KUAS Engineering

Week 02 — Text processing

Evaluation

Up to 10 points can be gained towards your final score.

1. Fix your MS Word settings

You should already have a copy of MS Word installed on your computer. Start it up (or activate the File menu if it is already running) and click on Options at the bottom of the page. In the Word Options pop-up window, select the Language tab on the left and then under Choose Display Language move English to the top of the list using the up and down arrows. Using Word in English will make it easier to follow the material in this class, and will help you to improve your English faster.

2. Add formatting to a simple text document

Download the example Word file.

Follow the instructions in the file to modify the document in the following ways:

change the font of the “body” text
apply title and (sub-)heading styles to the title and (sub-)section heading lines
add automatic numbering to the headings
convert several lines of text into bulleted and numbered lists
add sub-items to those lists with addition indentation
convert several lines of text into a table
add some tabs to the ruler and use them to align some words and numbers
insert an image, give it a caption, and make the text flow around it
insert special mathematical symbols and an equation
insert a hyperlink to an external web page
convert some text into a footnote
place a citation in the text and then add a table of references to the end of the document
add running headers and footers at the top and bottom of the pages, with automatic page numbers
add a table of contents
mark some words as index entries and then add an index at the end of the document

The end result might look something like this.¹

When you are happy with your formatted document, upload it to MS Teams and submit it. (In MS Teams either click on the “Assignments” tab and then the Week 02 assignment, or click on the assignment inside the announcement in the “General” tab. Then “attach your work” to the assignment and click on “turn in”.

Please try to finish the assignment before class. The hard deadline for assignments is 23:59 on the day of class.

¹ If you used a document formatting system designed for publication, the end result might look something like this.

What you will learn from this class

How to edit text using MS Word.
How to apply simple formatting to change the appearance of text.
How to make lists and tables of information into a document.
How to add footnotes, citations, an index, and a table of contents to a document.

Glossary of word processing terms

align: Change the alignment of text.

alignment: How each text line is arranged in the paragraph. Left alignment moves text lines to the left so that their first character lines up with the left margin. Right alignment moves test lines to the right so that their last character lines up with the right margin. Justified alignment expands each line by stretching the spaces between words and characters so that the first character lines up with the left margin and the last character lines up with the right margin. (Centre alignment places equal amounts of space at either end of a line. It should be used sparingly, e.g., to centre the title of an article or report at the top of the first page.)

appendix: Material that comes after the regular chapters of a book or sections of a document, to provide additional information.

Arial: A sans-serif font available on Microsoft operating systems.

author: The person who wrote the document.

background: The colour `behind' the characters or images on a page. Normally the background is white but it can be changed to highlight material, for example, to highlight the top row in a table that contains column headings.

beam: The `I' shape that is used to indicate a character position. A flashing I-beam indicates the insertion point, and the cursor changes to an I-beam to indicate that it is currently over text.

bibliography: A list of references to related documents often placed at the end of a scientific article or book.

body: The main part of the document.

boldface: A blacker variation of a font used for emphasis.

borders: Lines drawn around some object, such as an image or a table cell.

break: To interrupt something. For example, a line break interrupts the current line and begins a new line. A page break interrupts the current page and begins a new page.

breakable: Content that can be broken, either across lines or across pages. Most spaces can be broken in this way.

bullet: A symbol placed in front of a list item. Often a small circle or square.

bulleted list: A list of items where each item begins a new line, indented from the surrounding material, preceded by a bullet or similar symbol.

capitalise: To make all the letters in a section of text be upper case.

caption: A description added to an image or table. Captions usually appear under the object that they describe. However, in come scientific publications, captions for tables can appear above the table.

cell: One element in a table. A table with 3 rows and 4 columns contains 12 cells.

centre: The middle of something.

centred: Aligned in the middle of two things. Centred text is aligned between the two margins, without stretching the content to make it fill the space.

change: A modification made to a document.

change tracking: Recording all changes made to a document and preserving them with the document so that other people can see what has been modified.

character: A single letter, digit, punctuation symbol, etc.

citation: A reference to another document placed inside the body text. Citations are most often either numbered, “MS Word [2] is a word processor.”, or use the surname of the author and the year, “MS Word (Microsoft 2019) is a word processor.” The details of the publication are available in the bibliography and identified with the same number or author+year.

cite: To make reference to another document.

clipboard: A storage mechanism into which recent text, images, and other objects can be placed. Items in the clipboard can be pasted back into the document.

column: A vertical arrangement of items. In a document, a column is a vertical arrangement of lines. There might be more than one column per line, as is often the case in newspapers. In a table, a column is a single vertical line of cells spanning all the rows.

configuration: A persistent setting such as author name, default paper size, etc.

contents: A table placed at the beginning of a document that contains section headings and often page number associated with each section.

contextual menu: A menu that pops up next to (or over) an item that was clicked on, whose contents depend on the kind of item that was clicked. Selecting text brings up a contextual menu for formatting text. Clicking on an image brings up a contextual menu for modifying image properties.

control: A key on the keyboard that modifies the meaning of the normal letter keys. Holding control while typing a letter tells the program to perform a special action instead of inserting the letter into the document. For example, typing Control-C copies the current selection to the clipboard. Typing Control-V pastes the most recent clipboard entry into the document.

copy: Places the selected text into the clipboard without removing it from the document.

ctrl: A short way of writing “Control”.

cursor: The thing that moves around the screen when you wiggle the mouse or stroke the touchpad.

customise: To modify something to your own liking or for your own use.

cut: Place the selected text into the clipboard and remove it from the document.

dash: A short horizontal line, slightly longer than a hyphen.

An `n-dash' is the width of the letter `n' and should be used to separate the first and last items in a range, for example: “The office is open from 3–4 pm.”

An `m-dash' is the width of the letter `m' and should be used to introduce an afterthought or to bracket a tangential comment, for example: “I am going home—finally.” or “Eggs—which are easy to break—make great dipping sauce.”

decimal point: The dot that separates the whole from the fractional part of a number. Numbers preceded by a tab character will be lined up by their decimal point, provided the ruler contains a `decimal tab' at that position.

decimal tab: A kind of tab stop that aligns a number by the position of its decimal point.

decoration: Frills and effects added to a document. Examples include drop-shadow on text, fancy borders around images or tables, vertical lines within tables, background colours, or frequent changes to formatting (font, size, emphasis). Decorations should be used only when they significantly improve the readability of the material. Inexperienced (or tasteless) authors love to add lots of useless decoration to their documents.

default: The natural state of something before it has been deliberately adjusted.

delete: Remove.

delimiter: Something that separates two or more things. A decimal point is a delimiter for the whole and fractional parts of the number. A comma is a delimiter for values in a CSV file. A tab is a delimiter for items on a line that are aligned to tab stops.

design: The overall look and feel of the document. It should be consistent from front to back cover.

desktop: An application that runs on your computer, not in a web page or in the cloud (somebody else's computer).

dialogue: A kind of menu that pops open to allow information input and then must be dismissed by pressing (typically) 'OK' or 'cancel'.

document: Something that conveys information. A document on a computer is typically a file containing input provided by a user such as a manuscript, presentation, or spreadsheet.

double click: Two clicks of a mouse button (press-release-press-release) at the same position with almost no delay between the first and second.

dragging (a selection): An interrupted click (press) that allows a section of text to be selected, corresponding to the movement of the mouse between a press and subsequent release of a mouse button. When preceded by an additional click, the selection behaviour may be different. For example, an interrupted double-click (press-release-press) selects the word under the cursor, after which dragging the selection extends by whole words instead of single characters.

draw: To describe something using a picture. To insert an equation, one method of specifying the content is to draw the formula instead of typing it.

edit: To modify something.

elegant: Of high grade or quality; refined, graceful, dignified. In science, technology and typesetting, elegance is marked by a high degree of precision, neatness and simplicity.

enclosing: To bracket something with two delimiters. For example, the comment in this sentence (which you are now reading) is enclosed in parentheses.

entry: An item in an index or table of contents. Items in the contents typically correspond to section headings and are added automatically. Items in the index are typically added manually.

equation: A mathematical formula.

escape: A key on the keyboard, often at the upper left, that typically cancels the current operation.

de facto: Latin for “from the fact”. A `de facto standard' is not an official standard, but is something used (or done) by so many people that it has become the expected tool or procedure.

text flow: The movement of text across and down the page when an obstacle, such as an image, is encountered. The text flow around the obstacle is a property of the obstacle itself. For example, to change how text flows around an image you have to modify the properties of the image.

font: A collection of characters all having similar style and characteristics.

footer: A line of information placed at the bottom of every page. Often contains the current page number.

footnote: An explanation, or other note, placed at the bottom of the page. Within the body text, the footnote is indicated by a small graphic symbol or numeric superscript.¹ The corresponding footnote text, at the bottom of the page, is introduced by the same symbol or numeric superscript. Footnotes are often separated from the main text by a short horizontal line.

¹ Like this.

force: To insist that something happens. A forced page break will always cause the following content to appear at the start of a new page.

formatted: Text that has had formatting applied to it.

formatting: Modifying the look or presentation of text to indicate its purpose. Headings are formatted to stand out from the normal text. Footnotes are formatted as smaller text separated from the main text. Superscripts and subscripts are formatted to appear above or below the usual position of text. Emphasis can be placed on certain words by formatting them in *boldface*, italics, or by using underlining.

group: Join two or more items together so that they behave as a single item. Grouping an image and its caption ensures that they will always remain together when moved.

header: A line of information placed at the top of every page. Often contains the document or section title, date, etc.

hierarchical: Arranged in a hierarchy: each top-level item can have sub-items; each sub-item can have sub-sub-items, and so on. Mathematically, the structure is a tree.

highlight: To emphasis or mark something as special. The current selection, if any, is usually highlighted with using a contrasting background colour. Active hyperlinks in documents are often highlighted with a contrasting foreground colour.

horizontal: Moving from left to right.

hover: Place the mouse over something and then stop moving it, without clicking a button.

hyperlink: An word or phrase in a document that is associated with an external file or web page. Clicking on the hyperlink opens the external file or web page in some suitable application.

hyphen: A short horizontal line, slightly shorter than an n-dash. Hyphens are used to join two related words or parts of words together. Examples include: the two words in a compound adjective, such as “at most a four-hour assignment”, and the two parts of a single word that has been split across two lines, such as this arti-
ficial example.

icon: A small symbol depicting an idea or action.

image: A picture or graphical representation.

indentation: Adding empty space at the left edge of the line to move the content of that line to the right. Indentation is used in lists and typically increases between an item and its sub-items.

index: A list of words, phrases, and concepts appearing at the end of the document. Each entry typically indicates which page(s) refer to the concept, or define the word or phrase.

insert: To add something to the content.

insertion point: The place in the document at which content will be added. Typing a normal character will insert that character immediately before the insertion point.

italic: A slanted variation of a font used for emphasis.

item: An entry in a list.

justified: Text that has the first and last characters on the line aligned with the left and right margins, respectively.

KISS: “Keep It Stupid Simple.” A principle popular with programmers to guide their design of software. Applies equally well to the design of documents.

layout: The way material is arranged on the page and in the document as a whole. Consistent layout is good.

leaders: The horizontal lines or dots connecting two items in a row. For example, connecting the section headings on the left with the page numbers on the right in the table of contents. So called because they `lead' your eye across the page.

list: A sequence of items labelled with numbers or bullets.

margins: The left and right edges of the space reserved for content. Each line of text typically starts at the left margin. Each line of justified text typically ends at the right margin.

footnote mark: The small graphic symbol or numeric superscript placed in the text to indicate the presence of a footnote.

navigate: To find your way around an area. Navigating a document means finding where particular sections or content is located.

nested: Something that occurs inside another thing. Sub-items in a list are nested inside their items.

normal: The style applied to the body text.

numbering: Adding numbers to things, for example, section headings.

format painter: A `paintbrush' tool that copies the formatting at the current insertion point and then lets you paste it onto other content.

paragraph: A series of sentences that form a single block of text. The start of a paragraph is indicated by indenting the first line (except when the paragraph immediately follows a section heading). The end of a paragraph is indicated by a newline that occurs before the right margin.

paste: Insert content from the clipboard.

PDF: The Portable Document Format, for sharing documents between different applications or operating systems.

point: A unit of measure used in typesetting. There are approximately 72 points for every 25.4 mm of length.

recto: The front side of a page, or the right-hand page in a book when opened. From Latin “direct”.

reference: A book or document referred to from within the current document. Publication details for references are typically given in the bibliography at the end of the document.

ribbon: The part of the user interface between the tabs and the page display. The ribbon contains tools related to the currently selected tab.

row: A horizontal arrangement of items. In a table, a row is a single horizontal line of cells spanning all the columns.

ruler: The measuring tools immediately to the left and above the page display showing where the page margins are located. The ruler above the page display also displays the current tab settings.

sans-serif: A kind of font that has no brush- or pen-like features at the ends of the strokes. These fonts are particularly suitable for text that will only be displayed on computer screens.

section: An organisational part of a document containing material that is related, either by type or by purpose. Sections can be hierarchical (containing subsections, sub-subsections, etc.) and are often numbered in reports and technical documents.

select: Indicate a range of characters or words that should be acted upon.

separator: A character that divides text into parts. In a number, the decimal point is a separator for the whole and fractional parts. In a CSV file, a comma is a separator that identifies where one value ends and the next value begins.

sequence: An ordered series of items.

serif: A kind of font that has small additional strokes decorating the ends of the main strokes in the characters. The decorations are intended to simulate the use of a brush or pen to make the strokes.

shortcut: A combination of keys that can be typed to invoke an action instead of invoking it through a menu.

size: How large the characters appear when printed. The size of characters is measured in points and typically represents the distance on the page between the lowest point of any character (such as the bottom of the vertical stroke in a `p') and the highest point of any character (such as the top of the vertical stroke in a `d') in the font.

space: A gap between words, lines, or other objects on the page.

sticky: Something that, once activated, remains active until explicitly cancelled. A bit like “modal”, but more lightweight.

tab stop: A position on the page used for alignment.

style: A collection of formatting parameters such as font, size, colour, emphasis, numbering, etc., associated with a given logical element of the document. The body text usually has “Normal” style, the title has “Title” style, and the hierarchical section headings have “Heading 1”, “Heading 2” and “Heading 3” style.

subheading: A heading attached to a subsection often styled with a smaller size font than a section heading.

subsection: A section logically arranged within a larger, enclosing section. Subsection headings are styled smaller than section headings and are numbered starting at 1 within their section.

swatch: A device for choosing a colour. Common types include a table of discretely coloured cells, or a wheel of continuously changing colours.

symbol: A character for special use, such as a Greek letter for mathematics or a bullet for a list item.

tab: A key on the keyboard that inserts a tab character into the current line. Also a character within a line that causes the text following it to be aligned according to the next tab stop in the ruler.

table: A square arrangement of cells. Each cell typically contains text or an image, and can have formatting (such as background colour) that is independent of the other cells in the table.

times new roman: A classic serif typeface that is quite suitable for reports and technical documents. Created in 1931 by Stanley Morison for the Times newspaper in London.

title: The name of a document, appearing before any other content.

tool: A device for manipulating the content of a document. Tools include copy, paste, mark index entry, justify, underline, and so on. Similar tools are collected into groups which appear together in the ribbon.

track changes: Remember each insertion, deletion, or replacement in the document along with the author who made the change.

typeface: A family of fonts designed to be visually compatible. Times New Roman is a typeface that has bold and italic fonts within it.

typesetting: The composition of text on a page. The name comes from printing where a “type” is a single letter or symbol from a given font cast in metal that is set into a frame next to other types to compose the letters in a line and then the lines in a page. Ink is applied to the types and the types pressed onto paper to make the printed page.

underline: A form of emphasis that draws a horizontal line under the text that is being emphasised.

undo: Reverse the effect of the last change.

URL: The location of a web page or similar online resource.

verso: The back side of a page, or the left-hand page of a book when opened. From Latin “turned”.

vertical: Moving from top to bottom.

Word: A Microsoft application for laying out text and other elements on a page.

wrap: The automatic breaking of a line at the right margin, or the breaking of lines in such a way as to avoid obstacles such as images.

yank: Pull something back. For example, cut then paste first removes something from the document and then yanks it back, typically in a different location.

Notes

Many kinds of text and document editors exist (as well as almost as many opinions about which ones are the best). Two kinds that you will encounter often as an engineer are text editors, and word processors.

Text editors

Text editors manipulate any kind of plain text file using an interface that presents the contents of the file simply and literally. A simple plain text file can contain almost any kind of information, from recipes and shopping or 'to-do' lists to meeting minutes or random thoughts and notes. In more technical settings, plain text files might contain configuration settings or a program source code.

	simple text editors
Linux	LeafPad (packages available in most distributions via `apt`, `yum`, etc.)
MacOS	TextEdit (bundled with the OS)
Windows	Notepad or Notepad++ (recommended alternative)

Pro-tip

People who spend most of their time editing plain text files (programmers, technical authors, web designers, etc.) might use a much more capable (and complicated) text editor. There are several choices (as well as religious wars fought over which one is the best), for example Emacs, vi, and VS Code, all of which run on the three major operating systems.

Word processors

Word processors are programs for desktop publishing: the creation and production of structured, formatted documents such as printed letters, reports, and newsletters. Word processors use a graphical 'what you see is what you get' (WYSIWYG, pronounced “wizzi-wig”) interface where content is edited in a form that resembles its final, printed appearance. They almost always use their own proprietary file formats which make no sense when viewed as plain text files, and editing plain text files is almost always impossible using a word processor.

The de-facto standard word processor is Microsoft Word, which means that there is a huge amount of on-line help available for both beginners and experts. Almost any question about MS Word can be answered by searching in Google (or similar) for MS word followed by the topic of the question.

MS Word is also a very complicated program and the best way to learn it is to actually use it to create documents of increasing complexity.

Learning how to use search engines to answer questions about MS Word is therefore a vital skill for novice (and advanced) users. The results will also include a variety of different media, including video, tutorials, blog posts, and so on, that cater to different learning styles.

One of the first Google results for ‘ms word help’ is a section on Microsoft's own web site called Word help & learning that includes short tutorials on getting started, inserting text, working with pages and layouts, inserting pictures, and saving and printing documents. Learning the basics of word processing from sites such as this one is excellent preparation for a breadth-first tour of some of the features of Word that engineers and scientist might find the most useful. The following sections present such a tour with reference to the ribbon – the part of the user interface that most people interact with most often.

In the following sections, keyboard shortcuts are shown in side

Home

As the name implies, this is where the simplest and most common editing operations are located.

Clipboard contains cut Control-X, copy Control-C, and several varieties of paste Control-V (depending on whether you want the pasted text to retain its original formatting, adopt the destination formatting, and so on). Clicking once on the format painter and then again in the document copies the format of the text under the insertion point to the text that was clicked on. Double-clicking on the format painter makes it `sticky': multiple targets can be clicked to copy formatting; press Escape to stop format painting. Format can also be copied by typing Control-Shift-C and pasted using Control-Shift-V. Clicking on the little diagonal arrow (in the bottom right-hand corner) opens the clipboard dialogue, which handily lets you paste from a recent history of cut and copied text.

Font contains the tools to change font family (the typeface) and size (measured in points, of which there are approximately 72 per 25.4mm of length on the printed page), followed by buttons that increase font size Control-Shift→, decrease font size Control-Shift-<, change case of text (for all-caps, etc.), and clear all formatting from it. On the second line are toggles for boldface Control-B, italics Control-I, underline [Control-U], strikeout, subscript Control-=, and superscript Control-Shift-+. The “text effects” button comes next (and is best ignored – trust me followed by two buttons for text highlight colour (the background colour for text) and font colour (the foreground colour).

Paragraph contains the tools for bulleted lists, numbered lists, and multi-level numbering. The next two buttons decrease indent and increase indent of the selected text. The last two buttons on the top row will sort the selected text lines into alphabetical order or toggle the display of paragraph marks and other typesetting annotations in the text. On the lower line are buttons that tell the selected text to align left Control-L, centre Control-E, align right Control-R, to justify Control-J. Omitting the next button (which you should also ignore) we have a tool controlling line spacing and then two buttons that affect the shading (background) and border (edges) of the selected table cell or text.

Styles contains collections of format that can be clicked to apply them to text. The formatting of the text at the insertion point can also be copied into a style by right clicking on the associated button and selecting “Update to Match Selection”. Clicking on the little diagonal arrow (in the bottom right-hand corner) [Alt-Control-Shift-S] opens a very handy “styles chooser” dialogue that can remain open during other editing operations.

Editing contains the tools to find Control-F and replace Control-H text.

Insert

No prizes for guessing what is in this tab.

Pages contains tools to insert a front cover page, a new blank page, or a forced page break Control-Return.

Tables contains almost everything you need to create and edit a table.

Illustrations has tools to insert images and graphical objects of several kinds, including external pictures.

Links creates, modifies, or removes hyperlinks from text.

Header & Footer contains drop-down menus to control the running header, footer, and page numbering applied to all pages in the document.

Symbols has tools to insert mathematical equations or single mathematical symbols into the text.

Layout

Page Setup contains tools that control the entire page, including its overall size and the number of text columns.

References

Everything to do with referring to a part of the document from some other, faraway part.

Table of Contents has a button to create the table of contents and another to update table which is useful whenever heading numbering changes.

Footnotes has the insert footnote tool which places the footnote marker at the current insertion point and then prompts for the content of the footnote text.

Citations & Bibliography has the tool to insert citation at the current insertion point which then prompts for the information about a new reference source or the identity of an old reference source that was already entered. The manage sources tool allows editing of reference source details. The style menu controls how the citations and references will be presented, and bibliography inserts the list of references at the insertion point.

Captions adds caption text to a figure via the insert caption tool which prompts for the text of the caption.

Index has the mark entry tool which will include the currently selected text as an index term. Again, a pop-up dialog (which can, very usefully, persist) allows control over the presentation of the index entry. The insert index tool does exactly what it says, at the insertion point.

Review

Useful tools for collaboration and finding out who to blame.

Tracking has several tools to track changes made to the document content, and to control how the tracked changes are presented.

Help

Is there if you need it.

The most important tool here is actually present in every tab. search Alt-Q (also known as tell me) searches all the tools for some specific text and presents the results in a list where they can be directly clicked on. It's the Word equivalent of the Windows 10 Window-S key that that opens the “Type here to search” feature.

Ruler

Bordering the page on the left and top are the rulers.

Hovering over a transition from white to grey within either ruler will convert the cursor into a “slide” icon. Clicking and dragging the transition will then change the page margins.

The white blobs in the horizontal ruler control where the elements of lists (bullet or number, text of the item) are placed. If items with several lines of text are not lining up properly after the first line, move these blobs around to fix that. (Typing spaces into the text to try to align things will never look right and is an immediate indication that the author was clueless.)

Double-clicking inside the ruler opens a handy page setup menu which allows much finer control over page and margin dimensions.

The small grey icons visible in the screen-shot at 45, 55, 65, and 75 mm are tab stops. The tab stops become active whenever text contains Tab characters. Each paragraph has its own set of tab stops.

From left-to-right the stops in the image are:

a left tab, which fixes the position of the left edge of text following a Tab character;
a right tab, which fixes the position of the right edge of text following a Tab character;
a centre tab, which fixes the position of the centre of the text between the preceding and followingTab characters; and
a decimal tab, which fixes the positions of decimal points in numbers that follow a Tab character.

Clicking on the small icon in the top-left corner cycles it through all the available tab stop types. The kind of tab shown by the icon is inserted into the ruler by double-clicking the ruler's lower edge. This also opens a handy editor dialog to change the positions and types of each tab stop in the ruler.

At the bottom-right of the page is a handy control for zooming in and out.