Overview of Newscape Composer


Let's look at a Fragment of Example 1 to see what is required and then let's reproduce example 1, without student names, to show how tedious it can be.

The first set of instructions will insert the page title in the document.  This is easy stuff and not too tedious.

  1. Open up a new Composer window and size it and this screen so these instructions and the result can be seen in Composer.
  2. Type in Class Participation c/r
  3. Type in Algebra 1 - Period 5 c/r
  4. Hold down both the Ctrl and Shift keys on the keyboard and press Home key.
  5. Click on the far right icon in the tool bar of Composer and click on the Centering icon.
  6. Move the cursor up to the top of the page (Ctrl-Home) and set the style to Heading 1
  7. Arrow the cursor down one line and set the style to Heading 1.
  8. Press Ctrl-End to get to the bottom of the document.
We have now completed the easy stuff.  It is time for the hard part - creating a table and inserting both a table and a line in each cell.  We are going to create only a one row, two column table.  That will be enough to understand that the fun has stopped.  Work has begun.
  1. In the Menu Bar click on Insert, then on Table, then on Table again.  In the New Table Properties  dialog box simply click OK.  We will not change anything here at this time.
  2. Click the cursor into cell 1.  Right mouse click and select Table Properties.
    1. Select the Cell tab.
    2. Set Horizontal Alignment  to Center.
    3. Set Vertical Alignement  to Top.
    4. Check Cell weidth  and set to 72 pixels (drop down list box).
    5. Check Cell height  and set to 144 pixels.
    6. Click on OK
  3. Press the tab  key and repeat the instructions of step 2 for cell 2.
  4. Now we will insert a borderless 1x1 table in each cell.  With the cursor in the first cell. Repeate the instructions in the step 1 above to insert a table in the cell except do not click on OK yet.  There are some property modifications to make:
    1. Set the number of columns to 1.
    2. Set Table Alignment to Center.
    3. Uncheck the Border line width check box then click on OK.  The tables in the cell are to be borderless.
    4. Now click OK.
    5. Right mouse click with the cursor in the new cell.  Select Table Properties.  On the Cell page click on Center for Horizontal Alignment. Click OK.
  5. Click inside the inner table and type a single space.
  6. In the Menu Bar click on Insert, then on Horizontal line.
  7. Click in cell 2 and repeat instructions 4 thru 6 to insert a similar table and line in cell 2.
That was for only two cells. Just imagine what 24 cells would be like.