Professional Documents
Culture Documents
This book has been written using the Visual Steps method.
2011 Visual Steps B.V.
Lay out and editing by Rilana Groot
Translated by Irene Venditti, i-write translation services
Editor in chief: Ria Beentjes
Fifth printing: May 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or
otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act,
without the prior written permission of the Publisher.
LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: While the publisher and author have used their
best efforts in preparing this guide, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the
accuracy or completeness of the contents of this guide and specifically disclaim any implied warranties
of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales
representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be
suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the
publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including
but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages.
Trademarks: Visual Steps is a trademark of Visual Steps B.V. in the Netherlands. Windows is a
registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other
countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Note: this guide contains names of registered trademarks. These names are not indicated by their
trademark symbol, because they are solely used for the purpose of identifying the products which are
mentioned in the text. In no way does this constitute an infringement on the rights of the trademark
owners.
Table of Contents
Foreword ....................................................................................... 4
Newsletter .................................................................................... 4
Introduction to Visual Steps ............................................... 5
What You Will Need ................................................................... 5
How to Use This Guide ............................................................. 6
The Screen Shots ....................................................................... 7
How to Search
Appendix
How Do I Do That Again? ...................................................... 29
Foreword
The Internet has seen tremendous growth in recent years. An
enormous amount of information is now available. Searching and
finding the information you need however, can be quite a challenging
and frustrating endeavor. Luckily for us, many companies have tackled
this problem and have built search engines to help us search the
Internet. In this guide we will teach you how to use todays most popular
search engine. People all over the world use Google on a daily basis to
find information and new pages are added every minute.
Good luck searching!
Studio Visual Steps
Newsletter
All Visual Steps books follow the same methodology: each new concept
is carefully explained in small steps and richly illustrated with screen
shots.
A listing of all available books can be found on our website
www.visualsteps.com
Visit our website and subscribe to the free Visual Steps Newsletter
sent by e-mail.
The Visual Steps Newsletter provides periodic information about:
- the latest titles and previously released books;
- special offers, free guides;
- news about recent updates that may apply to a Visual Steps book.
Our Newsletter subscribers have access to free information booklets,
handy tips and guides which are listed on the web pages
www.visualsteps.com/info_downloads and
www.visualsteps.com/tips
Techniques
These icons indicate an action to be carried out:
The mouse icon means you should do something with the mouse.
The keyboard icon means you should type something on the keyboard.
The hand icon means you should do something else, for example insert a
CD-ROM in the computer. It is also used to remind you of something you
learned before.
In addition to these techniques, sometimes extra help is given to assist you in
working through this guide more effectively.
Help
These icons indicate that extra help is available:
The arrow icon warns you about something.
The bandage icon will help you if something has gone wrong.
1
Extra information
Information boxes are denoted by these icons:
The book icon gives you extra background information that you can read
at your convenience. This extra information is not necessary for working
through the guide.
The light bulb icon indicates an extra tip for using the program.
Click
Sometimes the screen shot shows only a portion of a window. Here is an example:
Top right of the window:
Click
It really will not be necessary for you to read all the information in the screen shots
in this guide. Always use the screen shots in combination with the image you see on
your own computer screen.
How to Search
Some people compare the Internet to an enormous library filled with millions of
books. This library, however, does not employ a librarian and all the books are in
disarray. This is a good comparison. On the Internet, there is no central institution
that organizes the information. There are countless ways of publishing new content
to the Internet and millions of new pages are added each day. This can make
searching the Internet quite a difficult task.
There are many companies and organizations that try to help the users of the
Internet by indexing and arranging this mass amount of information. This can be
done in several different ways. For a start, you can use a so-called search engine.
This is a computer program that searches (or crawls) through web pages and
indexes the words that are found. Google is todays best-known search engine and it
is used worldwide. On the Google homepage you type in a keyword and Google
shows you a list of web pages relevant to this keyword.
Another way to find your way around the Internet is by using a directory listing. On a
directory page you will find web pages organized by topic, subject or category.
In this guide, you will learn how to:
y
y
y
y
y
y
y
y
y
start Google;
open a website in a new window;
manipulate the search results;
understand the way search engines work;
perform advanced searches;
search for images;
use the Google guide;
use discussion groups;
install the Google Toolbar.
Please note:
The screen shots throughout this guide may look slightly different than what appears
on your screen. The Internet is a constantly changing medium and the content on a
web page can be frequently updated. The basic functions we are describing
however will remain the same.
Starting Google
Open Internet Explorer
Press
Now you will see the Google
website. The Search box is in
the middle of the page:
10
Tip
Google as homepage
Many people like to set the Google website as their homepage. This will mean that
every time you start Internet Explorer, you will see the Google homepage:
Click
Click
In Internet Explorer 8:
Click next to
on
Click
Click
At the bottom of the window:
Click
In Internet Explorer 8:
Click
Click
Start a new search:
Click the Search box
In this box you can type a
search word, for instance:
railroad.
Type: railroad
Press
2011 Visual Steps - www.visualsteps.com - This guide is a free publication.
How to Search more effectively with Google.
11
At the top of the results page,
you will see the box
containing your search word:
Underneath you will see the
titles of the web pages
Google has found for you:
The blue, underlined words are called hyperlinks, or links, and they will lead you to
the website. By clicking one of these links you can open the website which belongs to
the link. Beneath each link, Google displays a short summary of its content.
Click
12
Click
Right-click
Click
13
The website will appear in a
new window on top of the
search results:
You can close this new
window:
Click
Click
14
Search results
Lets take a closer look at some of the other items shown on the Google search
results page.
You can find more information at the bottom of the page. To see this information, you
need to scroll down to the bottom of the page by using the scrollbar:
Drag the scrollbar
down
At the bottom you see the link
to the next page:
Click
15
With the commands Next and Previous you can turn the pages of the search results.
You can also click on the page numbers at the bottom of the page. This allows you to
thumb through the pages a bit faster:
Drag the scrollbar
down
Click a page number,
for example, 5
Tip
Google as a calculator
You can also use Google as
a calculator. For example,
type any two numbers you
want to add together in the
search window and click
Search. You will quickly see
the correct result. For more
information, click
.
16
17
Too many results
Wrong pages
Advanced searches
When you use a search engine, you may become frustrated when your search term
yields too many results. For example, Google will return more than a hundred
thousand pages as a result of searching with the keyword railroad. Try using more
than one keyword at a time. This will enable you to more quickly find the specific
information you want. Try this with the keywords boats and builder.
Double-click the
Search box
Type: boats builder
Click
You will now see the first ten
web pages of your search
result, which contain the
keywords boats and builder:
18
You can refine your results further by instructing Google to use additional parameters
when it performs the search. Every search engine has its own method of specifying
searches. In Google you can do that like this:
Click
Tip
What you should know:
y Google searches all the words on a web page;
y Google ignores standard terminology, such as http, and .com;
y Google searches are case insensitive; searching for Boats produces the same
result as searching for boats.
When searching with multiple keywords, remember that you can combine these
keywords in different ways. This is important to get a good search result.
Please note:
If you use multiple keywords such as Frank Sinatra, many search engines will look
for the web pages where both keywords Frank and Sinatra occur. This is the way
Google works. This method does not necessarily return web pages relevant to the
singer Frank Sinatra. It is very likely that the search results will also contain pages
about Frank Lloyd Wright or Nancy Sinatra. In order to execute a more relevant
search you need to specify that Frank Sinatra is in fact one keyword.
If you want to see how this works, you can try different methods of combining
keywords.
19
This is to be expected, because boats builder is actually not a correct English word (if
you would have typed boat builder you would have gotten a more accurate search
result).
20
Tip
Put quotation-marks around your keyword
If you type a keyword within quotation-marks, Google will immediately search for the
exact combination of words:
Click the Search box
Type: "Jackson
Pollock"
Press
Now Google searches for the
full name Jackson Pollock.
Click
21
22
Now you will see a larger,
full-size image:
Right-click the image
A menu appears showing you
several options for saving or
printing the image:
Discussion groups
In Google it is also possible to search for information in several discussion groups.
You can answer other peoples questions, or post a message yourself.
Click the Address bar
Type:
www.google.com
Press
Now you see the Google
homepage again:
Click
Click
Click
23
Now you will see the Group
directory. You can choose
one of these topics and view
the discussion groups:
Click
24
Now you will see the
messages in the discussion
group alt.autos.gm:
You can also post a message
yourself, or reply to a
message from somebody
else. You need to subscribe
to the group first before you
can do that.
Tip
Searching discussion groups
By using keywords you can search the pages in a discussion group. For example, if
you have opened the discussion group alt.autos.gm, you can search for Chevrolet:
Click the Search box
Type: Chevrolet
Click
25
Click
Click
Click
If you click one of the topics, you will see a number of categories. Clicking a category
will lead you further into additional sub-categories. Eventually you will reach a page
where you can choose several links that will lead to your specific subject.
26
Press
You see the Google Toolbar
installation screen.
Click
27
Click
Your screen may goes dark and you need to give your permission to continue:
If necessary, click
or
Click
28
Here you will see that the
Google Toolbar has been
added to Internet Explorer:
Tip
Searching different file formats
With Google you can search for different types of files. You can find this option on
the Advanced Search screen. By using this option, you instruct Google to limit the
search results to a specific file type such as PDF files only, or Microsoft Word
documents.
Click
Click
next to
29
z Click
2
Go to a website in Internet
Explorer
z Click the Address bar
z Type the web address
z Press