Fact Sheet 100
Wednesday, 02 September 2009
From Judy Goodlet
http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/radiosolent/judygoodlet.shtml
Sincere apologies for the delay in getting this out to you – you guessed it, my poor old PC has been on
strike again!
For Beginners - Drawing lines
Most Word Processing packages offer two ways to draw straight lines – with the drawing tool and the
borders tool
Borders enable you to quickly draw a line across the page, around paragraphs or in table cells.
In Word you’ll find the Borders Icon on the Formatting Toolbar (between the Increase Indent and
Highlight Icons. It’s also on the Table and Borders toolbar (along with Icons for different line styles –
double lines, wavy lines, etc, and width).
If you click the Borders Icon a box will be drawn around the paragraph you’re text cursor is sitting in.
You can choose to have just a line below, above or to the sides by clicking the arrow to the right of the
icon and making your selection from there.
More choices, too in the Format Menu, on the Borders and Shading feature.
Packages such as Word, Works, Excel, PowerPoint and ClarisWorks offer Drawing Tools. Use these to
create short lines in any direction. In the Microsoft products you’ll find a drawing toolbar – usually at
the bottom of the screen – if you can’t see it go to View, Toolbars and Click Drawing. In the
AutoShape Menu on the Drawing Toolbar you may also find “Connectors” which let you connect two
boxes (or shapes) quickly and easily. A drawn line can be of different weights, colours, and have
arrows, too. All these options are on the Drawing Toolbar.
To draw a line, click the Line Icon, return to the document and then click where you want the line to
start. Hold down the mouse and drag to the length you require and release the mouse. If you need to
alter it, just select it and change the width, colour, etc. To move it, point at it and when you see a “four
leaf clover” effect at the top of the white arrow, click and drag it to a new position.
FOR BUSINESS USERS
In PowerPoint you can create “Action Buttons” that offer hyperlinks – either to other slides in your
presentation, to other files (including files created in any other packages such as Word, Excel or
Access), or to take you onto the Internet. You can also run Macros that you have created in
PowerPoint. You’ll find the Action Button Icon in the autoshape Menu on the Drawing Toolbar (at the
bottom of the screen) and in the Slide Show Menu.
Click the Button that you want to use, then click on the slide you want to place it on. The Action
Settings window opens. You can request that the Action takes place when you click the button with the
Mouse, or when you just move the mouse over the button.
If you’re hyperlinking to a PowerPoint slide or to a webpage, click the arrow to the right of Next Slide
on the Hyperlink To line. If you want to open a file created in a different program click Browse and
look for the file you want. If you are running a Macro that you have created, select the macro you want
from the run Macro list.
If you want a sound to play at the same time the action button is run, select the sound form the Play
sound list.
When you see the Slide in Slide Show mode you can click (or run the mouse over) the button to launch
the link (it won’t work unless you are in the Show View), If you need to alter the settings, return to the
button in slide view, select it with one click, click your right mouse button and select Action Settings.
FOR SOLENT SURFERS
When your program doesn’t work – don’t panic!
Try these, moving down the list if the first item doesn’t help!
Close and then restart the application
Restart your computer (if you use Windows you can use the Shortcut Ctrl, Alt, Delete)
Delete temporary files (In Windows, go to the Start Menu, Find, Files and Folders and type
*.tmp – the star says you don’t care what the file is called, and the temp stands for temporary
files – when the list appears, select them all – Ctrl A – and delete them). Always do this just
after a restart – if you do it later in a working session it might fail because you cannot delete
temporary files that have been created since you last turned on the computer.
Reinstall the program (find the CD, pop it into the CD drive and install it – there might be a
reinstall/repair function offered. Don’t panic – this will not change your settings or eat your
documents – it would only do this if you uninstalled first!). I tend not to use the reinstate
functions in XP – they have been known to trigger viruses.
TO CATCH UP ON ALL THE NEWS IN HAMPSHIRE, DORSET AND THE ISLE OF WIGHT,
LOG ONTO:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/southampton/