Technology & The Church

I am going to use the page to keep you abreast of the current trends and uses of technology. If you have any ideas to share that are working for you, please let us know.

Word Processing
I have found that while many use a computer, there are many who do not fully understand how to use a word processor correctly. This is especially true of setting type. Here are a few hints.

Tabs
I have found many times that some people will just press the period key many time to create a line of dots from, say a day to a time, or from at item to a dollar amount. This is not the correct way to do this. Tabs have what are called leaders. Usually on most programs if you double click on your tab it will open up the tab options, if not refer to your word processor's help menu.


The top two line are just periods and you can see they don't line up. The bottom line is using tab leaders.

Anyway in the tab options there will be a leader box that you can enter any kind of leader character you wish—like a period. By entering a character in the leader box the processor will string that character across the tab. While we are at it, in the tab option box you can select usually four different types of tabs—Left, Right, Center and on Character. On Character lets you align on a particular character such as a decimal point for currency.

Hanging Indents
This is the most frustrating thing when you must reformat or add words to a hanging indent that someone did not do correctly. To create a proper hanging indent you have to do three things. First you set your left indent, then the first line indent and last a tab.



By making indents this way you can add word or simply narrow the column of words and the text reflows automatically.



If you want an extra return, but you don't want to start a new indent simply hold down the shit key while you press the return button, this will give you what is called a soft return.