Laptops & Tablets For Seniors

For Seniors: Replace Windows Sounds with Visual Cues

Instead of alerting you to events using sounds, the hearing challenged can have Windows 7 provide visual cues. For the hearing impaired, Windows can provide a strong visual cue rather than a ringing or [more…]

For Seniors: Make Text on Your Laptop Larger

With today's high-resolution monitors, images are crisp but text is small. If you have difficulty reading text and other items on your monitor, you can make them larger. If you use an older monitor, or [more…]

For Seniors: Set Up Speech Recognition on a Laptop

If typing is challenging on your laptop, you can set up Windows for speech recognition and speak commands instead. While setting up Speech Recognition on your laptop, you train Windows to understand your [more…]

For Seniors: Make Your Laptop Keyboard Easier to Use

Laptop keyboards are often difficult to type on. Through its Ease of Access Center, Windows 7 lets you modify how you interact with your keyboard, in order to make it easier to avoid problems such as accidental [more…]

For Seniors: Display a Laptop's Onscreen Keyboard

Through its Ease of Access Center, Windows offers an onscreen keyboard you use in place of a laptop's smaller physical keyboard. Click the onscreen keyboard's [more…]

For Seniors: Adjust a Laptop's Keyboard Repeat Rates

Laptop keyboards are often difficult to type on. Windows 7 lets you modify how you interact with your keyboard, making it easier to avoid problems such as accidental or multiple keypresses. If you have [more…]

For Seniors: Connect a Printer to Your Laptop

Connect a printer to your laptop whenever you need to print out a document or photo. To use a printer with your laptop, you have to install software — called a printer driver — and tell your laptop how [more…]

For Seniors: Set a Default Printer in Windows

In Windows 7, you can set up a default printer that will be used every time you print. With a default printer set, you don’t have to select a printer each time — instead, unless you specifically select [more…]

For Seniors: Set Default Printer Preferences in Windows

Set default printer settings for your Windows printer so you don't have to select them each time you print. Your printer might offer preferences such as printing in color or black and white, printing in [more…]

For Seniors: View Documents in the Windows Print Queue

As you send documents to your Windows printer, they are placed in a queue as they wait to be printed, one by one. View documents in the print queue anytime you like, without disturbing the printing process [more…]

For Seniors: Remove a Printer from Your Laptop

If you upgrade to a new printer for your laptop, remove the old printer (and its printer driver software) to keep it running lean and mean.

To use a printer with your laptop, you have to install its printer [more…]

For Seniors: Install a Scanner on Your Laptop

Connect a scanner to your laptop, and use it to convert hard copies of information into electronic files. Before you can scan documents into your laptop, you need to install the scanner driver so that [more…]

For Seniors: Modify Your Laptop's Scanner Settings

Change a scanner's default settings in Windows 7 to make it easier to scan material using your preferred options. You use a scanner connected to your laptop to convert hard copies of information into electronic [more…]

For Seniors: Back Up Files to a Laptop's CD/DVD Drive

Make backups (copies) of important files on your Windows laptop onto a CD or DVD, in case it gets lost or damaged. The backup files on the CD/DVD can then be used instead of the originals you no longer [more…]

For Seniors: Copy or Move Data between Windows Programs

Data in one Windows program, such as a list of items, can be copied or moved into another program when needed. Copy or move data from program to program in order to use the tools in that new program to [more…]

For Seniors: Start a Windows 7 Program Automatically

If you use a Windows 7 program often, you can have it launch automatically every time you start your computer. Having Windows automatically start your favorite programs for you whenever you startup your [more…]

For Seniors: Set Default Programs for Your Windows Files

Control which Windows programs open your files, and you make working with files easier. When you double-click a file, the program associated with that file type opens it. For example, if you have several [more…]

For Seniors: Remove a Program From Your Laptop

If you don’t need a program, removing it from your Windows laptop helps improve performance. Unwanted programs you should remove but haven't, end up cluttering the hard drive and slowing down access to [more…]

For Seniors: Understand Windows Files and Folders

In Windows, you save and organize your work using files and folders. Work you create such as letters or reports are saved in files; files are organized in folders. Files can be saved to your laptop hard [more…]

For Seniors: Access Recently Used Files on Your Laptop

If you worked on a file recently on your laptop, Windows offers a shortcut to finding and opening it again. Recently used files are displayed just off the Start menu, but if they are not, you can turn [more…]

For Seniors: Open a File on Your Laptop

Files contain data, and when you open them, you can make changes. One way to open a file is to locate it first in Windows Explorer/Computer (the file management program in Windows). [more…]

For Seniors: Search for a Windows File

Search for files you can't locate in the Computer window of Windows 7. Search can not only look through filenames, but also the contents of files to find a match. [more…]