The Productive Documents

Five types of documents comprise the "top level" of the Gobe Productive suite: Word Processing, Graphics, Spreadsheet, Image Processing, and Presentation.  This section introduces these documents.   For detailed instructions on how to use the different document types, and for specific questions, please select the appropriate document section from the main menu to the left. 

Environments

All documents and frames have an environment.  An environment is a set of tools and features available for a frame or document type.  Gobe Productive dynamically changes the environment to reflect the currently active document or frame.   For example, if you are working on a word processing document, the word processing environment is active.  If you activate a spreadsheet frame, the spreadsheet environment becomes active.  The Environment Icon indicates which environment is currently active.

To keep it simple, the term environment is used to refer both to a document and a single frame.

Word Processing

A word processor document is a text-based environment.  Word processing documents are ideal for letters, reports, books, proposals, and anything where a lot of text is used. 

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Although the word processing document is specially designed for writing text, you can easily integrate graphics, charts, and spreadsheets into the text flow. 

Graphics

The graphics environment is tuned for the design and layout of graphic objects.   The environment includes tools for drawing lines, curves, shapes, and other graphic items.

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Graphic documents are ideal for laying out many different types of frames.  For example, if you wish to create a graphically rich newsletter which contains text, pictures, and a spreadsheet table, a Graphics document is the best environment to use.

Spreadsheet

A spreadsheet document is a cell-based environment.  It is the best place for "number crunching" and data organization.  Spreadsheet documents can also create colorful charts and graphs. 

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The Gobe Productive spreadsheet recognizes many different kinds of data:  numbers, currency, scientific notation, text, dates, times, true/false, and formulas.  Over 100 built-in mathematical, scientific, and financial functions make calculations easy.

Spreadsheets are also great for organizing information.  For example, you can use a spreadsheet to alphabetize a list of names.  In this way, a Gobe Productive spreadsheet functions as a simple database.  Use it to store information about inventories, contacts, and investments.

Image Processing

Image Processing is a digital image environment ideal for touching up and editing image files and digital photographs.

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For example, if you have a digital image, you can copy it to your system and edit the picture for use in other documents. Gobe Productive supports many standard graphics formats such as PNG, TIFF, Targa, and JPEG.

Presentation

A Presentation document is a graphics-based environment with the ability to create and display slide shows. 

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The presentation environment has a sophisticated layering system to build slide shows.  For example, you can create a presentation that reuses the same elements many times without having copy and paste those items from slide to slide.  Moreover, you can create multiple backgrounds or "master slides."


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