Word Processing

A word processor is application software used to create, edit, format, store and print documents that are made mainly of text. Writing a leave application to your principal, preparing a science project report, designing a certificate or printing a set of address labels are all word-processing jobs. Widely used examples are Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer, Google Docs and WPS Writer. Because the document appears on screen almost exactly as it will appear on paper, such software is described as WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).

Students very often confuse a word processor with a text editor. A text editor, such as Notepad on Windows or gedit on Linux, stores plain text only: the characters and the line breaks, and nothing else. It carries no information about font, size, colour, boldness, page margins, tables or pictures. A word processor stores formatted text: the same characters plus every formatting instruction, image, table and page setting attached to them. That is the distinction the examiner is testing, so answer in terms of formatting and layout, never in terms of one program being better than another.

Because of this difference, the two are used for different work. A text editor is preferred when the file must stay perfectly plain — writing HTML code, editing a configuration file, or making notes that any program can read. A word processor is preferred when the document has to look presentable when printed.

Working with a document follows four basic operations. Creating a new document opens a blank page, usually with a shortcut such as Ctrl + N; most word processors also offer ready-made templates for resumes, letters and reports so you do not start from nothing. Saving writes the document from the computer's RAM (Random Access Memory, which is volatile and loses its contents when power goes off) to permanent storage such as the hard disk or a pen drive. The first save asks you for a file name and a folder. Opening loads a saved document back from storage into memory so you can continue working, and closing removes it from the screen.

Note the difference between Save and Save As, which is a favourite short-answer question. Save updates the existing file with your latest changes and keeps the same name. Save As asks for a new name, a new folder or a new file format, and therefore creates a second copy while leaving the original file untouched. Use Save As when you want to keep both the old and the new version.

Documents can be stored in several file formats, each recognised by its extension — the letters after the dot in the file name. Which format is the default depends on the software you use. Microsoft Word normally saves as .docx (Office Open XML), while LibreOffice Writer normally saves as .odt (OpenDocument Text). .doc is the older Word format. .rtf, Rich Text Format, keeps basic formatting and is meant for exchanging files between different word processors. .txt is plain text and drops all formatting. .pdf, Portable Document Format, fixes the layout so the file looks identical on every device and is normally used for sharing or printing rather than for further editing. Most word processors can export a document to PDF directly.

Formatting means changing the appearance of a document without changing its words. Word processors divide formatting into levels, and the examiner expects you to name the level correctly.

Character formatting (also called font formatting) applies to individual characters, words or any selected stretch of text. It includes the font face or typeface (Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri), the font size, the font style — bold, italic, underline — the font colour, highlighting, strikethrough, change of case (UPPERCASE, lowercase, Sentence case, Title Case), and superscript and subscript. Superscript raises text above the line, as in x² or 5^th; subscript lowers it, as in H₂O. Font size is measured in points, where 1 point equals 1/72 of an inch, so a 12-point setting corresponds to one-sixth of an inch — that is the size of the design body the letters are drawn on, so a printed capital letter is actually a little shorter than this.

Paragraph formatting applies to a complete paragraph. In a word processor a paragraph is any block of text that ends when you press the Enter key — it may be one line or twenty. Paragraph formatting includes alignment, indentation, line spacing, spacing before and after the paragraph, tab stops, borders and shading, and bullets or numbering.

There is a practical rule that examiners like to test. To apply character formatting you must first select the text; only the selection changes. To apply paragraph formatting you only need to place the cursor anywhere inside the paragraph, because the whole paragraph is affected either way. To format several paragraphs at once, select across them.

Alignment decides how the lines sit between the left and right margins. Left alignment makes the left edge straight and the right edge ragged; this is the normal setting for ordinary text. Right alignment makes the right edge straight and is used for dates in a letter. Centre alignment places each line midway between the margins and is used for headings and certificates. Justify stretches the spaces between words so that both the left and right edges are straight, which is how newspaper and textbook columns look.

Indentation is the distance between the text and the margin, and it is not the same thing as the margin itself. The margin is a page setting; the indent is a paragraph setting measured from the margin. A left indent pushes the whole paragraph in from the left margin, a right indent from the right. A first-line indent moves only the first line inwards, which is the traditional way of starting a paragraph in a book. A hanging indent does the opposite — the first line starts at the margin and every later line is pushed in — and this is exactly what makes a bulleted or numbered list line up neatly.

Line spacing is the vertical gap between lines within a paragraph: single, 1.5 lines, double, or an exact value. Teachers often ask for double spacing so that corrections can be written in. Paragraph spacing (space before and space after) is different — it is the gap between one paragraph and the next, and using it is better practice than pressing Enter twice.

Bullets and numbering turn paragraphs into a list. Use bullets — dots, squares, arrows — when the order of the items does not matter, for example a list of input devices. Use numbering when the order does matter, for example the steps of a procedure, because the word processor renumbers the list automatically if you insert or delete an item. A multilevel list adds sub-items such as 1, 1.1, 1.2. Most word processors also provide a Format Painter (called Clone Formatting in some software) that copies formatting from one place and applies it elsewhere, and styles such as Heading 1 that apply a whole set of formatting at once.

Page setup (page formatting) covers everything that describes the page itself rather than the text on it. It is normally set before you finish a document, and in most word processors it is found under a Layout, Page Layout or Format menu.

Paper size is the size of the sheet the document is designed for. The international standard used across India for school and office work is A4, which measures 210 mm by 297 mm. Other sizes include A5, Legal and Letter. If the paper size in the software does not match the paper in the printer, the printout will be cut off or wrongly positioned.

Margins are the blank spaces between the edge of the paper and the text area — top, bottom, left and right. They keep the page readable and stop text from being lost at the edges, since most printers cannot print right up to the paper edge. A gutter margin is extra space added on the binding side so that words are not swallowed when pages are stapled or spiral-bound. Remember the contrast tested in exams: a margin is a page setting that applies to the whole document or section, while an indent is a paragraph setting measured inward from that margin.

Orientation decides which way the page is turned. Portrait is taller than it is wide and is the normal choice for letters, essays and reports. Landscape is wider than it is tall and suits wide tables, charts and certificates. Most word processors let different sections of the same document use different orientations.

When one page fills up, the software inserts an automatic page break by itself. If you want a new page to start at a chosen point — say, so that each chapter begins on a fresh page — insert a manual page break, usually with Ctrl + Enter. Pressing Enter repeatedly to reach the next page is poor practice, because the blank lines shift as soon as you edit the text above. A section break goes further and lets one part of the document have its own page settings.

A header is the area at the top of the page, lying inside the top margin and above the main body text, and a footer is the matching area at the bottom, inside the bottom margin and below the body text. Whatever you type there is repeated automatically on every page of the document, so they are used for the school name, the project title, the student's name and class, the date, or the page number. You do not retype them page by page — that is the whole point of the feature, and it is the answer expected when a question asks why headers and footers are useful.

Most word processors offer options such as a different first page, so that a cover page carries no header, and different odd and even pages, so that page numbers can sit on the outer edge like a printed book.

Page numbers are normally inserted into the header or footer as a field — a placeholder that the software fills in and updates by itself. Because it is a field and not typed text, the numbering stays correct even after you add or delete pages, and you can usually choose the format (1, 2, 3 or i, ii, iii), the position, and the starting number. A related page-level feature is the watermark, faint text or an image such as the word DRAFT placed behind the main text.

A table arranges information in a grid so that it can be read and compared quickly — a class timetable, a marks list, or a price list in rupees. A horizontal line of boxes is a row, a vertical line of boxes is a column, and the box formed where a row and a column meet is a cell. Each cell holds its own text, number or even picture, and can be formatted independently. The total number of cells is simply the number of rows multiplied by the number of columns, so a table of 5 rows and 4 columns has 20 cells.

To insert a table, most word processors offer both a small grid you drag across and an Insert Table dialogue box in which you type the number of rows and columns. You can also convert existing text into a table when the items are separated by tabs or commas.

Once the table exists you can insert or delete rows and columns, adjust column width and row height, and merge several cells into one — useful for a heading that spans the whole table — or split one cell into several. Borders and shading control the lines and background colour; a table with no borders is still a table, it is only invisible. Most word processors can repeat the first row as a header row at the top of every page when a long table spills over, can sort the rows alphabetically or numerically, and can total a column of figures.

Moving inside a table is done with the Tab key, which jumps to the next cell, and Shift + Tab, which goes back one cell. In most word processors, pressing Tab while in the last cell of the last row adds a new row automatically. Note carefully that inside a table the Tab key does not insert a tab space, so this is a common trick question.

An image (also called a picture or graphic) is inserted to illustrate the document. Word processors let you insert a picture from a file on your computer, from an online source, or add shapes, icons, charts and text boxes. When a photograph is inserted it usually arrives at its full size, so it has to be resized.

Resizing is done by dragging the small squares called handles around the selected image. Dragging a corner handle changes width and height together and therefore keeps the aspect ratio — the proportion between width and height — so the picture does not look stretched. Dragging a side handle changes only one dimension and distorts the image. A separate handle usually rotates the picture.

Do not confuse resizing with cropping. Resizing changes the size of the whole picture while keeping all of it. Cropping trims away the unwanted outer parts of the picture — the removed portion is simply not displayed — while the part that remains keeps its original scale. This resize-versus-crop difference is a frequently asked short-answer distinction.

Text wrapping decides how the surrounding text behaves around the picture. In line with text treats the image like a very large character sitting on the text line. Square or tight wrapping flows the text around the image. Behind text and in front of text place the image on a separate layer, which is how watermarks and decorative backgrounds are made. Finally, good practice is to add alternative text (alt text) describing the picture, which is read out by screen-reader software for visually impaired readers.

Find searches the document for a word or phrase and highlights every occurrence, usually through Ctrl + F. Find and Replace, usually Ctrl + H, goes further: it locates the search text and substitutes it with replacement text. Replace changes one occurrence at a time so you can check each, while Replace All changes every occurrence in the document in a single step. If a project report spells a city as Kolkatta throughout, one Replace All corrects all of them instantly.

Search options make the tool precise. Match case makes the search case-sensitive, so searching for India will not match india. Whole words only stops a search for art from matching inside start or party. Many word processors also allow searching for formatting, or use wildcards for pattern matching. The caution to write in an exam answer is that Replace All is fast but blind — always think about partial words before using it.

Spell check compares each word in the document against a built-in dictionary and flags words it does not find, in most word processors by drawing a wavy underline beneath them. You may then accept a suggested correction, Ignore the word for this document, or Add to dictionary so that names such as Aadhaar or your own school's name are never flagged again. Grammar check looks instead at sentence structure and flags problems such as subject-verb disagreement, usually with a differently coloured underline; the colours used vary between programs and versions.

State the limitation clearly, because it is regularly examined: a spell checker cannot detect a correctly spelt word used in the wrong place. In the sentence I have to go their, the word their is in the dictionary, so no error is shown even though there was meant. Similar traps are form/from, its/it's and quite/quiet. Proofreading by a human is still required. Related tools include AutoCorrect, which fixes common typing mistakes as you type, the Thesaurus, which suggests synonyms, and Word Count, which reports the number of words, characters, paragraphs and pages.

Mail merge is the feature used to produce many personalised copies of the same document. Its definition for an exam is: mail merge combines a main document with a data source so that one personalised document is produced for every record in the data source.

It has three parts. The main document contains the matter that is common to everybody — the body of the invitation or notice — together with placeholders. The data source is the list of variable information, such as names, classes and addresses, stored as a table, a spreadsheet or a database in which each row is one record and each column is one field. The merge fields are the placeholders inserted in the main document that mark where each field's value should appear.

Main document

    Dear <<Parent_Name>>,
    Your ward <<Student_Name>> of class <<Class>>
    is invited to the Annual Day celebration.

Data source (one record per row)

    Parent_Name | Student_Name | Class
    Mrs Rao     | Ananya Rao   | IX-A
    Mr Iqbal    | Zaid Iqbal   | IX-B

Merging this main document with the two records produces two finished letters, each addressed correctly. The steps are: create the main document, create or select the data source, insert the merge fields at the right places, preview the merged result, and finally merge to a new document, to the printer or to e-mail. A school sending the same annual-day invitation to four hundred parents writes the letter once instead of four hundred times, so the advantages to state are speed, accuracy and no repeated typing. Mail merge is also used for envelopes, address labels, admit cards and certificates.

Print preview shows on screen exactly how each page of the document will look when it is printed, including margins, headers, footers, page breaks and images. It is used before printing so that mistakes — a heading stranded alone at the bottom of a page, a table spilling past the right margin, wrong orientation — can be corrected. The advantage to write in an exam is that print preview saves paper, ink and time by avoiding wrong printouts. In many current word processors the preview is shown beside the print settings in the same window rather than as a separate command.

The Print command, usually Ctrl + P, opens a dialogue box with the choices that control the printout. Printer selects which printer is used, and this list normally includes an option that saves to a PDF file instead of using paper. Number of copies sets how many times to print. Page range decides what is printed: all pages, only the current page, a selection, or a custom range typed as something like 2-5, 8, which prints pages 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8. Collate matters when several copies of a multi-page document are printed — collated output gives complete sets in order (1,2,3 then 1,2,3), while uncollated output gives all copies of page 1, then all copies of page 2. Duplex or two-sided printing uses both sides of the sheet, and pages per sheet shrinks several pages onto one sheet to save paper.

Before printing, check three things: that the page size in the software matches the paper in the tray, that the orientation is correct, and that the printer is switched on, connected and has paper. The instruction sent to the printer waits in a print queue, from which a job can be paused or cancelled.

Keyboard shortcuts are key combinations that carry out a command without using the mouse; they make work faster and are frequently asked as short objective questions. The combinations below are common to most word processors running on Windows, though a few differ between programs, and computers running macOS generally use the Command key in place of Ctrl.

File operations: Ctrl + N new document, Ctrl + O open, Ctrl + S save, Ctrl + P print, Ctrl + W close the document. Editing: Ctrl + X cut, Ctrl + C copy, Ctrl + V paste, Ctrl + Z undo, Ctrl + Y redo, Ctrl + A select the whole document. Note the difference between cut, which removes the text and places it on the clipboard (a temporary storage area in memory), and copy, which places a duplicate on the clipboard while leaving the original in place; paste inserts the clipboard contents at the cursor.

Character formatting: Ctrl + B bold, Ctrl + I italic, Ctrl + U underline. Paragraph formatting: Ctrl + L align left, Ctrl + E centre, Ctrl + R align right, Ctrl + J justify. Searching: Ctrl + F find, Ctrl + H replace. Movement: Ctrl + Home jumps to the very start of the document and Ctrl + End to the very end; holding Shift with an arrow key or with these keys selects text as you move. Ctrl + Enter inserts a page break, and in most word processors Ctrl + K inserts a hyperlink. In many word processors F7 starts the spelling and grammar check. Learn these as pairs of opposites — cut and copy, undo and redo, find and replace — because that is how they are usually asked.