Topic 3: Presenting information

Question 0

What makes website ideal for presenting information?

Question 1

What are multisensory presentations?

Answer 1

These are presentations that make use of multimedia. For example, you can incorporate text, sound, images, video and interactivity into presentations. This helps people who learn in different ways

Question 2

When you present information using ICT you usually want to work as efficiently as possible in order to…

Question 3

How would you make sure your material is accurate?

Question 4

What can grammar checkers be used to check?

Question 5

When you produce your own work by making use of ICT you should…to ensure the quality of work.

Question 6

By using drafts you can insure…

Question 7

What is copy, cut and paste?

Answer 7

To cut text or in a document or spreadsheet, select them (the selected cells be highlighted) then right click on the mouse. A menu will appear with a number of options including the following: cut, copy and paste. If you click on cut, the text or cells will now be placed in a temporary storage (called a clipboard) by the computer. You can now move the cursor to another part of your document or worksheet where you want the text or cells to be moved to. Right clicking on the position brings the menu up again where you can choose to paste the contents into position. When we cut text or cells, they are taken out of the document or worksheet.

Question 8

What is font type and font size?

Answer 8

Changing the font type (e.g. Ariel, Times new Roman, etc) or just the appearance of the characters. Font types are given names and you can change the font by selecting the text and then clicking on the correct part of the formatting toolbar. Notice also that there is a section for changing the font size (i.e. how big the characters appear.)

Question 9

What is drag-and-drop?

Answer 9

Drag-and-drop means clicking on a virtual object such as a file, photograph, piece of clipart, etc, and dragging it into position. You can drag and drop an object onto a document or you can drag it into a folder or the recycle bin. Drag and drop is a quick way of moving objects.

Question 10

What is undo and redo?

Answer 10

Undo is a feature of most software and it erases the last action taken. Redo is opposite where the last action is reapplied. This is one of the most important features of software and most software is able to reverse a whole series of actions.

Question 11

What is find and replace?

Answer 11

Find can be used quickly to find a certain word or phrase in a long document. Find and replace can be used to search for all the occurrences of a certain word and replace it with a different word.

Question 12

What is zoom?

Answer 12

Zoom is found in most software packages and can be used to display a document in more or less detail. This is usually done by altering the percentage view using the drop down menu.

Question 13

What is word art?

Answer 13

Word art is decorated text that you can add to a document. You can create all sorts of text effects such as shadows, rotated, stretched. In some packages you can fit the text to certain shapes.

Question 14

What are wizards?

Answer 14

Microsoft office uses wizards that help you through some of the more complex tasks. For example, you might want to perform a mail merge but you have forgotten the steps you have to take. The wizard will take you through the steps guiding you through until you have completed the task.

Question 15

What is help?

Answer 15

Everyone has been a beginner using software at some time. It can be frustrating to know what you want to do but not be sure how to do it. This is where online help screens come in. Software packages usually have an online help facility where users can get some help supplied by the package rather than have to look through manuals or user guides.

Question 16

What is print and print preview?

Answer 16

Software nearly always has a print function so you can get a printout of your work on paper. To save printer and toner/ink most applications software has a print preview feature that is used to check how your work will appear on the page before printing. You should get into the habit of using print preview to save resources.

Question 17

What is page layout?

Answer 17

It is very annoying if the headings are inconsistent and the font and font size change too often. Always think about what you want to achieve with your document and what will appeal to the readers. When thinking about the page layout you’ll need to consider the following, position of common items and page layout. Also textual styles, special features, paragraph formats and position of common items. It is also concerned with things such as margins headers and footers etc.

Question 18

What are margins?

Answer 18

Margins mark the boundary of the text itself and therefore determine the amount of blank space left at the sides, top and bottom of the page. If you leave insufficient margins, the document will appear cluttered.

Question 19

What are headers and footers?

Answer 19

Headers and footers are used to hold information that appears at the top of the page in the case of a header, at the bottom of the page in the case of a footer. Headers are placed in the top margin whilst footers are placed in the bottom. You can choose whether the text included in the header and footer is included on every page or just some of the pages. A type of header/footer would be page numbers or the authors name.

Question 20

What is justifying (aligning) text?

Answer 20

Justifying text me as alining (lining up) the text in some way:
Aligned left (also called left justified), this lines text up with the left margin but leaves the right hand side ragged. This alignment is the most common and is one used by a word-processor unless you tell it to use another.
Align right (also called right justified), this aligns the text with the right margin but leaves the left-hand margin ragged.
Centre, this aligns text at the centre of the page.
Fully justified (also called justified), this lines text up with both the right and left margins.

Question 21

What is orientation?

Answer 21

There are two ways in which page can be printed onto paper. With portrait orientation the height is greater than the width; with landscape orientation the pages are turned sideways and the width of the page is greater than its height. Portrait orientation is much more common and is used for most business documents such as letters, memos and reports. However, landscape format can be useful for charts, spreadsheet and notices.

Question 22

What are page breaks?

Answer 22

When you type a page of text or numbers into a document, as the page is filled the software inserts a page break and a new page is started. The software does this automatically. There is a problem with this. For example, you may find that the heading appears at the bottom of the page where the reader is least likely to look. It would be even worse is the heading appeared at the bottom of the page on its own with the text which it refers to on another page. It is therefore important during the proofreading process to look out for this and correct it.

Question 23

What is page numbering?

Answer 23

Pages in a document should always be numbered, as people need to refer to the content of the page by its number. Also if you have a load of unnumbered pages and you drop them, putting them back in order is a difficult task.

Question 24

What are templates?

Answer 24

Creating documents from scratch takes time. You have to consider the design of the page as well as the content. Luckily templates help you with the design, meaning you have to simply add the content. A template is a blueprint for the text, graphics and formatting and it ensures that all documents of a particular type look the same. It is common for members of an organisation to be given templates, one for each type of document, to ensure a common or corporate style. The template is an electronic file that holds the basic outline of the document. The user needs only to input the variable data, since formatting, font size, etc., will already be included. The main advantage of using templates is consistency of style, irrespective of author. Most word-processing software has templates facilities, so all you need to do is fill in the blanks. Each time you want a similar document, simply open the template, fill in the blanks, save the document (under a different name from that of the template) and then print it out.

Question 25

What are text/picture boxes?

Answer 25

If you want to put some text that needs to stand out in the middle of the page you can use a text box. Once the text box has been created you can add a border around it or give it a colour background. If you want to create an effect like you see with newspapers where the text starts on one page and then finishes on another, then you can put the text into different text boxes and link them. Once the text box has been created you can alter the text size and font.

Question 26

How would you obtain images?

Answer 26

When you research images you will often be using other peoples images. It is important for you to understand the legislation that affects the way you can use other people’s images. There are many methods of obtaining images. For example, you can use:

Question 27

How would you insert images?

Answer 27

Images may be placed in a document such as DTP, word-processing, spreadsheet software, as in the case of web design software the images are usually linked to the document. Images may be inserted using copy/cut-and-paste or inserted by using insert image.

Question 28

How would you resize an image?

Answer 28

Images usually need to be resized to fit the design of a document. Resizing can be done by clicking on the image and then using the handles (i.e. the smaller squares of the corners of the image) to alter the size.

Question 29

What is cropping an image?

Answer 29

Cropping means only using part of an image. For example, you might just want a picture of a person’s face rather than a picture of the whole body.

Question 30

What is positioning images?

Answer 30

Images have to be moved into a suitable position and in some cases you have to work out how you want the text to move around the image. Images can usually be positioned by dragging them.

Question 31

What is wrapping text?

Answer 31

If you enter text into a spreadsheet cell, the width of the cell will increase to fit the text. You can instruct the software to wrap the cell, which means that the cell is kept constant and the text overflows automatically onto the next line. Text wrapping occurs in the word processing software where the margins offer a fixed width for the text.

Question 32

What is exporting data?

Answer 32

Exporting data means taking some of the data from one file and saving it separately so that it can be used in a completely different software package from the one in which it was created.

Question 33

What is mail merge?

Answer 33

A mail merge involves combining a list of, say, names and addresses, with a standard letter, so that a series of similar letters are produced, each addressed to a different person. The list is created either by using a word processor or by importing data from a database of names and addresses. The letter is typed using a word processor, with blanks where the data will be inserted. The steps involved with mail merge are outlined below:

Question 34

What is integrating sections from one application to another, and when would it be used?

Answer 34

You often have to use a section from a document created in one piece of software and integrate it into an different document created in another piece of software.
Here’s some examples: