August 14, 2013

Shortnotes on MS Office for Competitive Exams - Introduction

Wednesday, August 14, 2013 Basics of Computers, computer knowledge 6 comments

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Friends, now a days in every competitive exam they are asking questions from Computer Knowledge / Awareness section. So, today we shall discuss about MS Office, one of the crucial areas of Computer Knowledge section. After completion of reading this post you will be able to answer the basic questions from MS Office, Its Types, Functionalities and Usage.

What is MS Office ?

The word MS stands for MicroSoft (an American multinational software corporation who is the developer of Office). In simple words we can say that MS Office is a computer Programme / Software which is use to perform various office related tasks making files, drawing graphs, typing letters, creating tables, making Presentation etc. MS Office is a suite of productivity tools consisting of word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation and personal information. In simple words its a virtual representation of all the tools you use in your Office. It comes as a combination of MS Word, MS Excel, MS Powerpoint, MS Publisher etc.

These applications are intimately connected to each other. I mean, information can be shared among multiple applications. For example, you can insert part of an Excel spreadsheet in a word document, or you can use data from Outlook schedule to build a Power Point presentation. This type of facility is often referred to as Object Linking and Embedding.

Versions :

MS Office 1.6
MS Office 3.0
MS Office 4.0
MS Office 4.2
MS Office 4.3
MS Office95
MS Office97 Std, Pro, Dev
MS Office 2000
MS Office XP
MS Office 2003
MS Office 2007
MS Office 2010
MS Office 2013

Note : While writing this post my brother asked, "Why don't you include Vista, 7 and 8 versions??". Guys, don't be confused with the versions of Windows and MS Office. Windows is an operating system. For which you have various versions like Microsoft Windows 95, 2000, 2003, ME, XP, Vista, 7 and 8. Microsoft Office is just an interactive software which helps you to make your office work simpler. These both are not same. Even you can run your computer without using MS Office software in it.

And one more thing you should keep in mind is, we Indians are still using MS Office Versions 2000 and XP in government offices. So the questions will be focused on those versions only.

The most of GUI and and Control features are common to all the applications of Microsoft Office. Some of the important application programs of MS Office suits include are :

MS Word : It is the word processing application that allows user to create documents and reposts.
MS Excel : It is a spreadsheet Application that allows users to develop spreadsheets and display data in various tabular and visual formats.
MS Power Point : This is a presentation application that allows users to create multimedia presentations for displaying information in a graphical format.
MS Access : It is a database application that stores information that can be manipulated, stored, and filtered to meet users specific needs.
MS Outlook : It is a desktop information management application that includes tools like e-mail, document management and calender scheduling.
Front Page : It is a web page editor application that allows users to create professional looking web pages for the Internet.

Based on the version there are other types of applications too. But for competitive exams, first three from the above mentioned list are enough.

Now lets have a look at some Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) on MS Office

MS Excel MCQs