# Detailed Guides: Document Creation, Storage, and Printing

This section of the documentation will cover everything you need to know about starting a new document, saving a document, retrieving a saved document and printing a document.

## Beginning a New Document

Starting a new document can be done 5 ways:

- You can start &kword; from the &kde; Panel.

- You can start &kword; from the command line by typing

      $kword &

- You can begin a new document in &kword; by selecting File New from the menubar.

- You can use the keyboard shortcut: &Ctrl;N

- or by clicking on the toolbar.

However you begin a new document, a dialog box appears:

This dialog box allows you to:

- Start a new document from a template

- Open an existing document

- Open a recent document

&kword; remembers your previous choice. That previous choice will be the current default option.

### Starting a new document from a template

In order to start a new document based on a template, you must first choose which template you want to use.

1. Use the icons located along the left edge of the dialog box to select your template group. Simply click with the &LMB; to select that group and display all the available templates of that group.

   Remember templates are either Text Oriented or Page Layout templates. If you need to review the differences, click here.

   Once you have selected the icon, you are shown all the available templates, each with a title and a small icon which shows you the general layout of the template.

   &kword; comes with four standard template groups. You can add new icons by installing outside templates, or creating templates of your own.

2. To select your template, click on it with the &LMB;. The selected template will be highlighted.

3. Confirm your choice by clicking the OK button. This will begin a new document with that template.

For faster access to a template, simply double click on the template, and &kword; will immediately load that template.

### Opening an existing document

Click on the Open Existing Document tab, and an new dialog box is revealed. For more details on this dialog box refer to Using the file selection dialog.

#### Open a Recent Document

&kword; keeps track of the most recently edited documents. You can select one of these documents by clicking on the tab labeled Open a recent document. This will list the most recently edited files on the system. Simply click on the icon of the desired file with the &LMB; and click OK.

## Saving a Document

Once you have entered text and data into a document, you will usually want to save this to a file on your hard drive.

&kword; can create a `.pdf` file for you. For instructions see How do I create a `.pdf` file?

### The Save Command

The Save command can be invoked 3 ways:

- By selecting File Save from the Menubar

- You can use the keyboard shortcut: &Ctrl;S

- or by clicking on the toolbar.

Any of these methods results in the same action by &kword;.

By selecting the Save command, you are instructing &kword; to save the file under the current filename. You will not be given the option to change the filename or its location. If you want to change the name of the file, or where it is saved, you must select File Save As... from the Menubar.

If you have not saved this file before, it does not have a filename. &kword; automatically executes the Save As... command so you can provide a file name.

&kword; does not report a successful save. Therefore, if the file was saved without incident, &kword; will return you to editing your document.

You can verify that the file was saved, by checking the titlebar. If there are unsaved changes, the titlebar will have [modified] in the titlebar.

If the save was successful, only the filename will be in the titlebar. If there is a problem with the save, an error box will appear.

### The Save As.. Command

#### General

The Save As... command can be invoked 2 ways:

- By selecting File Save As... from the Menubar

- or by trying to Save a file which does not yet have a filename.

The difference between the Save and the Save As... command, is the Save As... command prompts you for a filename, and lets you select a different file format or location. The Save command simply saves the file in the previous location.

#### Using the dialog box

When you select Save As... a dialog appears.

For more information on using this dialog, see the section entitled Using the file selection dialog.

When you are in the folder you want to save the file in, type a filename into the Location box.

&kword; can create a `.pdf` file for you. For instructions see How do I create a `.pdf` file.

There is no need to put a `.kwd` at the end of your filename, &kword; will do this for you.

&UNIX; filenames are more flexible than many other operating systems. Filenames can:

- be of nearly any length

- be any combination of upper and lowercase letters

- include spaces and punctuation

Filenames should not:

- begin with a space or period

- end with a common file extension (`.ps`,`.pdf`,etc).

Once you have entered the correct information you can click on OK to complete the save.

&kword; does not report a successful save. Therefore, if the file was saved without incident, &kword; will return you to editing your document. If there is a problem with the save, an error box will appear.

&kword; will only allow you to save your file where you are allowed to by the permissions listed by the operating system. If you try to save outside that area, &kword; will report an error.

## Retrieving a Saved Document

The Open command can be invoked 4 ways:

- By clicking the Open Existing Document tab when Opening a New Document

- By selecting File Open from the menubar

- You can use the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl O

- or by clicking on the toolbar.

Any of these methods results in the same action by &kword;.

### Using the dialog box

When trying to open a file, a dialog appears.

For more information on using this dialog, see the section entitled Using the file dialog.

Use this dialog to locate the document you want to load. Once located, click once with the &LMB; on the filename. Once the filename is selected click OK. The file will be loaded.

There is a Cancel button, if you click this button, the load will be aborted.

## Printing A Document

The Print command can be invoked 3 ways:

- By selecting File Print... from the menubar

- You can use the keyboard shortcut: &Ctrl;P

- or by clicking on the toolbar.

No matter how you do this, the &kde; print dialog will appear.

The top combo box labeled Name: shows the currently selected printer. To configure this printer click on the Properties button.

To select a different printer, click on the combo box and select the desired printer.

If you want to print your output into a postscript file, to a PDF file, a fax modem (to send it as a fax) or email the file as a PDF file, select the appropriate option from the combo box labeled Name. Once that option has been selected, enter the filename into the text box labled Output File:.

The line labled State tells you if your printer is currently connected and if it is printing another page. You can not change any information on this line.

The lines labled Type and Location tells you what type of printer is currently selected and where that printer is located. You can not change any information on these lines.

The line labled Comment describes how &kword; interacts with your computer (what driver and print system it is using). You can not change anything on this line. Complete setup of the &kde; printing system is beyond the scope of this document. For more information see the &kde; print web site at http://printing.kde.org.

If you want to print all pages of your document and only one copy, you can click OK. If you want to change the number of copies or only print selected pages, click the Expand button.

The System Options... button allows a user to change the setup of the printers and &kde; print system. This is also beyond the scope of this manual. If you need to make changes please refer to the &kde; print web site at http://printing.kde.org.

Depending on which printing system your computer uses, you may find that you have more printing options then those described below. What is described here, is available on most systems.

Once you click Expand, the dialog box changes to:

Under Page Selection, you can select either to print the whole document (select All), print the page the cursor is located on (simply select Current), or print a range of pages. If you select the Print Range option, enter your page range in the text box provided. (Example: 3-13)

In the combo box labeled Page Set: you can tell &kword; to print the Even pages, the Odd pages or All pages.

In the box on the right labeled Copies:, you should set the number of copies you want printed. You can either enter the number directly into the box, or use the arrows to adjust the number. &kword; can print a maximum of 999 copies at once.

You can have &kde; collate your documents by clicking on the Collate check box. If selected, &kde; will print all of the pages for copy 1, then print all the pages for copy 2, &etc; If not selected, &kde; will print all of the copies of the first page, then all of the copies of the second page, &etc;

You can also determine if the document is printed in forward order (print first page first), or reverse order (print last page first).

If you click on Collapse, the print dialog will compress down to the previous view.

Depending on your systems setup, you may have additional options available to you. These options are discussed at http://printing.kde.org.

When you are satisfied with your selections, you can click OK to print.

If you click on Cancel, the printing will be aborted.