Chapter 2. Main Operations

Insert text

It is assumed that the reader has some basic keyboard skills. The following section summarises some of the important points above enter and editing text via the keyboard. As there is some variation in the position of keys on different keyboards, the position of the keys is not shown.

Paragraphs

To end a paragraph and begin a new line, press the Enter key. Pressing the Enter key a second time inserts a blank line following the end of the paragraph.

If you press Shift+Enter, you will create a new line but not a new paragraph. Sometimes this is referred to as a soft break. The effect appears to be the same as that of pressing Enter, but there is a subtle difference. If you were to use the Format->Paragraph command, Writer would treat all text on either side of the soft break as part of the same paragraph.

The technical meaning of a paragraph in Writer's terminology is therefore slightly different to that of ordinary usage.

Deleting text

There are two keys on the keyboard that allow you to delete text. The Del key deletes text under the cursor while the Backspace key deletes text to the left of the cursor.

Using the keyboard to navigate around a document

Key	Function	+Ctrl key
Right/left arrow keys	Moves the cursor one character to the left or to the right.	Moves the cursor one word to the left or to the right.
Up/down arrow keys	Moves the cursor up or down one line.	(Ctrl+Alt) Moves the current paragraph up or down.
Home	Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current line.	Moves the cursor to the beginning of the document.
Home in a Table	Moves the cursor to the beginning of the contents in the current cell.	Moves the cursor to the beginning of the contents of the current cell. Press again to move the cursor to the first cell in the table. Press again to move the cursor to the beginning of the document.
End	Moves the cursor to the end of the current line.	Moves the cursor to the end of the document
End in a Table	Moves to the end of the contents in the current cell.	Moves the cursor to the end of the contents of the current cell. Press again to move the cursor to the last cell in the table. Press again to move the cursor to the end of the document.
PgUp	Scrolls up one page.	Moves the cursor to the header.
PgDn	Scroll down one page.	Moves the cursor to the footer.

Insert special characters, symbols

The keyboard allows you to enter most of the text you require. Further, there are numerous keyboards available for different languages that allow you to enter the characters that are commonly used in those languages. When the operating system is installed, whether Linux or Windows, one of the things that has to be defined is the language of the keyboard.

Whatever keyboard you are using, Writer allows you to enter hundreds of other characters and special symbols not available on the keyboard.

Enter a special character or symbol

Position the cursor at the point where you wish to insert the special character or symbol.
Insert->Special character.
Select the Subset to locate the character you wish to insert.
Highlight the character and press OK.


Adjust Settings		Select Data