Unit 8: Produce Documents in a Business Environment

1. Understand the purpose of producing high quality and attractive documents in a business environment.

1.1 Outline different types of documents that may be produced and the different styles that could be used.

A document can be produced in either a printed format or electronically (on something such as a phone tablet or computer). They can be produced using software such as:
1. Word Document – This is used mainly for the creation of letters, memos and minutes.
2. Templates – These are crated to set a certain standard for what a document within an industry should look like and they are generally used for almost anything, if these are pre produced then they can save plenty of time when a document needs to be created.
3. Excel Spreadsheet – A spreadsheet contains information such as financial information, contact lists, and time sheets; these can be imported into different software and programs but usually have to be in the correct format beforehand, primarily a CSV file. They can hold vast amounts of data and can do calculations, help create graphs and so on.
4. PowerPoint – PowerPoint is primarily used for presentation purposes such as for business meetings containing summary graphs and charts of financial information or sales and so on. You can also include text, images, film, and animation in these documents.
5. Publisher – This is a program where you can design business cards, newsletters and so on. It is mainly used as a designing tool and you can insert any still documentation into this document.
6. PDF – A PDF is a secure way of sending a document so that nobody can edit that document for their own purpose. You can put almost all types of documents into PDF’s including hyperlinks; these are useful as you cannot enter any films or animations in these documents.
7. Jpeg (tiff, Gif) – jpeg are images that can be used for informational purposes such as doing a report on a certain item that would need photographic evidence such as a property listing, jpeg can be put into almost all documents and uploaded into many different types of software.

1.2 Describe different formats in which text may be presented.

You can edit text to almost any specification you like with documents such as word, some of these formats are, size, font, colour, alignment, spacing’s, highlighting, hyperlinking, headings, effects (bold, italic etc.) We can also format text into paragraphs, tables, columns, bullet points or numbering and also put it in headers and footers.

1.3 Explain the purpose and benefits of producing high quality and attractive documents.

The purpose of producing a high quality document is so that it looks professional and so it also matches the other stationary that is used such as logos on documents and having the correct information in the header and footers. The benefits of this are that all documents have a certain standard so that everyone producing documents in the business know exactly how it must look. Also it makes a business look very professional from a client’s point of view, for example if you were sending out a monthly newsletter for a client, they know that you will meet a professional standard as you do with your own documentation.
2. Know the resources and technology available and how to use them when producing documents in a business environment.

2.1 Describe the types of resources available for producing high quality and attractive documents.

The resources available to do this are very vast, things you may need are good quality software, quality scanners, quality printers, and quality paper.

2.2 Outline ways of using different resources to produce documents.

If you use a good software for high quality word processing that can support all formats and is versatile for creating documents. Most software will give you a wide variety of choices so you can create attractive documents. If you use a good scanner you can copy the