Working with text

Hello students, welcome to Kwickprep. Have you ever pressed Enter at the end of every line, and then your letter looked messy? Today we will learn the right way to type, move and select text in a word processor.

First, a new term. A word processor is software that helps us type, edit, format and print documents. LibreOffice Writer is free software, and it saves files as dot o d t by default. Microsoft Word is another word processor, and it saves files as dot d o c x. We use them for leave applications, letters, class notes and project reports.

When Writer opens, you see a few main parts. The title bar at the top shows the name of the file. Below it, the menu bar and toolbars give us commands and buttons. The ruler shows the margins and indents of the page. The large white page is the work area, where we type. The status bar at the bottom shows the page number and the word count.

Next, the cursor. The cursor is the small blinking line that shows where your next letter will appear. It is also called the insertion point. You can move it by clicking anywhere inside the text. Remember, the mouse pointer and the cursor are two different things, and only the cursor decides where typing goes.

Now the most common beginner mistake. When a line is full, do not press Enter, just keep typing. The word processor moves the next word to the new line by itself, and this is called word wrap. Press Enter only when a paragraph ends. If you want a new line inside the same paragraph, like in an address, press Shift plus Enter.

Let us pause and think. Riya typed her application and pressed Enter at the end of every line. Later, she made the font size bigger. What will her paragraph look like now? Each line becomes a separate paragraph, so the lines break in odd places and look uneven. With word wrap, the text would simply flow neatly again.

Using the keyboard to move is faster than the mouse. Arrow keys move the cursor one letter left or right, or one line up or down. The Home key jumps to the start of the current line. The End key jumps to the end of the line. Control plus Home takes you to the very start of the document. Control plus End takes you to the very end, where you may add your signature.

While typing, we often need to remove a wrong letter. Backspace deletes the letter to the left of the cursor. The Delete key removes the letter to the right of the cursor. Control plus Backspace removes a whole word to the left, which saves time.

To change text, we first select it, which means highlighting it. You can drag the mouse over any part of the text. A double-click selects one word. Holding Shift and pressing the arrow keys selects letter by letter. Control plus A selects the whole document at once.

Sometimes a symbol is not on the keyboard, like the rupee sign or the degree sign. In Writer, open the Insert menu and choose Special Character to pick it. To change capital letters, open Format, then Text, and choose uppercase or lowercase. Shift plus F3 also changes the case of selected text in both Writer and Word.

Finally, always save your work. Control plus S saves the document. The first time, the computer asks you for a folder and a file name. Writer saves as dot o d t and Word saves as dot d o c x, but each can also open the other. Save often, because a power cut can wipe out unsaved typing.

Let us put it together with a leave application to your class teacher. Type the school address, pressing Shift plus Enter between lines. Type the body, and let word wrap handle the line ends. Fix any typo with Backspace or Delete. Press Control plus Home to check the top again. Then press Control plus S and save it with the name leave.

Let us recap. The cursor shows where your text will appear. Word wrap moves text to the next line, so press Enter only at the end of a paragraph. Home, End, Control plus Home and Control plus End move the cursor quickly. Backspace deletes to the left and Delete removes to the right. Always select text before changing it, and save often with Control plus S.