Common Tasks

Navigating Documents

Scrolling
You're probably familiar with the scrollbar that appears on the right side (and sometimes the bottom) of documents, allowing you to move within documents. However, there are several other ways you can navigate documents, some of which are faster and easier.
Several mice have a wheel in the middle. You can move it up and down to scroll within a document. If you press the key while using the mouse wheel, the document will scroll faster.
If you're using a portable computer like a laptop, you might also be able to scroll using the touchpad. Some computers allow you to scroll vertically by moving your finger up and down the rightmost side of the touchpad, and allow you to scroll horizontally by moving your finger across the bottommost side of the touchpad. Others let you scroll using two fingers: move both fingers up and down anywhere on the touchpad to scroll vertically, and move them left and right to scroll horizontally. Since this functionality emulates the mouse wheel functionality described above, you can also press the key while you do this to scroll faster.
If you use the , you can control mouse wheel behavior in the Mouse module in , and you can control touchpad scrolling behavior in the Touchpad module in . Otherwise, look in the configuration area of your operating system or desktop environment.
Additionally, the scrollbar has several options in its context menu. You can access these by right-clicking anywhere on the scrollbar. The following options are available:
Scroll here 	Scroll directly to the location represented by where you right-clicked on the scrollbar. This is the equivalent of simply clicking on that location on the scrollbar.
Home Top 	Go to the beginning of the document.
End Bottom 	Go to the end of the document.
PgUp Page up 	Navigate to the previous page in a document that represents a printed document, or one screen up in other types of documents.
PgDn Page down 	Navigate to the next page in a document that represents a printed document, or one screen down in other types of documents.
Scroll up 	Scroll up one unit (usually a line) in the document. This is the equivalent of clicking the up arrow at the top of the scrollbar.
Scroll down 	Scroll down one unit (usually a line) in the document. This is the equivalent of clicking the down arrow at the bottom of the scrollbar.

Zooming
Many applications permit you to zoom. This makes the text or image you are viewing larger or smaller. You can generally find the zoom function in the View menu, and sometimes in the status bar of the application.
You can also zoom using the keyboard by pressing + to zoom in, or - to zoom out. If you can scroll with the mouse wheel or touchpad as described in Scrolling, you can also zoom by pressing and scrolling that way.

Opening and Saving Files

Introduction
Many applications work with files. Most applications have a File menu with options that allow you to open and save files. For more information on that, see . However, there are lots of different operations that require selecting a file. Regardless of the method, all applications generally use the same file selection window.
The File Open Window
The File Open window.
Opening a file in .

The File Selection Window
The Toolbar 	 This contains standard navigation tool buttons:
Back 	Causes the folder view to change to the previously displayed folder in its history. This button is disabled, if there is no previous item.
Forward 	Causes the folder view to change to the next folder in its history. This button is disabled, if there is no next folder.
Parent Folder 	This will cause the folder view to change to the immediate parent of the currently displayed folder, if possible.
Reload (F5) 	Reloads the folder view, displaying any changes that have been made since it was first loaded or last reloaded.
Show Preview 	Displays a preview of each file inside the folder view.
Zoom Slider 	This allows you to change the size of the icon or preview shown in the folder view.
Options 	
Options Sorting 	
Options Sorting By Name 	Sort files listed in the folder view alphabetically by name.
Options Sorting By Size 	Sort files listed in the folder view in order of their file size.
Options Sorting By Date 	Sort files listed in the folder view by the date they were last modified.
Options Sorting By Type 	Sort files listed in the folder view alphabetically by their file type.
Options Sorting Descending 	When unchecked (the default), files in the folder view will be sorted in ascending order. (For instance, files sorted alphabetically will be sorted from A to Z, while files sorted numerically will be sorted from smallest to largest.) When checked, files in the folder will be sorted in descending order (in reverse).
Options Sorting Folders First 	When enabled (the default), folders will appear before regular files.
Options View 	
Options View Short View 	Displays only the filenames.
Options View Detailed View 	Displays Name, Date and Size of the files.
Options View Tree View 	Like Short View, but folders can be expanded to view their contents.
Options View Detailed Tree View 	This also allows folders to be expanded, but displays the additional columns available in Detailed View.
. Options Show Hidden Files 	Displays files or folders normally hidden by your operating system. The alternate shortcut for this action is F8.
F9 Options Show Places Navigation Panel 	Displays the places panel which provides quick access to bookmarked locations and disks or other media.
Options Show Bookmarks 	Displays an additional icon on the toolbar that provides access to bookmarks, a list of saved locations.
Options Show Aside Preview 	Displays a preview of the currently highlighted file to the right of the folder view.
Bookmarks 	Opens a submenu to edit or add bookmarks and to add a new bookmark folder.
Location Bar 	 The location bar, which can be found on top of the folder view, displays the path to the current folder. The location bar has two modes:
Bread Crumb Mode 	 In the bread crumb mode, which is the default, each folder name in the path to the current folder is a button which can be clicked to quickly open that folder. Moreover, clicking the > sign to the right of a folder opens a menu which permits to quickly open a subfolder of that folder.
Screenshot of the location bar in bread crumb mode
Location bar in bread crumb mode.
Location bar in bread crumb mode.
Editable Mode 	 When in bread crumb mode, clicking in the gray area to the right of the path with the switches the location bar to the editable mode, in which the path can be edited using the keyboard. To switch back to bread crumb mode, click the check mark at the right of the location bar with the .
Screenshot of the location bar in editable mode
Location bar in editable mode.
Location bar in editable mode.
The context menu of the location bar offers action to switch between the modes and to copy and paste the path using the clipboard. Check the last option in this context menu to display either the full path starting with the root folder of the file system or to display the path starting with the current places entry.
Location bar context menu
Location bar context menu
The Places List 	This provides the standard list of Places, shared with and other file management tools.
The Folder View 	 The largest part of the file selection window is the area that lists all items in the current directory. To select a file, you can double-click on it, or choose one and hit Open or Save.
You can also select multiple files at once. To select specific files, or to unselect specific files that are already selected, press and hold , click on each file, then release . To select a contiguous group of files, click the first file, press and hold , click on the last file in the group, and release .
The Folder View supports a limited set of file operations, which can be accessed by right-clicking on a file to access its context menu, or using keyboard shortcuts. The following items are available in the context menu:
Create New... 	Create a new file or folder.
Move to Trash... (Del) 	Move the currently selected item to the trash.
Sorting 	This submenu can also be accessed from the toolbar, and is described in Options Sorting.
View 	This submenu can also be accessed from the toolbar, and is described in Options View.
Open File Manager 	Opens the current folder in your default file manager application.
Properties () 	Open the Properties window that allows you to view and modify various types of metadata related to the currently selected file.
The Preview Pane 	If enabled, this displays a preview of the currently highlighted file.
The Name Entry 	When a file is selected, a name will appear in this text box. You may also manually enter a file name or path in this text box.
The Filter Entry 	 When opening a file, the Filter entry allows you to enter a filter for the files displayed in the folder view. The filter uses standard globs; patterns must be separated by white space. For instance, you can enter *.cpp *.h *.moc to display several different common programming files.
To display all files, enter a single asterisk (*).
The filter entry saves the last 10 filters entered between sessions. To use one, press the arrow button on the right of the entry and select the desired filter string. You can disable the filter by pressing the Clear text button to the left of the autocompletion arrow button.
When saving a file, the Filter entry will instead display a drop down box that allows you to select from all the file types the application supports. Select one to save a file in that format.
Automatically select filename extension 	When saving a file, this check box will appear. When selected (the default), the application will automatically append the default file extension for the selected file type to the end of the file name, if it does not already appear in the Name entry. The file extension that will be used is listed in parenthesis at the end of the check box label.
The File Save Window
The File Save window.
Saving a file in .
The Open or Save Button 	Depending on the action being performed, an Open or Save button will be displayed. Clicking on this button will close the file selection window and perform the requested action.
The Cancel Button 	Clicking Cancel will close the file dialog without performing any action.

Thanks and Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Google Code-In 2011 participant Alexey Subach for writing parts of this section.

Check Spelling
is the spelling checker used by applications such as , , and . It is a frontend to various free spell checkers.
To use you need to install a spell checker like Aspell, Enchant, Hspell, ISpell or Hunspell and additionally the corresponding dictionaries for the languages that you wish to use.

Check Spelling
The Check Spelling Window
The Check spelling window.
Correcting a misspelling.
To check spelling, go to Tools Spelling....
If a word is possibly misspelled in your document, it is displayed in the top line in the dialog. tries to appropriate word(s) for replacement. The best guess is displayed to the right of Replace with. To accept this replacement, click on Replace.
also allows you to select a word from the list of suggestions and replace the misspelled word with that selected word. With the help of the Suggest button, you can add more suggestions from the dictionary to the suggestions list.
Click on Ignore to keep your original spelling.
Click on Finished to stop spellchecking and keep the changes made.
Click on Cancel to stop spellchecking and cancel the changes already made.
Click on Replace All to automatically replace the misspelled word(s) with the chosen replacement word, if they appear again in your document later.
Click on Ignore All to ignore the spelling at that point and all the future occurrences of the word misspelled.
Click on Add to Dictionary to add the misspelled word to your personal dictionary.
The Personal Dictionary is a distinct dictionary from the system dictionary and the additions made by you will not be seen by others.
The drop down box Language at the bottom of this dialog allows you to switch to another dictionary temporarily.

Automatic Spell Checking
In many applications, you can automatically check spelling as you type. To enable this feature, select Tools Automatic Spell Checking.
Potentially misspelled words will be underlined in red. To select a suggestion, right click on the word, select the Spelling submenu, and select the suggestion. You may also instruct to ignore this spelling for this document by selecting Ignore Word, or you may select Add to Dictionary to save it in your personal dictionary.

Configuring
To change your dictionary, go to Tools Change Dictionary.... A small window will appear at the bottom of the current document that will allow you to change your dictionary.
For more information on configuring , see the Spell Checker module documentation

Thanks and Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Google Code-In 2011 Participant Salma Sultana for writing much of this section.

Find and Replace
The Find function of many applications lets you find specific text in a document, while the Replace function allows you to replace text that is found with different text you provide.
You can find both these functions in the Edit menu of many applications. For more information on this menu, see .

The Find Function
The Find function searches for text in a document and selects it.
The Find Window
The Find window.
Searching for income in .
To use Find in many applications, go to Edit Find... or press F. Then, in the Text to find: text box, enter the text that you want to find.
If Regular expression is checked you will be able to search using regular expressions. Click on Edit to select from and enter commonly used regular expression characters, like White Space or Start of Line. If is installed, you can find more information on writing regular expressions in its documentation.
You can limit the found results by configuring these options:
Case sensitive 	Capital and lowercase characters are considered different. For example, if you search for This, results that contain this will not be returned.
Whole words only 	By default, when the application searches for text, it will return results even in the middle of other text. For instance, if you search for is it will stop on every word that contains that, like this or history. If you check this option, the application will only return results when the search text is a word by itself, that is, surrounded by whitespace.
From cursor 	The search will start from the location of the cursor and stop at the end of the text.
Find backwards 	By default, the application searches for the text starting at the beginning of the document, and move through it to the end. If you check this option, it will instead start at the end and work its way to the beginning.
Selected text 	Select this option to search only in the text that is currently selected, not the entire document. It is disabled when no text is selected.
Many applications show a search bar instead of the Find window. See documentation for additional information on the search bar.
The search bar in .
The search bar in .
Searching for software in 's search bar.
The Find function only selects the first match that it finds. You can continue searching by selecting Edit Find Next or by pressing F3.
Example of a Search
Example of a search.
displays a match for KDE.

The Replace Function
The Replace function searches for text in a document and replaces it with other text. You can find it in many application at Edit Replace... or by pressing R.
The Replace Window
The Replace window.
Replacing income with expense in
The window of the Replace function is separated into 3 sections:
Find 	Here you may enter the text you wish to search for. See The Find Function for more information on the options provided here.
Replace 	 Here you may enter the text you wish to replace the found text with.
You can reuse the found text in the replacement text by selecting the Use placeholders checkbox. Placeholders, sometimes known as backreferences, are a special character sequence that will be replaced with all or part of the found text. For instance, \0 represents the entire found string.
You may insert placeholders into the text box by clicking the Insert Placeholder button, then selecting an option from the menu like Complete Match. For example, if you are searching for message, and you want to replace it with messages insert the Complete Match placeholder and add an s. The replace field will then contain \0s.
If is installed, you can learn more about placeholders in the Regular Expressions appendix of its documentation.
Options 	This contains all the same options that the Find function does, with one addition:
If the Prompt on replace option is checked a window will appear on every found word, allowing you to confirm whether you would like to replace the found text.
Many Applications show a search and replace bar instead of the Replace window. See documentation for additional information on the search and replace bar.
The search and replace bar.
The search and replace bar.
Replacing kmail with kate in 's search and replace bar

Thanks and Acknowledgments
Thanks to an anonymous Google Code-In 2011 participant for writing much of this section.

Choosing Fonts
The font selector appears in many different applications. It lets you select the font face, font style, and font size of the text that appears in your application.
The Font Selector
The font selector.
Selecting a font in .
Font 	This is the leftmost selection box, and lets you choose the font face from a list of fonts on your system.
Font style 	 This is the center selection box, and lets you choose the font style from the following choices:
Italic - this displays text in a cursive, or slanted fashion, and is commonly used for citations or to emphasize text.
Regular - the default. Text is displayed without any special appearance.
Bold Italic - a combination of both Bold and Italic
Bold - this displays text in a darker, thicker fashion, and is commonly used for titles of documents or to emphasize text.
Size 	This is the rightmost selection box, and lets you select the size of your text. Font size is measured in points, a standard unit of measure in typography. For more information on this, see the Point (typography) article on Wikipedia.
Preview 	The bottom of the font selector displays a preview of text using the font settings that are currently selected. You may change this text if you wish.

Choosing Colors
The color chooser appears in many applications, whenever you need to select a color. It lets you pick from a Basic colors consisting of many predefined colors or mix your own when you want a specific color.
The Color Selector
The color selector.
Selecting a color in .

Using Basic Colors
The basic colors group is a set of predefined colors. You can find it on the top side of the color chooser window.
To select a color from the basic colors, simply click on it. The color will be displayed at the right of the palette, along with its hexadecimal code

Mixing Colors
The color chooser also lets you mix your own colors. There are several ways to do this:

Using the Grid
The right side of the color chooser contains a large box, and a thinner box immediately to its right. You can use the left box to select the Hue and Saturation of the desired color based on the visual guide provided in the box. The right bar adjusts the Value. Adjust these to select the desired color, which is displayed in the middle of the window.
For more information on Hue, Saturation, and Value, see Hue/Saturation/Value

Using the Screen Colors
The eyedropper tool allows you to select a color from your screen. To use it, select the Pick Screen Color button below the basic colors, and then click anywhere on your screen to select that color.

Hue/Saturation/Value
The lower-right corner of the screen allows you to manually enter the coordinates of the desired color in the Hue/Saturation/Value (HSV) color space. For more information on this, see the HSL and HSV article on Wikipedia.
These values are also updated when selecting a color by other methods, so they always accurately represent the currently selected color.

Red/Green/Blue
The lower-right corner of the screen also allows you to manually enter the coordinates of the desired color in the Red/Green/Blue (RGB) color model. For more information on this, see the RGB color model article on Wikipedia.
These values are also updated when selecting a color by other methods, so they always accurately represent the currently selected color.

Hexadecimal Code
You may enter the hexadecimal code representing the color in the lower-right corner of the screen. For more information on this, see the Web colors article on Wikipedia.
This value is also updated when selecting a color by other methods, so it always accurately represents the currently selected color.

Custom Colors
After selecting a color, you may add it to the Custom Colors group so you can use it later. To do so, click the Add to Custom Colors button.