ITGS

Information Technology in a Global Society

Examination Preparation 4

2.2.3 Word Processing and Desktop Publishing

Paper One and Two may require you to study and evaluate the social and ethical issues involved in the use of Word Processing and Desktop Publishing (DTP), you should have an understanding of the following related technological concepts:

Key Terms

formatting ~ To specify the properties, particularly visible properties, of an object. For example, word processing applications allow you to format text, which involves specifying the font, alignment, margins, and other properties.

template ~ Templates are a special type of word processor document that can hold text, styles, macros, keyboard shortcuts, custom toolbars and AutoText entries. A document created using a template will have access to all of these features and a large part of your job in creating a new document will be done for you if your templates are well thought out.

spell check ~ A program feature designed to locate misspelled words and notify the user of those misspelled words. Depending on the spell checker the user may be able to select from potential corrections on the misspelled word and/or replace the misspelled word with the correct spelling of the word.
Although spell checkers have become one of the most commonly used features in many programs they have also become a hindrance. Some users have become so dependent on spell checkers that their spelling and grammar skills have declined and they have a difficult time writing anything correctly without the use of a spell checker.
While spell checkers are a great feature, users should not become dependent on spell checkers and practice writing without the aid of a spell checker as well as try to learn from their mistakes instead of letting a program automatically correct them.

grammar check ~ A software program or program feature sometimes found in a program such as a word processor that can be used to help check text for any improper grammar. Depending on the grammar checker the user may be able to select from potential corrections.
Although grammar checkers have become a commonly used feature in many word processors they have also become a hindrance. Some users have become so dependent on grammar checkers that their grammar skills have declined and they have a difficult time writing anything correctly without the use of a word processor.

ASCII ~ Acronym for the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Pronounced "ask-ee", ASCII is a code for representing English characters as numbers, with each letter assigned a number from 0 to 127. For example, the ASCII code for uppercase M is 77. Most computers use ASCII codes to represent text, which makes it possible to transfer data from one computer to another.
Text files stored in ASCII format are sometimes called ASCII files. Word processors are usually capable of storing data in ASCII format, although ASCII format is not always the default storage format. Most data files, particularly if they contain numeric data, are not stored in ASCII format. Executable programs are never stored in ASCII format.
The standard ASCII character set uses just 7 bits for each character. There are several larger character sets that use 8 bits, which gives them 128 additional characters. The extra characters are used to represent non-English characters, graphics symbols, and mathematical symbols. Several companies and organizations have proposed extensions for these 128 characters. The DOS operating system uses a superset of ASCII called extended ASCII or high ASCII. A more universal standard is the ISO Latin 1 set of characters, which is used by many operating systems, as well as Web browsers.

Unicode ~ A standard for representing characters as integers. Unlike ASCII, which uses 7 bits for each character, Unicode uses 16 bits, which means that it can represent more than 65,000 unique characters. This is a bit of overkill for English and Western-European languages, but it is necessary for some other languages, such as Greek, Chinese and Japanese. Many analysts believe that as the software industry becomes increasingly global, Unicode will eventually supplant ASCII as the standard character coding format.

PDF ~ Short for Portable Document Format, a file format developed by Adobe Systems. PDF captures formatting information from a variety of desktop publishing applications, making it possible to send formatted documents and have them appear on the recipient's monitor or printer as they were intended. To view a file in PDF format, you need Adobe Reader, a free application distributed by Adobe Systems.

RTF ~ Short for Rich Text Files, RTF is a standard formalized by Microsoft Corporation for specifying formatting of documents. RTF files are actually ASCII files with special commands to indicate formatting information, such as fonts and margins. Other document formatting languages include the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which is used to define documents on the World Wide Web, and the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), which is a more robust version of HTML.

text ~ Words, sentences, paragraphs. This page, for example, consists of text. Text processing refers to the ability to manipulate words, lines, and pages. Typically, the term text refers to text stored as ASCII codes (that is, without any formatting). Objects that are not text include graphics, numbers (if they're not stored as ASCII characters), and program code.

Do you understand the concepts and issues involved with Word Processing and DTP?

Do you know the meaning of each of the key terms? If you don't then do some more research - find out what ALL this means.

When you think you know about Word Processing and DTP, print and complete this examination using a pen or pencil.