BASIC TERMINOLOGIES

• Typeface is the shape of the characters. Some common typefaces are Times New Roman, Arial, and Tahoma.
• Line spacing refers to the amount of vertical white space between two lines of text, from baseline to baseline. Line spacing is measured in points.
• Text alignment refers to the way lines of text are arranged relative to the edges of a block of text. There are four types of alignment: left, centre, right, and justify.
• Justification is the process of aligning text in a document to both the left and right margins at the same time.
• Indent is the amount of white space set in between the margin and the beginning of text. Examples of indents include the first line indent, hanging indent and right indent.
• Formatting text is the process of changing the appearance of text in a document. Formatting text involves using commands like bold, italics, underlining, changing font colour, etc.
• Editing text refers to the process of making changes to the content of an existing document. Editing text involves commands like cut, paste, overtype, undo, insert, and delete.
• Copy – To place selected text on the clipboard, without removing it from its current location.
• Cut – To remove selected text from its current position and place it on the clipboard. Copy and paste duplicated text, while Cut and paste moves text to a new location.
• The clipboard is an area of memory in which you can store copied or cut text, graphics or any other items temporarily before being pasted into other locations.
• The paste special feature helps to avoid pasting text with all its formatting. The paste special feature provides more control over what to paste.
• Header– The header refers to text that appears in the top margin of all pages in a document.
• Footer – The footer refers to text that appears in the bottom margin of all pages in a document.
• Ruler – You can use the ruler to set the indent, margin and tab markers. Avoid using the space bar to align text!
• Tabs Stops– tab stops are places where text can be made to line up. You can set a tab stop by clicking on the ruler bar at the desired position.
• Hard Copy– A copy of a document printed out on physical paper.
• Soft Copy– A copy of a document that is stored on a disk or other computer storage device.
• Overtype Mode– Also called overwrite mode, causes any characters you type to replace (“overtype”) the characters at the cursor. You can switch between overtype mode and insert mode by pressing the insert key.
• Paragraph – The text between one paragraph break and the next. A paragraph break is inserted by pressing Enter key.
• Save – To write the document’s current state from RAM to a storage device.
• Proofreading is the process of reviewing a document to ensure the accuracy of its content. Proof reading tools include spelling and grammar check (F7), thesaurus, etc.
• Page orientation – is the layout of a page in which a rectangular page is oriented for normal viewing.
• Type of orientation

Portrait is the layout of a page in which the height of a page is greater than the width

Landscape is the layout of a page where the width is greater than the height

• Paragraph spacing. This determines the amount of space above or below a paragraph.
• Formatting a document. Is the process of improving on the appearance of a document involving formatting text, setting margins, borders and shading, page layout, paper size and orientation
• Tab stops. Are places where text can be made to line up? You can use the ruler to set manual tab stops at the left side, middle, and right side of your document.
• Format painter copies formatting from one place, which can be applied to another place
• Document views. These include; Normal view, which shows formatting such as; line spacing, font, point size, italics, etc. Web layout view enables you to view your document as it would appear in a browser. Print layout view shows the document as it will look when it is printed. Reading layout formats your screen to make reading your document more comfortable. Outline view, displays the document in outline form
• Blocking or highlighting text. Is the selecting of text to make it ready for manipulation and modification
• Sorting. Is the arranging of a list of text say paragraphs, lines, words, etc., in either Ascending or Descending order Alphabetically
• A superscript. Is a word processing tool that places text above another, e.g. X²
• A subscript. Is a word processing tool that places text below another, e.g. X₂
• Borders and shadings. This involves enclosing text or objects in a frame and a decoration or painting.
• Page break. This is used to terminate a page prematurely or by force.
• Gutter margin. A gutter margin setting adds extra space to the side margin or top margin of a document that you plan to bind. A gutter margin helps to ensure that text is not hidden by the binding.
• Page margins. Are the blank spaces around the edges of the page. Text & graphics are inserted in the printable area between margins. However, headers, footers and page numbers can be inserted in the margins.