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AN INTRODUCTION TO
INFORMATION AND
COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
(ICT) CSc 1L1 – Semester 1 |
 Topic 1 - Application software: Types
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and Distributions
3 Contents
1. How application software is distributed
• Price: Commercial/ Shareware vs.
Freeware
• Source code: Proprietary vs. Open-source
2. Different kinds of application software
• Office productivity software
• Entertainment software
• Graphics/ Designing software
• Communications software
4 Price of software
Free – what’s free
• Gratis (zero price) versus Libre (freedom) -> Freeware
vs free software
• Names derived from laws such as copyright, patent,
and trademark
• Freeware is software fort no cost (or for a voluntary
fee). It is fully functional for an unlimited time.
• Shareware is free software that is fully functional for a
limited time (trial period) only and requires an
5 Source code of software

Free – what’s free

• Gratis (zero price) versus Libre (freedom) -
> Freeware vs free software
• What is the opposite of free software?
• Proprietary is covered by copyright,
patent, trademark
• Free software -> opposite->Closed
software
 6 Free software culture
Free software is promoted by an organisation called Free
Software Foundation (FSF) to distribute and modify software
without restriction
Contributions
1. GNU (GNU is not UNIX) – is a computer OS composed entirely
of free software
2. Defines what constitutes a free software
3. Enforces copy-left (or share-alike) licencing – permission to
reproduce, adapt, distribute, work as long as copies also
bound by the same copy-left
7 Free software’s freedoms

Copy-left allows the following freedoms

1. Freedom to use and study the work
2. Freedom to copy and share the work
3. Freedom to modify the work
4. Freedom to distribute modified derived
work
 Topic 2 – Word Processing and Office
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Suites: Sections
Office Suites

Google
Applications
 Topic 2 – Word Processing and Office
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Suites: Outcomes
Familiarise yourself with the components of
the Microsoft Office Suite

Familiarise yourself with online solutions

for office suites

Compare and contrast online solution

and desktop solutions for office
10 A bit more history
Electric typewriter: same
basic idea but keys are
switches moving the
mechanical parts

IBM Selectric Typerwriter (1961)

– removable “golfball” with
character set
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Electric_typewriter
 Office Suites
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 An office suite (pronounced “sweet”) is a

collection of software applications designed to
enable and enhance productivity in the work
place.

 An office suite typically consists of:

🞑 Word processing,
🞑 Spreadsheet,

🞑 Presentation and,

🞑 Email client.

Slides by Dr Mosioua Tsietsi

 Office Suites
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 Word Processor: computer software which allows

you to create and manipulate documents
containing mostly text, but also other forms of
media such as graphics.
🞑 Microsoft product: Microsoft Word
 WYSIWYG word processor: What You See Is What You
Get
 Spreadsheet: computer software which allows
you to manage tabular data (data that can be
arranged in rows and columns). It supports
calculations on data and equations.
🞑 Microsoft product: Microsoft Excel
 Office Suites
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 Presentation: computer software which allows you

to create slides (like these ones) for presenting
material to an audience.
🞑 Microsoft product: Microsoft PowerPoint

 Email Client: computer software which allows you

to send and receive email messages. Usually also
allows you to manage your contacts and
calendar appointments.
🞑 Microsoft product: Microsoft Outlook
Slides by Dr Mosioua Tsietsi
 Free alternatives
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 Libre Office and OpenOffice

🞑 Both completely free

 Google Docs
🞑 Commercial license for bigger users (G Suite)

 iWork from Apple

🞑 Free but a cost if you run out of free cloud
storage
https://www.openoffice.org/ https://www.libreoffice.org/
https://www.apple.com/za/iwork/ https://gsuite.google.com/
 Email is a different category
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 It is part of a communication standard

🞑 There is no concept of open and closed
formats
 Like a telephone:
🞑 You can get different types of phone
🞑 They all communicate with each other
 Office Suites
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 Database: computer software which allows you to

create, access, and manage a database of
information. Using database software, you can
add, change, retrieve, and delete data in a
database and generate forms for easy
manipulation of a database.
🞑 Microsoft product: Microsoft Access
 Microsoft OneDrive
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 Microsoft’s version of an online Office Suite.

 Solves the geographic collaboration problem
and inconsistencies caused by “emailing”
documents around.
 Saves document online on Microsoft servers
 Can be installed as an application on
different devices i.e. personal computer,
phone, tablet.
 Allows private and shared viewing or editing
by sending invitations to view or edit.
 Integrated into the Office suite on Windows.
 Google Suite
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 Google has developed an online version of

an office suite in their Google Drive solution.
🞑 You will find links on the Google search page on
the top right corner (in the Google apps menu)
🞑 A Gmail (Google Mail) email account works best to
access and use Google’s online productivity suite
and tools
 Google Drive supports the creation of:
🞑 Online word documents, online presentations,
online spreadsheets
 Google
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Drive
 Google Drive documents can be:
🞑 Accessed privately for yourself online when you are
not at the same computer you created the document
at.

🞑 Shared with others (in order to support collaboration):

 Who you invite
 Who have the web address of the online document
 Google Docs
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 Google’s equivalent of Microsoft Word is a

Google
Doc
🞑 You edit it in a web page
🞑 You can share it with others
 Anyone with shared editing permission can modify it
🞑 A tool for collaboration
 Microsoft’s One Drive supports collaboration too
 Another example: https://
www.apple.com/za/iwork/
 The Cloud
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 A generic name for online shared

services
 Examples:
🞑 Google Drive
🞑 Microsoft One Drive

🞑 Amazon Web Services

 Topic 2: Sample Questions
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 You want to work together with someone else on

a story. What would you use? Microsoft Word?
Google Docs? What other options are there?

 If you are working on your own and cost is a

factor, what are your options?
 The Word Processor
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 The modern day

computer uses a word
processor to create
rich documents. Word
processing is more
than just about
typing. It has to do
with styling,
formatting and
arranging text and
other media as a
Slides by Dr Mosioua Tsietsi coherent document.
24 Topic 3: Microsoft Word Basics
Editing a Document

Selecting Text

Custom Text
Formatting
 Editing a Document – the cursor
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 The cursor:
🞑 A flashing indicator that shows where text will
appear when you type
🞑 When you strike a key, the character will appear
where the cursor was, while the cursor moves one
space to the right
🞑 You can use the left and right arrow keys to move
the cursor across or the up and down arrow keys to
move between lines of text

Slides by Dr Mosioua Tsietsi

 Editing a Document – special keys
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 When the BACKSPACE key is struck, the cursor moves to

the left and erases the character that was in that
position.
 When the DELETE key is struck, the cursor remains in
the same position, but the character to its right is
removed.
 When the HOME key is struck, the cursor moves to the
far left (beginning) of the current line of text.
 When the END key is struck, the cursor moves to the
far right (end) of the current line of text.
 The PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN keys will move the
cursor several lines of text up and down.
 Editing a Document – undo /
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redo
 When the UNDO action is performed, the last
action (e.g. a character key was pressed) is
undone.
🞑 A shortcut in Microsoft Word is CTRL+Z
 When the REDO action is performed, the last
undo will be reversed.
🞑 A shortcut in Microsoft Word is CTRL+Y
 Editing a Document – text select
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 To select text, hold down the SHIFT key while

moving the cursor using the keyboard or use
the mouse to click and select large portions of
text.
 Selecting text is useful for enforcing a
particular form of formatting to text content or
deleting a large amount of content at once.
 Double clicking a word also selects the text.
 CTRL+A selects all the text in the document.
 Editing a Document – copy and
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cut
 When you select text and use the copy
command, you can put a copy of that text
somewhere else.
🞑 In Microsoft Word, CTRL+C is a shortcut for copy
 When you select text then use the cut command,
the text is removed from its original position and
can be placed in a new position.
🞑 In Microsoft Word, CTRL+X is a shortcut for cut
 Paste puts cut or copied text somewhere
else
🞑 In Microsoft Word, CTRL+V is a shortcut for this
 Cut-Copy-Paste summary
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 Cut and copy place the text that you

previously highlighted in a special memory
 Paste puts that text into wherever you are
currently position in the document
🞑 You can click at the place to paste or
🞑 Select other text, which will be overwritten by paste
 Cut removes text
 Copy does not remove text
 Editing a Document – text
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format
 Format options apply a format (style) to any
desired text (see the Font submenu on the
Home tab ribbon across the top of the
screen).
🞑 Text can be italicised (CTRL+I)
🞑 Text can be emboldended (CTRL+B)

🞑 Text can have the font changed

🞑 Text can be underlined (CTRL+U)

🞑 Text can be coloured

For emphasis: italics or strong emphasis: bold; even more bold

italics –
 Why “font”?
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 Originally the individual letters etc. were made

of metal
🞑 In a foundry – a place where metal is worked
🞑 The word “font” derives from this – the French word
fondre means to melt (look up cheese fondue)
 Today typeface and font mean the same thing
🞑 A particular design for letters, symbols etc.
🞑 Examples:
 Helvetica, Times, Courier
 Topic 3: Sample Questions
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 You want to encourage people to read your

document. Should you use a lot of variations like
colours of text, changing font and layout to
make it interesting?

 You want to remove text from one place and put

it somewhere else. What sequence of actions
does that?