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Lesson: Common Functions
In a previous lesson you learned about platforms: Windows, Macintosh, Unix, and Linux. You
also learned that the source codes for these platforms were shared with others so application
software could be built that would run on computers with these platforms.
The opportunity for others to build software has provided you with fantastic tools to complete
various tasks. Tools for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, desktop
publishing, calendaring, games, and more enhance our lives and make our work easier and
quicker to complete.
Because of opensource code (platform codes), the programs you use have some common
functions that you will learn about in this lesson. You will also use those common functions in
the assignments you complete for this course.
Learning Outcomes
1. Start and exit an application, identify and modify interface elements, and use the
application help menus.
2. Create new blank files and create files from templates.
3.
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5.
6.
Perform common editing, formatting, and personalization functions.
Use Find and Replace and change views.
Manipulate multimedia files.
Identify and use common functions.
1. Start and exit an application, identify and modify interface
elements, and use the
application help menus.
Windows desktop
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As you can see from the screen capture
(Windows desktop), there are small
pictures on my desktop. These are called
“icons.” Icons are shortcuts to application
programs. I am also using Windows 8
operating system, so my desktop may
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appear a little differently than yours. That’s okay because we are talking about common
functions. In other words, these are the things that work exactly the same on my computer
as on your computer.
Start/Exit
Clicking twice quickly on an icon will open the program. (If your icons are on the quick launch
bar at the bottom of the screen, you only need to click on the icon once.)
It does not matter if you are opening Microsoft Word (word processing),
Roots Magic (genealogy program), or your favorite computer game. The
program you click on quickly comes to life.
Exiting a program is also a common function.
In Windows you have two choices: the white X
in the red box/rectangle (upper right on your
screen) or under the File tab (upper left).
Because game programs don’t need the File
tabs and other options, you may find an Exit
button in other locations on your screen.
Windows Exit
Macintosh platforms have the Exit button in the upper left of the program
you are in. Location may vary depending on the version of the operating
system and the application programs you are using.
Windows Exit and Help
menus
It is very important that you use one of the exit buttons when finishing with
a program or with your computer use for the day. Operating systems don’t
actually save files until programs have been exited and the computer is
being shut down properly. So if you push the power button instead of doing
a proper shut down of the computer, you may lose all the work you had
done for the last several hours.
Interface Elements
Windows and Macintosh operating systems use a GUI or graphical user interface. That means
that users see things on the screen as pictures. Icons (pictures) are used to represent various
programs. Inside those programs, the tools at the top of the screen are in pictures—even the
mouse pointer is a picture. Humans like pictures. Humans also like to change the pictures.
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You can change the picture behind your desktop. You can show the icons as text or as pictures,
and you can make them bigger or smaller. You can change the mouse pointer and the colors
inside your applications too.
Inside the application, you can add to the tools at the top of the program or take tools away. All
this is called the interface.
Help Menu
Every application program (even your
games) has a help menu that will
connect you directly to the Internet,
where you can search for solutions to
the computer problem(s) you are
having.
This menu gives you three choices:
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
Microsoft Office Help
Getting Started
Contact Us
Choosing Microsoft Office Help will
take you to the Internet.
2. Create new blank files
and create files from
templates.
Microsoft Office Help
New Files
Another common functionality is the ability to create new files. In Windows-based programs,
use the File tab, New, and Create buttons. On the Macintosh (depending on your version), the
New document is in the upper left on the page toolbar.
Templates
Many applications also have prepared templates for you to use. A template is a document that
someone has designed for you. All you need to do is open the template and insert or change
the text to what you want it to say. The templates picture below also shows some of the
template groups that are available to you.
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Take some time now to look at the templates on your computer!
3. Perform common editing, formatting, and personalization
functions.
Whether you are using a word processing program, a spreadsheet program, a presentation
program, or a database program, there are common functions that you will find in all of them.
The list you see below contains the most common functions used across all file creation
programs:
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Font: Style, Size, Attribute, and Color
o Home tab, Font group
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Attributes: Bold, italics, and
underline are very easy to apply
while you are keying in
Font Color
Font attributes and color
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done.
your document or
after all the typing is
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 Bullets and Line Numbering
o Home tab, Paragraph group
Bullets and Line Numbering
This list is a bullet list. It is a way to
organize data.
Bullets/line numbering
and line alignment
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Line Alignment
o Home tab, Paragraph group
Most text starts at the left margin. However, there are times when you want to center your
title, right align your name, or fully justify some text like newspaper columns.
left align
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center align
right align
Line Spacing
o Home tab, Paragraph group
Some documents should be single spaced, like business letters. Some documents should be
double spaced, like school reports. Line spacing allows you to set the spacing between the lines
of text like you see in this paragraph which has been double spaced. This paragraph has also been
fully justified. That means that the text on the right side lines up at the right margin. You see this
in newspaper columns. In order for full justification to work, the program sometimes puts big
spaces between words.
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Sort A to Z
o Home tab, Paragraph group
When working with lists of items, you may need to place that list in alphabetical order. This is
done quickly and easily by first selecting your text and pressing the Sort button.
Sort A to Z
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Select
o Home tab, Editing group
Before you can do anything with text, you must
select it. The program does not know what you
want unless you tell it what to work with.
Select
Another way to select text (or pictures) is to click and drag. Click with your mouse at the
beginning of the text, hold down the mouse key and drag to the end of the text. Now that your
text is selected, you can apply what is needed on that section of text.
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Insert: Picture, Clip Art, Smart Art, Word Art, Text Boxes, and Symbols
o Insert tab, Illustrations group, Text group, and Symbols group
Insert Text and Symbols Groups
Insert Illustrations group
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Insert Headers, Footers, and Page Numbers
o Insert tab, Header & Footer group
Headers will appear on the top of every page, so if you have a fivepage document, the information in the header will appear at the
top of all five pages.
The same happens with the footer. The footer appears at the
bottom of every page.
Page numbering can be placed almost anywhere you want it in the
margins.
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Headers and Footers
Insert Hyperlinks
o Insert tab, Links group
Sometimes you need to get to a website from a Word document. A
hyperlink gives the reader a quick way to get there. When you click on a
hyperlink, the computer will immediately connect you to the needed
website. However, the computer you are using must have Internet
access.
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Margins
o Page Layout tab, Page Setup Group
Insert Hyperlink
Margins are the white space around the edge of the paper. Margins vary depending on the
document you are creating. If you forget to change the margins, no worries, you can always
come back and do it.
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Page Orientation and Paper Size
Page Layout tab, Page Setup group
Sometimes you will need to change the direction that
information prints onto the paper.
Figure 1Margins and Page Orientation and Size
PORTRAIT
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Landscape
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Spell Check and Thesaurus
o Review tab, Proofing group
Always, always, always spell check, grammar check, and proofread. Proofread means that you
read through your document looking for capitalization mistakes, punctuation mistakes, word
usage mistakes (“to” when you meant “two”), and any other mistakes that will distract people
from the message.
Review, Proofing Group
4. Use Find and Replace and change views.
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Find and/or Replace
o Home tab, Editing group
Find and Replace
I have always struggled with the spelling of “website”! Should it be “web site” or “website”? As
I was working on these lessons, I went back and forth. For some lessons I used “web site,” and
in others I used “website.”
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By the time I finished creating all the lessons and after all my research and readings on the
Internet (the Internet used both spellings too), I decided to use “website.” I used the Replace
tool to search for “web site” and replace it with “website.” This was 100 percent faster than
reading through every lesson again and manually making the change!
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Views, Zoom, and Split Window display
o Views tab, Document Views group, Zoom group, and Window group
Most people stay in the print layout because that is what you will get when you print out the
paper. But there are times when you may want a different view. Changing the view will not
change how the document looks when you print. You are only changing the view on the
monitor.
Recently, I had a student who was visually impaired. She needed to use the Draft view with a
larger font so she could see her work.
Split window
Document Views
Zoom
Zoom allows you to temporarily display your document larger or smaller on your screen. Again,
this does not affect how the document will print.
Split window will let you work on two or more documents at the same time. The split can be
horizontal or vertical.
I recommend that you test these features out for yourself. You will need to have two
documents open at the same time in order for the split to work.
5. Manipulate multimedia files: rotate, crop, resize, insert, and
delete.
Multimedia
Multimedia files are pictures. Sometimes pictures are called “graphics.” Just about any picture
can be changed. Again, you are working with common functions in most application software.
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pictures you have taken
Clip Art
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images online
Remember, the tools for editing multimedia files can be found under the Insert tab. The other
thing you need to remember is to select the picture you want to edit. That is easy to do with a
picture: just click on the picture.
See the circles around the edge of the picture in the picture on the left? Those circles (and
squares) tell you that you are in editing mode. Also, when you are in editing mode you have
extra tools at the top of the screen.
Editing handles
Artistic effects
Picture color
Crop to shape
Resize height and width
Rotate picture
Crop means to cut off some of the picture. Perhaps the picture has something on the side that
you don’t want seen, or you need the wide borders cut off so the picture fits in the space you
have for it—then you would use crop.
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If you are having trouble placing pictures side-by-side or getting text to wrap around the
picture, select the picture, right click on the picture, and choose “wrap text.” You might have to
go through Format Picture to find the wrap text tool. Depending on what you are doing, make a
choice. I almost always use Tight. Test each out and see what they do.
6. Identify and use common functions.
Why didn’t you learn about these common functions with the rest of the functions? These
functions require the operating system to talk to the hardware. Saving, printing, copying,
pasting, undoing, and redoing require the OS to put information into storage: memory or hard
disk.
Save and Save As
What’s the difference?
If you have not saved the document yet, you can choose Save or Save
As. You will get a window that asked for a document name and the location
where you want to save the file.
If you have already saved the document before, then use Save. It is quick because it already
knows the document name and the location.
If you have a document that has been saved and now you want to
rename it and keep the old, original file, then use Save As.
If you have a document that has been saved and now you want a
copy in another location, use Save As.
Open
Use Open (File tab) to open a file you have saved. The application
software makes the request to the operating system. The operating system talks to the
hardware, gets what is needed, and gets the hardware to display it on the monitor or send it to
print.
Print
Located under the File tab in Windows, the Print function allows you to
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select from a list of installed printer.
change the paper size and orientation.
print a select page or all pages.
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print single sided or double sided (depends on printer).
print more than one copy.
Copy and Paste
Copy allows you to put a selection into memory called the clipboard (hardware memory) and
paste it back into a document.
Undo and Redo
Made a mistake? Undo allows you to undo the mistake. Made several mistakes in a row? Undo
will allow you to undo several times—unless you exit the program you are in. Once you exit,
undo and redo won’t work because there is nothing in the memory to undo or redo.
Did you undo and now you want to redo? Use the redo button.
Undo and Redo buttons
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