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Exercise two Using structures

One of the most powerful and unique features of EasiWriter is its support of document structure.

All documents have structure. The simplest form of document consists of the document itself, which contains a sequence of paragraphs. This manual is a document that contains chapters which in turn contain sections, lists, figures, tables and so on.

In this exercise you are going to create a report which will show you how to use structures to simplify the writing process. You will learn how to:

The first part of the report looks like this:

First you are going to type the project title.

Chapter

River motion project

EasiWriter automatically makes the text bold and two points larger, which is the default style for a chapter heading.

For the moment we will use the default settings; later in this tutorial you will see how they can be changed.

Next you are going to create a new section.

Section

Click on the Section button (Ctrl­Shift­F2).

EasiWriter starts a new section with the caret positioned on the next line ready for you to type the section heading.

  1. Type:
    Introduction
  2. Press Return.

Return

Pressing Return tells EasiWriter to finish the heading and start a new paragraph. The position of the paragraph depends on the formatting attributes of the section. It could be on the right of the heading as in this manual. By default it is underneath.

A river passes through three stages from its source to the sea.

The first is the Youthful Stage where it dashes all over the place. The 

next is the Mature stage where it doesn't, and the third is the old age 

stage where it's slow and drops things.

Anyway, we decided to investigate the speed and sploshiness of each of these stages and compare the results.

Next you are going to start a new section identical in format to the one above.

New section

  1. Click on the Section button (or press Ctrl-Shift-F2) and type the following:
    Methods
  2. Press Return to complete the heading and start the body of the section.

You should get into the habit of frequently saving your work. As you need the EasiWriter directory display for the next part of the exercise, now is a good time to do it.

  1. Click the Back icon to bring the EasiWriter directory display into view.
  2. Click Select on the Save button .
  3. Name the document 'Exercise2'.
  4. Drag the document icon from the submenu to the directory display.

Working with multiple documents

EasiWriter lets you work with more than one document at a time, the actual number of open documents is limited only by the memory available in your computer.

You are now going to open a window on the text you typed, and saved, earlier.

  1. Move the mouse pointer over the document 'Exercise1' in the directory display.
  2. Drag it over the EasiWriter icon in the icon bar.

A copy of 'Exercise1' will be opened, in front of the other windows.

Clipboard

Any part of an EasiWriter document can be selected and copied to a special part of your computer's memory called the clipboard. Whenever you copy something new to the clipboard its previous contents will be replaced.

Copying text

Text can be copied, or moved, either from one part of a document to another or from one EasiWriter document to another. You are going to copy the text from 'Exercise1' to the clipboard - first you need to select it.

In Exercise one you learnt how to select a word by double-clicking on it. EasiWriter has other ways to let you make selections - Dragging and the Select menu.

Select menu

The Select menu contains a list of all the structures of the document starting from the caret position working out to the document itself. The contents of this menu change depending on the structures in the document and the position of the caret.

This document is very simple and consists only of two paragraphs each containing text, consequently the menu contains, starting from the caret position, Text selection, Paragraph, Document body, and Document.

Selection indicator

You are now going to select the entire document.

  1. Click Menu on the Selection indicator.
    The Select menu will appear.
  2. Choose Document from the Select menu.

The entire document will become highlighted to show that it is selected.

Copy

Now that a selection has been made, a copy of it can be placed on the clipboard.

A copy of the text will be placed on the clipboard. The contents of the clipboard can now be pasted into the other document.

First you need to bring its window to the front.

Changing windows

You can bring a window to the front by clicking in its Title bar. Sometimes this can be difficult as you may need to resize and reposition some of the windows to do it.

EasiWriter has a special menu that lists the names of all its open documents enabling you to choose the one you want to be at the front.

  1. Click Menu on the EasiWriter application icon in the icon bar.
  2. Choose 'Exercise2' from the Document menu.

The window on 'Exercise2' will come to the front of the Desktop.

  1. Click Select inside the window to make it active.

Active windows have a yellow Title bar and gain the caret.

Paste

The contents of the clipboard can now be pasted into your project.

  1. Check that the caret is beneath the heading 'Methods'.
  2. Choose Paste from the Edit menu (Ctrl-V) or press Insert.

The contents of the clipboard will be inserted at the caret position.

Lists

The next part of the report is a list like the example below.



This type of list is called a bullet list because of the large round dot (bullet) at the beginning of each paragraph. Lists can also be numbered or have no leading character at all.

When you start a List structure EasiWriter automatically sets the margin markers and draws the bullet character (which can be changed). It also adds additional space both before and after the list.

  1. Click on the List icon (or press Ctrl-Shift-F4).
    EasiWriter starts a new list with the caret after the bullet. It automatically tabs to the left margin marker position.
  2. Type:
    Our investigation was made along the River Ouse.
  3. Press Return.
    Note that EasiWriter automatically draws the bullet for the next item in the list.
  4. Type the next item in the list:
    In each of its three stages we timed how long it took Bob to travel one kilometre.
  5. Now type the last two items in the list.
During each kilometre stretch, we counted how many times he 

disappeared from view.

We prepared bar graphs to compare the results.

EasiWriter automatically aligned the left margin so the bullet characters are hanging when the text doesn't fit on one line.

End Structure

You now need to tell EasiWriter that you have finished typing the list.

  1. Click on the End list button on the button bar or choose End list (Ctrl-]) from the Structure menu.
    The Style indicator in the Status bar will change to 'At End list'. Whenever you are in a structure, the last item in the Structure menu changes to 'End' followed by the name of the current structure.
  2. Press Return to move the caret to a new line.

Save short-cut

If a document has previously been saved you can use a button bar short-cut to update it.

A new copy of the document will be saved on the disc replacing the previous one.

You no longer need to keep a copy of 'Exercise1' on the desktop.

  1. Choose Exercise1 from the Documents menu (click Menu on the EasiWriter icon).
    The window on 'Exercise1' will come to the front of the desktop.
  2. Click in its Close icon.

The window will disappear.

Summary

In this section you have learnt how to:

If you want to take a break you can close the document and quit EasiWriter - just open 'Exercise2' by double-clicking on it before starting on the next part of the tutorial.


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