Using and accessing MATE/Writer, word processing

Writer description

Writer is the word processing software supplied with MATE. In this lesson, you will explore the various components of its window.

Launching Writer

Our first exercise consists in launching the Writer program. To launch a program in MATE, you can use the Applications menu. To open this menu, press the Alt+F1 shortcut.

The Applications menu opens in the top left-hand corner of the screen. Select the Office item using the down arrow key and then enter in its drop-down sub-menu with the right arrow key.

In this drop-down sub-menu, position your cursor on the LibreOffice Writer item using the up and down arrow keys and launch the application by pressing the Enter key.

Components of the Writer application window

Now that the Writer application has been launched, its window may not occupy the full screen. You can maximize it to make your work easier and not confuse this window with other elements of the MATE desktop. To achieve this, pull down the Window menu by pressing the Alt+Space-bar shortcut.

From the Window menu, select the Maximize command and press Enter. If this command is not listed, this means that the window is already maximized and all you have to do is press Escape to close the menu.

Now that the Writer window has been maximized, let's take a look at its components. Like any application window, the Writer window has a top title bar with a Window menu button to its left and the Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons to its right. The Window menu commands let you resize the window using the keyboard instead of the mouse, while the buttons to the right end of the bar let you perform the same task using the mouse only.

Below the title bar you find a menu bar with eleven items: File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Styles, Table, Form, Tools, Window and Help. Each menu allows you to select commands related to the word processing application. You can explore the commands in the File menu from the screenshot below (see page 7 of the touchscreen guide or plug in the touchscreen module if you are blind).

le menu Fichier

You can now explore the Menu bar commands on your computer. Start by selecting the first item of the Menu bar by pressing the F10 key. You can then move from one menu to another by pressing the right or left arrow keys. To select a command within a menu drop down list, use the up and down arrow keys.

To close the menu, press the Escape key, and the cursor will return to the editing area of the document window.

Your cursor is now staying in the empty document that was opened when Writer was launched. By default, this document is called Untitled 1 until you assign it another name. You'll see how to assign a proper name to this document in the next lesson, Document management^[1].

Write a few words or, if you prefer, enter the following quote from George Sand: “He was a good young man, but very short on ideas.”

Managing documents

In this lesson, you'll learn how to open, save and print a document. If you just followed the previous lesson, Writer and the document you've been working on should be still open. If not, start Writer now, referring to the previous lesson, and write a sentence.

Recording a document

You're now going to save the document you've been working on. To do this, pull down the file menu using the Alt+F keyboard shortcut. Then select the Save As command using the down arrow and press Enter. The Save As dialog box opens.

Note: if you haven't already named your document, the Save command acts just like the Save As command. Find below the image of the dialog box (see page 9 of the touchscreen guide, or plug in the touchscreen module if you're blind)^[2].

la boîte de dialogue Enregistrer de Writer

By default, the cursor is positioned in the field where you should enter the name of the file to be saved. Also by default, the file is named “Untitled 1”. You'll need to give your document a different name and path. For this exercise, save the file in the Documents folder within your home folder. After deleting the default name, type : ~/Documents/your_surname. Everywhere in the MATE environment, the symbol ~ (tilde) represent the root of your personal folder (your home) and saves you typing the full string: /home/your_user_name. To complete the operation, press Enter.

The document should now bear your surname and be saved in the Documents folder of your home folder. Note that you could continue to work in the document, since it's still open, and regularly save changes using the File menu's Save command. The keyboard shortcut for this command is Ctrl+S. Try this command by writing a few more words on what you think is essential to remember about MATE and save these changes.

You have just saved the changes you made to your document under the same name and path you choose when you saved it the first time. Note that no dialog box opens, as the save operation is performed automatically when the document has been saved previously.

Saving a document under a different name

You may want to save the document you're working on under a different name. This may happen, for example, when you make changes and want to keep an original version of the document.

For this exercise, add a few more words to your document. To save it, pull down the File menu using the Alt+F shortcut and select the Save As command using the down arrow and press Enter. The Save As dialog box opens. Note that the keyboard shortcut for this command is Ctrl+Shift+S.

At this stage, you need to give your document a new name. The cursor is in the File name field. Delete your surname and type your first name. To confirm, press Enter. Your document will be saved in the Documents folder of your home folder.

Remember that a document can be saved in different formats, such as Open Document Text (odt) , Word 2003, Word 2007, Rich Text Format (rtf) or Plain Text. These formats can be found in the “File type” drop-down list located at the bottom right of the Save As dialog box. Use the tab key to reach this box (see page 9 of the touchscreen guide, or plug in the touchscreen module if you're blind).

la boîte de dialogue Enregistrer de Writer

Creating a new document

You can now open a brand new document by selecting the New command from the File menu. For this exercise, use its keyboard shortcut Ctrl+N. This command opens a window displaying a new, blank document.

If you go to the File menu, you'll notice that the New command has a sub-menu. This allows you to create a different type of document from a word processing document, because in addition to Writer, LibreOffice includes other tools for creating spreadsheets, presentation slides and so on. To browse the type sub-menu, use the up and down arrows and, for this exercise, choose Text Document.

Opening an existing document

To open an existing document, pull down the File menu by pressing the Alt+F shortcut. Then select the Open command using the down arrow and press Enter. The Open dialog box appears. Alternatively, you can invoke the Open command using the Ctrl+O keyboard shortcut. Try one of these two methods.

The Open dialog box is structured in the same way as the Save As dialog box. By default, the cursor is in the File name field. You can enter the path and name of the document you wish to open, i.e. ~/Documents/your-surname, and press Enter.

To open a document whose exact name you don't know, you'll need to browse the list of folders and files installed on your system, which can be found in the Open dialog box. Let's take a moment to explore the few folders and files it contains.

First, select the Open command from the File menu, using the Ctrl+O keyboard shortcut. The Open dialog box appears.

By default, the cursor is located in the input field labelled File name. You can also type the name of a folder in this field. To obtain a list of files and folders on your hard disk, type /, which represents your computer's root, its top level. If you type ~, you'll access the root of your personal folder, which we'll look at in Module 3. Then press Enter.

Printing a document

The document with your surname as title should be open on the screen. To print it, open the File menu by pressing the Alt+F shortcut. Using the down arrow key, select the Print command and press Enter. The Print dialog box appears. You can also use directly the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+P. Now carry out the exercise, choosing the method that suits you best.

Make sure the Print dialog box is open. There are several tabs in this dialog box. The General tab is the one selected by default when you open this dialog box. This sheet has three sections: Printer, Range and Copies and Page Layout.

The Printer section lets you change the printer device or select a Braille printout.

The Range and Copies section lets you specify which pages are to be printed. To this end, it includes a radio button which allows you to print either All Pages, i.e. the entire document, and this is the option by default, or specified Pages by using the input box next to it. In addition, if you expand the More sub-section, you can change the number of copies to be printed, with only one printed by default.

The Page Layout section lets you select the Paper size, the orientation and the More sub-section lets you define more parameters like the Pages per sheet (1 by default)

Simply press enter to print a copy of the entire document.