This page introduces you to some basic skills you'll need. It is not comprehensive - see the books page for details of useful guides. There are also some help sheets on the documents page.

There's nothing to beat hands-on practice - and don't be afraid to ask a knowledgeable colleague or student if you're stuck!

Using Adobe Acrobat PDF files

Acrobat files are often called "PDF files" because the file names end with ".pdf" - the letters actually stand for Portable Document Format. They are a way of ensuring that documents look the same on your computer as they do to the person who created them. You should be able to view them online and also save them to your own disk to print out later.

If you find that you cannot see PDF files you probably need to download the latest version of the Acrobat reader from the Adobe website. This is free and will only take a short time.

Unlike Word files, you cannot alter files in PDF format. However, you can copy the text from an Acrobat page and paste it into your own document - but before you can select the text you need to click the Text Select Tool on the toolbar - it's the button with a T.

Copy and paste

Here's how to copy an extract you've found on the Internet and paste the text into a word processor document - this method also works with text and pictures in most other documents.

1. Select the text by dragging with your mouse so that the text is reversed (normally white on blue or black)
2. Copy the text: Edit menu –> Copy or just press the Control key and C at the same time
3. Paste the text into a new word processor document with Edit –> Paste or press the Control key and V at the same time
4. Remember this sequence – it works to copy and paste text to and from almost all applications. You can even copy a Web page address from the box at the top of the browser straight into a Word document or an email.

For some ideas on how to use text taken from the Web, see the documents page.

Organising your resources

Once you have collected or created more than a few documents and pictures you need to organise them into a system that enable to find what you want next time - even if you've forgotten where you put them! Using the Windows filing system is a topic for another document, but in brief, here's an outline:

1. As with your physical folders of lesson notes, etc, decide on simple but intelligible names for the folders on your hard drive and subdivide them once the window becomes too crowded for comfort.
2. Where you want to create a new folder, right click over an empty space and you should see a menu starting with View.
3. Move down to New and click on that, then select Folder.
4. A new folder symbol will appear with the name highlighted as New Folder - type in your name (say Year 7).
5. Once you've created a folder you can subdivide it - for example, Year 7 could have folders for Poetry, Novels, Literacy, etc.
6. You can also change the name of a folder or a file: select the folder or file, right click and choose Rename (second from the bottom of the list).

PowerPoint 

There's a simple worksheet here to help you create a PowerPoint presentation.

Saving pictures

Once you've found a picture, you'll want to save it so that you can use it later. Here's a simple way of doing this:

1. Move the mouse pointer over the picture.
2. Click with the right mouse button over the image and a menu should pop up
3. Select the option Save image as or Save picture as and the usual Windows save window will appear.
4. Use the buttons at the top of this window to move to the folder where you want to store the picture.
5. Windows will probably have given the picture a name but you may wish to change this to something more meaningful; you should not need to change the entry in the "save as type" entry in the lower box.

Undoing your last action

Made a mistake? Here's a bit of digital magic! You can undo your last action - such as deleting the wrong bit of text - by using the Undo facility in most Windows programs. You'll find it on the Edit menu - and the keyboard shortcut is Control and Z.

There is often an anti-clockwise button on the toolbar which performs the same trick - and the clockwise button to the right of it will redo the action, so you can change your mind again. The keyboard shortcut for redo is Control and Y. Programs often allow you do undo or redo several actions step by step.

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