Third Grade Teaches Me about Change Case and Drop Caps

I had a third grader accidentally change her whole paper which was perfectly formatted to all caps. Fortunately, she knew what she had done and we were able to undo it after a bit of time. However, it was a nice piece of learning for me and I thought I would share it.

If you have a student that has typed the document with the caps locks on or is just being perverse and typed a document with random caps, this is an easy way to format the work correctly.

In Microsoft Word, under Format there is a command that says Change Case. You can make everything all caps. 

The same feature exists in Open Office but it does not as many options. You should still be aware of this capability as I am pretty sure the students find it, but don't always know why.

While I was there, I also noticed that Office has the ability to Drop case. This would look like this.

Both versions of Office also have this capability. I thought it was a fun thing to know about. In Microsoft Office it is found under format. In Open Office, it is a little harder to find, but the ability to Drop Case also exists with Open Office.  In Open Office, you go to format and then choose paragraph and drop caps can be found there.

I think this might be a nice effect to use with poetry or some story writing. Let me know if you find out anything accidentally like this!

Moving Paragraphs Easily in Documents

Just found this tip on the pcmag.com website.

If you want to swap paragraphs in a document, you COULD drag your text around - OR you could click on a paragraph you would like to move - using Shift-Alt on Windows machines or Shift-Control on a Mac and then using the arrow keys, the entire paragraph will move either up or down a paragraph. 

You might want to find a document that you have already created to try this - it works great!

Send me a comment if you do try it!

Toolbars - Open Office

As you can see, Open Office pretty much mimics Office. Here is a screenshot of the Open Office toolbars.

Toolbars -Microsoft Office

Probably the first place to start in Office is learning how to use the toolbars effectively. In Microsoft Office, there are many toolbars that are available to you. If you go to View you can see all the different toolbars and formatting palette.

This is the standard toolbar.

If you go all the way to the right, then there are even more things that you can do with the standard toolbar.

The image on the right is the other options that are on the standard formatting bar. 

Try using the views and click on different toolbars to see how they can help create a more professional document.

Questions

Before we really begin the lessons, I am curious as to what version of an office program you are using. Do you use Microsoft Office or Open Office? Also, if you have any questions at all, please feel free to post them here. Together we should be able to figure them out.

Welcome!

This looks as if it is a group of fairly competent computer users.  It is my intention to post some tips that I find and some general information about Microsoft Office and Open Office on this space. I would greatly appreciate any feedback or tips that you can give to me. 

I plan on starting with  Word Processing sometime this weekend. 

I hope to post a few times a week and hope that you will find the time once a week to read the information, comment if you want and try the tips.