Chapter 2: Solve tasks using office suite

The use of office suite applications is fundamental for applied biology professionals, especially in the Kenyan context where accurate documentation, data analysis, and professional communication are essential for daily operations. Word processing tools are widely used in preparing laboratory reports, compiling research findings, and drafting official correspondence in hospitals, research institutes, and public health offices. Mastery of these digital skills enhances productivity, ensures data integrity, and supports compliance with regulatory standards. This chapter explores the practical application of word processing within the office suite, focusing on solving workplace tasks efficiently in the field of applied biology.

2.1 Word Processing

A word processor is the program used to write documents, and in a biology laboratory most written work is done with one: standard operating procedures, field trip reports, specimen labels, animal-house records and practical write-ups. This topic explains what word processing is, names the programs in use and then follows the work step by step, from opening a document to printing it. Spreadsheets and presentations, which complete the office suite, follow in their own topics.

2.1.1 Meaning and Importance of Word Processing

Word processing is the use of a computer program to create, edit, format, store and print text documents. Unlike a typewriter, a word processor keeps the text in memory, so a technician can correct a species name, move a paragraph or change a heading without retyping the page. Documents are saved as files and can be copied, e-mailed, printed or converted to PDF.

Word processing matters in biology work for several reasons.

• Accurate records: Typed protocols and reports are legible and can be corrected, so a method can be repeated exactly by another technician.
• Reuse: A template for a field data sheet or a laboratory report is written once and reused for every study.
• Professional presentation: Consistent headings, tables and figures make a report easier to read and to assess.
• Sharing and review: A document can be sent to a supervisor, marked up with comments and returned for correction.
• Storage: Hundreds of documents are kept in folders on a drive and found again within seconds by searching.

2.1.2 Examples of Word Processors

Several word processors are available, and they differ mainly in cost, where the files are kept and how easily several people can edit one file. Microsoft Word is the word processor of Microsoft 365 and is also sold as a one-time purchase edition. Google Docs runs in a web browser and stores files in Google Drive, so it suits shared writing. LibreOffice Writer is free, open-source software that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. WPS Office Writer has a free version with limits and works on phones and tablets as well as computers. Apple Pages comes with Apple computers and tablets.

Choose by asking what the team already uses, whether the files must be edited by several people, whether the work will be done on a phone or tablet, and what the institution can afford. When a document is sent to someone using another program, save a copy in .docx or PDF so that it opens correctly.

2.1.3 Working with Word Documents

Working with a document follows a cycle: open the program, create or open a document, save it, and move between it and any other documents that are open. Doing each step the same way every time prevents lost work and misplaced files.

2.1.3.1 Open and Close Word Processor

A word processor is opened from the Start menu, from its icon on the taskbar or desktop, or by typing its name in the Windows search box. It can also open by double-clicking an existing document, which starts the program and loads the file. Before closing, save the work. The close button at the top right of the window, or the Exit command in the File menu, closes the program, and the program asks whether to save any change that was not saved. Closing the program without saving can lose the field data that were typed in.

2.1.3.2 Create a New Document

On opening, the program offers a blank document and a set of templates. A blank document is used for free writing, and a template is used when the layout is already designed, such as a laboratory report or a meeting minute. To start another document while one is open, use the New command in the File menu or press Ctrl+N. Example: a technician starting a monthly insectary log opens the saved log template instead of a blank page, so that the headings and table are already in place.

2.1.3.3 Save a Document

Saving writes the document from memory to a drive, so that it exists after the program closes. Save a new document at once, choosing a folder and a clear file name. Use Save (Ctrl+S) to update the same file and Save As to keep a second version under a new name or in another format such as PDF. A useful file name carries the subject, the date and the version, for example Soil_Invertebrates_Report_2026-03_v2. When a document is stored in OneDrive or Google Drive, changes can be saved automatically, but the file should still be given a proper name and placed in the right folder.

2.1.3.4 Switch Between Open Documents

Several documents are often open at once, for example a report and the data sheet it is based on. To switch between them, click the program button on the taskbar and pick the document, or hold Alt and press Tab to cycle through the open windows. In Word the View tab also has a Switch Windows command. Keeping the document name clear in the title bar prevents typing into the wrong file.

2.1.4 Enhancing Productivity

Productivity features reduce the effort of routine work. A technician who sets up the program once, knows where help is found and moves around a long document quickly spends the time on the biology and not on the software.

2.1.4.1 Set Basic Options/Preferences

Options control how the program behaves for everyone who uses that computer or account. Useful settings are the default folder for saving, the interval for saving a recovery copy, the proofing language, the measurement units and the name that appears as author. For a laboratory in Kenya set the proofing language to English (United Kingdom) so that British spellings such as colour and analyse are accepted, and use centimetres and millimetres. On a shared laboratory computer, check these settings before starting, since another user may have changed them.

2.1.4.2 Help Resources

Help is built into the program and also available online. Press F1 or use the search or Help box to type a task such as "insert page number" and see the steps. The software maker's support website has articles and short videos, and many programs include guided tutorials for new users. Colleagues who use the program daily, and the laboratory's own procedures for document layout, are also help resources. Read the help text to the end before following it, because steps differ between versions of the program.

2.1.4.3 Use Magnification/Zoom Tools

Zoom changes how large the page appears on screen without changing the printed size. The zoom slider at the bottom right of the window, the Zoom command on the View tab and Ctrl with the mouse wheel all change it. Zoom in to check a small subscript in a chemical formula or to read the fine print of a table. Zoom out to see a whole page layout or two pages side by side before printing.

2.1.4.4 Display, Hide Built-in Toolbar

The ribbon is the band of commands across the top of the window, and the Quick Access Toolbar above it holds a few favourite commands such as Save and Undo. The ribbon can be collapsed to give more room for text, for example on a small laptop screen, and brought back by clicking a tab or pressing Ctrl+F1. Commands used often, such as Save, Print Preview and Undo, can be added to the Quick Access Toolbar. Contextual tabs, such as Table Design or Picture Format, appear only when a table or a picture is selected and disappear afterwards. In LibreOffice Writer, toolbars such as Drawing are shown or hidden from the View menu under Toolbars.

2.1.4.5 Using Navigation Tools

Navigation tools move quickly through a long document such as a field season report. The scroll bars and the mouse wheel move gradually, the Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End keys jump to the start and the end, and Page Up and Page Down move one screen at a time. The Navigation pane lists the headings of the document, so a click on a heading jumps there, and its search box finds every use of a word, such as a sample code. The Go To command moves to a page, a table or a bookmark.

2.1.4.6 Typing Text

Text is typed at the blinking insertion point, and the program wraps lines automatically, so Enter is pressed only to end a paragraph. Leave one space after a full stop and use the Tab key or paragraph indents, not a row of spaces, to move text across. Careful typing saves editing time: keep both hands on the home row, look at the screen and not at the keys, and correct a mistake with Backspace at once. Scientific text has its own conventions. A binomial name is written in italics with a capital letter for the genus and a lower-case species name, symbols such as °C, µm and × are inserted from the symbol list, and a number and its unit are separated by a space.

2.1.5 Document Editing

Editing changes content that already exists: correcting, moving, deleting and checking text. Select the text first by dragging or by holding Shift with the arrow keys, then apply the command. Undo (Ctrl+Z) reverses the last action, and Redo (Ctrl+Y) brings it back. Find and Replace locates a word everywhere and can change it throughout the document, which helps when a unit or a site label was typed wrongly in many places. When a document is reviewed by others, Track Changes and Comments show who changed what, and each change is accepted or rejected before the final copy is saved.

2.1.5.1 Copy, Cut, Paste Commands

Copy (Ctrl+C) places a duplicate of the selected text on the clipboard, Cut (Ctrl+X) removes the selection and places it on the clipboard, and Paste (Ctrl+V) inserts the clipboard contents at the insertion point. Use Copy to repeat a standard sentence, such as a safety statement, and Cut to move a paragraph to another position. Pasted text can bring formatting from its source, so use the paste options to keep the destination formatting or to paste text only. Text copied from a web page or another report must be acknowledged, since reusing it without a reference is plagiarism.

2.1.5.2 Spelling and Grammar Check

The program underlines possible spelling errors in red and grammar or style problems in blue or another colour. Right-click an underlined word to see suggestions, or run the full check from the Review tab. Check that the proofing language matches the spelling in use. Scientific names, gene symbols and local plant names are often underlined although they are correct, so add them to the custom dictionary after confirming the spelling in a reference. The check does not find a correctly spelled but wrong word, such as "specie" for "species" in the wrong place, so read the final text through.

2.1.6 Document Formatting

Formatting controls how a document looks, and good formatting helps the reader find information and follow the structure. Formatting is applied to characters, to paragraphs and to the whole document through styles. Apply formatting after the content is correct, and keep it plain and consistent: one font family for the text, a size that is easy to read and a single scheme for headings.

2.1.6.1 Formatting Text

Text formatting changes characters that are selected. The common options are font type, font size, bold, italic, underline, font colour and highlight. Subscript and superscript are important in science: H₂O and CO₂ need subscript, and m² or 10³ need superscript. Italics mark scientific names and the titles of books, and bold is used for headings or for table column titles. Avoid decorative fonts and many colours in a report, because they distract and may print poorly.

2.1.6.2 Formatting Paragraph

Paragraph formatting affects a whole paragraph at once, whatever part of it is selected. Settings include line spacing, space before and after a paragraph, indents and bulleted or numbered lists. Line spacing of one and a half or double is used for drafts that will be commented on. Numbered lists suit procedures in which order matters, such as the steps of a laboratory method, and bulleted lists suit items without an order, such as a list of equipment.

2.1.6.3 Formatting Styles

A style is a saved set of formatting that is applied in one click, such as Heading 1, Heading 2, Title and Normal. Using styles for headings, and not manual bold and size, keeps all headings the same and lets the program build a table of contents automatically from them. When a style is changed, every paragraph that uses it changes too, which saves time in a long document. A laboratory can keep its own template with styles already set, so that all its reports look alike.

2.1.6.4 Alignment

Alignment sets how lines sit between the margins. Left alignment leaves the right edge uneven and is easiest to read for body text. Centre alignment is suited to titles and figure captions. Right alignment is used for page numbers and for numbers in a table column, so that the units line up. Justified text makes both edges straight, but it can leave wide gaps between words in narrow columns.

2.1.7 Creating and Formatting Tables

A table arranges information in rows and columns, and it is the usual way to present specimen lists, measurements and comparisons. Each box in a table is a cell, a horizontal line of cells is a row and a vertical line of cells is a column. A table is better than a paragraph when the reader needs to compare values.

2.1.7.1 Creating Tables

Create a table with the Insert command by choosing the number of columns and rows, or by dragging across a grid. Existing text separated by tabs or commas can be converted into a table. Plan the columns first: for a specimen register they may be specimen number, species, site, date and collector. Type a clear heading in the first row, and add rows by pressing Tab in the last cell.

The table below is a hypothetical example.

2.1.7.2 Formatting Tables

Formatting makes a table readable. Adjust column widths to fit the content, merge cells for a heading that spans columns, and apply borders and light shading to separate rows and the header. Align text on the left and numbers on the right, and keep the same number of decimal places in a column. Set the first row to repeat at the top of each page when a table runs onto several pages. Give each table a number and a caption above it, for example Table 1: Specimens collected at the study sites.

2.1.8 Graphical Objects

Graphical objects are pictures, shapes, charts and diagrams placed in a document to explain what words alone cannot. A photograph of a specimen, a map of a study area or a diagram of a food chain often communicates faster than a paragraph. Every graphical object should be relevant, clear, given a caption and acknowledged if it came from another source.

2.1.8.1 Insert Object (Picture, Drawn Object)

A picture is inserted from a file stored on the computer, or from a camera or scanner, using the Insert tab. A drawn object is created inside the program from shapes such as rectangles, arrows and lines, and from text boxes, for example to label parts of a diagram. Place the insertion point where the object should appear before inserting it. Pictures taken from the internet may be protected by copyright, so use your own photographs or images that may be reused with an acknowledgement.

2.1.8.2 Select an Object

An object must be selected before it can be changed. Click once on it, and small square handles appear around it, which means it is selected. To select several objects, hold Ctrl or Shift while clicking each one, and use the Selection pane to select an object that is hidden behind another. Press Delete to remove a selected object, and click on blank space to deselect.

2.1.8.3 Edit an Object

Editing changes the object itself. Drag a corner handle to resize it while keeping its proportions, because dragging a side handle stretches the picture and distorts it. Use Crop to remove unwanted edges, Rotate to turn the object and the picture corrections to adjust brightness and contrast. A micrograph with a scale bar must keep its proportions when resized, or the scale bar no longer matches the magnification. Compressing large pictures reduces the file size and makes the document easier to send.

2.1.8.4 Format an Object

Formatting changes how an object looks and how it sits with the text. Text wrapping decides whether text flows around the object, stops above and below it or lets the object sit in line with the text. Borders, shadows and outlines can be added, and several shapes can be grouped so that they move together. Use the caption command to number a figure, and add alternative text describing the picture, so that a reader using a screen reader knows what it shows.

2.1.9 Document Print Setup

Print setup prepares the page layout before printing, so that what appears on paper matches what is on the screen. It is done before printing to avoid wasting paper and ink on pages that must be reprinted.

2.1.9.1 Page Layout

Page layout settings include paper size, orientation, margins, columns, headers, footers and page numbers. A4 is the standard office paper size in Kenya, and the page size in the program must match the paper in the printer. A header usually carries the title or the document number, and a footer carries the page number and the date. Laboratory forms often use a header with the form number and a footer with the page number as page x of y.

2.1.9.2 Margins Setup

Margins are the blank spaces between the text and the edges of the paper. Choose the preset Normal, Narrow or Wide margins, or enter exact values in centimetres. Margins that are too narrow may be cut off by the printer, and wide margins reduce the room for text. Leave extra space on the binding side for a report that will be punched or bound.

2.1.9.3 Orientation

Orientation is the direction in which the page is turned. Portrait is taller than it is wide and suits most reports and letters. Landscape is wider than it is tall and suits wide tables, such as a datasheet with many columns, and large charts. Orientation can be changed for the whole document or, using section breaks, for selected pages only.

2.1.10 Word Document Printing

Printing produces a hardcopy of the document. First check the document in print preview to see page breaks, margins and the position of tables and pictures, and correct problems before using paper. Then print by following these steps.

1. Save the document, so that nothing is lost if the printer or the computer fails.
2. Open the Print command from the File menu or press Ctrl+P, and the print preview appears.
3. Select the printer to use, and check that it is online and has paper and toner or ink.
4. Choose what to print: all pages, the current page or a range such as 2-4.
5. Set the number of copies, whether to print on one side or both sides, and whether to collate the copies.
6. Select black and white or colour, and choose draft quality if the page is only for checking.
7. Click Print, and collect the first page to check it before printing the rest of a long document.

When no printer is available, or the document is to be e-mailed, use Save as PDF so that the layout stays the same on any computer.

Chapter Summary

This chapter provided a comprehensive overview of how to solve tasks using an office suite, beginning with word processing. It covered the meaning and significance of word processors, explored popular examples, and explained essential operations such as opening, creating, saving, and managing documents. The discussion extended to enhancing productivity through customization, navigation, and editing tools, along with techniques for formatting text, paragraphs, tables, and inserting graphical objects. Document print setup and printing procedures were also addressed. The chapter then shifted focus to spreadsheets, outlining their importance, main components, typical application areas, and the structure of spreadsheet interfaces. It detailed data entry, manipulation using formulas and functions, data organization, and visualization through charts, as well as worksheet printing. Lastly, the chapter examined electronic presentations, identifying their purpose, common software, and core application features. Learners explored slide creation, content management, formatting, the integration of tables and charts, and the use of graphical elements. The chapter concluded with guidelines for preparing presentation outputs, including effects, transitions, checks, and printing slides or handouts.