Template (.DOT) and give it a name (perhaps Notelets) and then click on SAVE. Then close the document you are working on.
        When you want to use this template, open WORD and choose FILE – NEW. Click on the NOTELETS icon that you just created and choose OPEN. Now you should be ready to create your notelets.
        Insert a picture or clipart. Insert a text box . You will probably want to turn the text box border off. To do this, right click on the text box border and choose FORMAT TEXT BOX – then on the COLORS AND LINE tab, choose NO LINE for the COLOR of the line. The choices are endless. Just remember that your printer does not print to the edge of the paper, so leave a little room. Design it anyway you like.
        If you would like additional clipart – Microsoft has many that you can download for free. To get to these - choose INSERT – PICTURE – CLIPART. This will open the Clip Gallery. At the top, click on CLIPS ONLINE and follow the instructions. These will be downloaded directly into your Clip Gallery.
        Before you print, click on the vertical and horizontal lines that you started with, and delete them (use the DELETE key on the keyboard).

        You can give these as gifts. Create about 6 different ones and bundle them (along with envelopes) together with a ribbon. It would be a good idea to create an additional one that you would have addressed to the recipient. This one would be your greetings to them and a brief explanation of how to use them.

        By the way, if you have a greeting card program, you will find that you can easily make the notelets by choosing a blank quarter fold card and only printing on the front panel.

Deleting Word Documents

        Word 97 and Word 2000 will let you preview a document before you delete it. From the FILE menu, choose OPEN. When the Open dialog box appears, look at the icons across the top – if you hold your mouse cursor over them, an definition will be given. In Word 97 -- you will notice that one of them says PREVIEW (it is the second icon from the right). In Word 2000 – click on the arrow next to the Views icon (just left of the Tools drop-down menu) – then select PREVIEW.
        Select the document (a file that ends with the extension of .DOC) you might want to delete. The document will then show in the preview window so that you can verify that it is indeed the one that you would like to delete.
        Right-click on the document name and choose DELETE from the menu. You can rename a document this same way – just choose RENAME from the menu. And remember, you can’t delete a document that’s currently open in Word or any other program.

Clear the Cache in Your Browser

Netscape
        From the EDIT menu, choose PREFERENCES. Click on the PLUS (+) next to ADVANCED. Then click on CACHE. From here you can empty (delete) the MEMORY CACHE and the DISK (hard drive) CACHE.
        Does it hurt to empty the cache? No – and sometimes it can help the performance of your browser.

Internet Explorer
        From the TOOLS menu, choose INTERNET OPTIONS. On the GENERAL tab, under TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES (also known as cache), click on DELETE FILES. You can also clear the HISTORY files from this tab.