Standard Grade Computing Studies
General Purpose Packages
Frank Frame
GENERAL PURPOSE PACKAGES
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Dorothy Tedman for her contribution to the review of the content.
First published 2004
© Learning and Teaching Scotland 2004
This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part for educational purposes by schools and
colleges in Scotland provided that no profit accrues at any stage.
ISBN 1 84399 034 2
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Contents
Introduction
iv
What are General Purpose Packages, why
do we use them and what are they used for?
1
Storing Data in Your GPP
4
The Human-Computer Interface
8
Integrated Packages
13
What do you need to know about the Packages?
17
What do you need to know about Graphics?
25
What do you need to know about Spreadsheets?
29
What do you need to know about Databases?
35
Desktop Publishing
40
Presentation/Multimedia Packages
44
Creating a Web Page
50
What is an Expert System?
54
General Purposes Packages in the Workplace
56
The Law
59
GPP Questions
64
GPP Answers
74
Answers to Exercises
80
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Introduction
This publication is part of a series of publications to support Standard Grade
Arrangements in Computing Studies (March 2004). The titles in the series are:
•
•
•
•
•
General Purpose Packages
Communications and Networks
Computer Systems
Automated Systems
Commercial Data Processing.
The first two packs, General Purpose Packages and Communications and
Networks, provide complete coverage of the content as specified in the updated
arrangements for Standard Grade Computing Studies.
The other three packs, Computer Systems, Automated Systems, and Commercial
Data Processing have been produced to support the three programmes featured
on the DVD. The content of these materials has been written to relate directly
to the programmes on the DVD and may not cover all the content as specified
in the course arrangements.
General Purpose Packages
The materials contained in this pack support the section on general purpose
packages. They contain student notes, exercises, questions and answers at
Foundation, General and Credit level covering all aspects of the detailed
content outlined in the arrangements.
Note: Credit level is marked in this document with shading.
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What are General Purpose Packages, why
do we use them and what are they used for?
What are General Purpose Packages?
General Purpose Packages (GPPs) are commercially available, fully tested
software packages that are designed to allow the user to solve a range of problems.
The packages that you are going to learn about are:
•
word processing
•
graphics
•
spreadsheet
•
database
•
presentation and multimedia
•
web page creation
•
desktop publishing
•
expert systems.
Why do we use them?
•
•
•
•
•
Using General Purpose Packages is a very productive way to carry out
complex tasks such as performing calculations and searching for
information, even producing a complex multimedia slide show. General
Purpose Packages enable us to complete our tasks quickly and efficiently.
Keeping your documents and data accurate and up to date is made easier
using these applications because entering data and updating it is
straightforward.
Changing or adapting your documents is made easy. You can easily
change the content, style or layout of a document any time you need to.
Using these applications you can produce a whole range of different
types of documents that you can use to communicate ideas and
information to people.
Using the applications means that businesses can reduce their costs. The
applications can be expensive but the increase in productivity they bring
will reduce costs in the long term.
Exercise 1
1. Which GPPs do you have access to on your computer system?
2. List five reasons for using GPPs.
3. How do GPPs make altering a document easy? Give an example of a
document you have entered and then altered in some way.
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What are they used for?
The table below shows you the packages you have to know about and the sort
of tasks they are designed to help you carry out.
Package
Tasks
Word processing
Producing text documents, such as letters, memos,
essays, and books.
Storing, searching, and sorting data such as: names
and addresses, customers’ details, pupils’ test scores.
Storing numbers and performing calculations using
formulae. Examples: bank account details,
household expenditure, league tables.
Producing graphics, illustrations, drawings,
cartoons, diagrams, processing digital photographs.
Database
Spreadsheet
Graphics
Web page creation
Producing web pages and websites.
Multimedia and presentation Producing multimedia presentations.
Desktop publishing
Producing documents that enable you to
combine text and graphics with a high degree of
control and precision.
Expert system
Storing and processing the knowledge of an
expert. Used to help people make complex
decisions.
Combining functions
Some packages combine functions from other packages, for example:
•
word-processing packages have drawing tools available to let you
illustrate your text
•
spreadsheet packages allow you to sort data
•
database packages allow you to use formulae
•
graphics packages have text capabilities.
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Exercise 2
1. Your teacher wants to store the names, registration class details and ages
as well as the exam marks of each pupil in your class. She needs to be
able to calculate the class average as well as sort the class names into
alphabetical order and carry out searches for specific pieces of data.
Which package would be the best to use?
2. Complete this table matching packages to the tasks.
Package
Task
Producing an online catalogue for a website.
Producing a series of memos for an office.
Storing the results of the school sports competitions.
Storing the personal details of all pupils in a school.
Producing the school magazine.
Producing a poster advertising the school disco.
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Storing Data in Your GPP
What type of data can you enter and store using your GPP?
Type of data
Main package
Numbers
Spreadsheet – spreadsheets are designed for storing numbers
and performing calculations on them using formulae. Other
packages can store numbers: for example a database can store
numbers and use formulae; word-processing packages have
page-numbering features.
Text
Word processing – you can use your other packages to store
text: databases can store text items like names and addresses,
spreadsheets and graphics packages use text to label columns of
figures and drawings.
Graphics
Drawing and painting packages – you can, of course, find
graphics in the other packages: word processing, spreadsheet
and database packages can all contain graphics.
Audio
Multimedia and web page creation packages can handle sound files.
Photographic
Graphics packages, multimedia and presentation packages.
Animation
Word processing, presentation and multimedia, web page
creation, graphics.
Video
Multimedia and web page creation packages.
Audio data
Many packages can handle audio data. Audio data can be stored and processed
in two distinct ways: as MIDI or as digital audio.
A MIDI audio file stores the instructions that tell the computer system how to
create musical sounds, for example they hold data on the pitch and the length
of musical notes.
A digital audio file stores samples of sound waves that have been turned into
binary numbers. Audio files are often compressed to make them smaller.
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Photographic data
When you take a picture with a digital
camera it stores a digital representation of the
image in its memory as a pattern of binar y
numbers, ‘1’s and ‘0’s. You can then transfer
this digital image to your computer and
process it using a range of graphics software
or it can be inserted into a multimedia
document or web page. For further
information see the Computer Systems
support notes pages.
A problem with graphics images is that the files can be very large indeed, and,
like audio files, they are often compressed before being stored and used.
Animation
Many packages can handle animated graphics. The most common way of
producing animations is for the computer to display a series of graphics very
quickly one after another. To get a fluent movement the system has to display
24 images a second. This gives the impression of movement. It also means
the animation files can be very large since the computer has to store and
process information about every graphic that is displayed.
Video images
Computer video works in a similar way to animations. The computer has to
display images very quickly on the screen. It also has to store the data about
each individual image on the screen. To get a smooth fluent video image it has
to process 40 frames a second. This could result in some very large file sizes.
If you are recording at a speed of 30 frames per second and 1 colour frame
= 1 megabyte, then the camera will have to store 30 megabytes per second or
1.8 gigabytes per minute.
Need to compress video footage
It is obvious that there is a need to compress the video images. If you did not
then you would find it very difficult to store and process them.
Most video images are now compressed down to around one fiftieth of the
original size. You can then store them on a DVD.
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Exercise 3
1. If you have any animated graphic files on your computer system, list
them and look at their file sizes.
2. Describe how animations work.
3. Why do animations demand so much storage space?
Making backups
Computers can break down, disks can develop faults and you can delete things
by mistake. So you need to make backups on floppy disks, hard disks, tapes or
writable CDs and store them in a safe place. It is important to make a backup
copy of your data, otherwise you might lose it.
File formats
We can save our text documents in different file formats. The most common
are American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), plain text,
and rich text format (RTF).
Advantage
When you save a text document using a standard file format you can be sure
that the files will be accepted by a wide range of software. The result is that
your data files are very portable and can be transferred easily from one
package to another.
ASCII
An ASCII file stores information about the characters in a document. It does
not store information about the styles, the fonts, the spacing, simply the bare
text. It is such a simple file format it is accepted by virtually all computer
systems. So ASCII files are very portable. Also, because they do not contain
additional information they are smaller than the equivalent rich text format
file. This means they will not take up as much space on your hard disk and
will take less time to transmit across a network.
Plain text
This format is virtually identical to ASCII. It encodes plain text with no
formatting information. There is a text format that includes the RETURN
code, which allows it to divide text into paragraphs. Files saved as plain text
are, like ASCII files, relatively small, take up less space on backing storage
and take less time to transmit.
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Rich text format
Rich text format (RTF) files store the information about the text and the
information about, paragraphing, indentation, styles, fonts and sizes.
Exercise 4
1. What is a standard file format?
2. What is the advantage of using standard file formats?
3. Why is a file saved in ASCII format smaller than the same file saved in RTF?
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The Human–Computer Interface
The Human–Computer Interface (HCI) is the part of the computer system that
people use to interact and communicate with the computer. When you ask your
computer to load a file, save to disk or to open a file, you are using the HCI.
GUI
This is short for Graphical User
Interface. GUIs use graphics to
control the computer’s actions such
as ticking boxes, or selecting a
button.
Toolbar
The toolbar is a common part of
most HCIs. A toolbar is a menu
made up of a series of icons that
you can select as you need them.
Toolbars make communicating
with the computer easy since they
make commonly used functions
easily available to the user.
Here is a toolbar for working with tables
and borders.
WIMP
A common type of HCI is a WIMP,
short for Windows, Icons, Menus,
Pointers (or Windows, Icons, Mouse
and Pull-down menus).
Windows display what is in a folder
or a document.
Windows like this one display items
such as files.
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These icons represent software and hardware.
Here is a tools menu.
The pointer is used to select icons and option from
the menus.
Why do computers have WIMP-based HCIs?
– Because they are user friendly. ‘User friendly’ means that it is easy to learn
how to use the software. Open a window, point at an icon and click on it.
That’s how simple it is to open a file. What could be easier or more user
friendly?
Exercise 5
1. What does HCI stand for?
2. What does WIMP stand for?
3. Use the ‘print screen’ feature on your computer to take screenshots of:
• the icons on your desktop
• a couple of open windows
• two or three open menus.
Now paste the screenshots into a document, give them headings, save the
document and print it out.
4. Which toolbar do you use most often?
5. How does the toolbar help you complete tasks quickly?
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Getting your computer to help you
Online help is a help feature available within a package. Online help is very
easy to use. Simply open the help window, type in the topic you need help
with and the software will display the information. In the example below the
user has asked for help with changing page margins.
Another simpler version of online help simply explains what an icon does
when you rest your pointer on it.
If you want to learn how to use an
application package you can also use an
online tutorial.
An online tutorial teaches you how to
operate a package; leads you though
examples and then sets you some exercises.
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Exercise 6
1. Open up the online help in your spreadsheet package and ask it for
help with moving or copying a formula. Write out a summary of what
it tells you.
2. What is the difference between online help and an online tutorial?
Templates
Templates are very useful. They are the
skeletons of a document with much of the
format of the document already laid out, for
example headings, colour, fonts, tables and text
boxes already set up.
A range of templates available to the user
A template for a frequently
asked questions (FAQ) page,
already divided into sections,
numbered lists included and
even text colour set
Wizard
A wizard is a feature in a package that guides you through a complicated task. A
popular use of wizards in general purpose packages is to take you, step by step,
through the process of
setting up a document.
This wizard guides you
through the stages
involved in setting up a
desktop publishing
document.
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Customising the HCI
If you customise something you
change it to suit your own needs. You
can customise the HCI of your
computer by opening the control
panel and changing features such as:
•
•
•
the appearance of the icons
the speed or appearance of
the pointer
the colour of the desktop.
Keyboard shortcuts
Using menus is an easy way to get things done
especially if you are learning how to use a
package. Experienced users often find it quicker
to use the keyboard. Lots of menus show the key
presses that carry out the same action as a menu
selection, for example you can save a document
by pressing the ‘Ctrl’ key and the ‘S’ key.
Exercise 7
1. What is a template?
2. What is the advantage of using a template?
3. Open up one of your GPPs and use the online help to find out about
templates.
4. Use the online help to find out about the wizards that are part of your
packages. List them, and use a couple of them to create documents.
5. What is the advantage of using a wizard?
6. Use keyboard shortcuts to find and replace some text in your wordprocessing package.
7. If your system allows, use the control panel to customise your desktop.
Write out a list of the changes you make.
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Integrated Packages
Integrated packages have three or four GPPs in one package. They usually
have spreadsheet, graphics, database, and word-processing packages available.
The advantages of an integrated package are as follows.
•
•
•
Transferring data between packages is quite easy. It is usually a simple
cut and paste.
All the GPPs have a common HCI.
Integrated packages cost less than buying a series of individual GPPs.
They do have a disadvantage: each of the GPPs in the integrated package has
fewer features than an individual package would have, for example the
database part of an integrated package would have fewer features than, and
would not be as powerful as, an individual database package.
Common HCIs
When we say that all the applications in an integrated package have a common
HCI it means their menus, icons and even keyboard shortcuts are similar.
These three similar ‘Edit’ menus are from different applications in an
integrated package.
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Advantage of a common HCI
Because the HCI is so similar in each application, it makes it easier for the
user to move between the different parts of the integrated package without
having to learn about new menus, icons and keyboard shortcuts.
Producing a document combining data from
different applications
Integrated packages are ideal for producing documents where you need to
combine data from different applications. If your teacher used an integrated
package to produce a report on the progress of your class she would:
•
•
•
•
enter the text for the report using a word processing application
copy and paste the data on your test results from the database into the
word processing report document
use the spreadsheet to produce charts of the results and then copy and
paste them into the report document
use the graphics package to produce a logo then copy and paste it into
the report.
You can see all of these in the report example below.
Class 4C progress report
Class 4C is making fairly sound progress through the standard grade
computing course. They have taken quite a few class tests and have been fairly
successful as their records, taken from the class database file show.
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Their overall performance as a class can be seen
from these figures …
Grade 1
Grade 2
Grade 3
Grade 4
Grade 5
Grade 6
Grade 7
6
9
3
2
0
0
0
… and from this graph.
If the class keeps working as well as it has been in the past few months, I think
we can predict that its progress will continue to improve.
Integration using a suite of applications
You can use a suite of applications to support tasks that demand integration. Suites are
collections of applications usually produced by the same software company.
All the applications in the suite are designed to have a similar HCI and use
common formats for their data files.
They allow the user to transfer data between applications easily and take
advantage of the common HCI just like in an integrated package.
There are differences:
•
•
•
the applications in an integrated suite of packages have many more
features than those in an integrated package
a suite of applications will take up more space on your disk than an
integrated package
a suite of applications will cost a lot more than an integrated package.
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Linking files
Dynamic links between files
If you set up a dynamic link between two files, when you change the data in
one file the file linked to it is automatically updated.
In the report on the class above on page 14 the data on class results could be
linked dynamically to the graph in the main report document. When the
results data is changed, the graph would change automatically.
Static links between files
You can set up static links between files. If the link is static it means that,
unlike a dynamic link, when you change the data in one file, the linked file
would not automatically update. The user would have to intervene and carry
out the update.
Exercise 8
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
What are the advantages of using an integrated package?
What is the main disadvantage of using an integrated package?
If you have used an integrated package write down its name.
What is a common HCI? Give examples in your answer.
Describe how data is transferred between applications in an integrated package.
What is a suite of integrated applications?
What advantage does it have over an ordinary integrated package?
Why does an integrated suite of applications cost more than an
ordinary integrated package?
9. What is the advantage of using dynamic links between documents?
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What do you need to know about
the Packages?
The packages you need to get to know all about are:
•
Word processing
•
Database
•
Spreadsheets
•
Graphics
•
Multimedia/presentation packages
•
Desktop publishing packages
•
Web page authoring packages
•
Expert systems.
Common features
Let us start with those features that occur in several of the packages.
Feature
Description
Open/run an application Using the computer’s WIMP HCI you usually open
an application by clicking on an icon or selecting from
a menu.
Create, save, open/load Again we use our WIMP HCI to open a new file or
or print a file
one that is already on disk, save a file or get a printout
by selecting from a menu or clicking on an icon.
Insert data
This is easily done by moving the cursor to the point
where you want the data then clicking. Once you have
placed the cursor where you want it you can type in
your data.
Amend data
This simply means changing the data.
Delete
You can highlight data and delete it using the delete key
or a menu option. Or, on some systems, you can delete
files by dragging them to the Recycle Bin/trash icon.
Change the appearance You can change the appearance of your text
of text
in many ways: change the size, make it bold, and put
it into italics.
Move/copy data
Moving data around a document is easy. You
simply highlight it and then cut and paste. In an
integrated package this is how you transfer data
between applications.
Headers and footers
Headers and footers appear at the top and bottom of
every page in a document. You use them to put page
numbers in and other information such as the title or
the date or even the author’s name.
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Print part of a document If you have a large document you might not want to
print it all out. This feature lets you choose which
pages you want to print out.
Exercise 9
1. Complete these sentences.
• ‘When you amend a paragraph of text you …’
• ‘When you insert a word into a sentence you …’
2. What is a header/footer used for?
3. Open up a word-processing file that has several pages. Use the printer
dialogue box like the one above to print out one copy of pages 3 and 4.
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Word-processing packages
Feature
What you need to know
Entering text
Word-wrap
Text is usually entered by typing at the keyboard.
If you type a word at the end of a line of text and there is not
enough room, Word-wrap automatically moves it on to the next
line rather than leaving part on one line and part on the next.
Your page size is usually set to A4, but
you can change it easily by a simple
click of the mouse.
Alter page size
Alter page layout
Page breaks
Alter alignment
Set margins
Alter the text style
Spellchecker
You can change the layout of a page by altering the margins,
changing the positions of the headers and footers, by setting
up columns on a page or by changing the layout from
portrait to landscape.
You can make your document
begin a new page at any point.
All you have to do is insert the
cursor and make a selection
from a menu.
Changing text alignment is changing the way text lines up on
the page. It can be:
• left-aligned: lined-up with the left margin
• right-aligned: lined-up with the right margin
• centred
• lined-up with both margins.
Changing alignment is a simple matter
of selecting the correct icon.
You can set the margins by using the controls at the top of
your page.
This lets you change the appearance of the text, for example
by making it bold, italics or underlined.
We have all had to use this. It does help to find spelling
errors and correct them. Some things escape the
spellchecker, for example correctly spelt but wrong words
such as ‘there’ instead of ‘their’.
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Feature
Grammar check
What you need to know
It is a good idea to check the grammar to make sure your
text is sticking to the rules of the English language.
Search and replace This is a really useful feature. It looks for a word or phrase
you want changed and then changes it for you automatically.
Standard paragraph You can save paragraphs of text that are used frequently and
then insert them into documents as you need them. This can
save a lot of time.
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Table
A table is made up of rows and columns and is used to help organise the way
in which test is laid out on a page. It is very useful when you are typing up
lists or columns of information, or placing graphics beside text.
Bakery Delights
Doughnuts
Apple pie
Meringue
Scones
Exercise 10
1.
2.
3.
4.
Give two examples of different text styles.
Describe the advantage of using ‘Search and Replace’.
What are standard paragraphs used for?
Open up a word-processing document and insert a table with three
columns and six rows. Insert suitable headings then fill up the table
with the first names, surnames and addresses of five of your friends.
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Standard letter
This is a letter that is used time and time again and sent to lots of people.
When it is typed in no details of names and addresses are entered. These
details are inserted later automatically, usually from a database file using the
process known as mail-merge.
Mail merge
The process of mail merging takes data from a source file, usually a database
file but it can be a spreadsheet or even a table in a word-processing
document, and inserts it into the previously prepared standard letter and then
sends it to the printer.
A mail merge is commonly used to produce sets of personalised standard
letters. The procedure for setting up a mail merge can be divided up into the
following steps.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Compose a standard letter with no personal details such as names and
addresses on it, mark out the points in the document where the personal
data has to be inserted.
Save the standard letter to backing storage.
Set up the link between the standard letter file and the file with the
personal data that has to be inserted, indicating which fields in the data
file are to be used and where they are to be inserted in the letter.
The system then takes the data from the data file and inserts it into the
standard letter. This is usually then sent to the printer straight away,
though the user can choose to perform the merge and send the merged
document to the printer later.
Why use a mail merge?
Mail merging saves time and effort. Once the mail merge has been set up the
computer will automatically produce as many personalised standard letters as
you need.
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Creating a template
Using a template can save you lots
of time when you are producing a
document. The template has the
structure of the document already
in place. For example it might
have text boxes, text sizes, fonts
and styles already in place.
Most packages let you create your
own templates by following a few
simple steps that set up a new
document or altering an existing
template. This image shows a list
of templates that have been
created for a variety of purposes.
Once you have created a template
you can use it to quickly reproduce documents with the same structure, style
and formatting.
Using optical character-recognition software
Optical character-recognition (OCR) software enables you to edit text that has
been scanned directly from a page. Once it has a digital representation of the
page that has been scanned in, the OCR software compares the shapes on the
page with shapes of the characters it holds in its data files. When it gets a
match it stores the ASCII value of the character in memory.
The OCR software then enables you to load the file into a word-processing
document and add to it or alter it as you need to.
Why use OCR?
OCR is used because it means you can input text without having to spend
time at the keyboard. Time saved can be a big advantage to any user but
especially so to business users.
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Exercise 11
1. Complete this bulleted set of instructions using the words below.
• Compose a standard letter with no_____________such as names
and addresses on it; mark out the points in the document where the
personal data has to be ________.
• ________the standard letter to backing storage.
• Set up the_________between the standard letter file and the file
with the personal data that has to be inserted, indicating which fields
in the data file are to be used and where they are to be inserted in
the letter.
• The system then takes the data from the ______ ______, inserts it
into the standard letter then sends it to the printer. It is usually then sent
to the printer straight away, though the user can choose to perform the
merge and send the merged document to the printer later.
inserted, save, personal details, data file, link
2. The secretary in the school office has to send out the same letter to a
group of 50 parents. Why should he use a mail merge?
3. Many applications enable you to create your own templates and save
them for further use. Why is this feature useful?
4. Describe briefly how OCR operates.
5. Explain how OCR can speed up the input of text into a document.
24 STANDARD GR ADE COMPUTING STUDIES
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