Word 4

Spell check and indexer

This is the last week we will spend on Word. We have now covered all the tasks for the assessment; before the end of today's class, you should check that you have all the notes and that you understand everything that has been covered in class.

In this last Word class we will look at

spelling and grammar checks
indexer

You should also have time today to start work on the assessment.

Spelling and grammar checks

Nott a verry god speler? Well, Word can help you - but it doesn't make up for laziness - you still need to read your work before you hand it in!

Type in the following text:

On August 31, a band of unidentified assailants ambushed a group of mine workers in Indonesia's eastern-most province of West Papua, leaving three dead and and 11 injured.

Indonesian officials immidiately blamed the Free Papua Movement (OPM), however others have accused the Indonesian security forces of involvement in the attack.

While some details of the attack remain unclear, it is understood that a group of teachers left Tembagapura — a mining town which serves Freeport mine operations — late on the morning of August 31 to drive towards the provincial centre of Timika. On their return they were ambushed and two Americans and an Indonesian were killed. Others suffered gunshot wounds and were flown to Townsville for medical treatment.

Source: Green Left Weekly

You should notice that some words will be underlined in red and others in green. This indicates a spelling error (red) or a grammatical error (green). Before correcting this errors, we first need to check the spelling and grammar settings.

Go to tools > options and click the Spelling & Grammar tab.

Change the writing style from standard to formal, then click OK.

To check spelling and grammar, you can either go to tools > spelling and grammar, or press the F7 button on the top line of your keyboard.

Click to ignore (e.g. placenames), add to the dictionary, or change to a suggested alternative. Do this for all the text you typed in.

Indexer

Creating an index for a longer report can be a complex and timeconsuming job. Here, we will look at how to create a simple index for a three page document.

Go into the social science webpages, click on IT and then Word. Click on the 'Benn interview' link and save this onto a disc, if you have one, or onto your computer's desktop.

We are going to create a simple index for this three page interview, directing readers to references to the Labour Party, Margaret Thatcher and the UCS work-in.

To do this, we need to create a 'concordance file' of the words we want to include in the index. Word will then automatically search for these words in the document.

Open a new document (file > new > OK) and create a two column table (table > insert table).

In the left hand column, we will put the words we want Word to search for. In the right hand column, we will put the text we want to appear in the index.

So, in the first row, put 'Thatcher' in the left hand cell. In the right hand cell, put the text 'Thatcher, Margaret'. This means Word will search for any references to 'Thatcher', but will put her full name in the index.

Tab down to the next line and put 'Labour' and then 'Labour Party'. Tab down again and put 'UCS' and 'UCS work-in'.

Your table should look like this:

Thatcher	Thatcher, Margaret
Labour	Labour Party
UCS	UCS work-in

So far, so good. Now, we need to mark our index entries.

Use the mouse to click at the end of 'Thatcher' in the top left cell. Then go to insert > index and tables.

Click on mark entry - we'll come back to the rest.

This brings up another dialog box:

This box will stay on the screen until you close it, allowing you to mark as many entries as you wish. Click in 'main entry' and type 'Thatcher'. Click 'Mark'. Then click in the next cell down, after 'Labour', and repeat this process. Repeat again for UCS.

Thatcher	Thatcher, Margaret
Labour	Labour Party
UCS	UCS work-in

If you can't see the XE etc, click on your invisibles. These markers won't print out. Save your concordance file (give it a name and save it in the same place as your Benn interview file, so that you can find it easily).

Still with us? Nearly there…

Close the concordance file and go back into the main Benn interview file.

Go to insert > index and tables. Click on 'automark', then find your concordance file and click open. You should see 'XE' markings appear in the document. If you can't see them, put your invisibles on.

We have now marked up all the reference points we want to include in the index.

Go to the end of the document and click insert > index and tables.

Choose a format and click OK. You should now see your index appear at the bottom of the document.