Technology Notes for Teachers -- a series of booklets to aid teachers prepared by the CTL

Picture this: You’re typing away and suddenly your document disappears from view. What happened? How do you get it back? Did you delete your page, did the gremlins steal it, or have you merely made another window (document) active? What’s going on? Perhaps a brief thought or two on how the PC computer displays windows or documents will help.

Remember it’s called Windows. Your workspace (also known as: window, open document, current file) may be one of a number of windows that are open and in competition for the space which you are able to see. For instance:

--you may have an open file that you are working on,

--you may have an open file that you were working on earlier,

--you may have a window (called the Program Manager) with icons for application programs like WordPerfect.

Below is a simulation of how the windows may be arranged on your computer screen. Notice that there are three windows open and that they are cascaded.

Moving around among documents within one program.

Do an experiment. Open WordPerfect and create a new document. Then go to File and create another new document. Then create a third document. You should have “Document3” written in the menu bar at the top of the screen below the WordPerfect menu of the last document you created. Now go to Window on the menu bar at the top and select Cascade. Notice what happens to the three documents. Go back to Window and select Tile.With both options, it becomes apparent that you have three separate files (windows) open at the same time. You may choose in which document you wish to work by moving your mouse to that window and clicking. To make the selected document large again like it was before you tiled or cascaded the windows, look at the crude illustration below.

If you click your document will expand to fill the entire screen. The will shrink the window. Practice rearranging the windows of the three documents. Notice that we have been moving around in open windows for one application program --WordPerfect.

Say you’re working on a WordPerfect file and decide to check your CC:mail. Look at the very top left hand side of your computer. There is a box with a horizonal slash through it:
Click on this box and select Switch to. Another window opens -- a Task List --select Program Manager (if your CC:mail is not open). (Your Program Manager displays all the icons for the programs available on your computer -- assuming an icon has been established for that program. It is the familiar selection of icons that you see when your computer first comes on.) Proceed to open CC:Mail as you normally do. Go back to the box: and select Switch to again. Notice what options you have now. Investigate some of them. If you have done as instructed, you will have WordPerfect, Program Manager, and CC:Mail showing in the Task List window.

Try an experiment. Pretend that you wish to copy part of a WordPerfect file into a CC:mail message that you are sending. How would you do it? If you are at the CC:mail window, Use Switch to to go to a WordPerfect window. From a WordPerfect window, use File and Open the file you want to select the text from. After you open the WordPerfect file, select the text and copy as usual. Use Switch to to get back to your CC:mail, go to the New Message you are preparing and from Edit select Paste.

(Of course if you wanted the whole WordPerfect file, you would merely attach it to the CC:mail file using the Attach button. A word of caution. Make sure that the person receiving the attachment has the same format computer as you and software to read the file. Copying and pasting text into a CC: mail message is safer. The recipient should always be able to read it.)

Practice moving around the open windows using the Switch To function.

Quick “mouseless” keyboard commands!
To move among files/programs.

Want to move quickly among a number of open windows without using the mouse? Try one of these keyboard commands.

***To move from open window to open window in one program: Depress the ALT key and the hyphen simultaneously. Release the ALT and hypen keys. Then key t (for next.) Repeat this entire operation until you are on the window you desire.

***To move from open window to open window between different programs: Hold ALT down and press Tab. You will see a box with the name of another program. Press Tab again until you see the program you want. Release the ALT key and that program will appear.