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.

Depending on the version of LibreOffice you are using or its current settings, the open file interface might be different. In one case 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.

If the open file interface does propose the file name field, or if you don't remember the exact name of your file, 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. Another way do manage this is to use the file system manager to navigate to your file and open it directly. We will look at this in the Module 3.

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. Finally, in this section you can change the number of copies to be printed, with only one printed by default. Simply press enter to print one copy of the entire document.

To the right of the Pages radio button, you'll find a Pages input field. This is used to define the pages to be printed. Remember that the All pages radio button prints the entire document.

To specify the number of copies you wish to print, use Tab to move the cursor to the Number of copies input field. Then simply enter the number corresponding to the number of copies to be printed, and press Enter.

You can now explore the Print dialog box. You can move the cursor over the various options using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys. The Tab key is used to select items in a certain order, while the Shift-Tab key select them in reverse order. Use the up and down arrow keys to change the radio buttons selection. Once you've explored the dialog box, go to the Printer section, which contains a list of available printers[2].

The cursor should be on the Printer field, which is a drop-down list of available printers. To open the list, press the space bar and use the up or down arrow keys to explore it. As usual, to confirm the printer selection, you can press Enter, if you have already completed the rest of the dialog box. Enter validates the dialog box and start the printing operation while Escape cancel it.

The third section of this tab is the Page Layout with the fields Paper size and Orientation. These two are drop boxes that you open with the space bar, navigate with Up or Down arrow and select an item with the Enter key.

This concludes the lesson in which you have completed several document management exercises. Among other things, you've learned how to open an application and how to save, create and print documents. In the next lesson, we'll show you how to perform document entry tasks.

Editing a document

One of the advantages of using a computer to produce a document, is that you can start writing a text and make corrections as you go along. Within a document, you can move, copy or delete part of a text or the entire text. To do this, you must first select the whole text or part of it which is concerned. This is what we're going to do next.

Make sure you have opened the document bearing your surname in Writer.

Text selection

You can select an entire document using the Edit menu's Select All command, or its keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A. When text is selected, it is highlighted on the screen. To deactivate a text selection, you can press the one arrow key.

To select a segment of text, a entire phrase for exemple, position the cursor at the beginning of the segment, hold down the Shift key and move the cursor to the end of the segment using the right arrow key. The right arrow key selects one character at a time, while the down arrow key selects the text from the current cursor position to the end of line. Then release the arrow and the shift keys[3].

Note that rather than selecting one character at a time you can select an entire word by using the Ctrl+Shift+Right arrow shortcut which will move the cursor to the beginning of the next word. Then using the Left arrow will deselect the latest selected segment. Similarly Ctrl+Shift+Up and Down arrows let you select - or deselect - the entire paragraph above or below the cursor. These commands select or read the paragraph while moving the cursor to the beginning or end of the paragraph.

Finally, note that wherever the cursor is inside a document, you can move it quickly to its beginning by pressing the Ctrl+Home shortcut. Similarly, to move the cursor to the end of a document, you need to press Ctrl+End. But if you want to select the text between the current cursor position end the top or the bottom of the document you can use respectively the Ctrl+Shift+Home and Ctrl+Shift+End shortcuts.

Copying text

It is possible to copy text segment to another location in your document. To achieve this, first select the text segment you want to copy and then press the Ctrl+C shortcut to execute the Copy command. This will copy the selected segment into a temporary memory location, known as the clipboard. For this exercise, select and copy the first sentence of your document.

Your sentence should now be copied to the clipboard and you can now paste it elsewhere in your document. For this exercise, position the cursor at the end of your text, using the Ctrl+End shortcut, and then use the Ctrl+V shortcut to execute the Paste command.

Your copied sentence should now be pasted at the end of the document. Note that you can copy any kind of text segment, like a word, a sentence or a paragraph.

Moving text

You can also move a text segment, i.e. change its position within the document. . You'll be able to do this exercise in a few moments, but for now, remember the following procedure. Select the text segment, execute the Cut command by using the Ctrl+X shortcut. This time, before removing this text segment from the document, it is copied into the clipboard. Then move the cursor at the new place in the document and use the Ctrl+V shortcut to execute the Paste command.

Note that this copy-paste method is not restricted to your document, but applicable to the entire MATE desktop operations. For example, to move a line of text in the input field of the Writer's Save As dialog box, the procedure is as follows. Select the text, execute the Cut command, open the Save As dialog box and execute immediately the Paste command. Now we will show you how to move a sentence to another document.

First, select a sentence in the current document bearing your surname and press Ctrl+X to cut it.

Make sure you have saved your changes to this document by pressing the Ctrl+S shortcut. Next, open another document. To do this, launch the Open dialog box using the Ctrl+0 shortcut, and navigate to the document you want to open, for example ~/Documents/your-surname.

To paste your text into the newly opened document, position the cursor where you want it to land (for example, at the beginning of the text by using Ctrl+Home), and press the Ctrl+V shortcut to execute the copy.

Deleting text

It is also possible to delete portion of text. However note that, as opposed to the Cut command, when executing the Delete command the selected text segment is NOT copied to the clipboard and thus cannot be pasted elsewhere later on.

To delete an entire sentence, select it first by placing the cursor at its beginning, then hold down the Shift key, use the Right arrow key to move the cursor to the end of the sentence, then release the Shift key. Finally, press the Delete key on the keyboard and the sentence will be deleted from the text[3].

Canceling the previous action

Sometimes we perform an action and get an unexpected result. MATE has therefore provided a very useful command for undoing the previous action. For example, if you've just deleted a sentence by mistake, you can recover the sentence using the Undo command in the Edit menu. or the Ctrl+Z shortcut. Please note that by default you can undo up to 100 previous steps. Conversely you can Redo the previous undone action by using the Ctrl+Y shortcut.

Word find and replace

Suppose you have mistakenly entered a term in your text and unfortunately it is repeated in several places. The Find & Replace function is designed to search for each occurrence of the erroneous term in your document and replace it with the new one.

In this exercice we are going to replace all occurrences of the given term, so the initial position of the cursor is irrelevant. Butr in case of doubts, use Ctrl+Home to position it at the top.

You'll now use the Find & Replace command, which can be found in Edit menu or by pressing the Ctrl+H shortcut. When the dialog box opens, enter the string to be searched for in the Find input field, which has the focus by default.

In the dialog box, enter the text to be searched for in the Find text input field, where the cursor is already positioned by default. Now presse Tab four times to position the cursor in the Replace input field, and enter the new replacement string.

Finally, use the Tab key again to position the cursor on the Replace All button and press Enter to start the operation. This command will replace all occurrences of the given string with the new one throughout the whole document.

Once all the given terms have been replaced, the dialog box indicates the number of occurrences processed. Press Escape to close the Find & Replace dialog box. And don't forget to save the changes you've made to your document with the shortcut Ctrl+S.

Find a word

If you simply want to find the place in your text where you deal with a particular subject, Writer can search for a given string and identifies all its occurrences within your document.

First place your cursor where you wish to start the search, then use the Find command in the Edit menu, or the Ctrl+F shortcut.

A text input field opens at the bottom left of the Writer window and you can type the string to be searched for, and press Enter.

The next occurrence of the given string will be highlighted on th screen and you can move to the next one with the F3 function key.

If the given string is not found in the document a No Entry sign is displayed at the right end of the entry field. To close this search field simply press Escape.

Remember : If you make any changes to your document, save them by using the Ctrl+S shortcut.

This concludes the lesson in which you have learned how to manipulate text in a Writer document and in MATE. In the next lesson, we'll look at how to format text through a few exercises.

Text formatting

In this lesson, you'll learn how to apply basic formatting to your text. For example, by applying to it a particular font style and size.

This lesson does not cover style management. Note, however, that for more serious use of word processing, you need to master this notion. Firstly, because it guarantees blind people that all identical sections in a document are formatted as intended and consistently. Secondly, because styles allow you to access more advanced functions, such as the table of contents. And finally, if you want to write a title but have no idea how it should be presented, the default style takes care of that for you, based on classic conventions.

Inserting date and time

You can insert the date and time in your documents. This convenient function makes it easier to identify and update your documents.

Make sure you have opened a document and positioned the cursor at the point in the text where you want to insert this information.

Now pull down the Insert menu by pressing the Alt+I shortcut. Within the drop-down menu, you can select the Field command by pressing the D key to get there directly, and in the sub-menu use again the D key and Enter to insert the current date or the T key and Enter to insert the current time.

The date format depends on default set in your system configuration.

Don't forget to save your change with the now famous Ctrl+S shortcut.

Font modification

When using a word processor, you can also change the type (or family), the style and the size of characters using the Character command. These changes are directly visible on the screen. To try out some font modification, open one of your documents if you haven't already done so. Make sure it contains text and select it all using the Ctrl+A keyboard shortcut [3]. Then open the Format menu by pressing the Alt+O shortcut and select the Character command using the H key. Be aware that, in this menu, the H key can select either the Character or the Anchor command. When Character is selected press Enter to open the Character dialog box.

There are four tabs in the Character dialog box and you need to navigate to the Font one using the right or left arrow. Then you can use the Tab key to select the different options, among which the Family, the Style and the Size of the Font. When you open the Font Tab, the Family field should be already selected. Otherwise you can use the Tab or Shift+Tab keys to select it.

Then use the Up and Down arrows to select the font family of your choice then press Tab three times and Enter to open the drop-down list and use the Up and Down arrow to select the style between the regular bold and italic options, and Enter to confirm your choice.

Same operation to pick the font size. Three Tabs, Enter, Up and Down arrow to pick the size you want, like 12, 14 or 16 points, and Enter to confirm. Another Enter when you are done to accept all the changes you made and close the Font dialog box. The font of the previously selected text will be modifies according to the options you just specified, and you can press on any of the four direction arrow key to disable the selection .

Note that you can also change the font for a part of the document only. You must first select this part, then follow the font configuration procedure just explained. In this case, the changes will obviously apply only to the selected part.

Finally, here are a few convenient shortcuts that will apply a specific character formatting to the selected text:

• Ctrl+I: change selected text to italics ;

• Ctrl+B: change selected text to bold;

• CTRL+U: underline selected text.

Paragraph indentation and alignment

If you want to define the characteristics of all the paragraphs in your text, start by selecting them, if you haven't already done so, using the Ctrl+A shortcut. Then pull down the Format menu by pressing the Alt+O shortcut. Select the Paragraph command from the drop-down menu and press enter. Select the Paragraph command either by using the Down arrow or the A key, but in this later case be careful because A select both Paragraph and Rotate so you might have to type A twice. Then Enter to open the Paragraph dialog box. Use the Left or Right arrows to select the Indents & Spacing tab. As usual you can move from one entry fiels to another by using the Tab or Shift+Tab keys. Here you can change the indentation values before the text, after the text or the first line of each paragraph. Defaults values are 0 mm (the unit depends on your settings) and you can type in a new value or use the up or down arrows to increment or decrement them.

for the first line of each paragraph. The default value is 0 cm. To move the cursor from one input field to another, use the tab key to enter the desired values, or use the up and down arrows to change the values.

You are still in the Paragraph dialog box. In addition to setting indentation, you can use this to define the alignment of your text, either left, right or center. To access the list of these options, position your cursor on the tab list using the Tab key. Then use the arrow keys to select the Alignment tab. In this tab, press Tab and use the up or down arrows to select the radio button you want. Confirm your choice by pressing enter. The dialog box will close and your paragraphs will be formatted according to your choices.

You can now deselect your text using one of the arrow keys. Note that you can change the indentation for only part of the document, for example for a single paragraph. You must first select this area and then apply the procedures just explained. In this case, the changes will only apply to this selected area [4].

Finally, here are a few convenient shortcuts that will change the paragraph formatting of the selected text:

• Ctrl+E: center alignment

• Ctrl+R: right alignment

• Ctrl+L: left alignment

Closing the application

When you've finished working, close the Writer application either by using the Alt+F4 or Ctrl+Q shortcuts or by opening the File menu with Alt+F and selecting the short using the File menu command. To do this, pull down the File menu by pressing Alt+F, moving the cursor down to the Exit LibreOffice command and pressing Enter.

Please note that if you have not yet saved the changes you have made to your document, a message box will appear asking if you want to save the changes. If so, type Enter directly since the Save button has the focus by default. Otherwise, using the Tab key you can Close the document without saving it. In both cases MATE will close the document and the LibreOffice Writer application.

And a third option is available in this message box which let you Cancel the closing operation and return to the document edition.

About other ways of writing text

Writer is the most advanced word processing application in the GNU/Linux universe, and the only one available. Now you know the basics. Other software exists: text editors, which allow you to format text by describing its characteristics by means of commands. This is what we'll be talking about in this lesson.

Text editors

MATE comes with a text editor called Pluma. This tool lets you enter lengthy text. However, you can still use the methods you learned in lesson 1, 2 and 3. The general structure is the same, with the F10 function key still used to move the cursor to the menu bar and the Ctrl key used to access keyboard shortcuts. Options are presented in dialog boxes based on lists, check boxes and buttons. So, if you're able to work in Writer, you'll find it easy to get to grips with this text editor.

But Pluma does not let you format text. As far as paragraphs are concerned, Pluma allows you to define default behavior, but not to automatically apply paragraph styles.

In MATE, you can also install another editor, similar to Pluma but more sophisticated: Gedit.

Formatting text by description

To format text, there is a system based on the description of the text and its form. This language is widely used in scientific circles, as it facilitates the input of mathematical or chemical formulas. It can be used to quickly format a document such as a report, article or book.

This is LaTeX. You can see how it works once you've gained experience with MATE. It consists of entering identified expressions into the text editor, and defining what the text is going to look like. For example, to place a paragraph in the center of the page, you would write \center{text}.

Then you save the text file and launch a tool that interprets the markups description to generate a pdf file according to your instructions.

But this language remains difficult to learn in all its complexity. It's rigorous and a bit like command-line syntax. It does, however, give you greater control over your formatting layout.

Questions & Answers

This lesson features a five-question multiple-choice quiz. The answers are in the Quiz answers section. For more interaction, you'll also find in this area the reason why the other answers are not correct.

Multiple-choice questions

1. What happens if you select the Save as command from the File menu and press Enter?
   1. A dialog box appears on the screen
   2. A message box appears on the screen
   3. Saving takes place automatically
   4. Document closes
2. Which of the following features is not available in a text editor?
   1. Search for a word in a text
   2. Undo the last action performed
   3. Save a document
   4. Character formatting
3. Which of the following choices moves a sentence?
   1. Ctrl+C then Ctrl+V
   2. Ctrl+X then Ctrl+V
   3. Ctrl+Z
   4. Ctrl+S
4. What command can be used to save a document under a different name?
   1. Save
   2. Open
   3. Save as
   4. Paste
5. What command is used to close the Writer application?
   1. Exit from the File menu
   2. Minimize from the System menu
   3. New from the File menu
   4. Close from the File menu

Quiz answers

1. Answer 1. Automatic saving is performed when you use the Save command and your document has already been named. The document remains open until you request it to be closed. The Save As dialog box appears, prompting you for the name and path of the document you wish to save.
2. Answer 4. A text editor, or notepad, allows all other actions but not character formatting.
3. Answer 2. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V is used to copy a text segment, Ctrl+Z to undo the previous typing and CTRL+S to save the document. To move a text segment, cut and paste it with Ctrl+X followed by Ctrl+V.
4. Answer 3. The Save command automatically saves the document on the medium you're working with. Open opens a document and Paste pastes text that has been already copied or cut.
5. Answer 1. The Close command in the file menu closes the document without quitting Writer. The New command opens a new document. The Minimize command reduces the Writer window to a button on the dashboard. Note that in this case the application is still active.