Section 7: Introduction to Word and Email
Introduction
This section is intended as an introduction to the computer, email and word
processing. It will take you through using these programs as though you are using
them while reading the section, and will therefore read like a practical manual.
In this section I will be introducing you to what you first see on the screen when you
turn the computer on, how to access and use your email, and how to access and use
the word processing program. Email is useful for maintaining contacts with lecturers
and other students, and with the libraries. ‘Word’ is essential for preparing essays,
reports and seminar presentations, allowing your work to be clear and well presented.
The computer
To start at the very beginning, you have a P.C (Personal Computer).
This includes the hard disk, which is the ‘box’ part. There is the screen, where you
can see what it is you are working on,
and then there is the keyboard to use for typing your work or email.
1
Then there is the ‘mouse’, which can be used to ‘click’ on symbols on the screen in
order to use them.
We usually use the left hand button to click on things on the screen that we want to
look at or use. The right hand button can be used when we are using ‘Word’ in order
to bring up options, but this will be explained later in this section.
Switch on your PC and log-in. The screen in front of you will look something like
fig. 1 (but not necessarily exactly the same).
Figure 1
2
For example, we can ‘click’ with the left button of the mouse on to the ‘start’ bar in
the left hand corner of the screen in order to look at the menu there.
We can use this mouse to then point the arrow at the programme that we want to use,
in this case ‘email’, which in your case is ‘Mulberry’.
Email
Email is a way of communicating with people using the computer. It is like sending
letters, but is much quicker! It is very useful for communicating with lecturers, other
students, or the library, which will use it to tell you if you need to return books early
or if a book you have reserved is now available.
Login: You need a username and password to be able to read and use your emails,
this is to keep them secure, and prevent other people from accessing your email
account. Type in your login into this screen, and you can look at your email.
Figure 2
3
Inbox: Your ‘inbox’ is where emails that are sent to you are stored, and it looks like a
list of all these. You can double click on ‘inbox’ to bring up the list if this doesn’t
happen straight away. You can click on one of these with the left hand button of your
mouse in order to read one of your emails.
Figure 3
4
Reading an email: once you have clicked on the email title, the email should come
up
Figure 4
The screen that appears shows several things: who the email has come from, the
subject of the email, and the content. If it has been sent to other people, you can often
see who these are (but more of that later).
Replying to an email: In order to reply to this email, you use the left hand mouse
button again to click on the ‘reply’ button on the screen. A box will then appear
allowing you to select who you want the reply to go to. Click on the box to select
someone and then click on reply.
5
Figure 5
A separate screen should appear. Now it is possible to write your message in reply to
that person. That person’s email address will appear automatically in the ‘to’ box.
If the person that has written to you has sent the same message to some other people,
you may want to send your reply to those people as well.
Once you have finished writing your message, you use the mouse to press the ‘send’
button on the screen and the message will be sent.
6
Composing an email: If you want to write an email to someone who hasn’t written to
you, this is known as ‘composing an email’. Use the mouse and left hand button to
click on ‘draft’ on the screen.
Figure 6
7
Figure 7
In the clear box on the screen you can write your message. In the box marked ‘to’ this
is where you type in that person’s email address. Again, once you have finished
typing the message, then use the mouse to click on ‘send’.
Sending an email to several people: You can send an email to more than one person
in a number of ways:
1. By including a comma and space after each person’s email address, for
example:
joebloggs@yahoo.com, Joanna.Bloggs@bristol.ac.uk, jb@bloggs.co.uk
2. By writing one persons email address in the ‘to’ box, and then sending a
‘copy’ of this email to others by writing their email addresses in the ‘Cc’ box.
This may be used if you are sending a copy of the message to someone more
for their information
3. By including someone’s address in the ‘Bcc’ box (which means ‘blind copy’).
You add their address in here if you don’t want the others on your list to see
that they have received it!
8
Forwarding an email: If you want to forward an email, click on ‘forward’ and type
the address of the person that you want to send it to. Then press send.
Setting up an address book: It can be useful to set up an address book, which can
store the email addresses that you use. This can be helpful as you do not need to
remember them, or keep them written down anywhere.
In order to set this up in ‘Mulberry’, you need to got to the ‘addresses’ menu and
click on address book manager.
Figure 8
9
Figure 9
First click on IMSP and then double click on your login name. Then click on ‘new’
and a form will appear which you need to complete:
10
Figure 10
Fill this in as much as you want, and click ‘okay’. This then produces a list. You then
click on the name of the person from the list that you want to send an email to, press
draft, and then ‘okay’ on the box that next appears:
11
Figure 11
and then the blank draft box will appear, and you can write your email!
Attachments: It may be necessary to send attachments with your emails. These are
files, such as an essay you may be working on, that you ‘attach’ to the email, and the
recipient can then read these as well as the message. When you are writing an email
there is a button called ‘attach’. In order to attach a document, you press this button
and you are offered places in the PC that you may have stored the file, for example
floppy disk.
12
Figure 12
You then find the file you wish to attach and click on it. Press ‘open’ and the file will
attach. This is indicated by the little symbol of the bulldog clip on your email.
Log-out: In order to keep your inbox secure, you must ‘log-out’ when you have
finished using your email.
13
Using ‘Word’
You can find ‘Word’ in the start menu, by clicking on start, going to Programs and
then clicking on ‘Word’.
Figure 13
On some PCs you have to go from programs to ‘Microsoft 2000’, and then to
‘Word’.
Explaining the screen: This screen is where you will do all of your typing, and also
displays all of the tools that you will need, for example when you are writing an
essay. The central area is where you can see what you are typing – it is your ‘piece of
paper’. The area around it shows ‘menus’ such as ‘file’ and ‘edit’, which will be
covered later.
14
Figure 14
As this section is a basic overview of word, it will not cover everything that will be on
the screen in front of you - just point out those things that will be useful to get you
started. The best way of learning to use a computer program is probably by
experimenting and trying out all the different options yourself.
Toolbar: As discussed earlier, this section doesn’t cover all aspects of ‘Word’, (as
there isn’t the space) but points out the most useful things to you. These are likely to
be in the top row of symbols, and this is known as the ‘toolbar’. You see the
descriptions to the symbols when you move your mouse or cursor over the symbols.
1. ‘New’ is the first symbol on the left, a piece of paper with the corner turned
down. If you click on this in Word it will bring you up a blank ‘sheet of
paper’
2. The second symbol on the left shows a yellow folder opening. This is the
short way to open a file. Click on this symbol to open a file. A file is the
15
name given to some work you may have saved, for example an essay. If you
have saved an essay onto a floppy disk then you would look in ‘3 1/2 floppy’.
3. The third symbol is that of the floppy disk. This is the shortcut to ‘save’. If
you click on it, the PC will save you work to where you last saved it. I will
cover how to specify where you want to save work later.
4. The next symbol is that of a magnifying glass over a document and the
Microsoft Windows system. This is a search function. It gives options to
search for text in selected locations in the system and in selected files. It
allows you to search for particular words or files in your computer system
containing particular words that you type in and want to find in the files you
have.
5. The next symbol is that of a printer, and if you click on this, then it will print
the document you have on the screen. This is not the way to something if you
want to change the number of copies you are printing, etc.
6. The piece of paper with the magnifying glass over it is ‘Print Preview’ – if
you click on this, the screen that appears shows you the work as it will be
printed. This is useful to check the layout and presentation of your work
before you print it out and hand it in.
7. ABC – this is a shortcut to the spell check, if you click on it will scroll
through spelling mistakes.
8. Two overlapping and identical documents – this function allows you to copy
the document you have opened in front of you.
9. Clipboard with document – this allows you to paste what you copied.
10. The arrow pointing to the left is useful if you have made a mistake! It
‘undoes’ the last thing you did.
11. A globe with a chain-link – this function allows you to add a hyperlink in
your document and text.
12. The ‘grid’ can be clicked on to insert a table – this is covered in more detail
later.
13. This drop-down function allows you to choose how you want to view the
document you have opened on screen. By zooming in or out and in two pages
or otherwise.
16
14. Styles and formatting – this allows you to choose or manage how you want
your text font to be presented. For example in bold or italic or your line
spacing and so on. This can be for specific lines or for the whole document.
15. The box with the phrase ‘Times New Roman’ in refers to the ‘font’, i.e. the
type of lettering that you are using. If you click on the black arrow at the side
then a list of different fonts are shown. You can select a different one by
running the mouse arrow over them and clicking on the one you want
16. The box next to it with the numbers in refers to the size of the letters. You can
change this in the same way. The larger the number, the larger the letters.
17. The next box allows you to make the work you do bold. If you type
something, and then hold the flashing cursor with the mouse over it, holding
down the left hand button, you can ‘highlight’ the typing. If you then click on
the ‘B’ it makes it bold.
18. The same applies to the ‘I’ and the ‘U’, except if you click the ‘I’ it makes the
typing italic, and the ‘U’ underlines what you have written.
19. The next three boxes are used in a similar way, but this time it is to help with
the placing of your typing. Each symbol shows what it would do to a block of
typing. The first ‘aligns left’, i.e. all the writing starts from the left, the
second centres it on the page, the third aligns work to the right.
20. The next two boxes allow you to number lists, or to use bullet points. If you
have some typing that you want to number you can press on this to start with,
and it will automatically number each section. Alternatively, you can type
your list first, and then press this button, and it will number the items for you.
The same applies if you would like bullet points on your list.
This section will now cover the functions that you are most likely to use and
demonstrate briefly how to save and edit a document.
Typing a document: In order to save text that you have typed onto the screen you can
use the symbol on the toolbar, as shown earlier. However, if you haven’t previously
saved the document you need to say where you want to save the information. This is
where you use the ‘file’ menu.
17
File menu: If you click on the file menu, you will see the options as covered below.
The best way to remember all the options that you are shown is to practice yourself.
Figure 15
1. ‘New’: If you click on this in word it will bring you up a blank ‘sheet of
paper’
2. ‘Open’: This is the same as the shortcut on the toolbar, it can open a file that
you have saved.
3. ‘Save’ is the same as the shortcut on the toolbar, but ‘Save as’ is the useful
option here. This gives you the chance to name the document, and to save it
to you disk space, or to a floppy disk so that you can take it away and work
on a computer not on site, such as one you may have at home.
4. ‘Page Setup’ – you can click on this to change the page layout, for example to
landscape, which turns A4 on its side. Click on ‘portrait’ to turn it back.
5. ‘Print Preview’ – if you click on this, the screen that appears shows you the
work as it will be printed. This is useful to check the layout and presentation
of your work before you print it out and hand it in.
18
6. ‘Print’ – click on this to bring up a box from where you can then print your
work. The box asks for such information as how many copies you want to
print. You can then click okay, and your work will be printed. You can
change these options using the print option in the ‘file’ menu, rather than
simply clicking on the shortcut in the toolbar.
Figure 16
19
Edit Menu: Clicking on the edit menu, which is situated above the toolbar on the
left of the screen, will show you other useful options:
Figure 17
1. In this menu, as well as the ‘undo’ arrow, there is also a ‘redo’ arrow, which
allows us to redo the last thing that we ‘undid’, if that was a mistake.
2. ‘Cut’, ‘Copy’ and ‘Paste’. If you want to move a paragraph of your essay to
another place without having to re-type it all, these keys are very useful. You
highlight the text you want to move, and go to ‘Cut’. You then take the cursor
with the mouse to the new place for the text, and go to ‘Paste’. If you want to
place the same section of text elsewhere, you highlight the text and got to
‘Copy’, and then repeat the next stage with ‘Paste’.
3. Pressing ‘Find’ will bring up a box. You can then enter a word that you want
to locate in your piece of work, and this will take you there.
You can do the same with ‘Go to’ which will take you to a page number that
you specify.
20
View Menu: In this menu, the most useful option is that of ‘Header and Footer’. If
you click on this you will find that a box appears in which you can type text, and also
a ‘toolbar’ appears. In this ‘Header’ you can type information which you want to
appear at the top of every page, such as your name and the date, which may be useful
for work such as essays. If you hold the mouse cursor over the symbols on the toolbar,
you’ll see that you can do things such as enter page numbers and the date. This also
includes a button to ‘Switch between header and footer’; this means that you can enter
similar information to appear at the bottom of every page.
Figure 18
‘Insert menu’:
1. This has a ‘Break’ option. Here you can click if you want to include a page
break at any point.
2. Again, there is an option to insert page numbers, and the date and time onto
your work
3. There is also the option to insert a ‘Picture’ such as a chart or image that you
may have stored.
21
Figure 19
4. In this menu (highlighted above) there is also a chance to add a footnote. If
you need to include information in your work that doesn’t fit into the body of
the text, you can add it as a footnote by clicking on this option, and then
clicking ‘okay’ for the footnotes to be ‘auto numbered’. This means that they
will be given a number, so if you need to move these around, ‘Word’ renumbers them for you.
22
Figure 20
Tools menu:
1. The first useful option on this menu is the ‘Spelling and grammar’. Click on
this and the spell check will appear. You have the option with this box to
change your spelling or ‘ignore’, for example if the word being checked is a
name which the computers dictionary does not recognise.
2. The ‘Language’ option works like a thesaurus. You first click the cursor onto
a word, then press this option, which may be able to bring up some
alternatives that you can use.
3. ‘Word count’ is also a very useful option. As it is important in essays not to
deviate too far from the word limit, using this option indicates how much you
have written, and if you can add to your work, or how much you may have to
edit.
23
Figure 21
Tables menu:
The ‘Tables’ menu may also be useful, if you have to present any data in a table
format. Please click on this menu:
1. If you click on ‘Draw table’ another toolbar will be visible. The keys on this
toolbar can help you to construct a table. For example, you can click on the
pencil and then use the mouse to construct the size of table you require.
2. The other symbols in this tool bar then allow you to modify the table. Use the
‘Split cells’ buttons to input the amount of rows and columns you need.
3. The borders etc can all be done from this toolbar.
4. However, a quick way to produce a simple table that needs little modification
is to do it all from this menu. Simply click on ‘Insert table’ and a box will
appear where you can specify the numbers of rows and columns.
5. ‘Delete table’ will remove the table and its contents
24
Figure 22
Help menu:
Finally, the ‘Help’ menu can be useful. This option allows you to type in
questions that you may have about using ‘Word’. The paper-clip character will
give you various options and solutions that match the words you have typed in.
25
Figure 23
However, as mentioned earlier, experimenting with the programme is probably
the best way to improve your skills. Just be sure you are not using important
work to experiment with. You can’t do any harm by just trying the programme
out.
26
Suggested exercises:
1. Typing a letter, trying out typing, spellchecking, saving and
printing
2. Typing a report, trying out titles (bold, italics, underline, etc),
spellchecking, saving and printing
3. Opening up saved documents and editing them
4. Emailing a friend; emailing several friends; creating an address
book, saving drafts of emails, forwarding
27