Computer Concepts and Applications – Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint

Computer Concepts and Applications – Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint

• 3 Introduction to Business Communication Tools

Introduction

Microsoft Office is a collection of different application programs that were originally designed to be used to perform many of the tasks that are completed every day in an office setting, but they can also be useful in your personal life as well.

• Microsoft Word is a word processing program that can be used to type documents, from

simple letters to illustrated newsletters.

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program that can be used to track of lists, numbers and statistics, such as might be used in accounting. Microsoft Access is a database program that can be used to track of diverse but related information, such as customer orders, customer billing information, customer shipping information, and product inventories.

Microsoft PowerPoint is presentation software that can be used for making fully animated computer presentations.

• Microsoft Publisher is publication design software that can be used for creating greeting
• cards, business cards, calendars and more.
• 3.1 Microsoft Word
• Introduction

A word processor is a type of computer program that is used to create a variety of documents, from simple letters to fully illustrated newsletters and fliers. Word Processing applications display text on a computer screen and allow users to easily add, remove, and change the style, size, and placement of text in a document without having to retype the entire document as they would with a typewriter. Microsoft Word is one of the most popular word-processing software applications in use today.

• Starting MS-Word 2007

Opening Microsoft Word To open Word, do either one of the following:

Click once on the Start button on the bottom left corner of the screen. Click on Programs. Move the cursor to the new menu on the right and then click on Microsoft Office 2007. Move the cursor to the next menu that opens and click Microsoft Office Word 2007. A blank document will appear on the screen.

Main screen of a Microsoft Word 2007 Document The screenshot below is the opening screen for Microsoft Word 2007. Here we will review screenshots and documentation on how to navigate some of the basic menus and the steps necessary to format a basic paper correctly.

Page Setup and Margin Formatting

The screenshot below displays the menu path to change the margins in a paper. According to APA, all margins are set at 1 inch.

From the menu tab at the top of Word, select Page Layout.

In the Page Layout menu, the margins button will allow you to change the margins to the correct format.

Select Normal to set all margins to one inch.

• Formatting Font

The screenshot below displays the menu path to change the font. Use a traditional font such as Times New Roman or Courier in 12-point size.

• Select the Home tab.
• From the Font menu, you may adjust the font, style, and size to the correct format.
• Formatting Spacing

The standard spacing format for a paper is double-spacing. Double-space the entire document, including the reference page. The screenshot below displays the menu path to change the spacing format to double.

Select the Home tab.

From the Paragraph menu, you may adjust the line spacing from the Line Spacing dropdown menu.

(Note: Word 2007 places extra space between paragraphs. You will need to adjust this by selecting the Page Layout menu. Then access Paragraph and Indents and Spacing. Under the Spacing heading, set the spacing option to 0 pt. before and 0 pt. after. Click OK.)

• Page Headers

Identify each page with the first two or three words of the title and with the page number placed on the upper right hand corner of the page. Use five spaces between the title and the page number. Do not use your name to identify each page. Be sure the font type and size are the same as that used in the document.

To create a correct APA header with a page number in Word 2007, use the following guidelines:

• Click on the Insert tab.

Click on the Header tab.

Click on the Blank header tab from the drop-down menu. This will put the curser inside the header.

Click on the Page Number tab.

Place the curser on the drop-down menu over Top of Page to bring up another drop-down menu.

Click on Plain Number 3 on the drop-down menu (the third choice). This will place a page number inside the header at the right margin.

Type the portion of the title to go in the header and add five spaces. Your header is complete.

Click on Close Header and Footer on the far right.

Hanging Indent

Select the text that requires a hanging indent OR create a hanging indent before typing the text. From the Home menu, click on the Paragraph command (see Picture One). This will bring up the Indents and Spacing tab (see Picture Two). Under Indentation in the Special box, click on Hanging and OK.

Centering Text

The screenshot below is an example of text that is centered and that is not centered. In order to center text highlight the text that requires centering and select the icon in the formatting toolbar as shown.

• Select the Home tab.
• Highlight the text to be centered.
• Click the button to center the text on the Paragraph toolbar.
• 3.2 Microsoft Excel

1.Introduction to Microsoft Excel 2007 Microsoft Excel is a very powerful tool for you to use for numeric computations and analysis. Excel can also function as a simple database but that is another class. Today we will look at how to get starting with Excel and show you around the neighborhood sort of speak.

• Starting MS-Word 2007 To start Microsoft Excel :
• Click once on the Start button on the bottom left corner of the screen. Click on Programs.

Move the cursor to the new menu on the right and then click on Microsoft Office 2007. Move the cursor to the next menu that opens and click Microsoft Office excel 2007. A blank document will appear on the screen.

Main screen of a Microsoft Excel 2007 Document This is a workbook. A workbook is a collection of worksheets (spreadsheets) and macros. By default, Excel creates 3 worksheets in a new workbook. The worksheets are designated at the bottom part of the window where you see the file folder-like tabs. The tabs are named Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3. If you click on Sheet2, you will be in Sheet2 and not Sheet1 so you need to be aware of which worksheet you are in.

Office Fluent user interface

In Excel 2007, the new Office Fluent user interface replaces the traditional menus and toolbars from previous versions of Excel with a single mechanism designed to help users find the right features more efficiently. The interface contains three main components; The Office Button, The Quick Access Toolbar, and The Ribbon.

• Open a New Workbook
• Some times you have to create a new workbook.
• Click on the Office Button

Click on New

You are now able to open recently used or new workbooks from this panel. You can also open up templates that are available with Excel or ones that you create. If you click on Blank workbook, Excel will create a new workbook for you.

What are Columns, Rows, and Cells?

Columns are the vertical markers in the worksheet and are denoted by the alphabet i.e. A, B, C.

The rows are the horizontal markers in the worksheet and are denoted by numbers i.e. 1, 2, 3. Cells are the single box that you get where the column and row intersect i.e. A1, B3, and C2. You will often need to know the cell reference. The cell reference is the cell’s name and you can find that by looking at the toolbar. This means that the cell that is selected is named C28.

• selecting a cell
• We are going to select C28. Look for the C column.
• Look for the Row number 28.
• You may use your finger to follow the column C down to where row 28 is.
• Once you have located it, click on it.
• Look at the toolbar; the cell reference box should say C28. If it does not, try again.
• After you have done this, click on a different cell and note the cell reference box.
• selecting a group of cells A4 to D10
• Click on the first cell A4
• Click and Hold the mouse button down. Drag the cursor down to D10.

Let go of the mouse button.

If you did it correctly, you should see a Highlighted box around those cells. If not, try again. Please see the picture on the next page.

• Selecting cells A4 to D10

Basic data entry, fill handle

From the example above, we have numeric (year, numbers) and text (months) entered as data in our worksheet. Let us practice by re-creating the example on our own.

Method 1

Click on cell A2 to select it.

Type in 1981 and hit Enter. Notice by hitting Enter, we automatically move down to the next row. (we can also do the same by hitting the down arrow) 3. Click on cell B1 to select it.

• Type in January and hit Tab. By hitting Tab (or right arrow), we move to the next column. We can continue to doing this to enter the data from 1981 to 1992 and so on, but Excel provides us with a tool to complete sequences.

Method 2

• Click on cell A2 to select it.
• Type in 1981 and hit Enter.

Type in 1982, and then select both cells A2 and A3.

Move your mouse cursor over the fill handle (small black box on the bottom right of the active cell) so that the cursor turns into a cross. 5. Click and drag the fill handle down to the cell desired.

Copy, Cut, Paste

You can Copy, Cut and Paste anything into your worksheet. You can copy from one worksheet to another worksheet in another book. Let’s concentrate on the basics. We are going to copy cells D4 to H9.

• Cut/Copy and Paste to the same worksheet
• Using the same worksheet, select cells A4 to D10.
• Use CTRL-c to copy and CTRL-x to cut the selected cells.

Click on cell E29. It should be blank Use CTRL-v to paste the data. You can also use the toolbar shortcuts for cut/copy/paste as the functionality is the same.

Insert & delete columns, rows, and cells Have you ever entered all of your data and realized that you are missing an entry in the middle of the worksheet? If yes and you did not know how to add columns or rows, it would be really difficult to fix. Well, there is an easier method.

• You can insert columns, rows, or cells in any spot on your worksheet.

Exercise 9: Insert columns

Before you can insert a column or row, you need to know how Excel inserts a column or a row.

• For columns, Excel inserts new column(s) to the left of the selected column(s).
• For rows, Excel inserts new row(s) above the selected row.

We want to insert a new column for Last Name between Full Name and Address.

Since Excel inserts to the left, you need to click on the column letter B. Column B should be highlighted.

• Point (do not left click) the arrow at the B column and then right click.
• A pop-up menu should appear. In the menu you should see Insert.
• Click on the word Insert. Excel will insert a blank column between Full Name and Address.
• Click on B1 and type in Last Name..

Insert rows

We want to insert a new row for Anne Frank’s contact information between John Doe and Fred Johnson.

Since Excel inserts rows above the selection, you need to click on row number 3. Row 3 should be highlighted.

• Right click while pointing at the number 3

A pop-up menu should appear. In the menu you should see Insert.

Click on the word Insert. Excel will insert a blank row between John Doe and Fred Johnson.

• Click on A3 and type in Anne Frank’s contact information
• Using the sort feature
• We want to insert a new row for Anne Frank’s contact information between John Doe
• and Fred Johnson but this time we will create her record in line 5.
• Select cells A1 to G5

Go to the Data tab, then click on Sort In the sort option window, use the pull down boxes to select the sort criteria. In this case we want to sort by Last Name, ascending order A-Z, then click on OK.

• Your data should look like this.
• Delete columns and rows
• We all make mistakes. It is very easy to remove a column or rows.
• Select the column or row that you want to delete.
• Point at the highlighted column name or row name and right click.

A pop-up menu should appear

Select Delete

• The column or row should be gone.

Inserting & deleting new worksheets

There will be many times when you need to add a whole worksheet rather than columns or rows.

• Exercise 14: Insert a worksheet
• Right Click on the tabs where the name of the worksheets are. 2. Click on Insert

Select what kind of insert you want from the window.

• To move the worksheet, click and hold the left mouse button on the worksheet tab. Drag the tab to where you want it to be placed. Note: you can only move the worksheet tabs to the left or right.
• Delete a worksheet
• Click on the tab of the worksheet that you want to delete.
• Right Click on the same tab of the worksheet
• Click on Delete

Printing

Printing your worksheets out to a printer would be a nice thing to know how to do. If the information that you have on the worksheet fits on an 8.5”x11” paper, you have no trouble printing your worksheet out. The problem arises when you have a larger worksheet. You may have noticed that your worksheet has dashed lines running down and across it; this is your print area.

• Setting the print area
• On your worksheet, click on the Page Layout tab.
• Click and drag to select the range of cells that you would like to print.
• Under Page Layout, click on Print Area, then Set Print Area.

How to print with Print Preview

You may click on the paper with the magnifying glass icon or click on the Office Button and click on Print, then Print Preview.

The menu at the top is important because there are many print functions that you can use for your worksheet. Here are some examples, turn on the gridlines, shrink to fit one page, print headers or footers.

Click on Print. You will be at the Print menu.

Click Page Setup. You will see a control panel that will allow you to make some cosmetic changes to the way the worksheet prints.

3.3 Microsoft Powerpoint

Introduction to Microsoft Office Powerpoint 2007

PowerPoint enables anyone to produce, with a little practice, beautifully laid out presentations, either as on-screen shows, or as OHP slides. The aim of these notes is to introduce you to the basics of PowerPoint. It will tell you how to create attractive animated presentations that include animation, images, charts, tables, and links to other software. Users of previous versions of PowerPoint will notice that the user interface has changed dramatically, but, these changes give PowerPoint a lot more features, in a very intuitive layout.

Files produced in PowerPoint 2007 have the file extension ".pptx", and the files themselves are very different from previous file formats. If you wish to use an old PowerPoint presentation in PowerPoint 2007, PowerPoint will switch to compatibility mode, to let you work on the old file with no problems.

Starting MS-Powerpoint 2007 To use PowerPoint:

Click the Start button and select All Programs, then from the sub-menu, select Microsoft Office, then select Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007. When PowerPoint loads you will see the following screen.

Main screen of a MS-Powerpoint 2007

The area in the centre displays the slide layout. The area on the left displays the structure of your presentation as it builds. The area below the slide is labeled Click to add notes. You can use this area to write notes, which you can read from as you deliver your presentation, these notes can be printed out and are not visible whilst you show the slides.

The three buttons on the bottom left of the screen offer you different views of the presentation.

• The normal view shows all elements of the PowerPoint screen as above.
• Slide sorter view shows all slides together, allowing you to re-order the slides.

Presentation view lets you see each slide as it will appear in the presentation.

Building Slides

With PowerPoint loaded, you can build your first slide. To add a title to your slide click on the text labeled Click to add title. As soon as you click, the text will disappear and be replaced by a flashing insertion point. Type in text from the keyboard, using the Backspace and Delete keys to correct mistakes. When you have entered the title you can click on the next area of the slide to enter a subtitle in the same way.

To add a new slide to your presentation, from the Slides group on the Home tab, click the top of the New Slide button to add a general slide.

click the bottom of the New Slide button to reveal a menu of slide designs.You will see a collection of slide themes, which contain various combinations of titles and content.Content is represented as a large, rectangular box, with a dotted border, containing a palette of coloured icons. The dotted box is used to create a bulleted list, and each icon can used to include a table, picture, or media clip. In creating each slide, you use whichever content element that you require and ignore the other tools, the icons and dotted line do not appear on the finished presentation.

Text

Text on PowerPoint slides, needs to be formatted to be easily visible to all audience members.

To enter text in a title field, click inside the field and type in your text.

To change the appearance or colour of any text, select the text, then use either the tools in the Font and Paragraph groups on the Home tab.

To add an additional text area to your document, click the Insert tab, then from the Text group, click the Text Box button. Drag a box onto the slide using the mouse.

To reposition text on your slide click the border of the text area, then drag it to its new position.

To remove a text area from your slide, click the border of the text area, then press the Delete key.

Bulleted Lists

Most presentations use bulleted lists to summarise points that the speaker can elaborate upon. To use bulleted lists it is best to choose a slide theme that includes a bulleted list area.

When you click inside the bulleted list area you get a single bullet point and a flashing insertion point. Type in the text for your first point and apply formatting if necessary. To create subsequent bullet points, simply press the Enter key to start a new line with a new bullet point.

If you wish for any of your text lines to be displayed without a bullet you can click in the line, then click the bulleted list button to remove the bullet point.To create multilevel bulleted lists, type in the text lines as usual. Click at the start of any lines that you wish to appear as a lower level list then press the Tab key from the keyboard.

The selected lines will receive an additional indent and will get a different bullet symbol. Using the Backspace key produces the opposite effect.

To change the bullet symbols used, first click in one text line of the list level that you wish to change.

Next, click the down arrow to the right of the bulleted list button in the Paragraph group on the Home tab. Choose a bullet design from the displayed collection.

To choose a different button, click the Bullets and Numbering option, then in the dialog box that appears, click the Customize button.

Pictures

To place a picture in a new slide, choose a slide theme which contains a content area, then click the Insert picture from file icon. To add a picture to an existing slide, go to the Insert tab and in the Illustrations group click Picture. In the dialog box, locate and select your image file, then click the Insert button.

A small version of the picture will appear in the current slide. You can click and drag any of the circles located in each corner of the picture, to change the size of the picture, or you can click anywhere within the picture and drag it to a new position.

To put a clipart image into your document, click the Clip Art button on a new slide, or in the Illustrations group on the Insert tab for an existing slide. In the pane that appears on the right, type in a keyword to search through the clipart gallery.

Tables

To place a table in a new slide, choose a slide theme which contains a content area, then click the Insert able icon. To add a table to an existing slide, go to the Insert tab, and from the Tables group, click the Table button.

Use your mouse on the grid to select the number of rows and columns that your table will have, here a 7×4 table is being created. As you select cells in the grid the corresponding table will be drawn in your document. When you release the mouse button the table will be Created Graphs

• To place a graph in a new slide, choose a slide theme which contains a content

area,

then click the Insert Chart icon. To add a graph to an existing slide, go to the Insert tab and in the Illustrations group click the Chart button. In the dialog box that appears, click the style of chart that you require, then click the OK button.

Microsoft Excel 2007 will then start up and you can input data in the Excel Spreadsheet, which will then form a chart in your PowerPoint presentation Re-Ordering your Slides

To change the order of your slides, or insert a new slide into the middle of a presentation, it is worth switching to slide sorter view. Go to the View tab and in the Presentation Views group, click the Slide Sorter button, or click the Slide Sorter View button at the bottom of the screen to see the following layout:

From here you can delete any slide by clicking it then pressing the Delete key. You can reorder slides by dragging any slide to a new position, and you can add a new slide anywhere by clicking between two existing slides and clicking the New Slide button, from the Slides group on the Home tab.

Animation and Design

Now that we have covered the construction of slides, we can transform the information into an elegant presentation. Whilst doing this it is useful to click the Slide Show tab to check how the slides would appear in a real slide show.

To look at the current slide, as it would appear in the show, click the From Current Slide button in the Start Slide Show group.

To view all slides from the beginning click the From Beginning button in the Start Slide Show group.

When you wish to return to the normal view press the Esc key.

Design Templates

To apply a design template to your presentation, go to the Design tab. In the Themes group, click the bottom button in the column of three to see the available designs.

• Click any theme to apply it to all slides in your presentation.

Transitions Between Slides

As you move from slide to slide during the presentation, you can have PowerPoint display an animated effect. To choose an effect, go to the Animations tab.

In the Transition to This Slide group, click the bottom button in the column of three to the right of the palette. Click any transition to see the effect played out on your presentation slides in the background. When you have chosen an effect it will work when you move to this current slide. You can have the effect work on every slide in your presentation by clicking the Apply to All button.

The Presentation

To deliver your presentation to an audience from the computer, start PowerPoint andload your presentation file. Click the Slide Show tab, click the From Beginning button in the Start Slide Show group.

Use the left mouse button, Enter key, Page Down key to advance through the slides, use the Backspace, Page Up keys to retreat through the slides. To jump to a specific slide, rightclick the presentation, select Go to Slide then from the submenu select the required slide.

If you wish to emphasise a point you can use the Pointer Options entry from this menu to change the cursor into a pencil and you can underline or circle any part of a slide, without changing the underlying file.

Creating a Show

When your presentation is complete you can save it as a show. When it is opened it starts directly in a slide show, independent of the PowerPoint environment. To save your presentation as a show, click the Office button, then from the menu position the mouse cursor over Save As. In the submenu that appears select the PowerPoint Show option. Provide a name, then click the Save button.