Brooklyn College: Technical Writing Certificate

TW109: User Guides with Microsoft Word
Schedule Page

Although most of the links have been removed, the following course schedule gives you an idea of what we'll cover in this course. (Remember that this is an 8-week course.) When you are ready, return to the Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program course listing.

This is your main working page for TW109: User Guides with Microsoft Word in Brooklyn College's Technical Writing Certificate program. Use this page to find out what to name your files, see when projects are due, go to the online textbook and resources for this course. See the syllabus links following the schedule for information about objectives, required and recommended books, grades, and other resources. (Exact units and sequence of units may vary slightly from instructor to instructor and semester to semester.)

Note: To take this course, you must have some version of Microsoft Word, no lower than version 4. Currently, there are no tutorials for Word in this program. Instead, you'll use recommended books and websites..

On all quizzes, please select Brooklyn College as instructor.

This course starts mmddyy.

Your instructor is at instructor_name at instructor_email

Click the units you've completed and then press Send at the top or bottom of this page. Remember that this tracking chart is for your convenience; the instructor uses other information to determine whether you've done adequate study to pass this course. If you mistakenly mark a unit as completed, contact your instructor (or just wait until you've actually completed it.)

Check	Project (Use these links to see project details.)	Due date	File names/comments	Completed
	Microsoft Word basics. To get started with Word, make sure you know how to create, open, save files; apply typographical features such as fonts, type sizes, bold, italics; change margins to whole documents or two individual parts of; create and modify numbered and bulleted lists; create and modify tables; specify page numbers; insert and position graphics; zoom in and out on text; do search and replace; run spellchecks; hide or show text symbols and formatting bars; and so on. Of course, some of these "basic" skills range into intermediate or advanced skills, such as working with page numbers and graphics. (Skip this unit if you have plenty of experience with Word.)	mmddyy	Send e-mail to your instructor describing what problems, if any, you had with these basic tasks. Otherwise, go on to the next unit.
	Word templates. Learn about the templates supplied with Microsoft Word. Learn how to use them, whether you can change from one to another in an existing document, and where those templates live in your file system.	mmddyy	Send this exercise as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. Name the file for this exercise yourname_templates1.doc. If you revise, change templates1 to templates2.
	Autotext. Learn about and practice using AutoTexts—potentially labor-saving methods for including or globally changing common text strings and ensuring greater consistency.	mmddyy	Send this exercise as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. Name the file for this exercise yourname_autotext1.doc. If you revise, change autotext1 to autotext2.
	Get-acquainted letter. Use the project detail page for the get-acquainted letter to write a letter in Word in which tell your instructor something about yourself.	mmddyy	Name this project yourname_letter1.doc, and send it as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. Name subsequent revisions yourname_letter2.doc, yourname_letter3.doc, and so on. Note: You can skip this project if you have some experience with Word.
	Character and paragraph styles. To make developing your documents more consistent and efficient, practice creating and using paragraph and character styles for such common design features as headings; paragraphs; special paragraphs; bulleted, numbered and nested lists; notices; highlighting and other special font requirements.	mmddyy	Send this exercise as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. Name the file for this exercise yourname_styles1.doc. If you revise, change styles1 to styles2.
	Customized templates & page layout. Learn and practice how to specify page margin and pagination requirements. Learn how save all of these specifications in a template file and apply that template to other documents.	mmddyy	Send this exercise as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. Name the file for this exercise yourname_customtemplates1.doc. If you revise, change customtemplates1 to customtemplates2. Because this exercise may involve several files, using "zip" software to compress it into one file and name the compressed file. (The file name extension will change from .doc to .zip.)
	Tables. Learn how to create and finetune tables in Word. Be able to span columns or rows, merge columns or rows, use shading, and control other features of tables in Word.	mmddyy	Send this exercise as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. Name the file for this exercise yourname_tables1.doc. If you revise, change tables1 to tables2.
	Microsoft Word modeling project. Use the modeling project to get some practice using Word to format user-guide information.	mmddyy	Name this project yourname_model1.doc, and send it as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. (Name subsequent revisions yourname_model2.doc, yourname_model3.doc, and so on.)
	Macros. Learn how to create and use macros in Word. Macros enables you to complete many types of repetitive tasks in a hurry.	mmddyy	Send this exercise as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. Name the file for this exercise yourname_macros1.doc. If you revise, change macros1 to macros2.
	Cross-references. Learn how to create cross-references in Word. Know how to create a page, table, or figure reference—with or without the title of the cross-referenced element—both within a file as well as to another file.	mmddyy	Send this exercise as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. Name the file for this exercise yourname_crossrefs1.doc. If you revise, change crossrefs1 to crossrefs2. Because this exercise may involve several files, using "zip" software to compress it into one file and name the compressed file. (The file name extension will change from .doc to .zip.)
	Page design: review. Review page design for the standard design guidelines for headings, lists, notices, tables, figures, cross-references, and highlighting. (This is a quick review of material covered in depth in TW101: Technical Writing: Career Introduction. You can still access all the same study materials.)	mmddyy	Take the quiz at the end of this unit; be sure and select Brooklyn College as instructor.
	Simple procedure in Word. Use what you've learned so far about Word and standard formatting to write a simple one- or two-page procedure.	mmddyy	Name this project yourname_simple1.doc, and send it as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. (Name subsequent revisions yourname_simple2.doc, yourname_simple3.doc, and so on.)
	Book building. Learn how to use Word to create and automate books. Use three small files to create book structure and then build the book including a TOC and index, along with page numbering.	mmddyy	Send this exercise as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. Name the file for this exercise yourname_book1.doc. If you revise, change book1 to book2. Because this exercise may involve several files, using "zip" software to compress it into one file and name the compressed file. (The file name extension will change from .doc to .zip.)
	Tables of contents. Practice creating a fully automated table of contents (TOC) using three small files. Learn how to preserve required formatting for a TOC through successive builds of that TOC.	mmddyy	Send this exercise as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. Name the file for this exercise yourname_tocs1.doc. If you revise, change tocs1 to tocs2. Because this exercise may involve several files, using "zip" software to compress it into one file and name the compressed file. (The file name extension will change from .doc to .zip.)
	Indexing. Learn the basics of creating an index (regardless of the application) using the indexing tutorial, and study how to create indexes in Word. Create, format, and update an index using three small files, preserving your formatting through successive builds of that index.	mmddyy	Send this exercise as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. Name the file for this exercise yourname_indexes1.doc. If you revise, change indexes1 to indexes2. Because this exercise may involve several files, using "zip" software to compress it into one file and name the compressed file. (The file name extension will change from .doc to .zip.)
	Customized automated numbering streams with fields. Learn how to use fields to specify your own customized numbering streams for things like chapter-, figure-, and table-numbering streams.	mmddyy	Send this exercise as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. Name the file for this exercise yourname_fields1.doc. If you revise, change fields1 to fields2.
	Book design: user guides. Study the common design and components of user guides at book design, paying particular attention to cover and title pages, the edition notice, preface, table of contents, safety notices, headers, footers, appendixes, glossary, index, and reader-comment form.	mmddyy	No quiz with this unit!
	Book-building and -formatting with Word. Use the book-building project to get some practice using Word to create complete books, including indexes.	mmddyy	Name the file for this project yourname_bookfmt1.zip. If you revise, change bookfmt1 to bookfmt2. Because this exercise involves several files, use "zip" software to compress it into one file.
	User-guide project using Word. Use the Word user guide project page to create a small but complete user guide for some computer product. Suitable for your portfolio, this user guide will be fully automated in terms of all numbering streams as well as cross-references, table of contents, and index. Also, it will demonstrate good design and writing as well as industry-standard guidelines.	mmddyy	Name the file for this project yourname_final1.zip. If you revise, change final1 to final2. Because this exercise involves several files, use "zip" software to compress it into one file.
	Acrobat resource page & project. Use the Adobe Acrobat resource and project page to ensure that you can do the essential tasks with Acrobat and then convert your Word user guide to PDF using Acrobat.	mmddyy	Name this project yourname_pdf1.pdf, and send it as an e-mail attachment to your instructor. (Name subsequent revisions yourname_pdf2.pdf, yourname_pdf3.pdf, and so on.)
Note: All work in this course must be complete no later than mmddyy.

Syllabus

Objectives

Learn basic formatting using Word.
Learn how to create and use Autotext abbreviations and macros with Word.
Learn how to create and use styles with Word.
Learn how to create and use templates in Word.
Learn book-building skills using Word.
Learn indexing techniques in Word and use them on unindexed material.
Format various common technical publications using Word.
Write your own brief user guide that includes full use of Word features as well as industry-standard style and format.
Learn how to convert a Word document to Acrobat PDF.
Practice the standard of good writing and document design.

Grades

A: All projects completed and approved by your instructor.
B: All projects completed and approved by your instructor except for the book-building project and the Acrobat project.
C: All projects completed and approved by your instructor, except for user-guide project and the Acrobat project

Contact your instructor concerning credit for projects you have completed but are still not approved by the time the course is over.

Books

There are no required textbooks for this course.

Resources

Word resources. Articles, forums, listservs, and other tutorials on Word.
TECHWR-L articles. Lots of articles on all aspects of the field.
Technical Writing, Help Authoring Tools, Jobs, and More. Good general collection of links and articles.
Writer Write. Plenty of good articles!
computerjobs.com: Technical Writer Jobs. Good resource links also.
EServer TC Library. Super collection of links related to all aspects of this field.

Table of contents for the Online Textbook.
Policies for courses in the Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate program.
Online Technical Documentation site search facility.

Course evaluation

Use the course evaluation form to give your opinions on the effectiveness of the study materials and organization of this course. (This evaluation is strictly optional, strictly voluntary.)

Information and programs provided by hcexres@io.com.