Last Thursday 5th of January we took a look at struggling with word processing. Most members present used LibreOffice and some Microsoft Office 365. FreeOffice and WPS Office were also mentioned. Chris pointed out the presence of free, online office suites: Google Docs (linked to Google Drive) and Microsoft Office Online (linked to Microsoft’s OneDrive – If you download a file created in Office online to your PC It can be edited offline in a wordprocessing programme installed in the PC. If you don’t have such a programme, it will be opened in Office online)
Chris raised the following points:
- Identify what you are trying to do: Are you using the right tool?
Would a DTP or drawing programme do the job better? (e.g. for posters) How about a spreadsheet for tables? - Finding Help: There are diverse sources of help – Help built-in to the programme, online blogs, videos on YouTube.
Remember to ask the right question (ask a silly question and you’ll get a silly answer) - Set up the interface to suit your requirements. Most word processing programs allow you to configure toolbars, sidebars, grids etc. and LibreOffice has an optional tabbed interface so that it looks more like Windows Explorer.
The discussion detoured dealing with contacts’ names and addresses. We took a look at groups in Gmail contacts, the information stored about them and how to export the information to a CSV (a text file with the fields separated by commas) file. We looked at sharing a document containing images and suggested exporting it to a PDF and sending it as an e-mail attachment or storing it in the cloud and sending a link.
Members were asked to come in on Mondays for help in solving specific problems.