Unit 3-Digital Documentation

A document is a paper with written contents for example reports, thesis, manuscripts, legal
documents, books etc.
Documentation is the process of preparing a document is called documentation. It is
required to preserve the contents for a long period or to be used as evidence.
Word processing is the use of computer software to enter, edit, format, store, retrieve and
print the document. The document can be a letter, notice, report, business correspondence,
etc.
A word processor is a computer application used for the production of printable material.
Word processors are being used in the business, home, and education, i.e., in schools and
colleges for preparing letters, reports, and many other different types of documents.
Students use it for preparing project reports and assignments. Teachers use word processors
for preparing question papers and notes.
In the beginning WordStar was the most widely used word processing software.
Web- based Word processors are,
 Google Docs
 Office 365 Word
 Microsoft OneDrive Word
Limitations of using a typewriter
There are several limitations of using a typewriter, which are:
1. In case of any typing error, the whole sheet is required to be typed again.
2. Typewriter does not have all the required characters or symbols.
3. It is not possible to produce a document in the desired format.
4. To send same letter to two or more persons with different addresses requires multiple
typing efforts.

Difference between Manual typewriter and Electronic typewriter

Manual typewriter Electronic typewriter
It is possible to make changes in the content It is not possible to make changes in the
content
It is faster It is slower
It has very small size screen to display the It has no screen.
contents.
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 Features of word processors
 Create, edit, save, retrieve and print the document.
 Select and move the text from one place to another in the document.
 Copy the text to other places within the document.
 Move or copy a selected text from one document to any other document.
 Change the font size, font style of the text in the document.
 Format paragraphs as well as pages.
 Check spelling and grammar.
 Create table, modify the size of the selected rows, columns or cells.
 Combine one or more documents.
 Insert pictures or graphs within the document.
 Print the selected text or selected pages of the document.

Office suite is a collection of programs, which are useful for word processing, preadsheet
preparation, presentation, and database management.
LibreOffice is a free and open source software (FOSS), fully-featured office productivity
suite. Currently the versions of LibreOffice is 6.0 and above are available. It is available
free for downloading from the website ww.libreoffice.org. This suite is available in many
languages and runs on many platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux). It uses Open
Document Format (ODF) file format, for publishing documents.

The components of LibreOffice are Writer for word processing, Calc for spreadsheet
preparation, Impress for presentation, Base for database management, Draw for drawing
and others.
Starting LibreOffice Writer

(i) To start LibreOffice Writer in Windows, double click LibreOffice Writer shortcut,
which is usually found on the computer desktop.
(ii) Alternatively, click on the Start or Windows button, select LibreOffice →
LibreOffice Writer from application window.
(iii) Using the Search command, type the word ‘writer’ in the search field, and select
LibreOffice Writer from the offered results.

(i) In Ubuntu Linux, find the LibreOffice Writer icon on the application launcher, or
search it by clicking on ‘Show Applications’
Creating a document
Steps to create new document:
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 Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+N
Mouse options: File Menu → New → Text Document.

Save a document
Steps to save the file:
By clicking on the File Menu → Save (Clrl+O).
Give the name of the file
By default, the file is saved in .odt format.
Once the user saves the document by giving a name, it is called a ‘File’.
The user can save the file with another name in other location using the Save As option.
The user will get two files the previous one and the one with new name.
Closing the document
To close the file, select File → Close
Opening the document
Select File → Open (Ctrl+O)
To Save a document using password
1. Select File → Save.
2. Select the location on disk to save the file.
3. Type a suitable name for the document.
4. Put a tick on the checkbox Save with a password.
5. Type the password to open the file in Set password dialog box.
6. Type the same password in the second box and click OK button.
Parts of the Writer window

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 Title bar: Title bar is located on the top of Writer window. It shows the title of the
currently opened document.
Menu bar: It appears below the Title Bar. It shows the menu items File, Edit, View,
Insert, Format, Tables, Tools, Window and Help.
Toolbars: The tool bar appears below Menu Bar. By default, the Standard Tool Bar and
Formatting Tool Bar will appear.
Standard toolbar: It contains commands in the form of icons.
Formatting toolbar: It contains the various options for formatting a document.
Status bar: This is positioned at the left bottom of the Writer window and displays the
number of pages, words, the language used, zooming, etc. It is located at the bottom of
the workspace.
Scroll button and scroll bar: It is used to scroll the document.
Zoom: It allows to change the scale of the text and pictures in the document only for
view.
Text Cursor: The Text Cursor is a flashing vertical line in the body of the text. The 4 arrow
keys (←↑↓→) on the keyboard are called as cursor control keys.

Editing the document

(a) Undo and Redo :

If, by mistake, you have made some changes and now you want to erase the last change
done, then use the Undo option.
To undo the changes,
Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Z
Mouse options: Edit → Undo

After undo command, again if you want to go back then use the Redo option.
To redo the changes,
Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Y
Mouse options: Edit → Redo
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(b) Moving and copying text:

Cut and Paste: It is used to move a selected text from one place to another.
Select the text and click on Edit → Cut option or press CTRL+X
Place the cursor where the text has to be moved. Click on Edit → Paste option or press
CTRL+V

(c) Copy and Paste: It is used to make a duplicate copy of selected text.
Step 1: Select the text and click on Edit→ Copy option or press CTRL+C
Step 2: Place the cursor where the text has to be duplicated. Click on Edit→Paste option or
press CTRL+V

(d) Selecting text: Click where you want to begin the selection, hold down the mouse
button and then drag the pointer over the text that you want to select. The selected text will
be highlighted.

(e) Selection criteria:

(f) Selecting non-consecutive text items:

Steps to select non-consecutive text items are

 Select the first piece of text.
 Hold down the Ctrl key and use the mouse to select the next piece of text.
 Repeat as often as needed.
(g) Selecting a vertical block of text:

To select the vertical block of text select from menu: Edit → Selection Mode → Block
Area, or press Ctrl+F8 (Keyboard shortcut).

(h) Find and Replace: This feature is used to search for a text and replace it with other
text.
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 Select Edit → Find & Replace (Ctrl+F), the dialog box will open.
Type the text to find in the Find box.
To change the text with different text, enter the new text in the Replace box.
(i)Jumping to the page number: To jump to a particular page,

Select the Edit Menu→ Go to Page (Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+G).

Specify the page number in the dialog box. The cursor will move to the first character of
the specified page number directly.
(j) Non-printing characters:

To display the non-printing characters like Enter, the Space Bar, and the Tab key, press the
toggle formatting mark (¶) or use keyboard shortcut Ctrl + F10.

The tab space is shown by → sign and spacebar is shown by dot (.)

(k) Checking spelling and grammar:

To check the spelling and grammar of the document (or selected text), select Tools →
Spelling and Grammar, or click the Spelling and Grammar button on the Standard
toolbar, or press the keyboard key F7.

If any grammatical errors are detected, they are underlined by a wavy blue line. Right-
clicking on this line brings up a context menu. The first entry in the menu describes the
suspected broken grammatical rule. We can do the correction as suggested.

A spelling checker checks to see if each word in the document is in the installed dictionary.
Automatic Spell Checker checks each word as it is typed and displays a wavy red line under
any unrecognised words. Right-click on an unrecognised word to open a context menu.
Certain suggestions will be displayed for the selected word. Click on the most appropriate
word out of the suggested words to replace the underlined word. After making corrections,
the line disappears.

(l) Using synonyms and the thesaurus: Synonyms are different words with the same
meaning.
To find the synonyms of a word,
Right-click on a word and point to Synonyms on the context menu. A submenu of
alternative words and phrases are displayed. Click on a word or phrase in the submenu to
replace it with the highlighted word or phrase in the document.

Formatting a document
To setup a page, select and click on the Format → PageSetup and the Page option.
It allows to select paper size and format (A4, A5, B4, Letter). User can adjust ‘Orientation’
as Portrait or Landscape. The user can set the Margins (Left, Right, Top, Down).
Formatting text
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Formatting Text refers to the formatting of paragraphs and characters. To do the formatting,
first select the text and then apply the required text formatting features.

(a) Removing manual formatting:

Select the text and choose Format → Clear Direct Formatting from the Menu bar, or click
the Clear Direct Formatting button on the Formatting toolbar, or use Ctrl+M from the
keyboard.

(b) Common text formatting:

Some of the common text formatting features generally used are:
1. Changing font size – by selecting font size.
2. Changing font style – bold, italic, underline
3. Changing font type – by selecting font drop down.
4. Changing font colour – by selecting font colour icon.

The keyboard shortcuts for bold (Ctrl+B), for italic (Ctrl+I) and (Ctrl+U) for underline.

(c) Changing text case: It is possible to change the case of the text. There are 6 Change
Case options in LibreOffice Writer which are:
1. Uppercase
2. Lowercase
3. Cycle case
4. Sentence case
5. Capitalize Every Word
6. Toggle case

(d) Superscript and Subscript:

For example, in the date 5th July, the ‘th’ character appearing after 5 is in the superscript
case.
In some situations, such as while writing scientific/chemical formula, such O2, the
character 2 is in the subscript case.
To apply superscript: Select the text and select Format → Text → Superscript
To apply subscript: Select the text and select Format → Text → Subscript
Paragraph style
A paragraph in a document can have several sentences, a single sentence, a single word, or
no words at all. Every paragraph in a LibreOffice Writer document has a paragraph style.

Indenting paragraphs: Place the Text Cursor anywhere in the paragraph, select and click
on the ‘Increase Indent’ tool, paragraph’s indent will increase. There is also a Decrease
Indent tool that removes the indent.

Aligning paragraphs: The paragraph can be aligned as Left, Right, Center and Justify.
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To align the paragraph, place the text cursor in the title paragraph, select the appropriate
tool (Left, Right, Center or Justify) from the Format Toolbar.

Align Left (Ctrl+L), Center Horizontally (Ctrl+E), Aligned Right (Ctrl+R) and Justified
(Ctrl+J).
The Justified option makes both the left and right sides of the paragraph line up with the
margins.

Using the bullets and numbering: You can assign the bullets or numbering to the list
items in the document by using the options on the Bullets and Numbering toolbar.

Assigning colour, border and background:

Select the paragraph.
Select Format → Paragraph → Area→ Colour, then select the colour.

To assign border to the paragraph,

Select the paragraph, then select Format → Paragraph → Borders → Select Line – Style,
Width, Colour.
After selecting, click 'Ok'.

Page formatting

(a) Setting up basic page layout using styles:

Page styles define the basic layout of all pages in the document. It includes page size,
margins, header and footer, border and background, number of columns, etc.
The Default Style is assigned to the new document by default.

(b) Inserting a page break:

To break the current page and start the new page select Insert → Page Break from the
Menu bar or use the keyboard command (Ctrl + Return).

(c) Creating header/footer and page numbers:

Headers appear at the top of every page; footers appear at the bottom of a page.
To insert header in the document, select Insert → Header and Footer → Header
To insert footer in the document, select Insert →Header and Footer → Footer
You can give the document name or chapter name in the header section and page number in
the footer section.
To enter page numbers in the footer section, place the cursor in the footer section and select
Insert → Page Number.

(d) Inserting images, shapes, special characters in a document:

The regular text in the document can be made attractive and more informative by inserting
images, shapes, special characters.

(i) Inserting image:

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To insert an image in your document, position the cursor where you want to insert the file,
select Insert → Image.

A file manager will appear from where you can select the image file. Select the image file
and click on Open button or just double click on the image file. The image will get inserted
in the file.

(ii) Inserting special characters:

Sometime we may require to enter the special character, such as ¶ or which cannot be typed
by using the keyboard. To do this select Insert → Special Character.

(iii) Inserting shapes:

It is possible to insert various shapes in your document. The variety of shapes consists of
Lines, Arrows, Symbols, Stars, Callouts, and Flowcharts. For this, keep the cursor in the
place you wish to add the shape and select Insert → Shape and then choose the further
element you wish to insert.

(e) Dividing the document page into columns:

You may have seen some documents where its page is divided into two or three columns. It
is used in magazines and newspapers. It is possible to arrange the regular text into columns
before or after adding the text.
To divide the page into columns, select Format → Column.

A Column dialogue box will appear. Enter the number of columns in the Column entry box.
Give the value for spacing between the columns and click OK.

Creating and managing tables

The representation of data in a tabular format is called as table. A table has a number of
rows and columns.

(a) Creating a table:

The simplest way to create a table is, click the Table icon on the Standard toolbar.
Another way to create a table is by using the Table dialog. Position the cursor where you
want to insert the table, then:
Select Table → Insert Table from the Menu bar or Press Ctrl+F12.

(b)Inserting rows and columns:

To insert one row or column in the table:

1. Place the cursor in the row or column before or after which you want to add new
rows or columns.
2. Click on the Rows Above or Rows Below icons in the Table toolbar to insert
one row above or below the selected one.
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 3. Click on the Columns Left or Columns Right icons in the Table toolbar to
insert a column to the left or right of the selected one.
4. Click OK to close the dialog box.
(c) Deleting rows and columns:
To delete one or more rows or columns, place the cursor in the row or column you want to
delete and do one of the following:
Click on the Rows or Columns icons on the Table toolbar
Right-click and choose Delete → Rows or Delete → Columns.

(d) Splitting and merging tables:

One table can be split into two tables, and two tables can be merged into a single table.
(i) To split a table,
Place the cursor in a cell (the table splits immediately above the cursor).
Choose Table → Split Table from the Menu bar.
A Split Table dialog opens.
Click OK.

(ii) To merge two tables,

Delete the blank paragraph between the tables.
Select any cell in one of the tables.
Right-click and choose Merge Tables in the context menu. You can also use Table →
Merge Table from the Menu bar.

(e) Deleting a table:

(i) To delete a table
Click anywhere in the table.
Choose Table → Delete Table from the Menu bar.
(f) Copying a table:

To copy a table from one part of the document and paste onto another part:
Click anywhere on the table.
From the Menu bar choose Table → Select → Table.
Press Ctrl+C or click the Copy icon on the Standard toolbar.
Move the cursor to the target position.
Press Ctrl+V or click the Paste icon in the Standard toolbar.

(g) Moving a table:

To move a table from one part of a document to another part:

Click anywhere in the table.
From the Menu bar, choose Table → Select Table.
Press Ctrl+X or click the Cut icon in the Standard toolbar.
Move the cursor to the target position.
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 Press Ctrl+V or click the Paste icon in the Standard toolbar.

Printing a document

To quickly print the document without any option, Click the Print icon.

Print preview:
Print Preview is useful to check the document before printing. A user can check
whether the document is prepared as needed, such as indentation, borders, etc.

To print the document, click File → Print or Ctrl+P.

Printing all pages, single and multiple pages: There are three options to print the
number of pages in a document.
 To print all the pages in sequence, choose the option All pages.
 To print a single page, or number of non-consecutive pages, choose the option Pages,
and give the page numbers separated by comma. If you want to print the pages that are
consecutive give the range of pages first and last page (for example 3-8).
 To print only the selected text, choose the option, Selection.
Mail Merge

Mail Merge is used to create a series of same documents with multiple addresses. Mail
merge is the process of merging the main document (letter or certificates) with the mailing
address of various persons. The main document is merged with the mailing address, hence
the name mail merge. It is used to send invitations, letters or to print certificates for several
people.
In mail merge two documents are created.
Main Document: Document which contain common contents is called the main document.
Data Source: The address list is called the data source.
Main steps of Mail Merge are :
1. Create a new document and type the letter to be sent to the multiple
recipients.
2. Create data source.
3. Specify the variable field in the main document.
4. Merging the data with the main document.

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