Creating, opening, saving and closing a document; document views

Hello students, welcome to Kwickprep. You typed your whole project report, and then the power went off. Was your work lost? It depends on one habit: saving. Today we will learn to create, open, save and close a document. Then we will learn the different ways to view it.

First, a new term. A word processor is software that helps you type, edit and format text on a computer. LibreOffice Writer is a free and open source word processor. Microsoft Word is a popular word processor from Microsoft Office. Whatever you type and store in it is called a document. The steps today are almost the same in both, and we will point out where they differ.

Creating means starting a fresh, empty document. In Writer, click File, then New, then Text Document. In Word, click File, then New, then Blank document. In both, the quick way is to press Ctrl and N together.

Opening means loading a document that is already saved, so you can read or edit it. In Writer, click File, then Open, choose the folder and the file, and click Open. Word also uses File, then Open. In both, the shortcut is Ctrl and O. Both also keep a list of recently used documents, so you can reopen yesterday's file in one click.

Saving means storing your work on the disk, so it is safe even after the computer is switched off. Save stores your changes in the same file, and its shortcut is Ctrl and S. The first time you save, the computer asks for a file name and a folder. Save As keeps the old file and creates a copy with a new name or in a new place. In Writer, Save As is Ctrl, Shift and S. In Word, press the F12 key.

Every document is saved in a file format, shown by the letters after the dot. Writer saves in the Open Document Text format, with the extension .odt. Word saves with the extension .docx. Writer can also save as .docx, and both can export a PDF to share a copy that others cannot easily change.

Here is what happens when you press Ctrl and S. The computer checks, has this document been saved before? If yes, it quietly saves the changes, and you are done. If no, a dialog box asks you to type a file name. Then you choose a folder and click Save. From then on, Ctrl and S saves without asking.

Closing means shutting the document when your work is done. File, then Close closes only this document. File, then Exit in Writer, or the cross button at the top right, closes the whole program. In Writer, Ctrl and Q exits quickly. If you forgot to save, a message asks whether to save, don't save, or cancel. Pause and predict: you click Don't Save. What happens to your last changes? They are lost for ever.

A document view is a way of seeing the same document on screen. The text does not change, only the way it is shown. In Writer, the Normal view shows pages as they will print, with margins, and we mostly type here. Web view hides page breaks and shows the text like a web page. Full Screen view hides menus and toolbars so you can read calmly. Zoom makes the page look bigger or smaller, without changing the font size.

Microsoft Word has its views on the View tab. Print Layout shows pages exactly as they will print, and it is the usual view. Read Mode shows the text like a book, for easy reading. Web Layout shows the document like a web page. Outline view shows the headings as levels, which helps plan a long report. Draft view shows plain text without pictures or page edges, for fast typing.

Now, where are these views? In Writer, open the View menu and pick Normal or Web. Full Screen in Writer is Ctrl, Shift and J, and the same keys bring you back. In Word, use the View tab, or the small view icons on the status bar at the bottom. In both programs, the zoom slider sits at the bottom right corner.

Let us revise what we learned today. Create a new document with Ctrl and N, and open a saved one with Ctrl and O. Save often with Ctrl and S, and use Save As to keep a copy with a new name. Writer saves in .odt format and Word in .docx format. Close shuts one document, and Exit shuts the whole program. Views change only how the document looks on screen, never the text. Practise today: create a file, save it, close it and open it again.