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In this section, you will learn how to work with a simple word processing document.
Word Processing is quite easy in the Gobe Productive suite.
This section contains the following exercises:
Launch Gobe Productive and Begin a New Document
- Run Gobe Productive.
- When the New Document window displays, select Word Processing and click
OK. A new word processing document is started.
So you have some text to work with, type in your favorite poem, letter, or technical
reference manual. You do not need to use the [ENTER] or [Return] key when you get to
the end of a line. The program automatically "wraps" lines of text for
you. You only need to press [ENTER] or [Return] when you want to end a paragraph or
insert a "hard return" in the text flow.
Before you change text, you must select it. To do this, position the cursor at
the beginning of the text you want to change.
- Click and hold the primary mouse button.
- Drag the cursor over the text you want to change. When you have selected all the
text you want to change, release the mouse button.
There are two "levels" of formatting: paragraph formatting and character
formatting.
Changing the size, color, and font of individual letters and numbers is character
formatting. Changing the indentation, alignment, and line spacing is paragraph
formatting. Character formatting only affects the characters you select to format.
Paragraph formatting affects an entire paragraph, regardless of how many characters
you select in the paragraph.
Needless to say, the default font is probably a little plain. Let's dress up the
color, size, and text style. Font formatting is character formatting so only the
characters you select are formatted.
- Select a block of text.
- Click and hold on the Text Font tool
in the FormatBar.
- A list of all the available fonts is displayed. Notice how the display shows how
each font looks. Select the font you like and release the mouse button.
- The selected text changes to the font you selected.
Next, change the size of that text.
- Make sure the text is still selected.
- Click and hold on the Text Size tool
in the FormatBar. A list of point
sizes is displayed.
- Select a point size for the text and release the mouse button.
- The selected text changes to the point size you selected.
Last, add some color to the text.
- Make sure to select some text.
- Click and hold on the Text Color tool
in the FormatBar.
- Beside the button, a small popup menu appears. The menu displays three buttons
that represent different types of text fill.
- Color
- Pattern
- Gradient .
- If you position the cursor over these buttons, a palette of default colors is
displayed. Select a color, pattern, or gradient from the palette.
If you want to fine tune a color, pattern, or gradient, "tear-off"
the text color tool and create a floating palette. You may then customize any color,
pattern, or gradient. See the Customizing Inks topic
in the graphics section for more information.
Alignment is a paragraph formatting feature, so that when you change the alignment of any
word or letter in a paragraph, the entire paragraph is aligned that way.
- Position the I-beam cursor anywhere in a paragraph.
- Using the alignment buttons on the word processing PartBar
, click the alignment
you want. By default, all paragraphs are left aligned.
You can also set these and other paragraph formatting options using the Paragraph
format dialog box. To access this dialog box , select Paragraph
from the Format menu.
Like alignment, paragraph indents are also a paragraph formatting feature.
Changing the indent properties of one word or letter in a paragraph will change the
entire paragraph.

- If you drag the Left Margin Marker, all selected paragraphs move to be
aligned to that marker.
- If you drag the First Line Marker, the first line of all selected
paragraphs will move to align to that marker.
- Likewise, the Right Margin Marker changes the right alignment of all
selected paragraphs.
You can also set these and other paragraph formatting options using the Paragraph
format dialog box. To access this dialog box , select Paragraph
from the Format menu.
Tabs are an easy way to display text in a columnar format or offset text with some
extra white space. Moreover, you can use tabs to align text in different ways.
For example, one of the most common uses for tabs is to create a left and right aligned
header for pages. This looks like this:

- From the Document menu, select Insert Header. A
header frame is inserted at the top of the page.
- Position your cursor in the header frame.
- Type My Report, and press [TAB].
- From the Format menu, select Insert Page #.
This inserts the current page number.
- Position the cursor in the rule and click once. A small triangle appears.
This is a tab stop.
- Double-click on the new triangle. The Edit Tab dialog box is displayed. This
dialog box allows you to modify the location and alignment of tab stops.
 
- In the Tab Type box, select the Right option In
the Tab Fill box, make sure none is filled.
- Click OK.
- Lastly, drag the tab stop triangle over to the far right margin. The text moves
and aligns to the right side of the page.
This is one simple example of how to use tab stops. Using the Tab Fill
and position you can create all types of layouts.
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NOTE: By default, the application places left-aligned
tab stops every 1/2 inches. |
The Gobe Productive spelling checker helps clean up your text.
- From the Document menu, select Spell Check.
- From the Spell Check submenu, select how you want to begin checking
your spelling. The Start From Top option will begin spell checking
at the very first line of the document (or text frame). The Start from Cursor
begins the spell checking at where ever the cursor is located.
- The Spell Checking Bar is displayed. This bar contains buttons to control the
spell checking process.

- Click Begin to start spell checking.
- When a a misspelled word is discovered, suggestions are displayed in a drop-down list
beside the Replace button.
- Select the replacement you want and click Replace. The misspelled
word is replaced and the spell checking resumes.
Not all words the spell checker identifies as misspelled are truly wrong.
Technical words, jargon, acronyms, and other terms may not be in the Gobe Productive
dictionary. If you want to add a word to your user dictionary, click Learn
when the system highlights the word.
Professional writers never write a long document without using styles. Styles are
a great way to define a common look for a document. For example, when you start a
new section in a document, you probably want to have a heading for the new section.
By defining a Heading style, you can have a pre-defined format to apply to text so all
your headings will look the same.
- Type some text and format it exactly as you want. Remember to set all the
paragraph and character settings.
- From the Styles menu tool
. select New Style...; A New Style
dialog box is displayed.

- Type in a Style Name.
- Click and hold Style Type. If you want the style to appear in ALL
document types, select Basic. If you want the style to appear in
only word processing documents, select Basic Paragraph.
- Check the Copy formatting from selection box. This instructs the
application to copy the formatting properties from the text you selected. If you
leave this option unchecked, the application creates a new "blank" style.
- Click OK.
The Style tool now lists your new style. You can now select any
text in a document, apply the style, and all the formatting options you had established
for the style are applied to the selected text.
See the Printing a Document topic for more information
about how to print.
In this tutorial, you learned the basics for creating a text document. If you
want to know more about the word processing features of the Gobe Productive suite, see the
Word Processing section of this User's Guide.
In the next tutorial, you will learn how to work with spreadsheets. |