Learn Any Computer Program in 5 Easy Steps -- Step 3 pt 4

Over the last week, we have been looking at how to learn any computer program. We learned what to look for when reading the box and how to use the quickstart guide to get a quick grasp of the program. We also went through the menu to look at the common menu items.

Toolbars

Many programs today have toolbars. In fact, toolbars are so useful and quick to access that some programs may even be hiding the regular menu in favor of the toolbars, so it is important to know what some of the most common options are.

What options you will see in the toolbar depend greatly on the program that you are using. Some toolbars will only appear when you are doing certain functions in a program, but most programs have a toolbar that is always visible of some kind.

For example, in your browser, you probably have at least 5 buttons on your toolbar. A Back arrow, a Forward arrow, an arrow that circles around for Refreshing the page, a Stop Sign button, and a Home button. Each of these are tasks that are commonly performed when viewing web pages.

One of the great things about the toolbars today is that many of them will give you a "tool tip", or a little window that pops up when you move the mouse cursor over the icon that tells you what that button does. When you don't know for sure what a button does, this is a great way to find out.

Some of the common buttons you will see on nearly all programs are the file function buttons. These include buttons to create New files, to Open existing files, to Save or Print the current document, and maybe even a Print Preview button. You may also find a set of editing buttons that allow you to Undo or Redo tasks, options to Cut, Copy, and Paste. There could be a button to access the Find and Replace feature, a Zoom button, and a Help button.

On a program where you edit text, you will find a drop box to select your Font, and another to set the Font Size. You will also find buttons for Bold, Italics, and Underline. You will find 4 justification buttons for Left, Right, Both, and Center. There could also be buttons to toggle Numbering and Bullets, buttons to Increase and Decrease indents, and to set Font and Background Colors. Most programs have buttons that will be specific to that program, so be aware that there are likely to be more.

Some common buttons in graphics programs may be Paintbrush, Pencil, Airbrush, Gradient, Select, Bucket Fill, Resize, and Move. Graphic programs will probably have a lot more than this, but these seem to be fairly common across all graphics programs.

Remember, this is not an exhaustive list, but merely a sampling of some of the most common toolbars that can be found, usually upon first opening a program, or at least a document within a program.

Next time, we'll take one last look at navigating the menu, and see how we can use what we have learned about the basic common elements to most programs to figure out what to pay attention to when looking at a new program.