2002 Prentice Hall

Revolution in Writing

From Word Processing to Paperless Publishing

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Topics

The Word Processing Process

The Wordsmith’s Toolbox

The Desktop Publishing Story

Tomorrow’s Word Tools

“I …cannot imagine now that I ever wrote with a typewriter.”

Arthur C. Clarke, author and scientist

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The Word Processing Process

Word processing involves the following steps: Entering text Editing text Formatting & proofreading the document Saving the document on disk Printing the document

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Entering Text

As you enter text using a word processor, your text is displayed on the screen and stored in the computer’s RAM.

Save your work periodically because RAM is not permanent memory.

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Editing Text

Write and refine a document easily by:

navigating to different parts of a document

inserting or deleting text at any point

moving & copying text searching and replacing

words or phrases

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Formatting Text

Formatting refers to how the words look on a page.

WYSIWIG (“What you see is what you get”) What you see on the screen is a close approximation of

what you will see on paper

Types of formatting: Character Line & Paragraph Entire Document

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Character Formatting

Characters are measured by point size with onepoint equal to 1/72 inch.

A

20 pts

A40 pts

80 pts

120 pts

A A200 pts

A

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All About Fonts

A font is a size and style of typeface.

Serif fonts have serifs or fine lines at the ends.

Sans-serif fonts have plainer, cleaner lines.

Arial

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Paragraph Formatting

Formatting for paragraphs involve margin settings, line spacing, indents, tabs and justification.

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Document Formatting

You can impact the appearance of an entire document through the following: Style sheets Headers and footers Multiple columns Automatic editing features Table of Contents and Indexes Conversion to HTML for web

publishing

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The Wordsmith’s Toolbox

Outliners and Idea Processors

Synonym Finders

Digital References

Spelling Checkers

Grammar and Style Checkers

Form Letter Generators

Collaborative Writing Tools

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Outliners and Idea Processors

arranging information into levels

rearranging ideas and levels

hiding and revealing levels of detail as needed

Outliners are effective at performing the following functions:

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Synonym Finders

Computerized thesaurus can provide instantaneous feedback for synonyms and antonyms.

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Digital References

Dictionaries, quotation books, encyclopedias, atlases, almanacs and other references are now available in digital form.

The biggest advantage of the electronic form is speed.

The biggest drawback is that quick copying may tempt writers to plagiarize.

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Spelling Checkers

Spelling checkers compare words in your document with words in a disk-based dictionary.

Words may be flagged; you make the decision to ignore or change the spelling.

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Collaborative Writing Tools

Groupware -software designed to be used by a workgroup

Provides for collaborative writing and editing

Tracks changes and identifies by the originator’s name

Compares document versions and highlights differences in documents

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Grammar and Style Checkers

A grammar and style checker flags possible errors and makes suggestions for correcting.

It spots the following: Spelling Errors of context Common grammatical errors Stylistic foibles

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Form Letter Generators

The Mail Merge feature in word processors generates personalized form letters and mailing labels.

Create a database with names Create a form letter Merge the database with the form letter to create a personalized letter

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The Desktop Publishing Story

The process of producing a book, magazine or other publications includes several steps:

Writing text Editing text Producing drawings, photographs, and other graphics to accompany text Designing a basic format for the publication

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What is Desktop Publishing?

With modern desktop publishing technology, the production process can be accomplished with sophisticated tools that are affordable and easy to use. Typesetting text. Arranging text and graphics on images. Typesetting and printing pages. Binding pages into a finished publication.

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Desktop Publishing Tools

Scanners transform photographs and hand-drawn images into computer-readable documents.

Page-layout software combine the various source documents into a coherent, visually appealing publication QuarkXpress PageMaker Adobe InDesign

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What does the future hold?

Despite predictions, written media isn’t going away.

Yet… Electronic mail messages now out number post office

deliveries of letters. CD-ROM encyclopedias briskly outsell their paper

versions. The Internet provides for self-publishing to millions of

users.

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Tomorrow’s Word Tools

Word processors are growing in sophistication and absorbing the features of page-layout software.

Paperless electronic media will replace desktop publishing.

Groupware for writing and editing

Electronic dictation

Intelligent Word Processors

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Electronic Books and Digital Paper

The electronic book, or ebook is a handheld device that can contain anything from today’s top news stories to lengthy novels.

Digital paper, or epaper is a flexible, portable, paper-like material that can dynamically display black-and-white text and images on its surface.

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Electronic Dictation & Intelligent Word Processors

The bottleneck continues to be in the input side of desktop publishing systems.

For the future: Speech-recognition software systems that can reliably

recognize human speech. Intelligent word processors that anticipate a writer’s

needs, acting as an electronic editor or co-author.

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