Business computing Session 2 22nd October 2003

The MS Office suite softwares The word processor : « Word » The spread sheet : « Excel » The presentation software : « PowerPoint » The database : « Access » The web page editor : « FrontPage »

Web pages vs Word pages Web pages are prepared using a language called HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language, invented in 1989, by Tim Berners-Lee) They adapt their display to the size of the window Word pages do not adapt to the window

The right way to write a document A document is organised in paragraphs Each paragraph should start with a first punchy sentence. The rest of the paragraph are sentences illustrating the 1st one. The last sentence introduces the next paragraph (but is not the punchy sentence of the following paragraph).

Well written books Well written books apply this rule : each paragraph contains only one idea, expressed in a punchy way in its first sentence. Consequence : well written books can be « read » in two hours : read only the 1st sentence of each paragraph. Prepare your ESCEM papers this way!

The accompanying Website All AC’s courses are found at dame.htmlhttp:// dame.html With all the Office softwares, when we type a web address it automatically becomes a « clickable link »

The Great Wall is a tourist attraction

How to get a picture of the Great Wall ? Use the Web « search engine » called Google Address : Google will search within 425 million images

The Futuroscope is a modernistic set of buildings Find an image to put here

All Office softwares have the same structure All office softwares have similar « toolbars » (with the exception of Access) The main toolbars, Menu, Standard, Formatting are very similar across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and FrontPage

What is Shift + F1 for ? Shift + F1 is designed to give us Help –It transforms our pointer into a Question mark –Then click with the « question mark » onto the icon we want to understand and we get a little explanation

The companion For extensive help we can ask the « companion » : –Click on the question mark of the menu bar –A companion appears, and a window where we write our question The companion is better than a textbook –It is very complete, up to date –It proposes explanations close to our problem

The web dictionary The site offers a great online dictionary and thesaurushttp:// Plus pronunciation A thesaurus is a book listing « words close to the one we entered »

A standard business letter Your name (or your firm’s name) and address, and logo in the top left corner of the letter The name of the addressee below shifted to the right The main body of the letter Signature

The importance of well presented business letters A business letter is often the first image of yourself you give And, as you know, the first image is often the one that remains

The importance of well presented business letters (2) A business letter is often the first image of yourself you give And, as you know, the first image is often the one that remains

Let’s prepare a logo We shall prepare a picture of the word « Our Firm » How do we do this ? Use a drawing software : –Paint is the simplest one –Paint Shop Pro –Adobe softwares Logos are subtle signs. Firms spend a lot of money to get a good logo.

How to move a text to the right ? We use tabulations or (better) indentations

A first mail merge In the menubar select tools and select display the mailmerge toolbar Then prepare a database of names and addresses (we did that with Excel) Then prepare the model letter with fields like « surname », « firstname » etc. Then merge And print This creates in minutes 150 personalised letters

Word models Word offers plenty of prepared letters along various models We don’t have to create new letters from scratch