SeniorNet
Exploring
Windows
Lesson Six: Basic Windows Programs
In the last lesson you learned about changing mouse
and keyboard properties as well as personalizing
In this lesson you will explore some of the basic programs supplied with Windows Vista.
You will become familiar with some of the features of:
Ÿ Notepad
Ÿ WordPad
Ÿ The Clipboard
Ÿ Calculator
Ÿ Paint
Contents Page
Open a blank WordPad document
...
Open the file from My Files
folder
Open the file from My Files
...
Copy a picture to another
program
Switch between open programs
using the taskbar
.
Delete the test files and
folder
...
Windows programs
There are several programs included with Vista that are useful for performing common tasks such as preparing simple documents, performing calculations and drawing or editing simple graphics. These programs are found in the Accessories folder under All Programs.
As well, there are some familiar games and some
interesting new ones that take advantage of the Aero display technology built
into
1 Power up your computer and log on (if
necessary) to
Windows Vista starts up and the desktop appears.
Later in this lesson you will need a folder to save files that you create or modify. In the next steps you will create a folder called My Files under the Documents folder.
1 Click the Start button and click Documents.
Windows Explorer opens viewing the contents of the Documents folder in the file list (right hand pane).
2 On the Toolbar, click the Organize button; click New Folder in the drop down menu.
A new folder named New Folder appears in the file list. The name New Folder is highlighted indicating it is selected so anything you type will replace this name.
3 On the keyboard, type My Files and then press the Enter key.
The new folder is now named My Files.
4 Close Windows Explorer my clicking the X on the right side of the Title bar.
Notepad is a very basic text program that enables you to make quick notes. It has limited capabilities but is adequate for typing short notes or for copying excerpts from email, web sites or other documents.
Notepad opens and saves text in text-only format and supports minimal formatting capabilities. To create or edit files that require formatting or for any serious correspondence, you would use WordPad or perhaps Office Word 2003 or 2007.
1 Click the Start button on the taskbar, click All Programs, click Accessories then click Notepad.
The Notepad program opens with a blank document (see Figure 6.1).
Figure 6.1 Notepad program window
1 Insert the Student CD into the DVD/CD drive on the computer.
If the Autoplay dialog opens asking
how to view the files, click Cancel.
2 In Notepad, click the File menu and click Open.
The Open dialog appears. It is a variation of Windows Explorer you have seen many times in Lessons Two and Three (see Figure 6.2).
Figure 6.2 Open dialog
3 In the Folders list of the Navigation pane, click Computer.
The Computer drives and devices appear in the file list.
4 In the file list, double-click the DVD/CD entry.
The Class Files folder on the Student CD appears in the file list.
5 Double-click the Class Files folder.
The folder opens and the one or more files are displayed in the file list.
6 Find the file VacationNotes and click to select it. Click the Open button at the bottom of the dialog.
The VacationNotes file opens in NotePad.
6 Click the Maximize button on the title bar if you want to enlarge the window to fill the screen. (Remember, Maximize is the middle of the three Window control buttons at the right end of the Title bar.)
1 Click Format menu to see that you have two options: word wrap and a choice of fonts. The font selection is fairly extensive but it only controls how the text file is displayed in Notepad and not how the file is saved. It is always saved in a Courier style font.
2 Press and hold down the Control key on the keyboard while you press the End key (Ctrl+End) and release both keys.
This takes you to the end of the document.
3 Press the Enter key to create a new line.
4 Type Aug 16: Left for home
1 Click the File menu and click Save As.
The Save As dialog opens (Figure 6.3)
Figure 6.3 Save as dialog
2 In the Navigation pane, click Documents in the Favorite links list.
The contents of the Documents folder appears in the file list.
3 Double-click the folder My Files in the file list to open it.
My Files opens and its contents appears in the file list it is empty since you have not placed any files in it yet.
4 In the File Name box, click just to the left of VacationNotes to place the insertion point to the left of the V and type My.
5 Click the Save button
You now have a file called MyVacationNotes in the My Files folder under Documents. It is saved as a text file with a .txt extension. You will learn more about file types and extensions in Lesson Seven.
1 Click the X on the title bar to close the Notepad window.
WordPad has more capabilities than Notepad. You saw some of them in previous lessons.
1 Click the Start button, click All Programs, click Accessories then click WordPad.
The WordPad program opens to a blank document. Maximize it if it is not already so.
2 Click the View menu and, in turn, click all four options at the top of the menu if they are not already checked.
The toolbars that are available in WordPad should now all be on: Menu, Toolbar, Format bar, Ruler and Status bar (see Figure 6.4).
Figure 6.4 WordPad program window with all toolbars displayed
3 Compare Figures 6.1 and 6.4 and note the differences between Notepad and WordPad.
Notepad provides the bare essentials needed for note taking, whereas WordPad supports formatted text.
1 Click the File menu and click Open.
The Open dialog appears.
2 In the Folders list of the Navigation pane click Computer.
The Computer drives and devices appear in the file list.
3 In the file list, double-click the DVD/CD entry to open it.
The Class Files folder on the Student CD appears in the file list.
4 Double-click the Class Files folder.
The folder opens and the WordPad readable files are displayed in the file list.
5 Double-click the file PC tips.
The file opens in WordPad. Note it is a formatted document with colored, bold and underlined headings and indented paragraphs.
6 On the menu bar, click the various menu headings (Edit, View, Insert, Format) and examine the drop down menu options.
Note that more word processing options are available in the WordPad menus than there were in Notepad. A notable difference is the inclusion of a format toolbar with fonts, font sizes, colors, bolding, italic and underlining possible on a character by character basis. Plus, WordPad has the ability to set tabs and indents on the Ruler line.
7 If
you wish, click the Print button on the toolbar to print the PC tips
document and keep it for future reference. If this is not possible at the
You will open a blank document that you will then save twice, once as a text (.txt) document which does not save formatting and once as a rich text format (.rtf) document which does saves formatting.
1 In WordPad, click the File menu and click New.
A dialog opens asking what kind of new document you want to create: Rich Text, Text or Unicode Text.
2 Click Text Document to select it and click OK.
A blank new document opens. It assumes a text only format is required and will be saved as such.
3 In the Format toolbar, set the Font to Arial, 12 point
4 Place the mouse pointer in the Workspace and click to set the insertion point at the beginning of the workspace. Type a sentence, such as: This file is saved as a text document.
5 Double-click anywhere in the word text to select it and click the Underline button on the format toolbar. Click anywhere in a blank area to deselect the text.
The word text is now underlined.
6 Click the File menu and click Save As to open the Save As dialog box (see Figure 6.5).
Figure 6.5 Save As dialog box
7 Click in the File name box and type test1 to replace the default name Document.
8 Click the down arrow on the right of the Save as type list box and click Text Document if it is not already so.
The extension .txt will be added to the file name.
9 If the Navigation pane and folders list is not shown click the Browse Folders down arrow.
The dialog expands out to an Explorer-type view and allows you to navigate to a specific folder (see Figure 6.6).
Figure 6.6 Save As dialog with folders expanded
10 Navigate to the My Files folder under Documents.
(Tip: one way is to click the Documents entry in the Favorite Links
list, find the My Files folder in the file list on the right hand side and then
double click the My Files folder to open it).
11 Click the Save button.
A message appears warning that the document will be saved with no formatting.
12 Click Yes to confirm that you want to save it.
During the Save process the text is stripped of its formatting (the underline).
Close WordPad
You will close and reopen the file to confirm that it was saved as a plain text document with no formatting.
1 Click the X on the title bar to close WordPad.
Open the file from My Files folder
You saved the file in the My Files folder and will now retrieve it.
1 Click the Start button and click Documents.
Windows Explorer opens to the Documents folder. The My Files folder appears in the file list.
2 Double-click the My Files folder to open it.
The contents of My Files are displayed in the file list. There are two entries one being the test1 file you just created.
3 Click the Views button and set the view to display the file Details so you can see the file type listed.
4 The file test1 is listed as a Text Document in the Type column.
5 Double-click test1 to open the file.
The file opens in Notepad since Notepad is the default software application that opens text files. The document no longer has the formatted underline under the word text. As well, any font selection you made in WordPad is removed and the font defaults to New Courier 10 point font (or the font last set into Notepad).
6 Click the X on the title bar to close Notepad. Similarly, close the Windows Explorer window by clicking the X in its title bar.
There should be no open windows and you are now at the Desktop.
Even though the default application for a pure text document is Notepad, you can open a text document in WordPad or Word if you wish. For example, if you want to make formatting changes to the document, you cant use Notepad so you would have to use WordPad or Word. Instead of double-clicking on the file name to open the document, you will launch the program first and then open the file from within the program. In Lesson Seven, you will shown another way to launch a specific program for a given file type.
1 Click the Start menu, click All Programs, click Accessories and click WordPad.
WordPad opens.
2 Maximize the Window (if not already full screen) by clicking the Maximize button (the center button of the three the window control buttons) at the top right of the Title bar.
3 Click the File menu and click Open.
The Open dialog appears. Once more, navigate to the My Files folder under Documents so that the contents of this folder appears in the file list.
4 Just above the Open and Cancel buttons at the bottom right of the dialog, find the file type list box. Click the down arrow and click to select All Documents