Features of Word Processing
Most Word Processors available today allow more than creating and editing documents. They have a wide range of other tools and functions, which are used in formatting the documents. The following are the main features of a Word Processor:
- Using word you can create the document and edit them later, as and when required, by adding more text, modifying the existing text, deleting/moving some part of it. Paragraphs or text can be copied /moved throughout the document.
- Changing the size of the margins can reformat complete document or part of text.
- Font size and type of fonts can also be changed. Page numbers and Header and Footer can be included.
- Spelling can be checked and correction can be made automatically in the entire document. Word count and other statistics can be generated.
- Word also allows the user to mix the graphical pictures with the text. Graphical pictures can either be created in word itself or can be imported from outside like from Clip Art Gallery.
- Multiple copies of letters can be generated with different addresses through the mail-merge facility.
- It also provides online help of any option.
The design, typesetting, and printing costs incurred by company publications are a major business expense. Many companies spend hundreds of thousands of pounds annually on publishing. Publications are a major expense for non-profit organizations as well. Most publications do not have to be of the finest quality. They can be designed, produced, and printed with word processing. Because of their speed, flexibility, and output quality, desktop publishing systems can rapidly produce not only newsletters or technical documents but also letterheads with company logos and manuals with magazine-style layouts. Users value the time and money savings, but what they value even more is the control – the ability to see exactly how a change in the type size or layout looks by observing the results on the screen and the ability to decide if the change is appropriate.
We hope you are convinced that word processing is a great time-saver, that it can be easy to learn, and that it is the best software tool for personal computers. Most of all, we hope you are convinced that word processing is essential for your business. Word processing is not the only important application software. Some people are more interested in software that works with numbers rather than words – Spreadsheet Software.
Spreadsheet
Computers work with numbers. All the processing that a computer does, whether it's running a complex CAD package, word processing a letter or playing an arcade game, is at heart numerical. It is therefore not a surprise that the best selling software running on PCs is a piece of numerical software. An electronic spreadsheet is a computerized version of a manual spreadsheet. Working with a spreadsheet on a computer eliminates much of the toil of setting up a manual spreadsheet. In general, it works like this: you enter the data you want in your spreadsheet and then key in the types of calculations you need. The electronic spreadsheet program automatically does all the calculations for you and produces the results. The program does not make any calculation errors, and if you want a printed copy of the spreadsheet, a printer can produce it quickly. Also, you can store your electronic spreadsheet on a disk so that it can be used again. But the greatest labour-saving aspect of the electronic spreadsheet is that, when you change one value or formula in a worksheet, all the rest of the values on the spreadsheet are recalculated automatically to reflect the change.
Learning to use an electronic spreadsheet program requires time. It might be a good idea to read the manual that comes with the program and spend some time experimenting with the software. Electronic spreadsheet programs have much greater capabilities than the average user will ever need. To understand how an electronic spreadsheet program works, we will look at an example. Figure 1 shows the total quantity of waste collected for recycling by or on behalf of Edinburgh City Council during 2002/2003. It also shows the amount that was recycled in the local authority area and how much was exported for recycling.
Figure 1.
A spreadsheet is a tool for working with and analysing numerical data. In structure it consists of a grid of rows and columns, rather like a large sheet of graph paper. The attached sheet shows a typical spreadsheet. The basic element of every spreadsheet is numbers. If you have no numbers then you do not need a spreadsheet. However, your numbers may mean different things. You could have your spreadsheet just filled with numbers and calculations, and it would still do the job for you perfectly well. However, if you have a mistake in your calculations, or you need to edit the spreadsheet, or more important someone else needs to look at your spreadsheet, then screens and screens full of numbers are not very informative. Text in a spreadsheet is used mainly for labelling and annotating the numbers so that you know what the numbers refer to. Most spreadsheets also have some simple database capabilities, including searching and sorting, and here the text itself is important. Text is always important when it comes to presenting your numbers and calculations to other people. Most spreadsheets therefore allow you to present your text in a variety of typefaces, sizes and styles to add visual impact to a presentation. Spreadsheet cells can contain formulae instead of text or numbers. When a formula is entered into a cell then the result of the formula is displayed rather than the content. A formula can also be made up of references to other cells. This means that we can set up a system of cascading calculations where the result from one cell can be fed into the formula of another.
The spreadsheet has a number of advantages over other methods of performing numerical calculations. Some advantages are immediately obvious. Firstly, all the numbers are visible and can be checked for errors and corrected - unlike a calculator where the number disappears as soon as you perform the calculation. Secondly you can label the numbers with some text to identify what the numbers relate to. It is often quoted, "A picture is worth a thousand words" and this becomes very true when you are confronted with a large table of numbers. Although you know these numbers mean something, their physical quantity makes it difficult to pick out any patterns you may want to identify. It is for this reason that graphing facilities are now considered essential. They are able to provide an instant visual overview of your data - they help spot any differences in a set of values - or a trend that one or more sets may be indicating. A spreadsheet could have all the number crunching power, but if you cannot interpret meanings from the numbers it is not a lot of use. The range of graph types a spreadsheet can produce varies from package to package, as does quality. However, they all ought, at least, to draw bar-charts, pie charts, line graphs and scatter grams.
The bar chart on the sheet is an example of the types of graphs that a spreadsheet can produce.
Both large and small companies today rely on computers to help them make business decisions. The computer program that has done more for business than any other is the spreadsheet. Spreadsheets can be used to organize and present business data, thus aiding managerial decision making. But spreadsheets are not limited to businesses. Personal and family budgets, for example, are often organized on spreadsheets.
Now we turn to another powerful computer application, storing data so it is easily accessible in databases.
Databases
Databases are among the most common information management tools in existence, whether manual (e.g., paper in a file drawer) or computerized. In a variety of different forms they have played a significant role in human history for thousands of years. Today, any form that you have ever completed is a record in a database, whether the data is on a computer or not. When designing a database, each entry made into that form is called a field or category. Users of the database, whether paper or computer, then must search the fields of these records to find answers. Computerizing records and their fields makes it possible to handle the sifting and questioning of the data in seconds instead of days, weeks, and years. With the advent of computers and access to the Internet, personal databases have also become a new and significant form of composition and publication. A flat file database works with one set of database records at a time. A relational database interconnects different sets of database records, so that a search in one database will retrieve records with links to data in other sets of database records.
With a database program you can create, modify, store, and retrieve data in a variety of ways. Some benefits of database management system software are:
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Integrated files. Using a database, files that would be physically separated in a paper system can be joined together. Database programs smooth the way for searching by sorting the relationships needed to combine data from different files.
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Reduced redundancy. In a database, data is usually stored in one place, reducing the amount of duplicate in the system. In addition, updating can be done quickly and efficiently.
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Shared data. Data in files can be shared by different people. Separate files for each department or function are unnecessary.
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Centralized security. When data is all in one place, you have better control over access to it. Security is particularly important for personnel files, marketing plans, restricted product information, and similar sensitive data.
Mail Merge is one of the more valuable database features. Most current databases today provides some way to create form letters by merging (inserting) fields of information from database or spreadsheet records into variables in other applications such as word processing, publishing or email applications. More recently, database vendors have also included Web server capacity into the database which makes it possible to make a database accessible over the Internet. One merely has to click the right commands to give permission for a database to be searched and read or even modified by remote users.
A relational database organizes data in a table format consisting of related rows and columns. Figure 2 below shows the employees of Scottish Environment, with their employee numbers, names, the office they work in, their rate of pay, and the weekly hours they put in.
Figure 2.
Database program provides a method to create listings of selected records and fields, called queries. Figure 3 below shows the employees of Scottish Environment whose rate of pay is less than £6.00 per hour.
Figure 3.
Similarly, Figure 4 below shows the employees of Scottish Environment who work more than 35 hours per week.
Figure 4.
In the same way, reports and forms can also be created. A form enables you to look at the records in a table one at a time. You can also use it to edit them or add new ones. Reports help you present clearly information contained in a table. A report is simply for the presentation of information, not for editing. You can include data from more than one table in a report.
Another useful function of database programs is mail merge. This is useful for sending out a standard letter to a group/all of the people in your database. Only one copy of the letter needs to be edited. Once the letter has been composed, the letter can be merged with the database where the program will automatically enter the details that are common to the database and the letter, for example, in your letter, you do not need to enter the names of the employees, or their office site, etc., the database program does that for you once it is merged.
Finally, no discussion of database program is complete without mentioning it's capability to tightly integrate with SQL Server. If you're in an organization that utilizes SQL Server, you'll be pleased to learn that you can retrieve, manipulate and work with the data stored on your organization's database server within the database environment. This brings us to the final major application, computer networks, email, and web applications.
Computer Networks, Email and Web Applications
Today computer is available in many offices and homes and therefore there is a need to share data and programs among various computers with the advancement of data communication facilities. The communication between computers has increased and it thus it has extended the power of computer beyond the computer room. Now a user sitting at one place can communicate computers of any remote sites through communication channel. We all are acquainted with some sorts of communication in our day to day life. For communication of information and messages we use telephone and postal communication systems. Similarly data and information from one computer system can be transmitted to other systems across geographical areas. Using Internet, organizations all over the world can exchange data, people can communicate with each other in a faster and effective way, and researchers can gather information in their respective area of research. Even one can do all his shopping sitting back at home. Why do people want to get connected to Internet? May be because of freedom it provides. The Internet is a rare example of a large democracy with no state of head, no official censors, no bosses, no board of directors. Nobody controls the Internet and in principle, any computer can speak to any other computer, as long as it obeys the technical rules of the TCP/IP protocol. This freedom of Internet helped it to move out of its original base in military and research institutions, into elementary and high schools, colleges, public libraries, commercial sectors even into the shop of a vegetable vendor.
(a.) Computer Networks.
A computer network is an interconnection of various computer systems located at different places. In computer network two or more computers are linked together with a medium and data communication devices for the purpose of communicating data and sharing resources. The computer that provides resources to other computers on a network is known as server. In the network the individual computers, which access shared network resources, are known as workstations. Computer networks may be classified on the basis of geographical area in two broad categories.
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Local Area Network. Networks used to interconnect computers in a single room, rooms within a building or buildings on one site are called Local Area Network (LAN). LAN links computers, i.e., software and hardware, in the same area for the purpose of sharing information. Usually LAN links computers within a limited geographical area because they must be connected by a cable, which is quite expensive. People working in LAN get more capabilities in data processing, work processing and other information exchange compared to stand-alone computers. Because of this information exchange most of the business and government organisations are using LAN. The reliability of network is high because the failure of one computer in the network does not effect the functioning for other computers.
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Wide Area Network. For a big company spanning over different parts of the country the employees can save long distance phone calls and it overcomes the time lag in overseas communications. Computer conferencing is another use of WAN. In modern computerised environment you will find that big organisations go for centralised data storage. This means if the organisation is spread over many cities, they keep their important business data in a single place. As the data are generated at different sites, WAN permits collection of this data from different sites and save at a single site.
(b.) Electronic Mail.
E-mail or Electronic mail is a paperless method of sending messages, notes or letters from one person to another or even many people at the same time via the Internet. E-mail is very fast compared to the normal post. E-mail messages usually take only few seconds to arrive at their destination. One can send messages anytime of the day or night and it will get delivered immediately. It works 24 hours a day, seven days a week. What’s more, the copy of the message you have sent will be available whenever you want to look at it - even in the middle of the night. You have the privilege of sending something extra even such as a file, graphics, images etc. along with your e-mail. The biggest advantage to using e-mail is that it is cheap, especially when sending messages to other countries and at the same time it can be delivered to a number of people around the world. Although e-mail is faster and cheaper, it has many of the components of regular mail. It allows you to compose note, get the address of the recipient and send it. Once the mail is received and read, it can be forwarded, replied. One can even store it for later use, or delete. In e-mail even the sender can request for delivery receipt and read receipt from the recipient.
As in the case of normal mail system, e-mail is also based upon the concept of a recipient address. The email address provides all of the information required to get a message to the recipient from anywhere in the world. Consider the e-mail ID “”. In the example above, "achin3" is the local part, which is the name of a mailbox on the destination computer, where finally the mail will be delivered. Hotmail is the mail server where the mailbox "achin3" exists, .com is the type of organisation on net, which is hosting the mail server.
Even though e-mail is fast, it has some down sides to it; you don’t know when you receive it, the e-mail address must be correct, the receiver must have e-mail facility, and one of the main ones is receiving spam.
(c.) Web Applications.
The latest buzzword in computer world is ‘Internet’. It has taken the entire world by surprise with its cutting edge technology to connect people and computers throughout the world. WWW is the acronym for the World Wide Web. One can easily surf the Web by jumping from one document to another using the links in those documents. These documents can be in many formats, such as text, graphics, animation, sound and latest is video. They may also be a combination of all these. All the information on Internet are presented to the user as a document or more popularly known as Web Page. All these Web Pages are link to each other or even to section within a Web Page. And these links are known as Hyper Links. The tool used to view these Web Pages on Internet is known as Internet browser or simply browser. Just like every house, every office, every location has an address, every page on the Internet has a unique address. This address is used get the web page for user from Internet.
With Internet and web pages both the organisation and the individual involved will gain mileage. For an organisation, this would provide i) a low cost information distribution system, ii) make database available for others to use, and maintain the security, iii) collect information provided by others on Internet to expand and improve service to a target audience, and iv) provide low-cost training. On the other hand for an individual it would mean i) get acquainted with new technology, ii) learn new skills, iii) receive low cost training and other information, and iv) get connected with other web creators with ease.
CONCLUSION
History is still being made in the computer industry, and it is rapid. But it is vital to understand that every user should have a good working environment (i.e. have frequent breaks, appropriate PC positioning, adequate lighting and ventilation) and ensure that a number of health and safety precautions should be taken (i.e. keeping a good posture to avoid back or eye strains, securing power cables, etc.).