Hi folks, welcome to the very brief, very mini lecture for Module Five – Edit Documents.

 The content for this module is completely accessible through the super descriptions in your Textbook. This very brief mini lecture will highlight the few areas that may cause you some concern.

 Lesson 47 – Edit Letters

This lesson presents two new time saver’s offered by Word. The first – Find and Replace allows you to change all or some occurrences of a word or phrase. For example, lets say you created a 20 page report. In the report you referred to Mr. Smith at least 50 times. You realize during your last review of the document that the person’s name is not Mr. Smith, but rather Ms. Smith. You could go through and change the r to an s 50 times, or you can use Find and Replace. Word will find each occurrence of Mr. and allow you to automatically change Mr. to Ms., saving you about an hour of work. Detailed step by step directions begin on page 173.

 The Thesaurus can not only save you time but quickly improve your actual writing. For example, in the report above, you realize you’ve referred to Ms. Smith as being very smart so often it is hard to read. To make your report more interesting you could let the Thesaurus come up with other words that mean “smart” but add variety, like bright, brainy, or intelligent.

 Lesson 48 – Edit Memos

Again, your textbook does a super job with the step by step instructions (beginning on page 175), I’ll just provide a few tips.

 Templates are typically Word documents, that when opened, keeps a clean copy of the document saved in the computer. When you use a template you need to save your document just as you would if you were creating a new document. In fact, when you begin a new blank document Word is actually using a template called Normal, containing just basic information on margins, font, text size etc.

The memo templates you use in this lesson contain formatting that is different from the standard memo format you practiced earlier. These formats are acceptable in most business settings, as is the format you are already using. Consistency in format is the important factor in creating professional memos.

Templates contain text that is only in the document to tell you what information to put in a specific place. Make sure you either replace this information or delete it. Nobody wants to receive a memo that says “Type here to insert your subject.” People want to see the subject of the memo!

 Lesson 49 – Edit Reports

This lesson is very well presented with one exception. On page 179 your book indicates you should use the tab key when working with outlines. DO NOT USE THE TAB KEY WHEN WORKING WITH OUTLINES. Instead use the Increase Indent and Decrease Indent buttons located in the formatting toolbar.

 Lesson 50 – Edit Reports

This is another well presented lesson. Read all the text very carefully.

The only section that seems to cause trouble is the information on page 185 about Space After Paragraphs. I’ve already discussed this in detail in the mini lecture on the web site for Module 3. Please reread this information if you are still unclear about this topic.

 One last quick bit of help. In your assignment 50c-d1, beginning on page 186, several of the directions may be a bit confusing.

To complete this exercise you will open a file called Master Plan from your data disk. Then you will edit this document.

§        Complete all the formatting directions on page 186.

§        Key in all the text that appears in the handwriting font on pages 186 – 188.

§        Complete all the edits indicated in blue, including changing the style of the headings.

The only exception is on the top of page 187. The book has a line “Insert Prop Location from your data files here.” Do not key this line. The textbook really wants you to actually insert the file Prop Location in the report at that point. To insert Prop Location complete the following: 

1. Put your insertion point on the line following the first paragraph you keyed in.
2. Select File from the Insert menu.
3. Select the file Prop Location from the CD in the back of your book.
4. Click inset.

The contents of the file Prop Location will now appear in your document. This saves you keying time as the file Prop Location already contained the text you needed. Ignore the direction that talks about using Past Special, you will not use Paste Special here.

This short bit of information should get you through Module 5 with little difficulty. As always, please email me with questions.

 Lydia

Send mail to l.slater@rvc.cc.il.us with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2004 Lydia Slater Instructor Rock Valley College
Last modified: 10/06/04