Computer Info – September 4, 2002

 

This Week’s Meeting

 

            John Watkins will be hosting the meeting again this week and he has another story to tell you – ask him about Meals On Wheels.  His program will consist of finishing off his last week’s program on using Word to work with photos – taking a look at a Wacom Drawing Tablet and an introduction to Excel for beginners.  And maybe again showing how to easily remove the chevrons when you want to forward an email.

 

Scanning and Photo Editing in Word

            To get your picture from your scanner into Word ---- choose INSERT – PICTURE – FROM SCANNER OR CAMERA.  Your scanner should be listed in the next window and you have the ability to choose WEB QUALITY or PHOTO QUALITY for your pictures.  Then just click on INSERT and your picture will appear in your Word document. 

            When you click on the picture that you inserted, you should see the PICTURE toolbar appear.  If it is not there, then go to VIEW – TOOLBARS – PICTURE.  It should now be displayed.  With this toolbar, you can change the CONTRAST and BRIGHTNESS of the picture.  You can CROP the picture – this places extra handles on the sides and top and bottom of the picture that you can move to choose the area to be cropped.  When you are through using the CROP tool, click on the CROP tool again to toggle it back off.   An interesting icon on the PICTURE toolbar is the COLOR – this allows you to create a WASHOUT (Watermark). 

            Try to move your picture to where you want it on the paper.  Notice it does not move.  To allow it to move, first you must click on the TEXT WRAPPING icon on the PICTURE toolbar and choose either TEXT IN FRONT or TEXT IN BACK.  Now try moving the picture – it works.

 

 

Recycle Bin

            Recommendation: -- Don’t empty it.  The purpose of it – is to be able to retrieve something that you deleted and now want it back.  If you want to retrieve a file, double click on the RECYCLE BIN – find the file that you want – right click on it – choose RESTORE.

 

A Couple of Websites

Search for Coloring Book Pages

            This is a search engine that will allow you to search for coloring pages on the topic that you want.

                        http://www.ivyjoy.com/coloring/search.html

 

Search Engine

            This search engine was recommended by the library.  It is a mega-search engine.

                        http://www.metacrawler.com

 

Detailed Weather Report – choose by State – then City

                        http://www.wxusa.com

 

Making Photo Pages in MS-Word

            Start with a blank sheet  Start with a blank sheet  (FILE – NEW ). 

            Find your pictures   From the top menu, choose INSERT – PICTURE – FROM FILE.  This, of course, is one of the hardest steps – locating the picture.  Once you have inserted the picture – you can then crop it or change the contrast or brightness of it.

            Crop  To crop it – locate your CROP tool.  It is the seventh tool from the left on the PICTURE toolbar.  With this tool chosen, you will notice extra handles on the picture on the sides – top – and bottom.  When you have it adjusted to what you want, then click on the CROP tool icon again to turn it off.

            Moving your object and resizing it  To move your object on your page, you will have to click on the TEXT WRAPPING icon on the PICTURE toolbar and choose IN FRONT OF TEXT or BEHIND TEXT.  Place your cursor on your picture, hold the left mouse button down – and you will be able to move your picture to the desired location.  If your picture is too large or too small, you can resize it – you will notice the handles on your picture that you can use to adjust the size.  REMEMBER – IT IS BETTER TO ONLY USE THE CORNER ADJUSTMENTS.  

            Move object to the back or front  Sometimes you will find that your pictures are overlapping each other.  This might be the result that you are trying to achieve.  But, maybe you would prefer to have the picture you are working on – to be the picture that is in the front.  To change this, click on one of the pictures and choose  IN FRONT OF TEXT or BEHIND TEXT. 

            Text  It is always nice to title and date your page of pictures – maybe place a few comments or descriptions by some of the pictures.  To do this, choose TABLE – INSERT and then choose 1 column and 1 row.  This will make a nice box for you to place your text in.  At the top left of the box, is a small icon that represent MOVING the table.  You can resize it by dragging the bottom right corner and

making it the size that you would like.    Click inside the table and type the information that you want.

            Saving your work  When you have finished with your photo page, it is time to save it.  Choose FILE – SAVE AS.  You will be saving it as a DOC file.

 

WordPad

            WordPad is a very good small, limited word processor that everyone who has Windows (95 – 98 – ME – XP) has.  You will find it listed under START – PROGRAMS – ACCESSORIES – WORDPAD.