Microsoft Works is the cheapest way to computerize well! It’s an integrated program that handles word processing, spreadsheets, and databases.

It runs in all three popular environments: DOS, Windows, and Mac. The Windows versions are the best.

The newest, best Windows version of Microsoft Works is Microsoft Works 2001 (which is also called Microsoft Works 6). It requires modern Windows. It costs $55 list, $50 from discount dealers. It’s better than the previous version (Microsoft Works 2000, also called Microsoft Works 5) and the version before that (Microsoft Works 4.5).

Better yet, get Microsoft Works 2001 as part of Microsoft Works Suite 2001.

This chapter explains the word-processing part of Microsoft Works 4.5 (for Windows).

The word-processing parts of Microsoft Works 2001&2002 are better but rarely used, since most people having them have Microsoft Word 2000 also, which is a better word-processing program. If you have both Microsoft Works and Microsoft Word, turn now to the Microsoft Word chapter , which explains how to install Microsoft Works&Word and use Microsoft Word.

Copy Works to the hard disk

Microsoft Works 4.5 comes on a CD-ROM disk, as part of Home Essentials 98. Here’s how to copy Microsoft Works to your hard disk:

Launch Microsoft Works

To start using Microsoft Works, double-click the icon that says Shortcut to Microsoft Works. (If the computer says “Click the OK button to see a short demonstration”, click the Cancel button.)

Click Works Tools, then the Word Processing button.

At the screen’s top, you see the word Help. Click it. You see the Help menu. From that menu, choose Hide Help (by clicking it).

Type your document

Start typing your document.

Microsoft Works uses the mouse and fundamental keys the same way as WordPad and Windows Write. For details, read those sections.

Movement keys

To move to different parts of your document, you can use your mouse. To move faster, press these keys instead:

Here’s what happens if you press the movement keys while holding down the Ctrl key:

Tricks

Microsoft Works performs the same tricks as Microsoft Word. For details, read these sections:

Page box

Near the screen’s bottom left corner, you see the word “Page” and some numbers. For example, you might see
“Page 2/5”, which means you’re looking at page 2 of a 5-page document.

If your document contains several pages, here’s what happens when you click the arrows next to “Page”.

If your document contains several pages, here’s a quick way to hop to page 2: double-click the word “Page”, then type 2 and press ENTER.

Zoom box

Near the screen’s bottom left corner, you see the word “Zoom”. Next to it, you normally see “100%”.

Near it, you see a plus sign. If you click that plus sign, the computer makes the screen’s characters be enlarged, so their size is 150% as wide and 150% as tall as normal, and the Zoom box says “150%” instead of “100%”.

If you click the plus sign again, the computer makes the screen’s characters be even larger, so their size is 200%. If you click the plus sign again, the computer makes the screen’s characters be even larger: 400%.

If you click the minus sign instead, the characters become smaller. By clicking the plus or minus sign repeatedly, you can choose these sizes: 50%, 75%, 100%, 150%, 200%, 400%.

See the menu For further choices, click the word “Zoom”. Then you see this menu:

Click whichever choice you wish.

Just on the screen All those Zoom choices affect just what you see on the screen. They do not affect what’s printed on paper.

Near the screen’s top, you see the toolbar.

Each symbol on the toolbar is called a tool.

If you forget a tool’s name, try this trick: point at the tool (by using the mouse, but without clicking), then wait a second. Underneath the tool, you’ll see the tool’s name; and at the screen’s bottom left corner, you’ll see a one-sentence explanation of what the tool does.

The toolbar’s right-hand part consists of 18 buttons: Task Launcher, Save, Print, etc. To use a button, press it by clicking it with the mouse. Let’s look at the details.…

Fundamental buttons

Microsoft Works uses the same fundamental buttons as Microsoft Word. For details, read these sections :

Alignment buttons

While typing a line, you can click the Left Align, Center Align, or Right Align button.

Clicking the Center Align button makes the line be centered,

Clicking the Right Align button makes the line be at the right margin,

Clicking the Left Align button makes the line be at the left margin,

Clicking one of those buttons affects not just the line you’re typing but also all other lines in the same paragraph.

When you click one of those alignment buttons, you’re pushing the button in. That button pops back out when you push a different alignment button instead.

When you start typing a new document, the computer assumes you want the document to be aligned left, so the computer pushes the Align Left button in. If you want a different alignment, push a different alignment button instead.

Clicking one of those alignment buttons affects the entire paragraph you’re typing. (The paragraphs you typed earlier remain unaffected.)

To change the alignment of a paragraph you typed earlier, click in the middle of that paragraph and then click the alignment button you wish.

When you start typing a new paragraph, the computer gives that paragraph the same alignment as the paragraph above, unless you say differently (by pressing one of the alignment buttons).

Centered title Here’s how to type a centered title, using the techniques you’ve learned so far.…

Press the ENTER key twice (to leave a big blank space above the title).

Next, press the Center Align button (so the title will be centered) and the Bold button (so the title will be bold). Type the words you want to be in the title, and press the ENTER key afterwards.

Congratulations! You’ve created a centered title!

Next, make the paragraph underneath the title be normal: make that paragraph be uncentered (click the Left Align button) and make it be unbolded (click the Bold button, so the Bold button pops back out).

Shortcuts Here are shortcuts:

Font Size

Look at the Font Size box. In that box, you normally see the number 12. That means the characters you’re typing are 12 points high. Here’s how to type characters that are bigger or smaller.…

Any new characters you type afterwards will be the size you chose. (Characters typed earlier don’t changes size.)

The popular sizes look like this:

When you finish typing the enlarged or reduced characters, here’s how to return to typing characters that are normal size (12-point): click the down-arrow that’s to the right of the Font Size box, then click the 12.

Font Name

Microsoft Works’ Font Name box acts the same as Microsoft Word’s Font box. For details, read the “Font” section, but ignore the sentence about the “Justify” button.

Bullets

Microsoft Works uses the Bullets button the same way as Microsoft Word. For details, read the “Bullets” section..

Spelling Checker

If you click in the middle of the document’s first word and then click the Spelling Checker button, the computer scans through your document for misspelled words and accidentally repeatedly words.

When the computer stops at a strange word that seems wrong, the computer shows a list of suggestions. If you like one of the suggestions, double-click it. If you don’t like any of the computer’s suggestions, either click “Ignore” (which makes the computer leave the strange word unedited) or else edit the strange word and then click “Change”.

When the computer finishes checking the entire document, the computer will say “Spelling check finished.” Press ENTER.

Save

To save the document (copy it onto the disk), click the Save button (or press Ctrl with S).

If you haven’t saved the document before, the computer will say “File Name”. Invent a name for your document. Type the name and press ENTER.

That makes the computer copy the document onto the hard disk.

For example, suppose you named the document “mary”. The computer will make that document become a file called mary.wps (which means “mary from the word processing system”). The computer will put that file into the Documents folder that’s in the MSWorks folder, which is in the Program Files folder. So the file is actually called:

Afterwards, if you change your mind and want to do more editing, go ahead! When you finish that extra editing, save it by clicking the Save button again.

Save often If you’re typing a long document, click the Save button about every 10 minutes. Click it whenever you get to a good stopping place and think, “What I’ve typed so far looks good!”

Then if an accident happens, you’ll lose at most 10 minutes of work, and you can return to the last version you felt good about.

Print

Here’s how to print the document onto paper. Make sure you’ve bought a printer, attached it to the computer, turned the printer’s power on, and put paper into the printer. Then click the Print button. The printer will print your document onto paper.

Print Preview

If you’re wondering what a page will look like but don’t want to waste a sheet of paper to find out, click the Print Preview button. The computer will show you a mock-up of what the entire page will look like: you’ll see the entire page, shrunk to fit on the screen.

Since the entire page is shrunk to fit on the screen, the page and its characters look too tiny for you to read the words easily, but you’ll be able to see the page’s overall appearance: how much of the page is filled up, which parts of the page are blank, and whether the info on the page is centered.

Wouldn’t you like to ride in an airplane, fly high above your house, and see an aerial view of your house and neighborhood, so all the people look like tiny specs, and you see — in one amazing view — the overall layout of your house and yard and neighborhood and city? Wouldn’t you be thrilled? Clicking the Print Preview button gives you that same thrill: you see an aerial view of the page you were typing, as if you were flying over it in an airplane: you see the layout of your entire page in one amazing view, and the characters on it look like tiny specs.

When you finish admiring the view, click the Cancel button (which is at the screen’s right edge).

Insert Table

In the middle of your document, here’s how to type a table of numbers.

Click where you want the table to appear, then click the Insert Table button.

The computer assumes you want the table to have 5 rows. If you want a different number of rows, press the DELETE key (to delete the 5) and then type how many rows you want.

Press the TAB key. The computer assumes you want the table to have 3 columns. If you want a different number of columns, type how many you want.

Press the TAB key. The computer assumes you want the table’s format to be Plain. If you want the table to have fancy fonts or fancy colors or fancy gridlines, press the keyboard’s down-arrow key several times, until you like the format that you see in the Example box.

Press ENTER. The computer will create a blank table, which has no words or numbers in it yet.

Then just fill in the cells with whatever numbers and words you wish. To move from cell to cell, click with the mouse, or press the TAB key (which moves right to the next cell), or press SHIFT with TAB (which moves left to the previous cell), or press the arrow keys repeatedly.

In a cell, you can type a number, word, sentence, or even an entire paragraph! If you start typing a paragraph in a cell, the computer will automatically make the cell and its row taller, so the entire paragraph will fit in the cell. You can even type several paragraphs in a single cell: just press the ENTER key at the end of each paragraph. If you want to indent the first line of one of those paragraphs, press the SPACE bar several times.

While you’re typing in the cells, the table is temporarily surrounded by a fat black border.

When you finish typing in the cells, get out of the table (by clicking below the table, or by pressing the TAB key or down-arrow key a few times). Then the fat black border will disappear.

Extra rows Here’s how to insert an extra row into the middle of the table: click in the row that’s underneath where you want the extra row to appear, then choose Insert Row from the Insert menu.

Column widths The computer assumes you want the table’s columns to all be the same width. But you can change that assumption!

For example, here’s how to adjust the width of the table’s left column (column 1). Move the mouse until its pointer is on the gray bar at the top of the table, and on the vertical gridline that separates column 1 from column 2, and the pointer’s shape turns into a double-headed arrow that’s labeled “ADJUST”. Then drag the vertical gridline to the right (to make the column wider) or left (to make the column narrower).

If you make a column wider, the computer makes room for it by shrinking all columns to the right of it. If you make a column narrower, the computer compensates by expanding all columns to the right of it.

If you want to fine-tune the widths of all columns, work from left to right: adjust the width of column 1 (by dragging the gridline that separates it from column 2), then adjust the width of column 2 (by dragging the gridline that separates it from column 3), then adjust the width of column 3 (by dragging the gridline that separates it from column 4), etc.

Numbers If a column contains mostly numbers, here’s how to make that column look prettier, so the numbers are aligned properly with the column’s heading:

Bold Here’s how to make an entire column be bold (like this):

Here’s how to make an entire row be bold:

Below the table When you’ve finished editing the table, here’s how to put paragraphs below it.

Click below the table by using the mouse, or go below the table by pressing the down-arrow key several times. Then type the paragraphs you want below the table.

Delete Here’s how to delete the entire table: click above the table, then inside the table, then press the DELETE key.

Here’s how to delete just one row:

Here’s how to delete just one column:

Here’s how to dramatically change a phrase you typed.

Point at the phrase’s beginning, then drag to the phrase’s end (while holding down the mouse’s left button). The whole phrase turns black. Turning the phrase black is called selecting the phrase.

Then say what to do to the phrase. For example, choose one of these activities:

Go ahead! Try it now! It’s fun!

Other ways to select

The usual way to select a phrase is to point at the phrase’s beginning, then drag to the phrase’s end. But sometimes other methods are faster!

To select a phrase, choose one of these methods.…

Drag a phrase

To move a phrase to a new location, just “select the phrase, and then drag from the phrase’s middle to the new location.” Here are the details.…

First, select the phrase you want to move, so the phrase turns black.

Then take your finger off the mouse’s button. Move the mouse’s pointer to the phrase’s middle (so you see an arrow labeled “DRAG”).

Finally, hold down the mouse’s button; and while you keep holding down the mouse’s button, drag the arrow to wherever you want the phrase to move. (While you’re dragging the arrow, it’s labeled “MOVE”). Drag the arrow anywhere you wish in the document, or drag to the end of the document. The computer won’t let you drag past the document’s end.

At the end of the drag, lift your finger from the mouse’s button. Presto, the phrase moves where you wished!

Paste

Microsoft Works handles pasting the same way as Microsoft Word. For details, read these sections.:

Near the screen’s top, you see this menu bar:

Here’s how to use it.

File menu

If you click the word File, you see the File menu, whose main choices are:

Close When you finish working on a document and want to work on a different document instead, choose Close.

Your next step is to click the Word Processor button or Existing Documents.

Save Choosing Save has the same effect as clicking the Save button, which I explained before.

Save As Microsoft Works handles “Save As” the same way as Microsoft Word. For details, read the “Save As” section from before.

Page Setup Microsoft Works handles “Page Setup” the same way as Microsoft Word. For details, read the “Page Setup” section.

Print Preview Choosing Print Preview has the same effect as clicking the Print Preview button, which I explained before.

Print If you choose Print, the computer will ask how you’d like to print onto paper.

Then press ENTER. The printer will print what you desired!

Exit Works When you want to stop using Microsoft Works, choose Exit Works.

Edit menu

If you click the word Edit, you see the Edit menu, whose main choices are:

Some of those choices just imitate the buttons and your keyboard.

Here’s how to make choices that are more useful.…

Undo Editing If you make a mistake (such as accidentally deleting some text, or accidentally giving the text an ugly font), choose Undo Editing from the Edit menu (or press Ctrl with Z, which stands for “Zap”). That makes the computer undo your last activity, so your text returns to the way it looked before you made your boo-boo.

If you change your mind and wish you hadn’t chosen Undo Editing, choose Redo Editing from the Edit menu (or press Ctrl with Z again). That cancels the undo; it undoes the undo; it makes your document look as it did before you chose Undo Editing.

Find Microsoft Works handles “Find” the same way as Microsoft Word. For details, read the “Find” section from before.

Replace You can search for a word and replace it by a different word.

For example, suppose your document talks about “love”. here’s how to change each “love” in your document to “idolize”:

Unfortunately, the computer doesn’t know how to preserve capitalization. For example, suppose the document said —

and you say to replace each “love” with “idolize”. Then the computer will change each “love” or “Love” or “LOVE” to “idolize” (uncapitalized), so the document becomes this:

Notice that when told to change “love” to “idolize”, the computer unfortunately also changes “glove” to “gidolize”.

The Replace command helps you zip through many chores:

Bookmark While you’re in the middle of editing a document, suppose you get a sudden urge to switch to a different activity (such as peek at a different part of the document, or play a game, or go to bed, or have sex). Before you switch to that other activity, you can put a bookmark in your document, where you were editing. Later, when you want to resume working on the document, you can return to that bookmark and continue editing where you left off.

Here’s how to do all that:

After you’ve created a bookmark, be safe: click the Save button and save the document. Then do whatever else you wish: peek at a different part of the document, or play a game, or shut down the computer and go to bed. When you want to return to the bookmarked part of your document, do this:

Here’s how to delete a bookmark:

View menu

If you click the word View, you see the View menu, whose main choices are:

Normal versus Page Layout Microsoft Works handles this topic the same way as Microsoft Word. For details, read the “Normal versus Page Layout” part of my explaination of Microsoft Word.

How to see more On the View menu, three of the choices are “Toolbar”, “Ruler”, and “All Characters”. You can put check marks in front of those choices, by clicking those choices. To remove the check marks, click the choices again.

A check mark in front of “Toolbar” makes the computer display the toolbar (which contains the Font Name box, Font Size box, and 18 buttons) across the top of the screen. If the check mark is missing, the toolbar will be hidden.

A check mark in front of “Ruler” makes the computer display a ruler across the top of the screen. The ruler shows marks for 1 inch, 2 inches, 3 inches, etc. It shows how many inches wide your writing is. If the check mark is missing, the ruler will be hidden.

A check mark in front of “All Characters” makes the computer show a dot (·) wherever you pressed the SPACE bar, a right-arrow (’) wherever you pressed the TAB key, and a paragraph symbol (¶) wherever you pressed the ENTER key (to mark the end of a paragraph), so you can easily tell how many times you pressed those keys.

For example, if you typed “I love you” correctly, the screen will show “I·love·you”. If you see “I·love···you” instead, you know you accidentally pressed the SPACE bar three times after “love” instead of just once, so you should delete the two extra spaces (by moving there and then pressing the DELETE key twice).

When you finish examining the ¶ symbols and dots and right-arrows, and you’re sure you’ve put just one space between each pair of words, here’s how to make those special symbols vanish: remove the “All Characters” check mark (by clicking it).

When you’re using Windows, the computer’s screen has difficulty showing you the letter “f” correctly. When you type an “f” by using the normal font (12-point Times New Roman), the screen shows too little space after the “f”.

For example, if you try typing “fM”, the screen shows “fM”. If you try typing “f” then a space then “M”, the screen shows
“f M”, which looks as if you hadn’t typed a space after the “f”. If you try typing “of Mary”, the screen shows “of Mary”, which looks as if you hadn’t typed a space after the “of”.

Although the screen looks wrong, what you see on paper might look better (depending on which printer you’re using).

To discover how many times you pressed the SPACE bar, put a check mark in front of “All Characters”, and notice how many dots appear. Make sure just one dot appears after each word.

Some conservative Americans have trouble handling dirty words that begin with “f”. Notice that Windows has the opposite problem: it has trouble showing words that end in “f”.

I hope somebody at Microsoft reads this book and fixes the f problem soon!

Zoom Choosing Zoom from the View menu has the same effect as clicking the Zoom box (explained before) and then clicking Custom.

Insert menu

If you click the word Insert, you see the Insert menu, whose main choices are:

Page Break Choosing Page Break has the same effect as pressing Ctrl with ENTER, which I explained before.

Date and Time To type the date or time, choose Date and Time.

The computer will show a list of formats, like this:

Click the format you want. Press ENTER. The computer will type the date or time in the format you requested.

Suppose you type a document on Monday, but you print the document the next day (Tuesday). Which date will the computer print on paper? The computer will print the “date printed” (Tuesday). The computer will automatically update the date & time whenever the document is printed or print-previewed or opened (chosen from the list of Existing Documents, as explained before).

If you don’t want the computer to automatically update the date & time, remove the check mark from the “Automatically update when printed” box.

Special Character If you choose Special Character, the computer will show you this list of special characters:

Click whenever character you like, then press ENTER.

Footnote Suppose you’re writing a religious pamphlet in which you want to say “Read it in the Bible tonight!” Suppose you want to add a footnote saying “written by God”, so the main text looks like this —

and the page’s bottom contains this footnote:

Here’s how to do it all:

The computer will automatically number the footnote: it will automatically type ¹ after “Bible” and type ¹ before “Written by God.” If your document contains more footnotes, the computer will automatically number them ², ³, ⁴, etc.

The computer will put the footnotes at the bottom of the page. If the page is divided into newspaper columns, the computer will put each footnote at the bottom of the column it refers to.

The computer will put a 2-inch horizontal line above the footnotes to separate them from the main text.

Your printer will print the footnotes accurately onto paper. You’ll see the footnotes on your screen accurately while you’re doing a print preview, or while you’re using Page Layout view. (To see the footnotes on your screen while using Normal view, choose Footnotes from the View menu.)

If you insert extra footnotes, the computer will automatically renumber the other footnotes, so the first footnote appearing in your document will be numbered ¹, the second footnote will be numbered ², etc.

To delete a footnote, click the left edge of the footnote’s number in the main text; then press the DELETE key.

Table Choosing Table has the same effect as clicking the Insert Table button, which I explained before.

Format menu

If you click the word Format, you see the Format menu, whose main choices are:

Font and Style Here’s how to improve the appearance of a phrase on your screen.

Which phrase do you want to improve? Select it (by dragging across it). Then choose Font and Style from the Format menu.

You see three boxes:

Click each box’s down-arrow and up-arrow repeatedly, to see all popular choices. For each box, click whatever choice you want.

Below the Font box, you see a list of four Styles: you can choose Bold (which makes the letters be thick, like this), Italic (which makes the letters be slanted, like this), Underline (which puts a line under the letters, like this), or Strikethrough (which puts a line through the middle of the letters, like this). Put check marks in front of whichever styles you want (by clicking them).

Below the Color box, you see a list of three Positions: you can click Normal (which makes the letters normal, like this) or Superscript (which raises the letters a half-line, ^{like this}) or Subscript (which lowers the letters a half-line, _{like this}).

When you’ve finished saying what kind of font, size, color, styles, and position you want, press ENTER. The phrase you selected will look the way you requested.

Paragraph To change the way a paragraph is spaced, click in the paragraph, then choose Paragraph from the Format menu. You see two tabs: one of them is called Indents and Alignment; the other is called Spacing.

Try clicking the Indents and Alignment tab.

You see three indentation boxes called Left, Right, and First Line. Normally, each of those boxes says 0".

You see four alignment buttons called Left, Center, Right, and Justified. Clicking the Center button makes each line of the paragraph be centered,

Clicking Right button makes each line of the paragraph be at the right margin,

Clicking the Left button makes each line of the paragraph be at the left margin,

Clicking the Justify button makes the paragraph’s bottom line be at the left margin and makes the paragraph’s other lines be at both margins,

You see a Bulleted box. Putting a check mark in that box has the same effect as pushing in the Bullets button (explained before).

If you click the Spacing tab, here’s what happens:

When you finish telling the computer how you want the paragraph’s indents and alignment and spacing, press ENTER.

Tabs Microsoft Works handles “Tabs” the same way as Microsoft Word. For details, read the “Tabs” section on in the Microsoft Word section.

Borders and Shading Here’s how to draw a box around your writing.

First, tell the computer which paragraphs to put in the box.

Then choose Borders and Shading from the Format menu. Click Borders. Put a check mark in the Outline box (by clicking it). Press ENTER.

Bullets We mentioned that if you click in the middle of a paragraph and then push in the Bullets button, the computer normally puts a simple bullet (the symbol ·) at the beginning of the paragraph (and indents the paragraph).

If you don’t like the symbol ·, pick a different symbol instead. Here’s how: choose Bullets from the Format menu, and double-click your favorite symbol. (You can choose from 24 symbols.) The computer puts your chosen symbol at the beginning of the paragraph. It also makes the Bullets button henceforth produce that symbol — until you switch to a different symbol or switch to a different document or task (by choosing Close or Exit Works from the File menu).

Columns In a newspaper, text is printed in many narrow columns. In a business letter, text is printed in a single wide column.

The computer assumes you want a single wide column. Here’s how to tell the computer you want many narrow columns:

If you change your mind and want just 1 column, choose Columns from the Format menu again. Type the number “1” and press ENTER.

Tools menu

If you click the word Tools, you see the Tools menu, whose main choices are:

Spelling Choosing Spelling has the same effect as clicking the Spelling Checker button, which I explained before.

Thesaurus Suppose you’re writing a story containing the word “girl”. Can  you think of a different word instead, that means roughly the same thing as “girl” but is better?

If you can’t, the computer can! Just ask the computer to use its thesaurus to find synonyms for “girl”.

Here’s how. In your document, type the word “girl”. Click in the middle of that word. Choose Thesaurus.

The computer will show you that the word “girl” has two meanings: a “girl” can mean either a female child or a sweetheart. The computer will say.…

If you click “female child”, the computer will show this list of words that mean “female child”:

(You must click the down-arrow key to see “filly”.) If you click “sweetheart” instead, the computer will show this list of words that mean “sweetheart”:

Here’s what to do next:

Word Count If you choose Word Count, the computer will reveal how long your document is, by reporting how many words the document contains. When you finish reading the computer’s report, press ENTER.

Window menu

If you click the word Window, you see the Window menu, whose main choices are:

Tile Here’s how to see two documents on the screen at once!

To be safe, make sure both documents have been saved on disk (by using the Save button). Close any documents that are on the screen (by choosing Close from the File menu).

Click Existing Documents. Double-click the first document’s name. You see the document’s words and paragraphs on the screen.

While that first document is still on the screen (without closing it), click the Task Launcher button (which is the first button on the toolbar). Double-click the second document’s name. You’ll see the document’s words and paragraphs on the screen; they cover up the first document, so you can’t see the first document at the moment.

Choose Tile from the Window menu. Then you see two windows on the screen. The left window shows the second document; the right-hand window shows the first document.

Each window is narrow, showing just the document’s left half.

To manipulate one of those windows, click in it, then do whatever you wish to it. For example, you can make the window show other parts of the document by using the four scroll arrows (5 and ₆ and ₃ and ₄). If you want to make the window show an entire line of writing (instead of just the line’s left half), Zoom (which is at the window’s bottom) and then Margin Width.

By using those two windows, you can easily compare two documents and copy from one to the other (by using the Copy and Paste buttons).

When you stop wanting one of the windows, here’s how to make it disappear: click in that window, then close that window (by clicking its X button), then expand the other window (by choosing Tile from the Window menu again.

Split To see two parts of your document at the same time, choose Split. A fat gray line appears across the middle of your screen and split your screen’s window into two parts, a top windowpane and a bottom windowpane.

Move the mouse slightly (which moves the fat gray line slightly up or down), until you’re happy about the line’s position. Then click the mouse’s left button.

The bottom windowpane changes, to show a copy of what’s in the top windowpane.

Each windowpane has its own scroll arrows (which look like 5 and ₆). You can click those scroll arrows to change what’s you see in that windowpane, without changing what’s in the other windowpane.

You can also click in one windowpane’s text and then use the keyboard’s movement keys (up-arrow, down-arrow, left-arrow, right-arrow, PAGE UP, PAGE DOWN, HOME, and END) to change what’s in that windowpane, without changing what you see in the other windowpane.

Both windowpanes show parts of the same document. If you change a word in one windowpane (by deleting or inserting or revising that word), while the other windowpane happens to show the same part of the document, you see that word automatically change in the other windowpane also, immediately!

By using those two windowpanes, you can easily compare two parts of your document and copy from one part to the other (by using the Copy and Paste buttons).

When you stop wanting two windowpanes, here’s how to return to a single pane:

Help menu

If you click the word Help, you see this Help menu, whose main choices are:

Contents If you choose Contents and then click Word Processor, you see this list of topics:

 

 

Index If you choose Index, you see an alphabetical list of help topics.

You see just part of the list. To see the rest of the list, you could click its down-arrow or up-arrow repeatedly, but that would take a very long time, since the list is very long: it contains about 10,000 topics! To hop down immediately to the topic that interests you, type the topic’s name.

When you finally see that topic in the list, click it. If you then see a list of subtopics, click the subtopic that interests you.

Introduction to Works If you choose Introduction to Works, the computer will show you an ad saying how Microsoft Works is wonderful.

The ad consists of 24 pages. Press ENTER to progress to the next page. When you’ve seen the 24^th page and press ENTER again, the ad vanishes.

Show Help If you choose Show Help, the screen’s right side shows this list of topics:

(To see that complete list, click the down-arrow.) Click whichever topic you want help about.

Then you’ll see a list of subtopics. Click whichever subtopic interests you.

About Microsoft Works If you choose About Microsoft Works, the computer will display a version message saying which version of Microsoft Works you’re using.

(If you then click the System Info button, you’ll see a window saying what kind of computer you bought and what state it’s in. When you finish looking at that window, close it by clicking its X button.)

When you finish using About Microsoft Works, click the OK button.