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Welcome to the 8 th Edition of Your Computer Connection Ezine. By John Gontowicz www.yourpcguide.com Download the issue at www.yourpcguide.com/ezine8.pdf In this weeks issue we will cover the following topics: What is an E-book? Editing Pictures in Microsoft Word How to Create a Template Using Microsoft Word How to Use Auto Text in Microsoft Word Bits & Bytes Answers to Subscriber s Questions Next Issue includes the following topics: Everything you wanted to know about Favorites What is WinZip and why do I need it? Creating a Table in Microsoft Word Creating a form using Microsoft Word What is an E-book An E-book is short for "Electronic Book". An E-book is similar to a printed copy in that it has pages that you can read, but they are on your computer screen rather than being in paper form. This ebook is written for Adobe Reader, which is the same application you are using to read this newsletter. You can move forward, back, search for a keyword (printers, scanner, or monitors etc.) in the ebook that you may be interested in. You have the ability to increase the size of the letters so that it is easier to read. Simple Answers to Everyday Questions. - This E-book is comprised of questions asked by everyday people like you. Young, old, female and male. This E-book is for everyone. A Guide to Understanding Your PC. - Whether you have no knowledge, or your knowledge is limited, this ebook in a non-threatening way explains how to use your PC and to have a better understanding of what to do if something goes wrong. Step by Step Instructions. - Almost every section is filled with pictures to guide you through the ebook. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? You will see a

picture of your computer screen before and after you do something in the ebook. Explains computer terms and jargon in simple terms. - All of the technical jargon is explained in simple terms so that you can understand the material. Examples are given with other products you use everyday that are around your house. Use your computer to its fullest capability. - Learn how to use your PC and the software that you have installed. Learn simple tasks that will make you more efficient. Learn how to make your PC faster when it is running slower than usual. Pictures galore! - Each section has pictures of the computer screen and allows you to learn by example. Including the 52 Ezine articles that come with your paid E-book, there are over 500 pictures. Do a search for a computer word and the ebook will find it for you. - Do you have a question about printing? Type the word "printer" in the search box, click on the word search icon and all sections pertaining to the word printer will be displayed. The ebook and Your Computer Connection Ezine are user friendly - The E- book has 65 sections in it, and there will be 52 ezines scheduled for this year. All the ezines have pictures and step by step instructions that were developed by you, the customer needing to know how to do something. Each weekly Ezine is downloadable and you can read them at your leisure. By ordering the E-book "Computers 101: The Questions You Were Afraid to Ask" you will benefit from the following: Answers to questions that everyone has asked, one time or another. A complete searchable E-book on any keyword (i.e., scanner, monitor, etc.) that goes directly to the sections covering that topic. NOTE: I have reduced this ebook to $9.99 since I am writing an updated one that will cover the current version of Vista and Window 7 that is due out in August 2009. Ninety five percent of everything in the ebook will work on any of the operating systems. Vista just has a couple of different layouts. Editing Pictures in Microsoft Word Word can be used to make minor changes to pictures. If more detail or work is needed, using Microsoft Paint, Photoshop, or other editing software is recommended. 1. Inserting the picture is the first step. There are a couple ways of doing this depending on where you are getting the picture from. If you are planning to get a

picture from a website usually you can right click on the mouse and click copy. (Some websites will not allow this) Another way to get pictures into Word is by loading pictures files or using Clip Art that comes with the package. Clip Art automatically brings up the following window: After you type in a word that fits what you are looking for, click on the Search button. Using the word book as an example, here are a couple of the items Clip Art found:

This is only a sample. To place the picture in your document, place your cursor where you want the picture inserted and click on the picture with the left mouse button. The picture will appear where you placed your cursor. The second option was to insert a picture from a file on your PC. Clicking on the File option, the following window appears: The program assumes that you have it in My Pictures folder. This is where the majority of the pictures you scan in or move from a camera will reside. Locate the

picture that you want to insert and click the Open button. The picture will appear where your cursor is located in the document. 2. Once you have the Picture loaded in Word you will need to make sure the picture toolbar is present. The toolbar looks like the picture below. If you do not see this toolbar click View->Toolbars->Picture. Usually clicking on the picture will bring the toolbar up. Options on the Toolbar ICON Function Description Insert Picture Color This button will bring up a window that will allow you to select a file from a location and enter it into Word. Clicking on this button will bring up a menu from which you can select the color scheme. Your options are AUTOMATIC, GRAYSCALE, BLACK AND WHITE and WASHOUT. More Contrast Automatic Gray Scale Black & White Washout More Contrast will make the difference between the tones of the colors greater. Less Contrast Less Contrast will make the difference between the tones of the colors less. More Brightness More Brightness will add brightness to the picture just like sunlight would.

Less Brightness Less Brightness will decrease brightness to the picture just like putting it into the dark. Crop Crop is one of the most useful tools in the picture toolbar. This function allows you to take out a chunk of a picture to use. Normal Cropped Rotate Left The rotate left button makes the picture turn counter clockwise 90. Line Style Line style will change the width of a line you created using the DRAW toolbar. Compress Pictures Text Wrapping Format Picture Set Transparent Color These Bars are the same type. Compress pictures will reduce the amount of dots or pixels the picture is made of. This is useful if you are making a word document with a lot of picture and want to reduce the size of the document. Text wrapping is a way of telling word how to would like your pictures to be organized around text. In this example I chose tight. This is a more advanced way of accessing all the buttons previously mentioned. You may also get to the same screen by double clicking on the picture. This will allow you to select a color in the picture to make transparent. Normal Transparent Reset Picture Reset picture will convert the picture back to its original form. Normal Change Reset

Now that you have back round knowledge of the PICTURES toolbar, you are able to work with pictures. The only other thing you need to learn is the basic method of working with a picture. To use most of these buttons all you do is click on the picture then choose which option you want from the toolbar. RESIZING PICTURES Once you click on a picture, it will be surrounded by a box. The box will have a small square in each of its corners and also at the halfway point of each line segment. Like the one shown below. Once you have selected the picture you can then use the any of the squares to resize the picture. One thing to be careful of is that you don t distort the picture to the point the quality gets bad. You can notice from the picture below that it becomes blurry when stretched to tall or wide.

Keep in mind stretching it tall or wide will change the pictures proportion which can be fix by using one of the boxes in the corner. CROP TOOL The crop tool is very easy to use. This is useful when you have a picture in which you only want a portion taken from. The accuracy of the crop tool in Word is not as good as in Photoshop or some other picture editing software. 1. Insert the picture you wish to crop. 2. Select the picture so you get the box around it.

Note: The boxes are called handles. 3. Next click on the CROP icon on the toolbar like shown below. 4. Now use the mouse like you are going to resize the picture, and you will notice that the picture is being cut off from the box you have selected. The other options for pictures can be selected by double-clicking on the picture with the left mouse button. Doing this will bring up another window shown below:

The main piece of this window is under the layout tab. Clicking on that tab will show the above window. If you do nothing, you will notice that the picture is to the left of the word as shown in this paragraph. This is the default. If you changed it to square or tight, the above paragraph will look like this: The main piece of this tab. Clicking on that tab window. If you do nothing, picture is to the left of the paragraph. window is under the layout will show the above you will notice that the word as shown in this If you move the picture around, the text will move with it on both sides of the picture. Taking the same paragraph, select the behind option and the paragraph will be displayed as shown below: The main piece of this window is under the layout tab. Clicking on that tab will show the above window. If you do nothing, you will notice that the picture is to the left of the word as shown in this paragraph. The last choice is in front of text. The paragraph below shows this feature of the picture being in front of the text:

The main piece of this window is under the layout tab. Clicking on that tab will show the above window. If you do nothing, you will notice that the picture is to the left of the word as shown in this paragraph. The only other thing in this window is the alignment. Once you select what you want the picture to do, then you can say, left, right, or center. There are a few different tabs, but they are rarely used. The best thing to do if you are going to do a lot with pictures in documents is to invest in a picture editing software. Working with pictures and documents is great to creating newsletters, flyers, announcements, invitations, and just dressing up a letter. NOTE: There are two free picture editing programs online that you can use that do a better job than the picture editor in Word. Go to Google.com and search for the following Gimp, and click on the Search button. Gimp is very similar to Adobe Photoshop. The other package is Irfanview. Again, go to Goole.com, and enter Irfanview in the search box and click on the search button. How to Create a Template in Microsoft Word Microsoft Word has the ability to customize documents using templates. A template is a way to create forms, or a document layout that you can use over and over again without destroying the original. This can be used, for example, as a fax cover sheet, or a weekly newsletter, etc. There are three methods for creating a template in Microsoft Word. 1. To base the template on an existing document. 2. To base the template on an existing template. Let s explore how to create templates using the different methods mentioned above. 1. To base the template on an existing document. Open Microsoft Word by double clicking on the Microsoft Word icon. If you have a document that you want to base your template on, you have to open the document.

You can open an existing document by clicking with the left mouse button on the File menu on the top left of the Microsoft and selecting the Open menu item as shown by the following window: The default window that opens is called My Documents. This is where the documents that you created are saved. Select the file you want to create the template from by highlighting it with the left mouse button and clicking the Open button. After clicking on the Open button, the following window appears:

Make the changes you want to make in the document. Think of this as the master document, or the original document. Once you are done, you want to save this as a template and you do that by going to the File Menu and selecting Save As shown below: The following window will open:

Microsoft Word looks for the templates in a specific folder on your PC. You have to go to that folder in order for the templates to work correctly. Notice that the top of the Save As window defaults to My Documents as shown below: The template directory is located where Microsoft Word is installed. Assuming that the defaults were followed when Word was installed, you need to click on the down arrow to the right of the text box that says My Documents and select Drive C: as shown below: Clicking on that item will bring up the following window:

Select the Program Files item by double clicking on it with the mouse and the following window appears: Double click on the following folders: Microsoft Office Templates 1033 The window, similar to the following window will appear: The next step is to change the file type. You do that by doing the following:

The default name of the document will appear in the File Name Box. You want to change the document type from a word document (DOC), to a template document (DOT). Click on the down arrow to the right of the text box called Save as type and select template, dot as shown below: To open a template, click on the File menu and selecting the menu item New and the following window appears to the right side of the document window. Select General Templates and the following window appears:

You may see less tabs, or more tabs depending on how Windows is setup. Select the template you just created by highlighting it with the left mouse button and click the OK button. NOTE: A word of caution. When you select Save As to save this document, make sure that you change the document type from a template (DOT), to a Word document (DOC), otherwise you will overwrite the template. 2. To base the new template on an existing template. To modify an existing template all you have to do is open the template, make the changes you need to make then save it under a new name in.dot format. Ok that sounds simple enough to do, but how do you do it? First open Microsoft Word by double clicking on the Microsoft Word icon. To open a template, click on the File menu and selecting the menu item New and the following window appears to the right side of the document window:

Select General Templates and the following window appears: You may see less tabs, or more tabs depending on how Windows is setup. Select the template you just created by highlighting it with the left mouse button and click the OK button. After clicking ok the following template is loaded:

Now that you have the Template that you wish to modify open you can add in anything you need. As you can see in the following image I have add a line for SSN:, and put a picture in the upper right hand corner.

Once you are done, you want to save this as a new template and you do that by going to the File Menu and selecting Save As shown below: The following window will open: Microsoft Word looks for the templates in a specific folder on your PC. You have to go to that folder in order for the templates to work correctly. Notice that the top of the Save As window defaults to My Documents as shown below: The template directory is located where Microsoft Word is installed. Assuming that the defaults were followed when Word was installed, you need to click on the down arrow to the right of the text box that says My Documents and select Drive C: as shown below:

Clicking on that item will bring up the following window: Select the Program Files item by double clicking on it with the mouse and the following window appears: Double click on the following folders: Microsoft Office Templates 1033 The window, similar to the following window will appear:

The next step is to change the file type. You do that by doing the following: The default name of the document will appear in the File Name Box. You want to change the document type from a word document (DOC), to a template document (DOT). Click on the down arrow to the right of the text box called Save as type and select template, dot as shown below:

As you can see the new template is available under the general template menu when selecting a new document. After clicking ok a new document will open using your template. There are many things that you can do with templates. In another article, we will be working with how to create forms, which work in conjunction with forms. Using Auto Text in Microsoft Word There may come a time when you want to use auto-text in Microsoft Word. This is a nice feature, because it can really save you time by cutting down on the unnecessary typing by automatically completing phrases that you constantly use, such as a heading or a greeting that you want to use all the time. Using auto-text is also fairly simple. You can combine the auto-text with pictures as well. Many companies use this feature for their sales proposals. If you are only interested in products X, Y, and Z, they can pull up the text and pictures that only pertain to those items. This feature is a real time saver. One PA Company had one person creating sales proposals all day long for their stereo equipment that they sold. Setting up that client with auto-text, the proposals takes only minute s everyday. In order to use auto-text, open Microsoft Word. A blank document should be on your screen. Enter the text that you want to store as auto-text. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will use a closing statement such as: Thank You John R. Gontowicz http://www.yourpcguide.com Free Weekly Ezine for novice computer Users. Email computers@sendfree.com to subscribe.

This title would be a lot to type out every time you wanted to use it. So we will create auto-text for it. The easiest way to do auto-text is by using the graphic toolbar that comes with Microsoft Word. To insert the toolbar onto your screen, click on the View Menu and select Toolbars as shown below: Selecting Auto Text will bring up the following toolbar: In order to create the auto-text for the closing shown above, you must highlight the text as shown below: This was done by clicking with the left mouse button to the left of the T in the word Thank, and holding the button down until you have the word Services highlighted. Once the text is highlighted you will notice that the toolbar changes to the following: Notice that the word New is not grayed out any longer. Click on the New button to add it. You can also highlight what it is you want to add to an auto-text entry, and then click on Insert AutoText New. This will do the same thing, but one way uses a shortcut and the other goes through the menus.

Once you do this, a new window will come up asking you what you want to name this auto-text entry. It is best to name it what comes up as the default, but if you can remember what you name it, you can make it whatever you want. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will call this Thank You. The Auto Text feature always selects at least the first two words of the start of the text you highlighted. Now you will notice that when you type in the name you gave it, it tries to fill in the rest for you. Simply Press the Enter key, and it will fill in the whole thing For You as shown below: Thank You John R. Gontowicz http://www.yourpcguide.com Free Weekly Ezine for novice computer Users. Email computers@sendfree.com to subscribe. You can incorporate pictures and text together in an auto text entry. Look at the text and picture below:

Sincerely yours, John R. Gontowicz http://www.yourpcguide.com Free Weekly Ezine for novice computer Users. Email computers@sendfree.com to subscribe. To include this as an auto text entry, just highlight the picture and text by clicking to the left of the picture and highlighting to the end of the word subscribe as shown below: Click on the word New in the auto text toolbar and the following window appears: In this case, we are using the word Sincerely for the auto text entry. Typing in Sincerely brings up the following help window: Press the Enter Key and you should see something similar to the following: Sincerely yours, John R. Gontowicz http://www.yourpcguide.com Free Weekly Ezine for novice computer Users. Email computers@sendfree.com to subscribe.

Other options on inserting auto text You can also view all of the Auto-Text that you have by clicking on Insert AutoText AutoText You can also bring up the Auto text window by clicking on the Auto Text button shown below: This will bring up a new screen which has a list of all of the Auto-Text entries that are on your computer:

From here, you can choose from all of your auto-text entries and click on the Insert button to insert it into the document. Auto text is a real time saver and is fairly easy to learn and use. Bits & Bytes In this section are questions asked by our subscribers. Question: Hi, I would like to know how I can fix the icons that appear on the task bar, to become larger. They are so TINY that I can barely see them, things like the volume control, etc. Thanks. Rosie Answer: Right click in a blank space on your desktop. Left click on Properties. Left click on Appearance. Click the Advanced button. Click on the drop down arrow in the 'Item' field and choose 'Inactive Title Bar' and change the Size to a higher number. Click Ok and then click Apply. I would start by changing it one number higher at a time - you will see the size increase immediately. The icons my look distorted, but will look normal when you restart your computer. Question: Hi, I have been using Spybot Search and Destroy. It says in order to change my settings, I must start it in advanced mode. I can't find any info on how to do that. The reason I want to change the settings is that I keep getting popups asking if I want to download things or block them while I am surfing. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Rosie

Answer: You need to click on the Start button, put the mouse cursor over Programs (may be All Programs in some operating systems) and then slide the cursor to the Spybot folder. You will see three selections, Spybot S&D - Advanced mode is the first one. Question: My computer is making a funny noise lately, is their anything I can do about this. Thanks, Donna Answer: Most noises that come from a computer come from the Fan or the Hard Drive. You will need to take the cover off of your computer to pinpoint the noise. If it s coming from the fan you will need to have it replaced or it could be something is touching it. You can purchase a can of air from a local office supplies store and blow air into it to clean the dust and anything else that may be in there to see if that helps. If it is not coming from the fan then it is probably coming from your hard drive which means it could be going bad. I would back up any important information you have on your computer, including your Internet Favorites in case it goes soon. Hard drives are now very inexpensive; an experienced computer person could make a copy of your hard drive using a Symantec software package called Ghost. If your computer is still under warranty I would call the warranty company.