LPL Creative Graphics Practicum : Microsoft Paint

Microsoft Paint!
A Creative Graphics Practicum presented by Lakewood Public Library.

The Menus

Knowing how to use menu commands is a basic Windows skill. But just in case you’re a real beginner, we’ll do a quick recap.

Overview

The Menus appear directly beneath the Title Bar in the window. There are six menus in the Paint window, which I’ve circled in red to emphasize.

We call them "Menus" because they work like a menu at a fast food restaurant. When you want to place an order at a restaurant, you look up on the wall for what you want, and if you see it, then you select it. The computer

works the same way. You just look in the menu, then select the item that you want. Because a complete list of all the items on the menu would take up a lot of screen space that could be better used for other things, the menu items "hide" most of the time. To bring up a menu in its entirety, just click on the Menu’s heading, and the rest of the menu will "pull down".

Here we see the File menu, which we’ve pulled down (by clicking on the word File, naturally). Now we can see the entire contents of the file menu. Let’s take a look at the anatomy of this menu in greater detail.

If you prefer to use the keyboard over the mouse, you’ll want to take notice of the shortcut features. To the right of some of the commands you’ll see a keystroke command shortcut to the right. For instance, to create a New file, you could click on File to pull down the File Menu, then click on New. Or, you could just press Ctrl-N on the keyboard. Since your hands remain on the keyboard, this can save you a few seconds, which may not seem like much but it adds up. This time-saver is of less vital importance in a program like Paint, where you’ll be using the mouse a great deal, but it’s still good to know about.

You can also execute menu commands by using the keyboard in a different way. Notice how each menu command has a letter underlined somewhere in it? These are clues to understanding the other keyboard shortcut method. To use this method, all you need to do is press the Alt key, then the letter that is underlined in the command that you want to use. For instance, to look at the Print Preview, you can click on File to pull down the File Menu, then click on "Print Preview". Or, you could press Alt-F, then V.

Just like at most fast food places, if what you want is not on the menu, then you can’t get it. Also, some menu items may not be available to you at all times. When this is the case, that item will appear "grayed out". For example, you’ll notice that the commands "Set as Wallpaper (Tiled)" and "Set as Wallpaper (Centered)" were not available in the menu above. But they remain listed so you know where they’ll be when you’re at the point in using the program where those options can be used.

We’re going to learn how to use the various commands in each of the menus in Microsoft Paint, starting with the Help Menu.

	We call them "Menus" because they work like a menu at a fast food restaurant. When you want to place an order at a restaurant, you look up on the wall for what you want, and if you see it, then you select it. The computer
works the same way. You just look in the menu, then select the item that you want. Because a complete list of all the items on the menu would take up a lot of screen space that could be better used for other things, the menu items "hide" most of the time. To bring up a menu in its entirety, just click on the Menu’s heading, and the rest of the menu will "pull down".