Word Processing

Unit 1: Introducing Word

Lesson 1: Entering and Exiting the Application.

How do you select commands from a menu?

This lesson is about menus. Not the kind of menus you find at a restaurant, but the kind of menus you find with an application like Microsoft Word. Actually, restaurant menus and computer menus have a lot in common. For example:

A restaurant menu has a list of items you can ask them to prepare for you; a computer menu has a list of tasks you can ask the application to perform for you.
They both group similar items to make finding what you want convenient.

You will find menu commands on the menu bar which is located just under the title bar:

Step through the simulation below to experience the use of menus in the context of a window.

Begin by reading the blue area, then click on the Next button below it. Continue through the simulation using the Next button:

What follows is a more formal treatment of the concepts and definitions introduced in the simulation above. You may want to go to the second screen of the simulation for a visual aid for the definitions that follow.

Accelerator keys – are a short-cut for executing a menu command. For example, Ctrl-S is usually used to save a document to diskette.

Dialog box indicator – is used to indicate that selecting this command will bring up a dialog box.

Disabled commands – are menu options shown in dim text. These commands are not applicable at the current time. For example, you can't cut text when no text is currently highlighted.

Easy select – are menu options that toggle between two options. For example, View Toolbar.

Although the most common method of selecting a menu item is with the mouse, you may also use the keyboard. Notice that both the menu name and menu commands have one of the characters of their name underlined. As an example of selecting a menu command from the keyboard, the File/Save As... command can be executed from the keyboard with the following key combinations: Alt-F, A. That is, first press the Alt key, followed by the F key to access the File menu. Then press the A key to select the Save As... command.