This chapter will show you how to perform the most essential word processing tasks with Fireworkz. You will learn how to enter and correct text using the keyboard and how to use Fireworkz' toolbar buttons, ruler and menus to format and manage your text.
Even if you are an experienced word processor and computer user, you should work through the exercises which follow to see the best way to perform these tasks in Fireworkz.
Topics covered include:
When you have completed this part of the tutorial you will be fully equipped to create and produce simple documents using Fireworkz, and ready to proceed to the next chapter.
You will be working on one of the documents supplied in the Tutorial directory.
The central main area with a white background represents the printable area onto which you can enter your document. Anything inside this printable area will appear when your document is printed.
The surrounding area with a light grey background represents the paper margins. Anything within the paper margins will not appear when your document is printed.
The thin dark grey areas represent the gaps between pages in your document.
Just below each Fireworkz document's window title bar, you will find the Fireworkz Menu bar.
Clicking on a word in the Fireworkz menu, for example, File, will bring up the corresponding menu
.Options may be chosen from a menu by pointing at them and then clicking on them.
Several options will execute commands that bring up dialogue boxes for user input; these are indicated with an ellipsis (…) alongside the option name, for example, the
option on the menu.Several menus contain submenus; these are indicated by the right-pointing arrow alongside the option name. These submenus may be accessed by sliding the mouse pointer off the right-hand side of the menu past the right-pointing arrow; this will cause the submenu to be displayed.
Frequently used menu options have keyboard shortcuts which are shown alongside the option name in each menu.
Greyed out (disabled) menu options
From time to time, certain menu options may be greyed out (disabled) to indicate that they cannot be used at the moment. For example, you cannot use the
option to sort an area of your document unless you have an area selected. If you do not have an area selected, the option will be greyed out. As soon as you select an area, the option will no longer be greyed out.At the top of each Fireworkz document's window below the Menu bar, you will find the Fireworkz toolbar.
This contains a set of tool buttons that allow you to access the most commonly used tools quickly and easily using a single click.
The toolbar may change depending on the type of work you are doing. For example, when using Fireworkz Pro, if you are working within an area of a document which contains a database, you will see the toolbar containing database buttons. When working in another area of the document, you will see the normal word processing and spreadsheet toolbar buttons.
If you point the mouse pointer over toolbar buttons, a ToolTip message appears explaining the function of the button.
Greyed out (disabled) buttons
From time to time, certain buttons may be greyed out (disabled) to indicate that they cannot be used at the moment. For example, you cannot use the
button to remove an area of your document unless you have an area selected. If you do not have an area selected, the button will be greyed out. As soon as you select an area, the button will no longer be greyed out.Pressed in buttons
Certain buttons may appear to be 'pressed in' or 'pushed out' to indicate whether or not particular options are currently selected.
For example, if the
button is pressed in (selected), then any text which you type will appear in a bold font. If the button is pushed out (not selected), then any text which you type will appear in a normal font. If you click the button it will alternate between these two states.The status line appears below the toolbar. It provides help and infomation about the work in progess. For example:
There are two rulers you can choose to display:
The horizontal ruler can be used to alter the:
The vertical ruler can be used to alter the:
When the window appears initially, it will occupy only part of the screen. To make the window as large as possible point to the Maximise button near the top right-hand corner of the window and click on it. The window will enlarge to cover all or most of the screen area.
You may. at some other stage, wish to make your window smaller; for example to view other windows at the same time. To do this, point to the Restore Down button near the top right-hand corner of the window and click on it.
Unless you have an extremely large monitor, you won't be able to see all of your document at once on screen. Only a portion of it will be visible in the window.
For some types of work, such as editing text, you might prefer a close-up view of part of the document. For others, such as checking that the whole document conforms to the style you have chosen and looks good, you will want to check the whole document at once, and a reduced size which enables you see it all at once on screen is appropriate.
If you have a large monitor, you can keep two or more views open simultaneously, one at 100% and another at a smaller size such as 50%, although this slows down the redrawing of the screen.
To change the way in which the document is presented on screen, click the
button at the top left of the toolbar.The View control dialogue box will appear.
Look at the group of buttons entitled
. There are several choices available to you:You will probably find it easiest to edit text with the largest scale that shows you a full line of text on the screen. Equally, you will sometimes want to scale down your view of a document so that you can see a whole page on screen at once, to check the overall formatting before printing.
While you are typing, Fireworkz will always keep the caret on screen, so if you are simply typing continuous text you will only need to do this if you want to go and look at a part of the document which has scrolled off the screen.
You can move the caret around the document in several ways:
The simplest and most important word processing task is typing the text into the document.
To put new text in a particular part of a document, you first need to place the caret there.
As you will realise, the annual school trip to the pantomime is almost upon us.Only enter the words, punctuation marks and spaces and do not press Return↵ at the end of lines; if a new line is needed within a paragraph Fireworkz will automatically begin one.
To add a new paragraph you will need to start a new line.
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Some of the text in the letter is in the wrong order. It needs to be moved to the correct position by selecting, cutting and pasting it.
You use these buttons to perform these actions:
There are two ways to select areas of text. Try both and see which you prefer.
The first way:
The second way:
Note that when you have an area selected, the
button on the toolbar turns black. In addition, many of the buttons are no longer greyed out indicating that the operations that they perform are now available.To move the selected text, follow these steps:
Cutting enables you to remove text from a document but to keep a copy of it internally for use elsewhere. You can also do this by making a selection and then typing over it.
However you will often want to remove text and throw it away. You do this by using the Delete key.
Scroll up to the top of the document. Look at the text in the first paragraph. You probably have already noticed that there are some mistakes and repeated words in it.
The word ‘Australians’ should not have the final ‘s’. To delete it:
In the first paragraph, the word ‘Cinderella’ is repeated by mistake. To correct this:
Further down the paragraph the words ‘and retired footballers who visited the school earlier this year for coaching sessions’ appear. To remove these:
If you simply want to replace text with different text:
Note that simply typing over selected text will actually cut it.
Sometimes you need to change the case of one or more words, changing the letters from upper to lower case or vice versa, or adding initial capitals as in a proper name.
In the sample document the heading needs to be changed to capital letters:
The document which you have been working on has a very simple format. It is now time to improve its look, by changing the justification, style, fonts and effects used within it.
Different parts of the document need to be aligned differently on the paper. The alignment of text in relation to the margins is called justification. For example, the address is usually flush against the right margin, headings are often centred so that they are in the middle of the paper, and the main body of text is often printed so that it is flush against both margins.
The letter you are working on requires use of each kind of justification. At the moment all the paragraphs are left justified. The left-hand edge of each line of text is next to the margin, but the right-hand side ends where the last word finishes, producing a ragged right-hand edge. Typesetters often refer to this as ‘ragged right’. This is the default setting, which will appear in your documents if you do not explicitly choose an alternative.
Changing the justification of a paragraph of text is as simple as clicking
in it and then clicking on one of the four buttons in the justification
palette group on the toolbar, shown below:
The following examples show you how to use justification in the sample document.
Centring is often used for headings and for documents with only a small amount of text, such as posters and invitations.
You can use the ruler to change the margins of lines and paragraphs within the document.
In the middle of the document Theatre are a set of dates. These will stand out more if the paragraphs containing them are indented.
Note that the paragraph margin marker (the downwards-pointing arrow above the left margin marker) moves with the left margin marker. You can also move it separately.
One of the benefits of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processing is that it enables you to experiment with styles and change the look of your document without having to print it out to see the results. Changing the style of text is easily accomplished with Fireworkz' buttons and menus.
The style of the main body of text in the letter you are editing looks fine and does not need changing. However the heading could be made to stand out more.
To change the style of the heading:
Emphasis may be added to text using bold and italic forms of the letters. If you have used a typewriter, you will be used to underlining words for emphasis, or to show that they are the title of a work of art. It has become conventional with word processors such as Fireworkz to use italic letters to do this.
To put the name of the pantomime in italics:
Everybody makes typing errors from time to time. To help you avoid making mistakes, Fireworkz includes a spelling checker which will read your document and query any words it thinks you might have spelt wrongly.
To check the spelling in this document:
The final phase in the production of most documents is printing them out, and this is no exception.
If there are any problems with printing, refer to the chapter on Printing in the User Guide.
You should now be able to produce simple documents using Fireworkz and understand the way the program’s various components work together to help you write and format documents.
If you are still unsure of the basics, have another go at editing the practice file. Try creating a new document using the Letter template and write your own letter to practise editing.
If you are happy that you understand everything that you have learnt in this chapter, go on to the next chapter where you will learn how to use Fireworkz' more powerful features to improve the design and layout of your documents.