ALS 3203 - Lesson 9
Glossary of Terms

.pdf

Portable Document Format - Created with Adobe Distiller (printed as .pdf file), this format allows for you to retain the original document format, including images and fonts, columns, page numbers, headers and footers, etc. This ability to print these files is included when you purchase Adobe Acrobat (full version). These files require Adobe Acrobat Reader (free download from Adobe site) to view and print. This presently is the only way to place fully formatted documents on the web. You may also include hyperlinks within .pdf files using the latest version of Adobe Acrobat.

dot leader

Tab that is formatted to draw a dotted line. This is the mechanism used to creat "flush-right" (right aligned) numbers that you often see in tables of content and indexes. How these are created varies among word processing applications. In MS-Word, choose Format, Tabs, then complete the choices available in menu box to look like the following:

If there are other tab settings listed you will want to clear them using the "Clear All" button. These setting create a right aligned dot leader that will stop at a 6" document margin. You can vary this according to your requirement.

Within WordPerfect the menu choices are slightly different:
Choose Format, Line, Tab Set:

Be sure to clear all tabs - then choose as shown here:

Now, whenever you press the tab key in this document, you will get a dotted line across the page. As you type at the end of the line (enter text or numbers, the dots backup to the left so that everthing is flush right at all times. Magic!! Try achieving the same thing by using the period key. Good luck!!!

header

Headers are displayed at the top of every page in your document. You enter a header once in the header/footer menu choice. From that point on they will be displayed and printed. You may put anything in a header that you put on the document page (images, formatted text, inserted fields, page numbers). Within MS-Word Headers are found under View, Header/Footer.

footer

Footers are displayed at the bottom of every page (see headers). They only differ from headers by their location at the bottom of the page, and may have the same type of contents as headers.

page number

Inserted in document automatically, usually in a footer or header. Found under the Insert, Page Number (MS Word) or as one of the choices on the header/footer menu bar. Position and style are variable.

{field}

Found under Insert in MS Word or under Insert, Other (Word Perfect). Fields contain dynamic links to information. As the information changes it is updated in the file (examples are dates, paths to files, page numbering totals).

path

Describes the location of a saved file (includes drive, directory, and filename).

justify, align

Alignment of text margin relative to edge of page. Values of Left (aligned along left margin), right (aligned along right margin), center (aligned relative to center of page), full (aligned along both left and right margins of page).

font attributes

Appearance of letters of text. Bold, italics, underline, color, typeface, size.

insert image

Place graphical image into your document. Images come into document where the cursor is located.

hanging indent

Paragraph formatting that causes all lines of text but the first in a paragraph to be indented a certain amount. No matter what is added or deleted from the paragraph the indent remains. Try doing that with spaces or tabs and see what happens when you change the content of the paragraph. Found under Format, Paragraph, Special in MS Word, or Format, Paragraph, Hanging Indent in Word Perfect. Select (highlight) the paragraph(s) you wish to apply this to prior to choosing hanging indent. This only works on a paragraph that ends with a single hard return.

View options

Used to display content of document. You should get used to using MS Word (Tools, Options, View) with the choice to Show all non-printing characters. This is the equivalent of "Reveal codes" in WordPerfect.

page break

Used to add more pages to a document. Inserting a page break ends the content of the current page at the cursor location, and jumps to the top of a new page. Found under Insert, Break (MS-Word) or Insert, New Page (WordPerfect).

page setup

Found under File, Page setup includes page size, position of content on page, (horizontal and vertical), margins, and page orientation (portrait or landscape).

Portrait
Landscape

---

Today is: | ©P. M. Choate 2007