irs Words Help v1.1
The help pages are split into different sections; the introduction page (this page) will explain the different parts of the program and the tools available, the tutorials contain videos on how to use the program and the sentence structure section will give a brief description of the purpose of irs Words.
system buttons
IRS Words runs in it's own window and the system button look different from those in other programs.
The red button will close the program.
The green button will maximise the program (make it fill the screen) - this will turn into a yellow button and will restore the program to it's original size.
The orange button will minimise the program (hide the program on the dock (Mac)or taskbar (Windows/Linux)).
the stage
The stage is an invisible layer that sits above the background where you can add, edit and move words and phrases (the white area of the screen you innitially see). Because it is separate from the background it allows you to change the background type e.g. the colour, without moving or deleting your words.
the recycling bin
To delete any words, simply drag them to the recycling bin to erase them. Click on the recycling bin to delete all the words on the stage.
text holders
IRS Words has five different colours used for words; black, red, green and yellow. To put a new word onto the stage, click the new word button of the colour you want.
Once you have clicked on a new word button a text holder will appear on the stage (this will be the same colour as the selected word). You can now start typing straight away. Moving the mouse cursor over this placeholder will cause the text box to appear, clicking inside this text box will allow you to begin typing or edit any text inside. Once you have entered your text you will be able to move it anywhere on the stage, click to edit the text or drag it into the recycling bin to delete it.
To the left of the place holder is the Split tool, this will take any text in the place holder and split it into seperate place holders. If you write the sentence "The dog eats steak" into a place holder and click the split tool it will produce individual place holders for each of the words in the sentence; "The", "dog", "eats" and "steak". Use this tool to help rearrange sentences or to enter a list of words.
To the right of the place holder is a colour picker. Use this tool to change the colour of the text in the place holder.
the backgrounds
IRS Words has 7 different types of backgrounds for you to use - remember that the words sit on the stage so changing the background type will not affect them.
White background ~ this is the default background IRS Words uses.
Blue background ~ this can be used with the yellow words to create a high contrast display.
Grey background ~ this can help reduce glare when the program is used with a whiteboard and projector.
Yellow background ~ this can be used with the black words to create a high contrast display.
lined paper tool ~ this will recreate the look of lined paper or a text book for each colour background.
Sorting background ~ this background can be used when sorting words into two different groups. The background is divided into two sections, each section can have a title added to it. If you change the background these titles will be reset.
Picture Frame tool ~ this tool will give you option of either adding a potrait or landscape picture frame onto the stage, a picture or photograph (.jpg .jpeg .gif .png .bmp) can then be dragged into irs Words. Clicking on the recycling bin will remove the picture frames.
the drawing tools
IRS Words has three basic drawing tools to allow you to annotate your sentences.
Once you click onto one of the drawing buttons (red or blue) the tools will appear above it and the mouse cursor will change to a pencil. You can now draw above the stage and your place holders containing your text. To select the colour use the colour picker, to delete your drawing click the erase button. Your drawing/annotation will remain in the drawing tool until you delete it or close the program - if you click on the drawing button (now with a mouse cursor symbol) your drawing will be hidden and you can return to the stage and your words, if you click again on the drawing button you can return to the drawing tool and see any annotations that you left there. The red and blue drawing tools are independent of each other - for example the pupil may use one and the teacher the other.
The third (green) drawing tool is called the instant drawing tool and can be used at any time by using the right-mouse button. The green drawing tool is always visable (when you are moving the placeholders around the stage) and can be any colour (using the colour picker) or thickness (using the slider), the drawing can be erased by clicking on the erase button.
printing and help
The print button will bring up a printing window and will print the contents of the stage (the recycling bin will be hidden), don't worry about the print orientation option as IRS Words will automatically rotate the stage for optimal printing. Hovering over the help button will bring up a short description of all of the tools in IRS Words, clicking on help will bring up the quick help manual and an option to read the full help files here.
Copyright ian reed software (irs) 2008 - 2010