|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Articles on Jobseekers Advice If you would like to submit an article to Jobseekers Advice, then please feel free to contact us. We are always looking for a wide range of articles dealing with career advice, CV advice, interview advice, working abroad, employment issues, education and training and other recruitment or careers related topics. The articles can be the result of professional experience or personal insight - we are looking to offer all points of view.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Computer Basics 4 - MS Office Applications by Scott Boyd So now you are semi-prepared to use a PC (read: you won't break it or be scared of it), then you can get started.
This article will cover a brief description of MS Office Applications as many home and office PCs come with MS Office already installed (and indeed, many employers seek skills in MS Office Applications).
So what is MS Office? Microsoft Office is a series of programmes developed by Microsoft to take advantage of computing power in the office. MS Office contains (some of or all):
There is also a host of other minor tools and applications available as well.
MS Word (Word Processing) MS Word is what you use to compose letters, reports, essays, etc. It also contains many templates for creating documents from CVs to envelope labels.
It allows you to change the font size, font type, font colour, etc of text and alter the formatting of the paragraph you are working on - all with an inbuilt and automatic spell checker. There are many more advanced features, but these are the most common uses.
MS Excel (Spreadsheets) You can use MS Excel to create spreadsheets which are used primarily for storing and manipulating numerical data - for example you could create the company balance sheet on a spreadsheet and set the totals to automatically add up.
MS Access (Databases) A database is used to store records - kinda like an electronic filing cabinet. With MS Access you can create your own database and perform tasks such as editing fields (eg name, address, phone, etc) to outputting reports (eg a list of all names).
So you could use this to create a client database of all your companies clients and store all their details, then create lists (printouts) of the information in any format you like (eg one client per sheet or paper, or one per line).
MS Outlook (Email) MS Outlook is an email programme. You use it to compose, send and receive emails. It's pretty simple.
MS PowerPoint (presentations) Again, fairly simple concept - MS PowerPoint is used to create slide show presentations (you can hook up certain projectors to a PC to display the presentation on a white screen).
MS FrontPage (HTML Editor - web design) You can use MS FrontPage to create websites. I use MS FrontPage to design and maintain this site (now, it's not the best HTML editor out there - most IT folks frown upon it, but I'm not an IT guy and I like things easy!).
It basically gives you the ability to design a site like you would using a graphic design package, then creates the code for it. You draw it rather than code it.
Summary The best thing about MS Office applications is that it is very easy to transfer data from one to another.
For example, you can have a database of names and addresses in MS Access and transfer it to a MS Word letter your wrote, then merge them. This will print out a copy of your letter for everyone on your database (with names and addresses changed appropriately).
Another great thing is that they all share a similar interface. So, by learning how to use one, you are already started off learning the rest (this is why I use MS FrontPage to design this site - I was already good with MS Word and MS Access, so it was easy for me to pick up MS FrontPage!).
Regards Scott Boyd - Webmaster and Founder - Jobseekers Advice
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
