Business computing

Session 2

22nd October 2003

The MS Office suite softwares

• The word processor : « Word »• The spread sheet : « Excel »• The presentation software : « PowerPoint »• The database : « Access »• The web page editor : « FrontPage »

Web pages vs Word pages

• Web pages are prepared using a language called HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language, invented in 1989, by Tim Berners-Lee)

• They adapt their display to the size of the window

• Word pages do not adapt to the window

The right way to write a document

• A document is organised in paragraphs

• Each paragraph should start with a first punchy sentence. The rest of the paragraph are sentences illustrating the 1st one.

• The last sentence introduces the next paragraph (but is not the punchy sentence of the following paragraph).

Well written books

• Well written books apply this rule : each paragraph contains only one idea, expressed in a punchy way in its first sentence.

• Consequence : well written books can be « read » in two hours : read only the 1st sentence of each paragraph.

• Prepare your ESCEM papers this way!

The accompanying Website

• All AC’s courses are found at

• http://www.lapasserelle.com/escem/notre_dame.html

• With all the Office softwares, when we type a web address it automatically becomes a « clickable link »

The Great Wall is a tourist attraction

How to get a picture of the Great Wall ?

• Use the Web « search engine » called Google• Address : http://www.google.com• Google will search within 425 million images

The Futuroscope is a modernistic set of buildings

Find an image to put here

All Office softwares have the same structure

• All office softwares have similar « toolbars » (with the exception of Access)

• The main toolbars, Menu, Standard, Formatting are very similar across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and FrontPage

What is Shift + F1 for ?

• Shift + F1 is designed to give us Help– It transforms our pointer into a Question mark– Then click with the « question mark » onto the

icon we want to understand and we get a little explanation

The companion

• For extensive help we can ask the « companion » :– Click on the question mark of the menu bar– A companion appears, and a window where

we write our question

• The companion is better than a textbook – It is very complete, up to date– It proposes explanations close to our problem

The web dictionary

• The site http://www.dictionary.com offers a great online dictionary and thesaurus

• Plus pronunciation

• A thesaurus is a book listing « words close to the one we entered »

A standard business letter

• Your name (or your firm’s name) and address, and logo in the top left corner of the letter

• The name of the addressee below shifted to the right

• The main body of the letter

• Signature

The importance of well presented business letters

• A business letter is often the first image of yourself you give

• And, as you know, the first image is often the one that remains

The importance of well presented business letters (2)

• A business letter is often the first image of yourself you give

• And, as you know, the first image is often the one that remains

Let’s prepare a logo

• We shall prepare a picture of the word « Our Firm »

• How do we do this ?• Use a drawing software :

– Paint is the simplest one– Paint Shop Pro– Adobe softwares

• Logos are subtle signs. Firms spend a lot of money to get a good logo.

How to move a text to the right ?

• We use tabulations or (better) indentations

A first mail merge

• In the menubar select tools and select display the mailmerge toolbar

• Then prepare a database of names and addresses (we did that with Excel)

• Then prepare the model letter with fields like « surname », « firstname » etc.

• Then merge• And print• This creates in minutes 150 personalised letters

Word models

• Word offers plenty of prepared letters along various models

• We don’t have to create new letters from scratch