Mike
McBride

# Fundamentals

This section of the documentation discusses starting &kword;, introduces the user to templates and discusses an important difference between two major types of templates.

## Starting &kword;

&kword; can be started one of four ways:

1. You can select &kword; through the system menus, under: K-Button Office KWord.

2. If you are in a terminal program (&konsole;, Xterm, &etc;), you can type:

       $ kword &

   Or

       $ kword filename &

3. Using &konqueror;, you can click on your data file (&kword; documents end in `.kwd`). This will automatically start &kword; and begin editing the file.

4. Using the &koffice; Workspace.

## An Introduction to Templates

OK, so the first question a new user may have is:

Why do I need to use a frames based word processor, when I am perfectly happy writing my letters on my current (page layout) word processor?

Well the good news is, adjusting to a frames based word processor is easy and once a template is selected, &kword; can act just like a page layout word processor. There are templates available for simple correspondence and day to day use.

When a more complex document (newsletters, posters, &etc;) needs to be created, you will not need to switch to a different application to generate these special documents. There are templates in &kword; which will help generate newsletters or other more complicated documents.

What are templates and what can they do for the user?

A template can be thought of as an initial mold for a document.

When a user sits down to write a document, they already have an idea of what the final product will look like. If they are writing a letter to a business, a document with only one column, which goes all the way across the page, and from top to bottom of the page is appropriate. When a user sits down to author a newsletter for a local organization, however, they may want a large title across the top, and several columns for quick news articles.

With &kword;, this predetermined notion of how the document should look is used to select a template. By using a template, a set of frames is created to approximate this final layout. For a business letter, a document with one large frame that covers the page from top to bottom and side to side would be selected. For a newsletter, however, a two or three column document is more appropriate. Once this template is selected, &kword; will create the frames automatically.

What if the user decides to change the layout after a template is selected?

This is not a problem. If a document begins as a single column document and it is decided later that two columns is better, another column can be added. The purpose of templates is not to limit the ability to change the layout of a document, but rather to take some of the work load off the user whenever possible. Choosing the correct template when beginning a document will simplify the formatting (as opposed to always selecting the default template and making changes later). Choosing the wrong template will not limit the flexibility of the document later on.

The next section, consists of one more important topic which you should understand before we begin using &kword;.

## The difference between Text Oriented and Page Layout templates

It is vital that the difference between Text Oriented and Page Layout templates is clear in your mind.

Text Oriented

  The Text Oriented templates are designed to act like page-oriented word processors. When you select a Text Oriented template, you will create a template with one or more frames. The first frame is distinctly tied to the paper size of your document. When you increase or decrease the paper size or change the margins, the frame size is automatically adjusted. You are not able to move this frame around on the page and you cannot delete this frame. If you need to adjust the size or position of this frame, you must adjust the margins. On top of the first frame, you can, of course, add additional frames. These frames can contain pictures, text or whatever you want. These new frames can be moved, re-sized and deleted to suit your needs. If you want it, &kword; will even wrap the text from the first frame around any information in any subsequent frames.

Page Layout

  These templates are designed for desktop publishing. When you select a template from this class, all of the frames are created equal. This is where the difference between Page Layout and Text Oriented template lies. None of the frames in a Page Layout template are tied to the page as tightly as the main frame in a Text Oriented template is. Each of the frames is independent of the page size, and can be moved or re-sized without changing margins, &etc; Of course this also means that altering the margins or paper size of your document requires that you individually move/resize each frame.

  In addition to not having a main text frame, Page Layout documents cannot use the automatic headers or footers (though these can be added in as frames). Additionally, footnotes must be managed by hand while in Page Layout Mode.

As you can see, the choice between Page Layout and Text Oriented templates is a choice between flexibility (Page Layout) and convenience (Text Oriented). You can create any document you like with either type of template.

If the concept of templates is still unclear, please follow along with the following tutorial. The first document you create will use a Page Layout template. This should help clarify exactly how templates function.