Brief overview of Common wordprocessing documents

1. Different document types

2. Objectives
The students will be able to explain the
differences between:
– A memo,
– A business letter
– Fax
– An agenda
– Minutes
And use the correct one in a given situation.

3. Memo
• Memo, a shortened form of Memorandum
• Purpose:
– A document containing information to be
remembered.
– Frequently to a group.
– Often manager to subordinate, less frequently
subordinate to manager.
– Has a formal structure.
More here and also this and this

4. Business Letters
• A standard format formal correspondence.
• Clearly identifiable sections
– Heading – the from address
– Recipient – the to address
– Salutation – the greeting
– Body – the letter contents
– Close – match to the greeting
– Signature – of the author or pp
UK Format, US Format

5. Agenda
• Formal schedule for the business of a meeting
– Welcome/open meeting/Call to order
– Apologies for absence & attendees
– Approve minutes of the previous meeting
– Matters arising from the previous meeting
– A list of specific points to be discussed
– Any other business (AOB) — allowing a participant to raise
another point for discussion.
– Arrange/announce details of next meeting
– Close meeting
• Points are numbered for ease of reference.

6. Minutes
• A report on a meeting.
• As the points on the agenda are numbered,
these minutes refer back to those points.
• Record all decisions including voting
• Record items as “report on… presented by”.
• Minutes of 1 meeting become agenda item in
following meeting.
Read this or this for more

7. Fax
• Short form of Facsimile
Text or graphic image scanned
Electronically transmitted
And recreated at the destination
• Frequently used for news reports
• Often used for placing orders
• Greatly replaced by scanning and email.

8. Hard and Soft returns
• The Show Paragraph-marks icon displays the
end of line symbols.
– Usually a Hard Return this is the Carriage return
with line feed set as the end of paragraph
( ¶ ) this is the normal End of Paragraph.
– A Soft return is a carriage return with single line
feed. This is NOT an end of paragraph.
– In Word processing they are treated differently

9. Breaks
• A break is a way of dividing a document into
parts. Word uses different types of break.
– Page Break <Ctrl>+enter
• Moves typing to the next page -
– Section break (no keyboard shortcuts)
• Continuous or new page, can specify odd or even for
the next page – Book chapters, report sections
• Each section can have different headers and footers
– Column break
• Allows a new column to be forced at a given point.