Word Processing

Your children may come into contact with computers in their individual classrooms, a computer center in their school, in their school library, or in their neighborhood public library.

Select a question below to learn more about word processing. Use the navigation to the left to learn about other general technology uses.

1. What does Word Processing mean?
2. Are there different kinds of word processing programs my children will use?
3. What skills do my children need to word process?
4. Will my child be required to do assignments by word processing?
5. Where can I learn word processing for myself?

What does Word Processing mean?

One definition of word processing is:

A program designed to create, edit and print text based documents including: letters, memos, faxes, and reports etc. A word processor enables you to save your documents on the computer and edit and update them later. You can see more definitions here.

Here is a slightly longer definition:

Using a computer to create, edit, and print documents. Of all computer applications, word processing is the most common. To perform word processing, you need a computer, a special program called a word processor, and a printer. A word processor enables you to create a document, store it electronically on a disk, display it on a screen, modify it by entering commands and characters from the keyboard, and print it on a printer. The great advantage of word processing over using a typewriter is that you can make changes without retyping the entire document. If you make a typing mistake, you simply back up the cursor and correct your mistake. If you want to delete a paragraph, you simply remove it, without leaving a trace. It is equally easy to insert a word, sentence, or paragraph in the middle of a document. Word processors also make it easy to move sections of text from one place to another within a document, or between documents. When you have made all the changes you want, you can send the file to a printer to get a hardcopy.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/word_processing.html

Word processing is the process that many students use to prepare reports or homework.

return to top