Knowledge Base for Electronic Editing Tools

Transcription

1 2014 Knowledge Base for Electronic Editing Tools JOSHUA BLOUNT CAMMY HERMAN JOHN DRISCOLL TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY

2 1 This document collects a series of tutorials designed to help editors get the most out of two common document editing programs: Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat. These applications have powerful tools that can allow you to have a high level of control over your document. However, many of these tools are not obvious to casual users, and so this knowledge base will serve as a guide to these features. NOTE: Please keep in mind that these tutorials are written with the PC versions of Microsoft Word 2013 and Adobe Acrobat XI Pro. Older versions of these programs may vary in their layout, features, and capability. NOTE: this document has been edited to include only the sections written by myself. Table of Contents Applying Styles to Text... 2 The Styles Menu... 2 Applying a Current Style to Text... 2 Modifying a Style... 3 Creating a New Style... 4 Finding and Replacing Special Characters... 6 Wildcards in Find/Replace... 6 Wildcard variables... 7 Creating an Index and Marking Text... 9 Marking Text... 9 Creating an Index Page Breaks and Section Breaks Page Breaks Section Breaks Page Continuous Odd/Even Page Page Handling Functions in Adobe Acrobat Inserting a Page Other Insert options Rotating the page Deleting a page Cropping a page... 20

3 2 For MS WORD Applying Styles to Text Styles quickly and easily change your text s size, color, font, and layout on the page. Also, using a style ensures that all formatting you apply to your text is consistent, both internally and between documents. This short tutorial will show you the basics of applying, modifying, and creating new styles. The Styles Menu In the PC version of Microsoft Word, you ll find the Styles menu in the top right when the HOME tab is selected. The long bar shows a list of all styles currently available, and gives you a preview of what your text will look like when the style is applied. Hovering over the style will show you what it will look like when applied to you selected text. Use the up and down arrows to browse the list. Figure 1: Styles Menu Arrows Applying a Current Style to Text When you are ready to apply a style, highlight the text you wish to format. Then, click the style you want to use from the list. Word will automatically apply that style s formatting to all of the selected text. Figure 2: Highlighting the Text

4 3 Figure 3: Choosing the Style Figure 4: Styled Text Modifying a Style It s possible to change the existing styles to match your own tastes. For example, the default color of the header styles is blue. You can change this color to another by right clicking the style you want to change, and choosing Modify from the drop down menu. A dialogue box will appear. Here you can change all of the qualities of the style. After you click OK, the modified style will be added to the styles menu. If you wish to have this modified style available between multiple documents, click the New documents based on this Template. Figure 5: Right Clicking a Style

5 4 Figure 6: Modify Style Dialogue Box Creating a New Style Just as you can modify existing styles, you can create a new one from scratch. Click the arrow on the Styles menu. Figure 7: Expanding the Styles Menu From here, click the New Style button.

6 5 Figure 8: The New Style Button The dialogue box that will appear is the same as the modify style box, but when you are finished it will add a new style to the menu.

7 6 Finding and Replacing Special Characters Find and Replace are useful tools for an editor, allowing you to efficiently find all instances of a word in a document and replace these instances with an alternative. While it is easy and intuitive to find conventional word with these tools, it is also possible to search a document for other, non-conventional uses. Wildcards in Find/Replace With the HOME tab selected, you ll find the Editing Section on the far right. If you want to find/replace special characters, click Replace. A dialogue box will open with the basic find and replace function. Click More >> in order to access the more advanced functions. Figure 9: The Find and Replace dialogue box After clicking More >>, you ll see a check box titled Use wildcards. Click this will allow you to implement wildcard characters in your Find/Replace searches, which make it possible to find a wide variety of words with a single search. Wildcards can also be used to find non-textual elements in a document, such as paragraphs and page breaks.

8 7 Figure 10: The "Use wildcards" option Wildcard variables The following table lists a variety of useful wildcards that can be applied to a Find/Replace search. To Find: Use: Example: Any single Character? s?t finds "sat" and "set." Any string of characters * s*d finds "sad" and "started." One of the specified characters [] w[io]n finds "win" and "won." Any single character in this range [-] [r-t]ight finds "right" and "sight" and "tight." Any single character except the characters inside the brackets Any single character except characters in the range inside the brackets Ranges must be in ascending order. [!] m[!a]st finds "mist" and "most" but not "mast." [!x-z] t[!a-m]ck finds "tock" and "tuck" but not "tack" or "tick." Ranges must be in ascending

9 8 order. The beginning of a word < <(inter) finds "interesting" and "intercept" but not "splintered." The end of a word > (in)> finds "in" and "within," but not "interesting." Paragraph mark ( ) ^p (doesn't work in the Find what box when the Use wildcards option is turned on), or ^13 ^p finds the end of each paragraph Page Breaks ^12 Finds all inserted page breaks.

10 9 Creating an Index and Marking Text Microsoft word has a very convenient tool that allows you add an index to your document. If you have a large number of terms that you d like your reader to be able to look up, all you have to do is mark the terms, and Word will automatically create the index. Marking Text The first step in creating an index is deciding what will be listed in it. Click on the REFERENCES tab at the top of the screen, and look at the Index section. Figure 11: Index Options When you find a term you d like to include in your index, highlight it, and click the Mark Entry button. A dialogue box will open. Figure 12: Highlighting text to mark

11 10 Figure 13: The mark entry dialogue box This dialogue box will allow you to adjust how the marked entry will be shown in your index. The Main Entry box allows you to choose what the term will be listed as in the index. In most cases, you should leave this as-is. The Subentry box will allow you to add an additional term beneath the main term. After you decide on the entry, you have the option of what will accompany the term in the index. The default option is Current Page. This will list the page on which the term can be found. The other options are Cross-Reference and Page Range. Choosing Cross Reference will allow you to direct your readers to another entry in the index. Use Page Range if you want to associate the entry with several pages in a row. Finally, choose whether you d like the page number listed to be bold and/or italicized. IF you want to mark just that one instance of the term, click Mark. If you want mark every instance of the selected term, click Mark All. Creating an Index When you have found and marked all of the terms that you want to include in your index, all you have to do to create it is click the Insert Index button. A dialogue box with formatting options will open.

12 11 Figure 14: The insert index dialogue box When you are ready to create the index, click ok. Word will create the index at the location of the cursor. If you want to add another term after you ve created the index, mark the terms you want to add, and then click Update Index. Page Breaks and Section Breaks Breaks are a useful formatting tool in Word that allow you to divide your text into discrete sections. When using breaks, you can ensure a consistency of formatting when a document is printed or opened on different devices. Page Breaks Page Breaks allow you end the current page, even if it is not filled with text. Everything typed after the break will be on the next page. To add a page break, all you have to do go to the INSERT tab, and click the Page Break button. The page break will be inserted at the location of the cursor. Alternatively, you can go to the PAGE LAYOUT tab, click Breaks, and select Page from the dropdown menu.

13 12 Figure 15: Page Breaks can be found under "INSERT" Figure 16: They can also be found under "PAGE LAYOUT" Section Breaks Section breaks are similar to page breaks because all text typed after them will be after the break. However, section breaks can also be used to move text to another page. They differ from page breaks in the fact that they allow for more precise formatting. Section breaks make it possible to apply formatting such as styles, different margins, and alternative page numbers. To insert a section break, go to the PAGE LAYOUT tab, and click Breaks. From the menu, you can choose one of the four types of section breaks.

14 13 Figure 17: The various break options Page A Page section break functions similarly to a standard page break. It separates text before and after the break between two pages, and allows you to apply separate formatting to each. Continuous A Continuous break moves all of the text after it onto a new line. Separated text can be formatted differently than other sections. Odd/Even Page These work the same as a Page section break, but they move the text to the next odd or even numbered page, depending on the break chosen. These are useful if you want each section in a document to consistently start on a certain side of the page.

15 14 For Adobe Acrobat Page Handling Functions in Adobe Acrobat With Acrobat you can manipulate your document in various way in alter the way in which it is presented to your reader. Inserting a Page You can use Acrobat to combine two or more documents into one. You ll first need two PDFs, saved as separate files. Open the document that will receive the other. Make sure the toolbar along the right hand side is opened to the TOOLS tab, and open the Pages dropdown menu. Look at the Insert Pages section. Figure 18: The "Tools" tab, "Pages" menu, and "Insert Pages" section

16 15 From here, click the Insert from File button. A browser will open to search for the file to be inserted. Once you have selected the file, a dialogue box will open to let you choose where in the document to insert the file. Figure 19: The Insert File browser

17 16 Figure 20: The Insert Pages dialogue box Other Insert options Below the Insert from File button is a menu titled More Insert Options that lists other ways to insert pages into the open PDF. You can use these to insert an object from your Clipboard, your scanner, an online source, or a plain blank page. You can also click Combine Files into PDF in order to combine several documents and images at once into a single PDF file. When you click this button, a dialogue box will open to guide you through this process.

18 17 Figure 21: The Combine Files dialogue box Rotating the page If your document is not oriented in the correct direction (a common problem for PDFs created from scanned pages), all you have to do is right click anywhere on the page. On the right click menu is an option labeled Rotate Clockwise. If you click it, every page will turn 90 degrees to the right. Do this as many times as necessary to orient your document upright.

19 18 Figure 22: The Rotate option Deleting a page If you want to remove a page from your document, open the toolbar to the Tools tab, and open the Pages dropdown menu. Under the Manipulate Pages section is the Delete button. Click it, and a dialogue box will open asking for you to specify the page or pages to be deleted.

20 Figure 23: The Delete option 19

21 20 Cropping a page If you want to cut away everything on a page except for one specific area, use the Crop tool. Open the toolbar to the Tools tab, open the Pages dropdown menu, and look under the Manipulate Pages section. Click the Crop button, and the mouse will be replaced with a crosshair. Use the crosshair to draw a box over the area you want to keep. When the box is drawn, double click, and a dialogue box will open allowing you to fine-tune the cropped area. When you are ready to crop the page, click ok. That page will be reduced to the area within the rectangle. Figure 24: The Crop option

22 21 Figure 25: The Crop dialogue box When you are finished cropping, you must click the cursor icon in the top bar in order to resume basic editing. Figure 26: Returning to the default cursor