Jan's Files and Folders: Files

Step-by-Step: Edit & Print Text

What you will learn:

to open an existing document with the Open dialog
to edit a document
     add text
     delete text
     replace text
     move text
     to use Undo
to save changes to existing document
to print a document
to close an application with Task Manager
to open an existing document from Explorer
to rename a file

Start with: , Notepad closed.

Open Document: Open Dialog

Start with , , Notepad closed

Open Notepad from the Start menu. (Hint: Start > All Programs > Accessories > Notepad)
From the menu bar select File > Open
The Open dialog box appears, which looks a lot like the Save As dialog.

Use the Up button and/or the drop box folder tree if you need to switch to a different drive in the display.
Open folders until the file doc 1.txt that you created in the previous lesson is displayed in the Contents area. (Hint: It is in the win project2 folder on your Class disk.)
The sequence of windows to get to your file may be different from that in the illustration.
Select the file doc 1.txt. Its name appears in the "File name" text box at the bottom of the dialog box.
Right click on doc 1.txt in the dialog pane (not in the text box) and choose Properties from the popup menu.

The Properties dialog shows what program will open the file by default and allows you to change that! But from this dialog you can only change the program for all files of this type.

If you want to open this file with a different program this time but not always, you must go another route. When you right click, choose Open With... instead of Properties... Then select Choose Program... A new dialog shows the programs that Windows thinks might work. You can also browse to other programs. You will see a checkbox for whether or not you want all files of this type to open with the program that you choose. If you do not check the box, Windows will not remember your choice the next time you try to open this file. The default program will open it. There is no way to always open a particular file with one program and to always open other files of that type with a different program.
Click on the Cancel button to close the Properties box.
Click on the Open button. The file opens in Notepad. TaDa!

Notepad in WinXP, Vista & Win7

Edit: Add Text

Move the cursor to the end of the second line and press the ENTER key to get a new line.
Problem: Typing is overwriting your text
Overtyping is turned on.
Solution: Press the INSERT key on the keyboard to toggle from overtyping to inserting.
Type: I can edit and delete this that I wrote in Notepad.
Problem: Typing is wider than the window
Notepad may not wrap text to the window automatically. It can be important for some kinds of files to not wrap the text.
Solution: From the menu select Format > Word Wrap . Notepad will wrap your sentences so you won't have to scroll horizontally to read everything. Notepad will remember this choice.

Edit: Erase Text

Move the cursor to the end of the second line: I wrote it in Notepad
Drag to the beginning of the line to highlight the entire line.

Problem: Extra lines are selected
Dragging at a bit of an angle can select other lines.
Solution: Click off the selection to deselect and try again.
Press the DELETE key. The line vanishes. If a blank line remains, press DELETE again.
Press the down arrow key until the cursor is at the beginning of the line with the time and date.
(Press the Home key if you are on the correct line but not at the far left end of the line.)
Press the DELETE key enough times to erase the time but not the date.

Edit: Replace Text

Use the arrow keys to move the cursor to the end of the word "that" in the second line.
Backspace enough times to erase the words "this" and "that".
Type the word what in their place.

Edit: Move Text

Notepad is a really simple text editor. In more advanced applications you can drag selected text to a new location. In Notepad you must cut and paste to move things around.

Select the first line of text by dragging to highlight it.
Select from the menu bar Edit > Cut .
Notice the key combos listed in the menu. CTRL + X will cut.
Click at the beginning of the line with your name to move the cursor there.
Select from the menu bar Edit > Paste . The text is moved.
The key combo CTRL + V will paste.
Press the ENTER key twice to move your name down two lines.

Save an Existing Document

From the menu bar select File > Save . The file is saved without displaying the Save As dialog box because the file has already has a name and location since it was saved once before.

Print Document

(You may need special instructions from your teacher or network administrator about using a networked printer)

From the menu bar select File > Page Setup... .
Many applications remember the page settings from the previous printing job. You must always check the page setup to see what the computer is going to do with your document!

Notepad doesn't have a Print Preview window where you could actually see what the page will look like. The Preview you see in the Page Setup dialog box is not of your actual document.

Most applications these days do have a print preview window. Use it!! The cause of some of the most wasteful printing errors is failure to look at the preview before pressing the Print button!!
In the Header text box, after the characters that are already there, type 2 spaces and then your name.
Click the OK button.
From the menu bar select File > Print... .
The Print dialog appears. Select the printer you want to use from the list.

You may have several to choose from. If the printer you want is not on the list, click on Find Printer and then on the icon for your computer to see what printers are available.
Choose a printer and check the other settings in the dialog. You want to print 1 copy of the whole (very short!) document. Then click the Print button. Your document will be printed.

Do you know where the printer is?? In a computer lab or other network situation, the printer may not be near your computer. There may be several printers in the room. The default printer could even be in another room!! A network at a large school can have dozens of shared printers. Be sure you know where you document is going to print!

Close with Task Manager

Sometimes your programs will get stuck and fail to respond to your commands and keystrokes. How can you close the program in this case? The Task Manager is your friend when all else fails!

(Be careful on this one!) Hold down the CTRL and ALT keys and press the DELETE key - just once.

The Task Manager appears or else a set of choices which include Task Manger. If necessary, click on Task Manager link.
Your list of tasks will be different from the illustrations!

Task Manager in WinXP, Vista/Win7

The Task Manager has several tabs. The Applications tab shows what applications are currently running. The Processes tab shows a lot of strangely named things that go on in the background. You will not usually want to deal with Processes.
If necessary, click the Applications tab.
Select doc 1.txt - Notepad on the list of active programs
Click on the End Task button. Notepad closes.
Sometimes after a few seconds you will see a dialog that reports that the task you tried to close is not responding. You can chose to wait, if you think the task might actually finish doing something like saving a large document. Or, you can chose to terminate the task anyway. This will probably be your choice when you are trying to close down a frozen program - one which has stopped responding but has not damaged any of the other processes going on.

Using CTRL + ALT+ DELETE twice quickly will reboot the computer. You will lose all unsaved data!

This combination of CTRL + ALT + DELETE is sometimes called the three finger salute. It is pronounced as "control alt delete". This key combo was used before Win95 to reboot the computer, especially when programs crashed (refused to work any more).

Sometimes ending the program is not enough to get your computer working happily again. You may have to shut down the computer and restart it to recover from a bad lock-up or crash. Happily, this does not happen as often with WinXP, Vista, and Win7 as it did with earlier versions of Windows.
Close the Task Manager window by clicking the Close button on the Title bar.

Open Document from Folder Tree