HIGHLIGHTING TEXT

1) The blinking cursor is the only place you can insert or delete text (other than where an entire word, sentence, etc. is highlighted).

2) You move the location of the blinking cursor with the mouse (the "I-beam cursor"). Use a left click with the I-beam cursor to move the blinking cursor. (The I-beam cursor only appears when you move the mouse pointer into the text area:  )

3) You can highlight a word or a part of a word by clicking & dragging with the I-beam cursor over the word. (Notice that you have to be very careful about how far you drag the cursor if you want to highlight just part of the word, because the computer will automatically assume you want to highlight the whole word and will complete the highlighting for you.) [Same with highlighting sentences.]

4) You can also double-click in the middle of a word to quickly highlight the entire word. If you are really good, you can also rapidly triple-click in the middle of a word to highlight the entire paragraph. [A new paragraph is created each time you press Enter.]

5) You must be very careful where you highlight. Always highlight a word, sentence, or paragraph BEFORE making any change to it, such as clicking on the Bold, Italics, or Underlining buttons.   

    Also, after you highlight a word, sentence, or paragraph, if you accidentally type a space, character, Enter, or hit the Delete key, you will lose all of the text you highlighted. (Hit the Delete key, of course, if you really want to delete the text.)

FORMATTING:

1) You can tell what the formatting of a word is by clicking in the middle of the word and watching the Bold, Italics, and Underline buttons and the Font windows (both typeface and size) on the Button Bar above. The Bold, Italic, and/or Underline buttons will look depressed if that word is bold, italic, or underlined.

2) You can also instantly tell that a space right next to a character can have an entirely different typeface and size, and that if you click into that space and type something it may be different from what you expected.

3) To change that space, click and drag over that space and any surrounding areas you want to change, then click on the Downward Pointing arrow next to the Font box (where it says, "Times New Roman" or "Arial" or whatever) and/or the Size box (usually "12" or "10"), and click on a different font or size.

4) To make your text ALL CAPS, highlight the text and click on Format, then on Font. Click into the box next to All Caps to put a check mark into it. Click on OK.

5) To move up or down in your document, you can also use the Up and Down keys on the keyboard, but you can only move where there is text or Enters. Click at the end of your text and press the Enter key a few times to move down the page, then use the Up Arrow key to move back up to the text area.