- Undo: tells the computer to disregard your most recent action in the application you are using. It is most useful when you are editing text, and you accidentally delete something you didn't intend to. You can simply click "Undo," and the text will reappear. Important: most programs will not let you undo the "Save" action or any action that happened before you saved. So if you delete text unintentionally, then save the file, you will most likely not be able to undo your deletion.
- Redo: tells the computer to undo your most recent "Undo," so you revert to what you started with before you clicked "Undo." Important: the "Redo" option is only available immediately after you click "Undo." As soon as you continue typing or make any other change to the file you are working on, the "Redo" option will fade and you will be unable to revert to before your "Undo."
- Delete: pretty self-explanatory, this option eliminates whatever is selected from the file.
- Select All: also self-explanatory, this option will select everything in the current file. This is useful if you want to change the font style of a word processing document, for example. Depending on the program, and on where the mouse cursor is or what is already selected, this may only select everything in the current text field, or select only images, or only text. Experiment to figure out what it does in the programs you use most often.
- Find: opens a small window called a "dialog box" that has a text field where you can type in a word, part of a word, number, etc., and the computer will find all instances of whatever you typed in wherever it appears in the current window.
There are other commands that appear only on certain applications' Edit menus. Experiment to see what they do!
Example
The Edit menu on my web browser. It is right next the File menu, where it resides on almost every other application as well.
Tomorrow: Some technical jargon explained
