Text Processor

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One of the most frequently used applications is certainly the text processor. This is a program that allows to write pretty formatted documents, from simple letters to large manuscripts, even containing tables and illustrations.

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Text processing programs often come as part of a software bundle, called an office suite. It usually contains at least a word processor, a spreadsheet, a data base and a presentation program.

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Probably the most widespread office suite is MS Office from Microsoft, containing Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint, which we will use as a prototype in the following (in the version Office97). Several competing products exist, which all contain much more features than anybody can reasonably learn or apply. An interesting alternative is StarOffice, which runs on Windows and UNIX systems and can be used free of charge.

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The following screen dump shows a typical Word97 window containing:

Element	Function
menue bar	all functions in several levels of submenues and option windows
two symbol bars	quick access to the most important functions
text area	used like in an editor
status line	information about the document (e.g. size, actual page)

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Some basic commands from the symbol bars:

Icon	Function
	new, open, save document
	print the document
	undo the last action(s)
	display the document in another size
	change type of font or size of font used
	switch to boldface or italics
	align left/right, centered, justify
	text color

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To apply a special format, first mark a text part, then choose the corresponding function.

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Formatting attributes are grouped into three categories :

character

change the appearance of a letter or a group of letters

paragraph

apply to whole paragraphs

size

layout of pages, heading and footing areas

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Some of the most important attributes are:

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Important character attributes:

• font type (Arial, Times, Courier)
• font size (12pt, 8pt, 24pt)
• text color (black, red, magenta)
• text style (bold, italics, underlined)
• letter spacing (normal, narrow, wide)

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Important paragraph attributes:

• horizontal alignment (centered, left aligned)
• line spacing (1, 1 1/2, 2)
• indentation, hanging (6pt, -12pt)
• border style (all sides, below and above, none)
• border width (2pt, 6pt)

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Important page attributes:

• page size (DIN A4, Letter)
• margins (2.5cm, 0.5in)
• columns (1, 2, more)
• footing, heading (size, content)

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Though the intuitive WYSIWYG approach is very appealing, there are some drawbacks, especially in the following areas:

• management of large documents
• complex layouts
• mathematical formulae

This is the arena of layout systems like LATEX.