Precision Software Applications Silver Collection 4

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S I M P L Y L A B E L S Users Guide Version III SimpleWare P.O. Box 877 Windsor, NF Canada, A0H 2H0 Copyright 1987-1989 by Robert E. Pitcher All Rights Reserved October 1989 Release Table of Contents 1.0 - Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2.0 - Who May Use This Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 How to Register . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Technical Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Warranty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3.0 - Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4.0 - Program Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 5.0 - Label Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 5.1 - Creating New Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 5.2 - Editing Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Label Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Background Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Print . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Typeface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 5.3 - Deleting a Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 5.4 - Saving Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 6.0 - Using Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 6.1 - Creating New Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 6.2 - Loading a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 6.2.1 - Selecting Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 6.3 - Browsing Around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 6.3.1 - Flagging Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 6.3.2 - Searching for Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Types of Searches . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 6.3.3 - Browsing with Searches . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 6.3.4 - Moving Around Your File . . . . . . . . . . . 25 6.3.5 - Deleting Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 6.4 - Printing Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 6.4.1 - Output Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 6.4.2 - Print Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 6.4.3 - Print Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 6.5 - Adding Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 6.5.1 - The Label Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 6.5.2 - Importing Labels from Other Files . . . . . . 37 Label Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Column Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Fixed Length Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 6.6 - Sorting Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 6.7 - Saving Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 6.8 - Deleting Old Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 7.0 - Link Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 7.1 - Editing Link Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 7.2 - Searching with Link Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 7.3 - Limitations of Link Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 8.0 - Other Features 8.1 - Non Printing Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 8.2 - Date and Time Stamps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 8.3 - DOS Shell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 8.4 - Qwik Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 9.0 - Setting Program Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 9.1 - Selecting Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 9.2 - Keyboard Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 9.3 - Printer Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 9.4 - General Program Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 10.0 - Potential Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Appendix A - Error Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Appendix B - Converting Older Files . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Appendix C - Simply Floppies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Appendix D - Simply Labels Command Keys . . . . . . . . . . 67 Appendix E - Simply Labels Menu Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Appendix F - Registration Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 SimpleWare would like to acknowledge and thank Mr. William Hiltz, Sysop Foxnet BBS, for his help in supporting and promoting this product. dBase and dBase III are registered trademarks of Ashton-Tate PC-File is a registered trademark of ButtonWare, Inc. ii 1.0 Introduction Welcome to Simply Labels. While it is not necessary to read all of this manual, it is recommended that you read at least to the end of section 4 that covers program conventions and getting the program started. The documentation for Simply Labels is best used as a reference. If you have problems while using the program, just find the topic causing the problems in the table of contents and then read the section on that topic. This version has many new or improved features and the speed of almost every operation has been improved. For users of previous versions, please read the file called CHANGES.TXT on the program disk for a list of the new features. Because of the many changes it was necessary to change the format for data files so please read Appendix B if you wish to use your data files from version 2.xx. Many people have a very narrow view of what makes a label. Of course the most common type of label is the mailing label and this program handles them with ease. But Simply Labels is capable of so much more. Instead of using a database approach to printing labels this program allows you to enter labels in a free form manner. This free form approach allows very flexible label designs. No longer will you be forced to use a program that won't accept information the way you want to enter it. In Simply Labels a label is a rectangular area which contains text, (background or normal) and instructions on how to print any text contained in the label. This information is combined to create what is called a label format. There are several formats included with this program but you can design your own if you need a special type of label. Simply Labels will create and maintain data files containing labels that use your formats. It has many advanced features such as searching and sorting your files in many different ways, importing labels from text files, full label editing, date & time stamps, Qwik keys for commonly used text, printing to the screen, printer or a disk file, printing multiple copies with multiple labels per line, background label text, graphic characters in your labels and the ability to use all of your printer's capabilities. The information in your label files can also be printed in other formats. Instead of the standard label format you can also print your data files in an Envelope or Report format. New in this version is a very powerful feature for people who have their information stored in database files. This feature is a new file type called Link Files. With link files you assign a label format to a database file and provide instructions on how to build a label from a record in the database. This is done by 1 placing database fields directly into the label by field name. Simply Labels supports two of the most popular types of database files. It can link to, and directly read dBase III or PC-File type data files. Also included is a nice utility (SF.EXE) that will read the directories of floppy disks and build very fancy user defined disk labels. Some things that may be included in the labels are Volume name, bytes free, disk format, file and directory names and others. This program is described in appendix C. Simply Labels is powerful enough to meet the needs of most small business and flexible enough for the many uses at home. When used for standard mailing labels it can handle over 2100 labels per file (640K memory) with no limit on the number of files allowed (Link files allow many more). It can transfer information between label files even if the files use different formats. With the ability to use graphic characters and background text you can design custom labels to meet most of your needs. Some types of labels that may be created with Simply Labels: Mailing Labels Book Reports Labels Recipe Cards Labels for Preserves Disk Labels Packing Labels Name Tags Inventory Cards Cassette Jackets VCR Labels Post Cards File Holder Labels Specialty Labels 3 x 5 Index Cards These are only sample ideas and you may find you have other types of labels in mine. As a matter of fact labels don't have to be the stick on kind. You can print many types of labels on regular paper. If you currently use several programs to handle different types of labels you may be surprised that one program is capable of meeting all your label needs. 2.0 Who May Use This Software This software is not free and it is not in the public domain. It is copyright 1987-1989 by Robert E. Pitcher and SimpleWare and all rights are reserved. This software is distributed by the "ShareWare" method. The ShareWare method of distribution allows you to try a program before you buy it so you never waste your money on programs that you don't use. 2 If you use this program you should support the author by registering your copy. Non-registered users of Simply Labels are permitted to use the program on a trial basis only, for the sole purpose of determining whether or not it meets their needs. ANY AND ALL other use after a trial period of three weeks requires registration. Use of non-registered copies of Simply Labels beyond the trial period is strictly prohibited. Simply Labels may be copied and distributed to others as long as the following conditions are met. Simply Labels must be distributed in a complete and unmodified form including the following files. READ.ME - Basic instructions SL.EXE - Main program SL.DOC - Documentation for the program PRINT.BAT - Batch file to print documentation CODES.DOC - Keyboard codes for graphic mode CHANGES.TXT - Describes latest version SL.CNF - Program configuration file SL.DEF - Label definition file SF.EXE - Simply Floppies SL2TO3.EXE - File conversion utility ????.LAB - Sample Label files ????.LNK - Sample link files ????.DBF - Sample dBase files ????.HDR - Sample header files ????.DTA - Sample data files No charge, other than a maximum disk copying fee of $5.00, may be charged for Simply Labels. Simply Labels may not be distributed as part of any other product without written permission from SimpleWare. Bulletin board system operators (Sysops) may make Simply Labels available to their users for downloading as long as all above conditions are met. Commercial Distributors of Public Domain, ShareWare, or User Supported software may distribute Simply Labels but only after sending in a registration form, for the purpose of receiving update notifications. The copy of the program you have is not limited in any way and is fully functional. Why then should you register when you already 3 have the complete program and documentation. There are several. When you register your copy of Simply Labels you will receive notification of all major upgrades by mail. You will receive support directly from the author by mail or through the Foxnet BBS. This bulletin board is available, for support, free of charge to registered users of Simply Labels. You will receive a unique registration number that when entered will modify the program to remove shareware notices and display your name as the registered owner. You will help shape future versions of this program. This is the third shareware release of Simply Labels and most improvements are a direct result of user suggestions. Without registered users this program would not exist. How to Register There are two methods of registering Simply Labels. First you can send a completed registration form (See appendix F) along with your payment to SimpleWare. You can also register on line at the Foxnet BBS. To register on line you must have a valid Visa card. After you log on the Foxnet BBS you have to open the registration door, answer several questions and give your Visa card number and expiry date. After this is done you will receive your unique registration number. The single user registration fee is $25.00. This allows you to register the program in your name and grants a licence for the continued use of Simply Labels. We assume you have already obtained the program and documentation elsewhere. The single user registration fee does not entitle you to diskettes or printed manuals. For an additional $10.00 ($35.00 total) you will receive the latest version on disk and a printed manual. After you register you will receive your unique registration number. This number is based on the name of the registered user that you supplied. When you receive this number you register the program by typing the following. SL REGISTER You will be asked to enter the name of the registered user (2 4 lines, 30 characters per line max) and the registration number. The name must be entered exactly as it was given to SimpleWare. Upper and lower case and spaces are important. The registration number must match the name exactly for the program to register itself. If the information is correct the program will modify itself to include the registered name and remove all shareware notices. If Simply Labels is used in a corporation, government office or any type of business then registration is mandatory. Quantity discounts are available in the form of a site licence. For all site licenses, only one copy of disks and manual are provided and the customer is responsible for printing the documentation and copying the disks. The discounts are as follows: Qty Price --------------------------- 5 - 9 $22.00 10 - 19 $20.00 20 - 49 $18.00 50+ $15.00 All Copies at a site licence will be registered in the same name. Technical Support If you have registered the program every effort will be made to support you in your use of Simply Labels. If you are not a registered user you may contact the author but there are no promises. Whenever looking for support please include your name, telephone number, version number and an exact description of your problem. Support will be provided in one of the two following ways. First you may write to SimpleWare explaining in detail exactly what the problem is. The second method of getting support is to call The Foxnet BBS and leave a message to the author or to the Sysop. The latest version of Simply Labels will always be posted and available for downloading on the Foxnet BBS. F o x n e t B B S PC Board 24 hrs a day / 7 days a week 12/24/9600 baud Hayes V.42 (709) 489-4758 5 Please send any suggestions for improvements you would like to see to SimpleWare. If enough interest is shown the suggestions may be included in future versions. Warranty SimpleWare makes no warranty of any kind, express or implied, as to the suitability of this program to perform any particular purpose or function. SimpleWare shall in no way be liable for any damages, whether direct, indirect, special or consequential arising from the use of, or inability to use this program by any user. In no event will SimpleWare be liable to any user of this program for any damages, including any lost profits, lost savings or any other damages arising out of your use or inability to use the program, or for any claim by any other party. 3.0 Getting Started To use this program you must have the following equipment: IBM PC/XT/AT/PS2 or True Compatible MS-DOS or PC-DOS 2.0 or higher Minimum of 256K of memory A Printer Setting up Simply Labels is very easy. The first thing you must do is make a backup of your program disk. If you do not know how to do this check your DOS manual and look up the DISKCOPY command. If you use a floppy system you should use the backup copy and store the original in a safe place. To install Simply Labels on a hard disk you need to create a directory to store the files in. Next you must copy all files to this directory. The following DOS commands may be used to do this for you. You may use any valid drive or directory name you wish. C: <RETURN> MD\LABELS <RETURN> COPY A:*.* C:\LABELS <RETURN> 6 If you have problems with this you should refer to your DOS manuals. To start the program type the following: SL If you wish to load a file from the command line you may do this by entering the complete path and filename as follows: SL D:\LABELS\MAILING.LAB This would load the file called MAILING.LAB stored on D drive in the directory called LABELS. If you use DOS version 3.0 or higher you may place Simply Labels in your PATH statement and start it from anywhere. You may also rename the program if you wish. If you use an older version of DOS do not rename the program and you must run it from the default directory or Simply Labels will not be able to find the files it needs to run properly. When you first start the program a title screen will appear showing a copyright notice and the name of the registered user. Press any key to continue after reading it. What you see next is the Main menu and it can be recognized by the words SIMPLY LABELS printed in big letters in the label window. When you start the program with a filename on the command line, the file is loaded and you go straight to the Use menu so the Main menu is not displayed. See section 6 for information on using your files. 7 4.0 Program Conventions Throughout this manual you will see references made to parts of the program screen. To help you identify them a sample screen is shown below with the major areas marked. --| <1> |--------------------------------------------------- | <2> | | | | ----------------------<3>-- | | | <4> | | | | | | | | Sample Label Text | | | | | | | | | | | --------------------------- | | | | | | | | | |--------------------------------------------------------------| | <5> | <6> | <7> | <8> | |--------------------------------------------------------------| | F1 Browse F2 Print F3 Add F4 Sort.... <9> | | Use a file stored on disk <10) | -------------------------------------------------------------- MESSAGES: <11> ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1 - This area will show the name of the file currently loaded into memory. This will be blank is no file has been loaded. 2 - This is called the label window and is where your labels are displayed. This area is also used to enter options. 3 - This is a frame drawn around your label, showing its size. All editing of label text is done inside this frame. 4 - Your label text is displayed here. 5 - Areas 5 through 8 are combined to make up what is called the information area. When a file is loaded these areas display information about the file. Area 5 will display the number of labels are currently selected (Flagged) for printing. 8 6 - This area will give the number of the displayed label and how many labels are in the current file. It will also show if the displayed label is selected for printing or to be deleted. It will look like this: [ Label# 1 / 1234 ] With 1 being the number of the displayed label in a file of 1234 labels. 7 - For label files this area will show how many more labels may be added to a file before it is full. For link files it will show the name of the database file used for the link. 8 - This area will display the name of the current menu and will help you find your way around the program. See the menu tree in appendix E. 9 - All menus are displayed on this line and are discussed below. 10 - This line will always give a description of the highlighted choice in the menu. 11 - This is the message line and it is used to give instructions and report errors. The ESCape key is very popular in this program and will prevent you from making many mistakes. If you find yourself somewhere in the program where you don't want to be you can back up by pressing the ESC key. This will work anywhere including at menus, input prompts and while printing. If you press it enough times you will usually end up back at the DOS prompt. The menus used in this program are very simple and easy to use. Menus are the wrap around type with all choices displayed on a single line. There is also a line just below the menu with a description of the highlighted choice. There are three ways to make a menu choice. First you may use the cursor keys to highlight a choice and then press RETURN. This will be the preferred method until you are familiar with the program because it will allow you to read the descriptions for each choice. The second method is to press the function key listed by each choice. The third and fastest way is to press the key corresponding to the first letter of the choice you wish to make. One note about the menus is that the ESCape key is the same as selecting Quit and usually returns you to the previous menu. 9 All input to the program may be edited by using the keys listed in appendix D. The only exception to this is when the program is asking for a single character response. Upper or Lower case may be used for all input. Depending on the type of input asked for, some keys may not be active. For example if the program is looking for a numeric entry you will not be able to type letters. ESC may be used at any input prompt to exit and usually return you to a menu. Most times in this program, when input is required, a default response will be displayed. This response may be edited or selected as is by pressing RETURN. If you just start typing, the program assumes you want to enter a new response and will erase the default. The default response may be restored at any time by pressing Alt-R. Many things in this program are performed by entering key combinations such as Alt-D or Ctrl-PgUp. To enter these you must hold down the Alt or Ctrl key and then press the second key. Many times you will be asked for a yes or no answer and you will see either (Y/n) or (y/N). The upper case letter is the default response and may be selected by pressing Return. When entering file names the program will convert your entry to upper case characters. Also do not add an extension unless asked for because the program supplies the proper one. There are many windows used in this program for setting up the program, defining searches and sorts and for selecting options. Whenever a window is displayed you may freely move around the window with the Up and Down cursor keys changing only the options you want. Most windows require you to press ESC when you have finished entering your selections. Link files are very similar to label files but there are some differences. For the purpose of this manual all references to label files will also apply to link files unless stated otherwise. 5.0 Label Formats Selecting Formats from the Main menu will bring up the Format menu. From this menu you can create custom label formats which you will use in your label files. A label file must use one of the defined formats. If you have special label needs you will have to design a format for it, otherwise one of the defaults may meet your needs. A maximum of 25 formats are allowed and 12 standard label formats are provided to get you started. These may 10 be deleted or modified in any way you like. A label format consists of the size of the label, the spacing between labels, a description of the label, the background text for the label as well as instructions on how to print the label. The sizes allowed for labels are from 16 to 74 characters wide by 2 to 15 lines high. The description is just a name you give to the format for your own reference. The spacing is the number of lines skipped between each label and is normally 1 but may be as many as 99. The idea of background text may not be familiar to you but is a very simple idea. Background text is text which will be common to all labels in the file and cannot be written over. It may or may not be used depending on the application. For standard mailing labels you would not want any background text but for cassette tape labels you would want to design boxes and areas for side A and B. Background text allows you to create custom fill in the blank type labels. Format Menu F1 New F2 Edit F3 Delete F4 Quit 5.1 Creating New Formats To create a new label format you select New from the Format menu. You have to fill out the size window (See the section below on Label Size for more information) to define the label size and then you will be asked to enter a description for the label. Next you will go to the Edit Formats menu where you can work on all parts of your format and print sample labels on your printer to check your design. See the section below on Editing Formats. 5.2 Editing Formats When you select Edit from the Format menu you must select the format you wish to edit. This is done by pressing the SPACE BAR to view the different formats on the screen. You may also use the UP and DOWN cursor keys to cycle through the formats. When the one you wish to edit is displayed press RETURN to select it. The Edit Formats menu is then displayed which allows you to change any part of that label format. The Configure option is included in this menu to allow you to change your printer definitions as you work on a label format. See section 9.0 and 9.3 for information 11 on setting program and printer options. Edit Format Menu F1 Size F2 Descr F3 Back F4 Print F5 Typeface F6 Configure Label Size Selecting Size from the Edit Formats menu will display a window for you to fill out, allowing you to define the label size and spacing. This window is shown below. ---| Label Size |---------------------------------------- | | | | | Width of the label. (16 - 74) 30 | | | | Lines in the label. (2 - 15) 5 | | | | Lines in the label to print. 5 | | | | Lines between labels. (1 - 66) 1 | | | --------------------------------------------------------- The current values for the label are displayed and may be edited or you may press RETURN to keep the original values. The Width of the label will determine the number of characters that may be entered in your labels. The Lines in the label is simply the number of lines of text in each label. The Lines in the label to print will normally be the same as the number of lines in the label but it may be less. This option allows what is called non printing lines. For example you could have a label with 7 lines but choose to only print five lines. This will give you 2 lines that may be used to store other information. This option may be changed at any time from within the program so the main thing to remember at this time is to make the label big enough to hold all information you may need. See section 8.1 for more information on non-printing lines. The Lines between labels is the number of lines printed between each label. After all values have been entered just press Esc and the label will be redrawn at the new size. One note of caution 12 when making a label smaller. Any background text that no longer fits in the label will be lost. The size you enter will determine the amount of text that can be entered into the label. The actual printed label may look quite a bit different than the label displayed on the screen because of the different typefaces that can be used when printing to your printer. A good idea is to make the label just big enough to hold the text you need and then you can fit it to your labels by using the spacing and different typefaces. Remember to check your format design for proper appearance on your printer before using it in a file. Description Allows you to edit the description of the label format. This description is only for your reference and can be up to 40 characters long. Full editing functions are available when entering the description. Background Text This allows you to edit the background text of the label. Background text allows your blank labels to contain text and graphic characters. The background text will be part of all labels using this format and cannot be edited. This is handy for a lot of applications. You can design boxes around your labels or you can design labels with blanks that will be filled in by hand. Depending on the application you may or may not want to use background text. If you do not need to use this option you just have to leave the label blank. Look at the sample file called CASSETTE.LAB to see a format that makes good use of background text. Editing background text is done the same way you would edit label text. See the section on the Label Editor (6.5.1) for information on how to edit label text. Press Esc when you have finished editing and you will be returned to the Edit Formats menu. There are a couple of differences between editing background text and editing label text. First if you use the date or time keys (Alt-D or Alt-T) when editing background text the proper stamp (MM/DD/YYYY or HH:MM:SS) will be placed into the label instead of the current date or time. Also there may be times when you would like to have spaces as part of your background text. Simply Labels will normally look at a space as not being background text, so to allow spaces, the tilde character (~) is used. The program will replace this character with a space and recognize it as valid background text. 13 Print This will print a sample of your label format to your printer. It will let you check all parts of your label format. A series of "+" signs are printed for each line in your format. This sample label will use any typeface selections you may have assigned to your format. This is handy for checking sizes. It is worth the extra time to print lots of samples to make sure your format fits your labels. Another good idea is to use regular paper when checking formats to save on labels. Typeface With this option you can assign a typeface to each line of your label. See the section on Setting Program Options (9.3) for information on setting up your printer definitions or typefaces. This is a powerful feature which lets you create all kinds of special labels. You can use big bold headings or very small print or any combination you like. When you select this option you will see a window which displays a list of all the lines in your label. All you have to do to assign a typeface is to move the cursor to the line you want and press RETURN. A menu will pop up and display all typeface selections you have defined. You can use the up and down arrow keys to move to the typeface you want and press RETURN to select it for that line. Once a setup is selected it will stay on until it is turned off so it is not necessary to fill in all lines. For example if you wanted all lines of your label printed in Near Letter Quality you would just select N L Q for line 1. The typeface selections are saved as part of the label format. Any label file you create using this format will also use the typeface selections. Typeface selections may be changed at any time, even after a file has been created. 5.3 Deleting a Format You will select this option to get rid of formats you no longer need. First select the format you want to delete. See Editing Current Formats above on how to select a format. The program will 14 ask if you are sure you want to delete this format. Press "Y" to delete it. Deleting a format will in no way affect any label files that already use that format. 5.4 Saving Formats Simply Labels will know if any changes have been made by editing a format, deleting a format or by creating a new format and will automatically save your formats if necessary. Your formats are stored in the default directory in a file called SL.DEF . If you delete this file the program will only remember the 12 standard formats that come as part of the program. 6.0 Using Files When you first start the program a title screen will appear showing a copyright notice and the name of the registered user. Press any key to continue after reading it. What you see next is the Main menu and it can be recognized by the words SIMPLY LABELS printed in big letters in the label window. Main Menu F1 New F2 Use F3 Delete F4 Configure F5 Formats F6 Quit There are two main functions or parts in this program. The first allows you to define label formats and the second lets you create and work with your files. Simply Labels is capable of creating and maintaining two different types of user data files. These are called label and link files and have the extensions of .LAB and .LNK. These are not text files but files to be used only by Simply Labels. If you need your labels in a text file you may print them to a disk file to get a pure ASCII file. To get familiar with the program you may want to try several of the sample files that came with the program. A label file is a file containing a group of labels that have the same format. When a label file is first created there are no labels in the file. You have to Use the file and Add the labels 15 to it. The number of labels allowed in a file will depend on the label format used for the file and the amount of free memory. This will be displayed in the information area after the file is loaded into memory. A label file contains a copy of the label format used, all typeface selections, all current printing options, as well as all options entered for envelope and report formats, and of course all of your label data. The main difference between label files and link files is that link files contain no label data. They contain the name of a database file which provides the label data and instructions on how the labels are made from the database file. The data for the labels is read from the database file as needed. Once a link file has been loaded it is very similar to a label file but there are some differences. See section 7 for information on using link files. Before you can do any work with labels you must first load a file into memory. File selection is explained below in section 6.2.1 After a file has been loaded the Use Menu will be displayed. Use Menu F1 Browse F2 Print F3 Add F4 Sort F5 Configure This is the only part of the program that uses your files and all files must be saved before leaving this menu or any changes you made will be lost. From this menu you can do all work with your files. You can search, edit, delete, sort, import and print your labels. When you first come to the Use menu the first label in the file is displayed on your screen. If there are no labels in the file a blank label is displayed. 6.1 Creating New Files The first step in creating a new file is to make sure there is a label format that meets your needs. If you need a special type of label you may want to create a format for it. See section 5.1 To create a new file you must select New from the Main menu which will bring up the New menu. From here you may create a new label file or a new link file. See section 7 for information on link files. 16 New Menu F1 Label F2 dBase III F3 PC-File F4 Quit Creating a label file is a simple matter of selecting Label from the New menu and entering a file name. The program will add a ".LAB" extension to your name so do not enter an extension. Next you have to select the label format you would like to use for this file. To select a format you just have to press the Space Bar to view the label formats on the screen and press Return to select the one you want. After this is done the Use menu will appear. From here you can add labels and do any work you wish with your file. A newly created file is not saved until you are finished using it. See the section on Saving your labels (6.7) for more information. This was done to allow you to create quick one-time labels without having to save the file and clutter up your disks. To create a new link file you select New from the Main menu and then select either dBase III or PC-File from the New menu, depending on which type of database file you wish to link with. You also have to enter a name for your link file and select a label format. Next you must select the database file to link with. This file may be located on any drive or in any path. Simply Labels will remember how to find the database file when it loads your link file. See section 6.2.1 for information on selecting files. When this has been done a window called "Edit Link" will pop up and you will see the Edit menu. It is from this window that you define the layout of your label. See section 7.2 for information on editing link files. When you leave this menu you will see your label displayed on the screen and you may use your new link file in much the same way as a label file. Your link file will have the extension .LNK but will not be saved until you choose to save it. See the section on saving your files. (6.7) If you plan to use link files it is very important to read section 7. 6.2 Loading a File From the Main menu you can select Use to work with a file stored on disk. Before you can use a label file you must load it into memory. When Use is selected from the Main menu you will be asked to select the file you wish to use from the Select File window. This window will display the names of all label and link files for selection. See the section below on Selecting a file. After a file is selected it will be loaded into memory and the Use menu will be displayed. Pressing ESC before selecting a file will return you to the Main menu. If an error occurs for any reason 17 while loading a file the program will beep and display an error message and you will be returned to the Main menu. After a file has been successfully loaded you will see some information about your file. In the top left corner of the screen you will see the name of the file you are currently working with. Just above the menu line you will see four blocks that give you information about your file. These blocks are called the information area. The block on the far left will show the number of labels currently flagged for printing which will be 0 when the file is first loaded. The next block shows the number of the label currently displayed on the screen and how many labels are in the file. In this block you will also see if the displayed label is flagged to be printed or deleted. The next block on the right will show how many more labels may be added to this file or in the case of link files it will show the name of the database file you are linked to. You should also see the first label in the file displayed on your screen. 6.2.1 Selecting Files Any time Simply Labels requests you to select a file a window, called Select File, will pop up that lists all possible selections. This is used when selecting label files, link files, text files, and database files. From within this window you can access any file on any disk in your system. All file names are displayed in lower case and directory names are in upper case. Selections are made by highlighting the proper choice and pressing RETURN. You may use the four cursor keys, PgUp, PgDn, Home, or the End key to move around the window. Also you may press any of the letter keys and the next choice that starts with that letter will be highlighted. If you press RETURN on a directory name you will get a list of files in that directory. If you are not at the root directory the first choice in the window will be ".. " which when selected will move you up one directory level towards the root directory. The current path for the displayed files is always displayed at the bottom of the window. By pressing Alt-P you can edit this path name to view any valid drive or directory. If you do not wish to make a selection you may press Esc to cancel the operation. 18 6.3 Browsing Around By selecting Browse from the Use menu you can bring up the Browse menu. From this menu you can move around your file in many different ways to edit or delete labels. You may also flag labels for printing from this menu. Browse Menu F1 Flag F2 Toggle F3 Search F4 Move F5 Edit F6 Delete 6.3.1 Flagging Labels Simply Labels uses a system of flags to determine which labels are to be printed or deleted. Each label in a file will have two flags associated with it. One for printing and one for deleting. When a label is displayed on the screen you can easily see the status of it's flags by looking at the label number in the information area. If a label is flagged for printing a check mark (ASCII 251) will be displayed in front of the label number. If the label is flagged to be deleted it will have an asterisk (ASCII 42) displayed. If the label is selected to be both printed and deleted, both characters will be displayed. The total number of labels flagged for printing is always displayed in the left block in the information area. Whenever you choose to print your labels from the Print menu this is the number of labels that will be printed. Note that with link files you can't delete labels but if a record in the database is marked as deleted then the delete flag for it's label will be set to show that it is a deleted record. Some very powerful features are included to allow you to set or clear these flags any way you want. The first two choices in both the Browse and Print menus are the same and are used to control the print flags of your labels. These choices are: F1 Flag F2 Toggle The Toggle choice will simply change the state of the print flag for the displayed label. If the label is flagged it will be cleared and if the label is not selected it will be flagged. The total number of flagged labels will also be updated. Selecting Flag from the Browse or Print menus will display the Flag menu and allow you to work with label print flags in several ways. 19 Flag Menu F1 All F2 Range F3 Search F4 Quit This menu allows you to control label flags in many different ways. Even after you have selected the labels you want you will still have to tell the program how you want to flag them. This is done with the Flag Action menu shown below. Flag Action Menu F1 Set F2 Clear F3 Toggle F4 Quit By using these two menus together you can control the print flags in any way you want. For example to flag all labels in a file for printing you would simply select Flag / All / Set. To clear all print flags you would select Flag / All / Clear. Any group of consecutive labels in your file is considered a Range and may be easily flagged. If Range is selected from the Flag menu a small window will pop up asking you to enter the Range of labels to flag. It will ask for the first label and the last label to flag. The defaults for these are the first and last labels in your file. ---| Define Range |------------------------------------------- | | | Select From Label [1 ] To Label [10 ] | | | -------------------------------------------------------------- Pressing Esc will close the window and return you to the previous menu without changing any flags. After you enter the range of labels to flag you have to select the desired action from the Flag Action menu. If you wanted to set the flags for the first 10 labels in your file you would enter: Flag / Range / - enter 1 and 10 - / Set. The third choice from the Flag menu is called Search. This will allow very flexible searches to be used to control the print flags of your labels. See the section below for the complete use of searches. 20 6.3.2 Searching for Labels Simply labels includes many different types of searches to help you find labels in your files. The searches are used throughout the program to find, delete and flag your labels. Whenever a search is used the Search menu will be displayed for you to select the type of search to use. After you select the type of search to use from the Search menu a window, called Define Search, will pop up for you to fill out. If you press Esc before it is filled out, or at any time during a search, the search will be cancelled. This window will look slightly different depending on the purpose of the search. If Search was selected from the Flag menu there will be an extra line where you select the type of flag action desired for any matches found. If Search is selected from the Browse menu this option is not displayed and after each match is found you have the choice of flagging, editing, deleting, or continuing with the search. This is explained fully below under browsing with searches. In all searches the case of the text does not matter. Searching for "SMITH" will find Smith, SMith or smith. The searches only check the number of characters you enter for a match. This is handy if you are not sure of the correct spelling. --| Define Search |------------------------------------------- | | | Search for [Text1 ] - [Text2 ] | | | | Search Line # [1 ] using the full line | | | | Flag Action: Set Flags | | | | Start Searching at Label [1 ] | | | -------------------------------------------------------------- The top line in the window is used to enter the text you wish to search for. In this field you can enter any text including special or graphic characters that you wish to find. The second text field on the first line is only used for Range searches which are explained below. The second line of the window is used to tell Simply Labels exactly what line and what part of that line to look at during its 21 search. After entering the line number you wish to search you have to select which part of the line to use. You will see the following message displayed in the window, and the Part Line Menu will be displayed. "Select Part of line to use from menu" Part Line Menu F1 All F2 Part F3 First F4 Last All - Uses the complete line Part - Starts at any position and uses rest of line. You will have to enter the starting position if this choice is used. First - Uses only the first word Last - Used only the last word This allows you to narrow your searches down to very specific parts of the label. For example you may easily search your mailing labels for anyone with the last name of Smith by searching line 1 using the last word. After specifying the part of the label to search you have to tell the program what to do with any matches it may find. If Search was selected from the Flag menu you will see the following message and the Flag Action menu will be displayed. "Select action from menu" You can choose to Set, Clear or Toggle the flags of any matches that the search may find. The last line in the Search window lets you enter the label number you want to start searching at. This will normally be the first label but any valid label number may be entered. This is useful with link files or very large label files. Types of Searches The Search menu is always used to select the type of search you wish to use. Each type of search will have different uses and you will find that the first two are used the most often. When using searches to flag labels any number of searches may be combined to select labels that match very complex conditions. For example to 22 find all people in a mailing list who live in California and have a last name of Smith you would use two searches. Always use the broadest searches first which, in the example, would be to select or Set the flags of all people who live in California. After this was done you would search and clear the flags of all people who's last name is Not Equal to Smith. All types of searches are explained below. Search Menu F1 Complete F2 Equal F3 Less F4 Greater F5 Not Eq F6 Range Complete Searches The first choice in the Search menu is called a complete search and it is the simplest type of search in Simply Labels. A complete search will find any occurrence of your text any place in your label. The text can be in any position on any line and this search will find it. When filling out the Search window for a Complete search you will note that you do not have to specify the part of the label to search because the complete label is checked for a match. All other searches listed in the Search menu are considered to be conditional searches. This means that some condition must be true before the label is considered a match. Also conditional searches must be told exactly what part of the label to check for a match and do not care what is outside of this area. Equal Searches This type of search will find any label that exactly matches the text you entered. The difference between this search and the complete search is that you must specify the part of the label you wish to search. This is a straight forward search that is easy to use. There is however, one other feature of this search that makes it much more flexible. This feature is called a scanning search and it is used by placing the tilde (~) character in front of your search text. Whenever Simply Labels does an Equal type search it checks the first character of your search text for a tilde. If one is found Simply Labels will scan the part of the label you specified, looking for a match. For example, an Equal search, 23 searching for ~CA (read as scan for CA) using a full line will find all labels that have "CA" anywhere in that line. If the scanning feature was not used the line would have to start with "CA" to be considered a match. The scanning feature only works with Equal type searches but it will work with any part of a label including first and last words. Less Searches This search will find all labels that are less than the text you entered. You must specify the part of the label to use for the search. As an example you could search for all people who have a last name that is less than Smith by performing a Less than type of search on line #1 using only the last word. Greater Searches This will find labels that are greater than your text. Again you must specify the part of the label to use. Not Equal Searches Find all labels that are not equal to your text. This search will find a lot of matching labels unless you limit the search to a very specific part of your label. Range Searches A Range search will find all labels that fall within a range that you specify. If you look at the Define Search window you will notice a second text field at the right of the first line. This field is used to specify the upper limit for range searches. In a Range search a label will be considered a match if it is ">=" Greater than or equal to "Text1" OR "<=" Less than or equal to "Text2". 6.3.3 Browsing with Searches When you select Search from the Browse menu the searches are performed slightly different. The searches are defined in the same way, with the Define Search window, but you are no longer 24 dealing with print flags so line 3 in the window is blank. After the search finds a match the Browse Search Menu is displayed to allow you to work with the matching label. This menu was included to allow you to edit or delete any group of labels that can be found with a search. It allows you to see each label that matches the search before you do any work on the label. Browse Search Menu F1 Continue Search F2 Toggle F3 Edit F4 Delete Selecting Continue Search will just restart the search at the next label after the match, using the same search definition. Toggle will allow you to control the print flag of the label found in the search. Edit will allow you to edit the label text, if you are using a label file, or allow you to edit the label definition with link files. By selecting Delete you can control the delete flag of the label. Note Delete is not allowed with link files. 6.3.4 Moving Around Your Files This version of Simply Labels makes it very easy to move around your label files. By pressing Alt-M at any menu you can move to any label by entering its number. This is the same as selecting Move from the Browse menu. The Home key will move to the first label and the End key will move to the last label in your file. The PgUp key will move to the previous label and the PgDn key will move to the next label. You can quickly move between flagged labels in your file. (See section 6.3.1 for information on flagging labels) Pressing Ctrl- PgUp will move to the previous flagged label and Ctrl-PgDn will move to the next flagged label. All of these move functions will work any time a label is displayed on your screen. These keys are listed in Appendix D but you can get a list on your screen at any time by pressing Alt-H. 6.3.5 Deleting Labels Selecting Delete from the Browse menu will bring up the Delete menu and allow you to delete labels you no longer need. Deleted 25 labels are just flagged and not actually removed until you save your file. When you save your file you will be asked to confirm that you wish to delete the labels. Delete Menu F1 Displayed F2 Flagged F3 Clear All When a label has been flagged for deletion you will see an "*" displayed in front of the label number in the information area. From the Delete menu you can select Displayed to toggle the flag for the displayed label. If the label was already flagged you will unflag it or clear the delete flag. Selecting Flagged from the delete menu will allow you to delete all labels that have been flagged for printing. This means you can use all of the search features in Simply Labels to delete labels by first flagging them for printing. See the section on Searching for Labels (6.3.2) for more information. The last choice in the Delete Menu is call Clear All and is very simple. It will clear the delete flags for all labels. 6.4 Printing Labels All labels are printed from the Print menu which is selected from the Use menu. Normally the name of the current menu is displayed in the block on the right in the information area. With the Print menu you will see the name Print plus a letter. This letter will be L, E, or R and will tell you the printing format that is currently selected. "Print L" is for labels, "Print E" for envelopes, and "Print R" for report format. This menu allows you to control all printing options and print your labels in a variety of ways. Print Menu F1 Flag F2 Toggle F3 Go F4 Sample F5 Edit F6 Options Before any labels can be printed they must be flagged (selected) for printing. This may be done with the first two choices from the Print menu. See section 6.3.3 for information on flagging 26 labels. After you have flagged the labels you wish to print they may be printed by selecting Go from the Print Menu. You will have to select the output device for the labels which is explained below. If you press any key at any time during printing the printing will pause. You can then press Esc to return to the Print menu or any other key to continue the printing. After the labels are printed you will notice that the print flags have not changed. This allows you to print the same labels to different devices or in different formats without having to flag them again. Selecting Sample from the Print menu will print a sample label on your printer using the current format and options selected. This is used to help you align your labels in your printer before printing your file. From the Print menu you also have control of the paper in your printer. By pressing Alt-L the printer will advance one line at a time. A top of form command may be sent by pressing Alt-P. In this program Top of Form means one label for Label format, one envelope for Envelope format, and the normal form feed when using Report format. 6.4.1 Output Devices Simply Labels allows you to print your labels to several devices including the screen, printer, a disk file or a new label file. Whenever you choose to print labels you will be asked to select an output device from the Device Menu. Device Menu F1 Printer F2 Disk F3 Screen F4 Label File Printer When using your printer as the output device the program will check to make sure your printer is ready to print before sending any labels to be printed. If your printer is not ready the program will beep and ask you to check it. At this point you can fix your printer and continue or press ESC to abort and return to the Print menu. When printing labels to the printer, any typefaces selected for 27 that label will be used as the label is printed. Note that these typefaces are not used when printing to the screen or to a disk file. Therefore if you print your labels to a disk file and then later print the disk file on your printer, your labels will not contain the typefaces selected in your label file. Disk File Printing your labels to a disk file is very important when combined with the Import option because it allows you to transfer data between files. When you select Disk from the Device menu you will be asked for a file name for the text file. If a file already exists with the name you entered you will be asked if you wish to replace it. No extension is assumed so you must enter an extension if you want one. The files that Simply Labels prints to disk are standard ASCII text files and may be read by any program. For example you can use the search functions in Simply Labels to select certain mailing labels, print them to a disk file and your word processor can use the file to create form letters. If any errors occur during printing to the disk file the printing will stop and an error message will be displayed. Screen The screen is handy for checking to make sure the proper labels will be printed. When you are sure you have selected the correct labels you can print the same labels to the printer to get a hard copy. When printing to the screen, the screen is cleared except for the message line at the bottom. This line will show the progress of the printing. See the section on Setting Program Options (9.4) for information on setting the screen printing speed. The printing will pause when any key is pressed and you have the option of continuing or aborting the printing. Label File This option does not actually print your labels but rather it will create a new label file containing only the labels that are flagged. This new file will be a clone of the file you are using and will be the same except for the label data. All you have to do to use this option is select Label File from the Device menu and enter a file name. This device is very handy for splitting large label files into smaller files but its main use is converting link files into label files. If you use this device when a link file is loaded, all 28 labels that are flagged will be read from the database and saved in a new label file. Be careful using this option with link files because it is possible to create label files that are too large to load back into memory. 6.4.2 Print Options The last choice in the Print menu is Options and it lets you change all options used when printing your labels. When this choice is selected a window is displayed showing all current print options along with the Options Menu. From the Options Menu you can select one of three different printing formats to use when printing your labels, change all print options and make typeface selections for your label file. All options set from this menu are saved as part of your label file. If you select a different format, all options for that format will be in effect just by selecting that format. This allows you to quickly change between formats while maintaining all settings. Print Options Menu F1 Labels F2 Envelopes F3 Report F4 Other F5 Typeface From the Print Options menu there is a choice called Other. This is used to set the other or general printing options. A window called Other Options will pop up allowing you to set these options. Press Esc when you have finished entering them. --| Other Options |----------------------------- | | | Number of Copies [1 ] | | | | Print All Copies Together (Y/n) [Yes] | | | | Double Strike Background Text (Y/n) [Yes] | | | | Center Labels (y/N) [No ] | | | | Remove Blank Lines (y/N) [No ] | ------------------------------------------------ 29 The number of copies will be a number from 1 to 9999 and is the number of times you want each label printed. The second option allows you to print all copies of a label together. This is the normal way labels are printed but you may want copies of a complete set of labels in which case all selected labels are printed and then this is repeated for each copy required. Note that when using the Report format this option will control the number of reports printed. Double Striking background text is a way of highlighting any background text you use in your label. This is done without the use of any printer codes by first printing the complete line and then with a second pass printing only the background text. This works with most print options, including multiple labels per line and envelopes but does not work when you choose the option of centering your labels. It is automatically turned off in this case. The Center Labels option will center the label text within your printed label. This works very nice with mailing labels and will work with any number of labels across. Short address are no longer printed on the left side but will be centered in the label. This also works with envelopes. The last option is used mostly with link files but may be used with label files as well. When a label is made from fields in a database it is common to get blank lines in your labels. This will remove them and move all other lines up to fill in your label. Typeface Selecting Typeface from the Print Options menu will allow you to select any of the defined typefaces (See Setting Program Options (9.3) for more information.) for any line in your label. See the section on Editing Label Formats (5.2) for information on how to use this option. This option is not used when printing labels in Report format. With Report formats the typefaces are set in the report options. 6.4.3 Print Formats Label Format Selecting this choice will tell the program to print your file as standard labels and let you set the options for this format. To 30 set most label options you must select Labels from the Options Menu. When this is done a window, called Label Options, will be displayed showing all options that are available with the Label format and allow you to change them. This window is shown below. When the options are set the way you like just press ESC to return to the Options Menu. --| Label Options |-------------------------------- | | | Number of Labels Across. (1-5) [ ] | | | | Spacing Between Labels. [ ] | | | | Lines Between Labels. [ ] | | | | Lines in Label to Print. [ ] | | | | Left Margin. [ ] | | | | | | Print Sample Label. [ ] | --------------------------------------------------- Simply labels will allow you to print up to 5 labels across a page. If you select more than 1 label across you will be able to enter the spacing between your labels. You may have to experiment with this value to find the proper spacing. The values for this option are from 0 to 99 characters. If only one label across is selected you will not be able to set this option. The next option is the lines between your labels and it just means the number of blank lines printed between each row of labels. This is normally set when the label was first designed but may be changed in this window. The left margin helps in aligning your paper. The Lines in Label to Print option allows you to control the number of non-printing lines. This option is normally set the same as the number of lines in your label. Non printing lines may be used to store information in your files that does not need to be printed as part of the label. This topic is discussed further in section 8.1 The next option allows you to print sample labels on your printer. This is the same as selecting Sample from the Print menu but it lets you see what your options are set like without leaving the options screen. To print sample labels just press the space bar 31 when the cursor is at this option. Envelope Format By choosing Envelope from the Print Options menu you tell the program to print your file as envelopes. This format is really only useful if your file contains mailing labels but there is no reason it can't be used with any type of label. To change or set any envelope options you must select Envelopes from the Option Menu. When this format is selected a window, called Envelope Options is displayed showing all available options. When you have finished entering the options just press ESC to return to the Options menu. Whenever the envelope format is selected all labels that are printed will be printed as envelopes. --| Envelope Options |---------------------------------------- | | | Print Return Address. (Y/n) [Yes] | | Pause Before Printing Envelopes. (y/N) [No ] | | | | --| Return Address |---------------------------------- | | | Label # [1 ] | | | | | | | | [Your Name ] - N L Q | | | | [Your Address ] - | | | | [Your City & State ] - | | | | [ ] - | | | | [ ] - | | | ------------------------------------------------------ | | | | Envelope Width. (Char) [90 ] Height. (Lines) [25] | | Starting Line for Address. [10] | | | | Print Sample Envelope. [ ] | -------------------------------------------------------------- The first option on this screen gives you the choice of printing a return address or not. If "N" is entered for this choice, only the main address from your label file will be printed and you will not be able to enter any return address options. Entering "Y" will display the current return address and allow you to change it. The return address shown in the Envelope Options window is 32 used with all envelopes printed from the current file. Inside the Return Address window you are asked for a label number for the return address. You can enter any label number from your file and the program will use that label as the return address. If you don't want to use a label from your file you can just move down and enter it manually. In either case you may edit the return address and add any typeface you wish to use with this address. The typefaces entered here are only used for the return address and are different from the selections entered for the main file. The typeface selections made from the Option menu are used for the main address of the envelope. There is an option to pause before printing each envelope which allows single envelopes to be used. This option is normally turned off. Simply Labels will print any size envelope you can fit into your printer. Instead of just allowing one or two envelope sizes you can define any size you like by entering the width and number of lines in the envelope. When entering the size options just remember that the return address is fixed at the top left and you can position the main address any where you like. The width option is used to center the main address. If you want to move the main address to the right just increase the width number. The height option is the total lines in the envelope and should be adjusted to move you to the top of the next envelope. (Tractor feed envelopes) With single feed envelopes you may find that it is better to stop printing right after the main address has been printed. This will prevent paper out error messages. The last option for envelope size is the Starting Line for Address and it controls which line in the envelope the main address starts on. To move the main address up, just decrease this number or to move it down just increase it. The last option on this screen allows you to print sample envelopes. When the cursor is on this option just press the space bar and a sample envelope will be printed on your printer. This is the same as selecting Sample from the Print Menu but you don't have to leave the envelope option screen. The method of entering the envelope size was chosen because it allows any size envelope to be used and it will allow you to adjust for special typefaces. For example if the size of the envelope was fixed and you wanted the main address printed in wide characters, the main address would be way over on the right side of the envelope. This way you can center the main address by adjusting the width option. A good idea is to print out sample envelopes on normal paper until you get the set up just right. You won't have to enter these values each time you load your file because all options are saved as part of your file. 33 Report Format This choice will tell the program to print your labels in a report format and allow you to set all available report options. The Report format consists of a page heading or title and the body of the report which will be information from your labels. Each label you print from the Print Menu will make up one line in the report. This is a good way to get summaries or lists from your label files. The report can contain up to nine columns, each of which may be any part of any line in your label and a column containing the label numbers. You can have two title lines and the report can be printed on any size page. This format is very useful for all types of label files. You could use the report format to print out a list of all parts from a parts file or a list of all cassettes from a tape file. To use this format all you have to do is enter or select the options you want and press ESC when you are finished. Whenever the report format is selected all labels that are printed will be printed in the report format. All report options are set in the Report Options window shown below. --| Report Options |------------------------------------------ | | | Title 1 - [ ] | | Title 2 - [ ] | | | | Report Contents | | General Options | | Column Line# Position Length | | Repeating Titles (Y/n) [Yes] | | Title Typeface N L Q 1 - [ ] - [ ] - [ ] | | Report Width [78] 2 - [ ] - [ ] - [ ] | | Print Date (Y/n) [Yes] 3 - [ ] - [ ] - [ ] | | Print Label Numbers [Yes] 4 - [ ] - [ ] - [ ] | | Report Typeface Condensed 5 - [ ] - [ ] - [ ] | | Page Length [66] 6 - [ ] - [ ] - [ ] | | Top Margin [3] 7 - [ ] - [ ] - [ ] | | Bottom Margin [3] 8 - [ ] - [ ] - [ ] | | Left Margin [ ] 9 - [ ] - [ ] - [ ] | -------------------------------------------------------------- The top part of this screen allows you to enter the report titles. Two title lines are printed and can be left blank if desired. The repeating titles option will if selected cause the title lines to be printed at the top of each new page. If you enter "N" for this option the title lines are only printed on the first page and two extra labels are printed on all remaining pages. 34 If you want to print the date as part of your report, just select that option and the date will be printed as part of the second title line. The report format does not use any typeface settings from the main label file but instead allows you to select a typeface for the title lines and a different typeface for your labels, or the body of the report. The report width is just used to center the title lines and should be set accordingly. The other options allow you to set options that affect the body of the report. The first option allows you to print the label numbers as part of the report. If this is selected the label numbers are printed as the first column in the report. The typeface for the body of the report will normally be condensed to allow as much as possible to fit on one line but can be any typeface you have defined. The page length, top and bottom margins combine to define the size of the printed page. The defaults are set for a standard page but can be set for almost any size page. If you want a continuous printout without any page breaks just set the page length less than the top margin plus the bottom margin. Setting it to one works just fine. The next set of options will control what is actually printed in your report. To print data from your labels in your report all you have to do is put the number of the line you want printed next to the column you want the line to be printed in. You must also specify the part of the line to use by entering a starting position and length. When printing in the report format blank or empty columns are not printed. 6.5 Adding Labels Selecting Add from the Use menu will cause the program to display the Add menu allowing you to add more labels to your label file. Please note that you cannot add any labels to a link file. Add Menu F1 Blank F2 Copy F3 Import F4 Quit If Blank is selected from the Add menu a blank label is displayed for you to fill in. If you select Copy instead, you will be asked for the number of the label you wish to copy. After entering the label number, that label is displayed and may be edited to create the new label. The Copy feature is very handy if you have a lot of labels with similar text. A good use for this feature is when 35 entering a lot of mailing labels that have the same City, State, and Zip. You could enter the first label and then use the Copy feature to Copy the rest and edit the name and address. If you enter or edit any text, the new label will not be added to your file. This was done to prevent blank or duplicate labels. See section 6.5.2 for information on importing labels. 6.5.1 The Label Editor When editing text inside a label you have a full label editor and what you see on the screen is exactly what the label will contain. A help screen showing the editing commands is available by pressing <Alt-H> and these keys are listed in Appendix D which may be used as a quick reference card. You can use the cursor keys to move freely around the label. The HOME key will move to the first position on the current line and the END key will move to the end of the text on the current line. Pressing End a second time will move to the end of the current line. Ctrl-Home will move to the beginning of the label and Ctrl- End will move to the end of the label. Pressing the RETURN key will move to the start of the next line, or field if your label has background text. The INS key will toggle between Insert and Typeover modes and the cursor will change shape to show the current mode. The cursor will be a solid block when in typeover mode and an underscore when in insert mode. The DEL key will delete the character under the cursor and move all remaining text on that line to the left. The BACKSPACE key will delete the character to the left of the cursor and move all remaining text and the cursor back one position. When in insert mode all text pushed outside the label is lost. Pressing Ctrl-Left will move you to the left one word at a time and Ctrl-Right will move one word to the right. You can center a line of text within your label by placing the cursor on the line and pressing the Alt-C keys. An erase to the end of the line function is provided which will delete all text from the cursor to the end of the current line. This is done by pressing the Alt-E keys. The current system date may be inserted into your label text by pressing Alt-D and the current time may be inserted with Alt-T. Simply Labels also allows commonly used text to be entered with Qwik keys. See section 8.2 Date and Time Stamps or 8.4 Qwik keys for more information. 36 If your labels do not contain any background text you can insert a blank line at the cursor position by pressing Alt-I. You can remove a complete line of text by pressing Alt-R. When editing labels with background text there are some differences. First of all the cursor will never rest on any background text, preventing you from changing it. Background text breaks your label up into fields. A field is any blank spaces between background text. The word left and word right functions also work as field left and field right functions when background text is used. Also the INS, DEL and BACKSPACE keys will only affect text in the current field. Any remaining text on that line will not be affected. Also the center a line and erase to end of line functions only affect text in the current field. Load a sample file containing background text and add a few labels to see how background text works. Simply Labels allows you to use any character except the Return character (ASCII code 13) as text in your labels. These characters may be used for either background text or normal label text. There are three ways of entering extended characters into your labels. The first is to use the DOS convention of holding down the Alt key and typing the ASCII code for the character you want. The second is to use the special characters defined in Simply Labels (See section 9.2 for more information). The third method allows the graphic characters contained in the extended character set to be easily entered as text in your labels. These characters may be used for either background text or normal text and are very useful for making fancy labels with boxes or logos in them. To use these characters in Simply Labels you just have to press F1 at any time while editing label text and you will be switched to graphic mode. A small happy face is displayed on the menu line to show you that you are in the graphics mode. Pressing F1 a second time will return you to normal text mode. All of the graphic characters are represented by standard ASCII characters and can be entered from the keyboard. To see which keys represent which graphic characters copy the file CODES.DOC to your printer. If this file does not print properly on your printer you should not use graphic characters in your labels. 6.5.2 Importing Labels From Other Files The Import option used in Simply Labels is quite flexible and allows you to import labels from most types of data files. This has many uses such as transferring information between label files, creating sub-files containing only parts of the original 37 file, and to transfer information from other application programs into your label files. This program can read ASCII text files created by any application such as a spreadsheet or data base program and pick out the information you want to include in your labels. The only thing that is assumed about the text files is that they fit into one of three broadly defined types. These are called Label type, Column type or Fixed Length data files and are explained below. To use the Import option you will have to tell the program the name of the text file to import from and exactly what text you want to include in your labels. This information is entered by filling out the Import window. After you enter this information Simply Labels will read the file, build a label according to your input and then display it on the screen. At this point you can add it to your file or read another label. You may also press "A" to Add All imported labels. Labels may be added until your label file is full or the end of the text file is reached. Esc will abort the import operation and return you to the Import menu. Import Menu F1 Label F2 Column F3 Fixed Length F4 Quit Some notes on importing labels. All labels start out as blank labels, containing any background text that may be in your label format. Background text is always preserved during importing and cannot be written over. If you try to place more text than is allowed in one line/field of your label the program will clip the imported text to make it fit. Label Type Files Label type files are text files in which the information required to make a label is contained in 66 lines or less and repeats for each label required. Some examples of this type of file are the text files created by Simply Labels when printing labels to a disk file. Most data base programs will also print this type of file. It is assumed that if more than one label is to be read that the information in the text file be repeated every so many lines. If a data base program prints mailing labels to a disk file, the first label will take from lines 1 to 6 and the second will be from lines 7 to 12. This is an example of a repeating label type 38 file. You can even build one label from each page of a report by setting the lines to 66. When you create text files from your applications you may want to turn off options such as page headings which may destroy the repeating nature of the text file. To import labels from this type of text file you will select Label from the Import Menu. Next you will be asked to select the file you wish to import from. This file is selected by using the Select File window (See Section 6.2.1). After the file has been selected you have to fill out the Import window shown below. --| Import |------------------------------------------------- | Number of lines to make one label. [ ] | | | | ------ Disk File ------ -- Label -- | | Link Line# Start Length Line Pos | | 1 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 2 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 3 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 4 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 5 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 6 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 7 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 8 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 9 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 10 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | ------------------------------------------------------------- The first information that the program requires is the number of lines from the text file required to build one label. This can be from 1 to 66 lines and represents how many lines before the text file repeats. If you enter a value such as 6 the program will read 6 lines from the text file, build one label, and then read the next 6 lines to build the second label. Once you tell the program how many lines to read from the text file you have to tell it what text to include from those lines. You can place up to 10 pieces of information (Links) from the text file into your label. Each piece of information may be any part of any line read from the text file. You must specify the line to use, where to start on that line, the length to use from that line, and the position in the label for the text. To enter the label position a blank label is displayed on the screen. Just move to the desired position and press RETURN. 39 Defaults are used for most of these values and may be selected by pressing RETURN. The default values for each line in the label will be the corresponding line in the text file, with a starting position of 1 and a length equal to the width of your label. Do not worry about the length unless you only want part of a line. This value is adjusted as the label is built to make the text fit into your label. When you have finished entering all values press Esc to start importing labels. This method of specifying how to build your label allows the program to read any text file and arrange the imported text any way you like in your label. You can even take text from one line in your text file and use it on several lines in your label. Column Files Column type files are text files in which all the information needed to make a label is contained on a single line. This type of text file is common with data base and spreadsheet programs (or the Report format in Simply Labels). When Simply Labels reads this type of text file a label is built from every line in the text file. Sample Column Type Text File: EMP# Name Age Address City -------------------------------------------------------------- 1999 John Doe 29 P.O. Box 23 St. John's, Nfld. 1234 Janet Smith 34 P.O. Box 1234 Corner Brook, Nfld. 9876 Dick Jones 23 P.O. Box 543 St. John's, Nfld. Importing labels from this type of text file is done by selecting Column from the Import menu. Next you have to select the text file to import from. You have to tell the program how you want to build your labels by filling out the Import window shown below. This is very similar to importing from label type text files as described above. 40 --| Import |------------------------------------------------- | | | | | ------ Disk File ------ -- Label -- | | Link Start Length Line Pos | | 1 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 2 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 3 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 4 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 5 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 6 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 7 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 8 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 9 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 10 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | ------------------------------------------------------------- For each line in your label you must tell the program which part of the line from the text file to use. For example to make mailing labels from the sample text file above you would enter the following values at the Import window. Link Start Length Line Pos Result 1 8 13 1 1 (Name) 2 26 17 2 1 (Address) 3 43 20 3 1 (City) 4 After the values needed to build your labels are entered the program will read each line of the text file and display the resulting label on the screen. You then have the choice of adding it to your file or pressing "N" to skip that label and display the next one. Fixed Length This file type is used with most database programs. You may be using a dedicated database program that has its own non-standard file format. You can easily build labels from this type of file by selecting Fixed Length from the Import menu. This works the same way as with the other file types except you must give some additional information about the file. To import from a fixed length file Simply Labels needs to know the record length and the length of any header that may be in the file. The length of the 41 header is called the File Offset and if the file does not contain a header just enter 0. PC-File database files may be read this way. --| Import |------------------------------------------------- | File OffSet [ ] Record Length [ ] | | | | ------ Disk File ------ -- Label -- | | Link Start Length Line Pos | | 1 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 2 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 3 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 4 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 5 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 6 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 7 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 8 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 9 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | 10 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | ------------------------------------------------------------- When Simply Labels imports from a fixed length file it first skips over the number of bytes you entered as the File Offset and then reads a single record. This is the text that is then used to build the first label. Everything else about importing with fixed length files is the same as with column type files. 6.6 Sorting Files Most standard mailing label programs are set up as a data base type program with fields for Name, Address, City and so on. While this is fine for mailing labels it severely limits the type of labels you can generate. Simply Labels takes a free form approach allowing what you see is what you get type of labels. This allows much more flexibility in designing label formats but presents a problem for sorting labels. When using mailing labels the most basic sort is to sort the file by Last Name. To do this in Simply Labels the sort routines were written to allow you to sort on any part of any line. It is possible to sort on the whole line or you can select a sort biased on only the first or last word in the line. There is a primary and a secondary sort and both can specify which part of any line to use. For example you could sort a mailing label file on the line containing Zip or Postal codes and then as a secondary sort, sort on the last word in the first 42 line. This would sort your file by Zip codes and by Last Name. To define the type of sort you want you have to fill out the define Sort window. This is similar to the Define Search window and is shown below. --| Define Sort |------------------------------------------ | | | Primary Sort: | | Sort on Line # [1 ] using the last word | | | | Secondary Sort: | | Sort on Line # [0 ] No secondary sort | | | | | | Ascending or Descending [A] Start Sorting [ ] | ----------------------------------------------------------- You will be asked to enter the line number to use for the primary sort. Next you have to select which part of the line to use for the primary sort. This is done by making a selection from the Part Line menu. See 6.3.2 for information on using parts of a line. After this is done you have to repeat the above for the secondary sort. Entering 0 for the line number will disable the secondary sort. Next you have a choice of an ascending or descending sort. Press RETURN at the Start Sorting field and the program will begin sorting your file. If you press Esc any time in this window the sort is cancelled and you are returned to the Use menu. The program will beep when the sort is completed. If you press any key while the program is sorting you have the option of continuing with the sort or to abort and return to the Use menu. When you save your files they will be saved in the sorted order. This way you only have to sort your file when labels are added or changed. 6.7 Saving Files There are two ways to save your label files. First any time you are at a menu with a file loaded into memory you may press F9 or Alt-S to manually save your file. This is handy when you are adding a lot of labels and want to save your work. You will be asked if you want to save your file with its default name. Press return to save it or you may edit the filename or path or both. 43 This is a very easy way to make backups of your label files. If you press Esc when the file name is displayed you will be returned without saving the file. Whenever you choose to leave the Use menu you will see the save file message. If you return to the Main menu without saving your files any changes you made will be lost!! If in doubt save your files. If you do not want to save your file just press Esc. When saving a file, if a file already exists you will see the message Replace [Filename]? (Y/n). If you wish to replace it just press Return but if you do not want to replace the file on disk say no and you will be given a chance to enter a new name. 6.8 Deleting Old Files You can delete label files you no longer need by selecting Delete from the Main menu. You will have to select the file to delete from the Select File window. See section 6.2.1 on selecting files for more information. To delete the file you will have to confirm that you do indeed want to delete it. Pressing "Y" will delete the file. 7.0 Link Files Link files are a powerful new feature of Simply Labels. A link file allows you to print any kind of labels from information you have already stored in a database file. They are called link files because they actually link to the database file to get the label data. Whenever you load a link file the associated database is opened and one label is made from each record in the database. See the section below to see how the labels are made. Simply Labels can read two types of database files and will understand the file structure, so you work with your data by field names only. The two types of database files are dBase files (*.dbf) and PC-File (*.dta). With dBase files the file structure is contained in a header in the database file itself. This information is read when the file is first opened. With PC-File a separate header file is needed (*.hdr) to get the file structure. Therefore to link with a PC-File database you must have both the header file (*.hdr) and the data file (*.dta) available. The program will show that it is linked to the header file but it will read data from the data file (*.dta). Other 44 support for PC-File database files includes the ability to recognize the flip data character (~). Try out the sample link files included on your program disk. One major point to remember about link files is that Simply Labels will never change your database file. This means that you cannot use any of the delete, add or sort options in Simply Labels. These operations are best left to the program that created your database in the first place. Link files have many advantages over label files. First a link file can access many more labels. The maximum number of labels for a link file is 32500. If you have more records than this in your database they will be ignored. Another advantage is that you do not have to enter your data into two programs. As you enter new records into your database they are automatically seen and available to your link file for printing. When Simply Labels opens your database file it is opened for reading only while allowing other programs to share the file at the same time. This allows Simply Labels to work on a network. The program has been tested on a small network with no problems. However any records added to the database after it has been opened by Simply Labels will not be seen until the link file has been closed and reopened. This should not be a problem as long as you are aware of it. 7.1 Editing Link Files Building labels from your database is a simple matter of telling Simply Labels how to arrange the fields in your label. Each piece of information (a field) placed into your label is considered one link. Up to 18 links may be used to build your label. To do this a window, called Edit Link is used along with the Edit Link menu. Both are shown below. Link files may be edited at any time by choosing Edit from the Browse or Print menus. Any changes made to your links can be seen in your labels as soon as you leave this menu. Edit Link Menu F1 Add F2 Delete F3 Move F4 Position 45 --| Edit Link |----------------------------------------------- | | | Link Field Line Pos Len Link Field Line Pos Len | | 1 NAME 1 1 30 10 | | 2 ADDRESS 2 1 30 11 | | 3 CITY 3 1 30 12 | | 4 STATE 3 1 3 13 | | 5 ZIP 3 1 5 14 | | 6 15 | | 7 16 | | 8 17 | | 9 18 | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------- When you first create a link file your labels and the Edit Link window will both be blank. You must add links to this window to tell the program how to make your labels. When Add is selected from the Edit Link menu you add a new link to your label. The first thing you must do is select the name of the field you wish to use. A menu will pop up showing all fields in the database, along with their type and length, for you to select one. You can use the Up, Down, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn keys or press the first letter in the field name to highlight the field you want. When the proper field is highlighted just press RETURN to select it. After a field has been selected you have to position the field in your label. To do this a blank label is displayed. Move the cursor to the desired position in the label and press RETURN. Next you must tell the program how much of the field data to use. The default for this is the length of data that will fit into the label and unless you really want less, just press RETURN. If the field is too big to fit into the label the program will clip it. Thats all there is to it. Your new link will now be displayed in the Edit Link window. Add as many as you need to complete your label and then select Quit to return and see your label displayed on the screen. If you want to delete a link just select Delete from the menu and enter the link number. The Position option in this menu allows you to reposition any link in the label. Just select Position and enter the link number. A blank label will be displayed with the cursor at the old position. Move to the new position and press RETURN. You will also have to enter the length again and then your updated link will be displayed in the window. To understand the Move option you have to know how a label is built from a series of links. Simply Labels starts with the first 46 link and adds it to the label, remembering the last position used in that line. Next it tries to add the second link at it's position. If the position of the second link has been used by any previous link, the program shifts it right to the last position used in that line. Of course if the second link is the first one on the line it will not be shifted. By building labels this way you can place several fields on a single line without having to worry about the length of data in the fields. To place several fields on a single line just give each link the same position and the program will shift them to the right as needed. Simply Labels will use the order of the links to determine which links get added first and which ones get shifted. This is where the Move option comes in. You can change the order of the links by selecting Move and entering the number of the link you want to move. After you select the link to move you just enter the new number for that link and the window is drawn again showing the links in their new order. Look at the sample Edit Link window above and you will notice that 3 links (3,4,5) have the same position. This would result in a line looking like the one below. Sunnyvale CA 94086 If the order of the links was changed to the following 3 State 3 1 3 4 Zip 3 1 5 5 City 3 1 30 The new line would look like this CA 94086 Sunnyvale You can see that the order of your links in the Edit Link window can be important. Just remember to order your links in the same order you would use if you were writing the label out by hand and your labels will turn out fine. Some notes on building labels. All background text will be protected and if necessary field data is clipped to do this. If it is necessary to shift field data to the right a space is always left between the two fields. 47 7.2 Searching with Link Files Searching with link files is performed in the same manner as with label files (See section 6.3.2) but there are some points to keep in mind. Simply Labels makes no attempt to use any index files belonging to your database file so all searches will be sequential. Searches will be slower than searches with label files. With label files a Complete search will find text anywhere in your label. With link files a Complete search will find your text anywhere in a record even if the text is not part of your label. This was done for several reasons. First it is much faster to check the complete record than to build a label for each record and check the label text. It also allows more flexible searches. For example you can find records that match a certain field without having to include that field in your labels. All other searches work the same as with label files. Conditional searches must make a label for each record and then perform the search on the label text. For this reason these searches are slower than Complete searches. 7.3 Limitations of Link Files There are several limitations to keep in mind when using link files. First of all if your database file has more than 32500 records, Simply Labels will ignore them. The program has a maximum number of labels of 32500. If you change the structure of a database file you may have to create a new link file for that database. When the link file is loaded you can quickly see if your labels are correct. Simply Labels cannot change the data contained in your database so you will not be able to use any Sort, Add or Delete functions. You will see the message: This operation not allowed with link files. 48 8.0 Other Features 8.1 Non Printing Lines This is an option that may be used with any type of file and it is very handy if you need it. It allows you to mark line in your label as non printing lines. This allows you to store information in your files that you don't want printed. For example in a mailing list you could have a non printing line that contained a persons phone number or employee number. This information can then be used for searches or sorts or even in reports but it would not be printed in a label or envelope. The number of non printing lines may be changed at any time from the Print Options menu. All non printing lines will always be on the bottom of the label and they will always be together. You can't select for example lines 1 and 4 as non printing lines. If you enter 2 for the number of non printing lines in a label with 5 lines, then lines 4 and 5 will be the non printing lines. When you see your label displayed on the screen any non printing lines will be seen with double lines in the label frame. A sample label with non printing lines is shown below. When using label files remember that non printing lines take up memory the same as printing lines and will reduce the maximum number of labels that can be in a file. Also remember that non printing lines are not extra lines added to your label but current lines you do not want to print. ----------------------------------- | | | Label Text | | | || Non printing line || || Non printing line || ----------------------------------- This option is even more useful when using link files. Since the label data is not kept in memory with link files it is a good idea to always add extra lines to your label format and mark them as non printing lines. The advantage of this is that you can place any field from the database in the non printing lines and use this information in reports and for searches. Remember link files may be edited on the fly at any time so if you need to search on a particular field you can just select Edit and Add the field to a non printing line. 49 8.2 Date and Time Stamps There are two ways to use time and date information in your labels and the method you use will depend on the application. The first method is to enter the current date or time into your label as text. This can only be done from within the label editor and is done with the following keys. Alt-D enters system date as text (MM/DD/YYYY) Alt-T enters system time as text (HH:MM:SS) This text may be edited just like any other text after it has been entered. This method is good if you need to know the date or time the label was created or edited. If you have a label that you print on different days and need to know the date or time that the label was printed, you should use the stamp method. A stamp is background text that is replaced with the proper information when a label is printed. The valid stamps are listed below. MM/DD/YYYYY - replaced with system date HH:MM:SS - replaced with system time HH:MM - replaced with system time (No seconds) If you press Alt-D or Alt-T while editing background text the proper stamp is inserted into your label as background text. You cannot insert the actual system date or time as background text. 8.3 DOS Shell Simply Labels allows you to exit to DOS any time you are at a menu. If you press Alt-D you will see the following message: Shell to DOS? (Y/n). Press "Y" or RETURN to go to DOS. To return from DOS just type "Exit" and you will be returned exactly where you were. It is up to you to make sure your system can find a copy of COMMAND.COM If the command processor cannot be loaded the shell will fail. 8.4 Qwik Keys When working with labels there are some things that you seem to be entering over and over again. It would be nice to be able to enter these text strings with a single keypress instead of always 50 retyping them. That is exactly what Qwik keys allow you to do. You can define up to 10 Qwik keys (See section 9.4 for information on defining Qwik keys) and enter them with a single keypress. Qwik keys are entered by holding down the ALT key and pressing one of the number keys. (0-9) In case you can't remember your definitions you can press Alt-Q and all definitions will be displayed on the screen. Qwik keys are handy for things such as the name of your City, State, Zip code or any other text you enter over and over. Qwik keys are active at all times and may be used for any program input. One use that you may not see right away is to use Qwik keys as macros. For example "FAS" will make the menu choices: Flag / All / Set and select all labels for printing. The following Qwik key could be used to print your entire file: "PFASGP" Print / Flag / All / Set / Go / Printer. 9.0 Setting Program Options Program configuration may be done from several places in the program. Any time you see the Configure choice in a menu it will allow you to set most program options. This can be done from the Main menu, the Use menu and from the Format menu. Selecting Configure will bring up the configure menu shown below. Configure Menu F1 Screen F2 Keyboard F3 Printer F4 Other F5 Quit Most options set from this menu will be in effect as soon as they have been set but they are not saved until you leave this menu. Before leaving you will see the message: Save current Options? (Y/n) If you choose not to save your options they will remain in effect as long as the program is running. The next time you run the program, the options saved on disk will be used. If you choose to save your options they are written to a file called SL.CNF. All options are meant to be set from within the program and this file should not be edited. If this file cannot be found when you start Simply Labels the program will reset to its default settings. 51 9.1 Selecting Colors If you select Screen from the Configure menu the Screen menu is displayed. The choices in this menu allow you to quickly set the program to work on a Mono system or choose the Default colors. If you don't like these you can choose your own colors by selecting Custom. Screen Menu F1 Custom F2 Mono F3 Default F4 Quit If you choose Custom a screen is displayed allowing you to control every color used in the program. You can see the effect of your selections as you make them. Press Esc after you have selected your colors and don't forget to save them. 9.2 Keyboard Definitions Simply Labels allows you to use almost the complete character set as text in your labels. One way you can enter characters that cannot be entered directly from your keyboard is to define what is called a special character. With special characters you assign the character you want to one of the letter keys and enter it into your label text by holding down the CONTROL key and pressing the letter key. These characters may be used as any input to the program including label text, Qwik keys, and for searching or sorting. These special characters are very useful for languages that do not have all their characters on the keyboard. Another use for special characters is to place printer control codes directly into your labels. If you find using the graphic mode for drawing boxes awkward you can assign the box characters to any keys you want. One caution about using the control characters (below ASCII 32) in your labels. These codes may cause some printers to act very strange but should do no harm. To define your special characters you have to select Keyboard from the Configure menu and a window will pop up showing the current definitions. Just press the letter you want to define and use the Up and Down cursor keys to select the special character for that letter. Press Esc after you have defined all of your keys and don't forget to save your options. 52 9.3 Printer Settings This is a major problem for individuals who write software. Big software companies have the resources to write drivers for most brands of printers. There are advantages to the printer driver method but what happens if your printer is not supported. Tough Luck!! A different approach was taken with Simply Labels that lets the program work with almost any printer. This approach also allows you to use options that may be unique to your printer. In effect what the program does is allow you to write a limited driver to match your printer, which assures that the program will work with all different brands of printers. One disadvantage of this method is that it requires you to dig out your printer manual and look up the codes needed to set up your printer the way you want. By selecting Printer from the Configure menu you will see a window pop up that allows you to define your printer. --| Printer Options |---------------------------------------- | | | Parallel printer port (1-3) 1 | | | | Name Definition | | 1 - [N L Q ] - [27/@/27/x/1 ] | | 2 - [N L Q U L ] - [27/@/27/x/1/27/-/1 ] | | 3 - [Condensed ] - [27/@/27/15 ] | | 4 - [Condensed U L ] - [27/@/27/15/27/-/1 ] | | 5 - [Bold Italic ] - [27/@/27/!/24/27/4 ] | | 6 - [Wide ] - [27/@/27/!/49 ] | | 7 - [Big and Bold ] - [27/@/27/G/27/E/27/h/01 ] | | 8 - [Baby Print ] - [27/@/27/S/0/27/3/18/27/M ] | | 9 - [Normal Print ] - [27/@ ] | ------------------------------------------------------------- The first option in this window is the printer port you wish to use for your labels. It would be nice to have a printer always loaded with labels and hooked to a second port. If you have this setup the program is capable of using ports 1 through 3. If you have only one printer leave this set at 1. The rest of the window allows you to enter up to 18 printer typefaces for your printer. A typeface definition consists of a name, which describes the typeface, and the codes needed to set your printer to print in that typeface. In most cases the codes can be read directly from a table in your printer manual. There 53 are only 9 definitions shown in the window but if you move the cursor down past the 9th field, the extra fields will be displayed. If you happen to own a Star NX10 printer, then you are in luck because that is the default printer for the program. Even if you don't it is a good idea to look at the defaults to see how the typefaces are entered. Load in the file called PRNDEMO.LAB that came on your disk and print out the label in that file. You will then see which of the default typefaces work on your printer. In any case here is how to enter your own settings. First you have to decide which features you want to define and then look up the codes needed to put your printer in that mode. The rules for entering the codes are very simple: The slash (/) is used as a separator between the codes to be sent to your printer. Everything between the slashes will result in one character being sent to your printer. If there is a single character between the slashes it is sent to the printer exactly as you typed it. If there is more than one character between the slashes the program assumes that you entered an ASCII code and will send the character that has the ASCII value you entered. The first and last slash do not need to be entered. For Example: 27/M Will send ESCAPE "M" to your printer 27/77 Will send exactly the same codes to your printer because 77 is the ASCII code for "M". This will set most dot matrix printers to Elite pitch. 27/x/1 Will send ESCAPE "x1" to your printer. This will set most printers to Near Letter Quality If you cannot type the character needed directly from the keyboard use the ASCII code for that character. To send the ASCII codes from 0 to 9 just place a zero in front of the number (00 to 09). One caution about using your typeface definitions. The definitions you enter are common to all of your files and if you change a definition after using it in a label file, that file will use the new definition and not the original one. The label files only contain a reference to the definitions and not the definitions themselves. You should decide what definitions you want and not change them. Star NX10 1 - [N L Q ]-[27/@/27/x/1 ] This is standard Near Letter Quality. 54 2 - [N L Q U L ]-[27/@/27/x/1/27/-/1 ] This is Near Letter Quality With underline turned on. 3 - [Condensed ]-[27/@/27/15 ] This is standard condensed pitch. 4 - [Condensed U L ]-[27/@/27/15/27/-/1 ] This is condensed with underlining. 5 - [Bold Italic ]-[27/@/27/!/24/27/4 ] This is the Italic font with double strike and Emphasized. 6 - [Wide ]-[27/@/27/!/49 ] This is double width Elite with double strike. 7 - [Big and Bold ]-[27/@/27/G/27/E/27/h/01 ] This is double size printing with emphasis and double strike. 8 - [Baby Print ]-[27/@/27/S/0/27/3/18/27/M ] This is Elite Superscript with line spacing set to 18/216" Line spacing is set to fit two lines of baby print in one line of normal text. 9 - [Normal Print ]-[27/@ ] This is the reset command. Note that all the typeface definitions start with the code "27/@". This code is the reset code for the printer and is used to make sure that all previous typefaces are cancelled. Most printer options will stay on until they are turned off, so the easiest way to make sure the printer is set the way you want is to reset it to the default mode first. You do not have to follow this example but it makes it easier to get exactly what you want. Resetting the printer may not work with some brands of printers, most notably Tandy printers, because they do not support the reset codes used above. If this is the case with your printer you may define one code to turn on a typeface and another code to turn it off again. This would only be a problem when designing fancy labels using many different typefaces. Remember you don't have to use any typefaces if you don't want, in which case Simply Labels will not change the way your printer is set up. Some Epson printers (FX-80/100) don't seem to have a single code for near letter quality. With these printers you can get NLQ by turning on double strike and bold. 55 Star SG-10/15 Because these printers are so popular their codes have been included in this manual. If you own this printer just enter and save these codes. 1 - [N L Q ]-[27/@/27/4 ] 2 - [N L Q U L ]-[27/@/27/4/27/-/1 ] 3 - [Condensed ]-[27/@/27/15 ] 4 - [Condensed U L ]-[27/@/27/15/27/-/1 ] 5 - [Bold Italic ]-[27/@/27/!/24/27/I/01 ] 6 - [Wide ]-[27/@/27/W/01/27/G ] 7 - [Big and Bold ]-[Not supported in the SG-XX] 8 - [Baby Print ]-[27/@/27/S/O/27/3/18/27/M ] 9 - [Normal Print ]-[27/@ ] 9.4 General Program Options Selecting Other from the Configure menu will bring up a window used to set some general options used in the program. The window is shown below. --| Other Options |------------------------------------------ | | | Screen Printing Speed (1-9) 7 Sound (Y/n) Yes | | | | Default Data Path | | | | Memory to Reserve for Other Programs (KBytes) 0 | | | | Qwik Keys | | | | 0 - [ ] 5 - [ ] | | 1 - [ ] 6 - [ ] | | 2 - [ ] 7 - [ ] | | 3 - [ ] 8 - [ ] | | 4 - [ ] 9 - [ ] | ------------------------------------------------------------- The first option in this window will control the speed at which labels are printed to the screen. The higher the number the faster the printing. Without this option you would never be able to see your labels. The next option allows you to get rid of all sound. This option might be best left on until you are familiar 56 with the program. The default data path is used to tell Simply Labels where you keep your label files. Whenever the Select File window is displayed this is the directory that will be read, although you can easily move to any other directory. If this option is left blank the default drive and path will be used. Unless you always use a directory other than the default, to store your files you should leave this option blank. The purpose of the next option is to control how Simply Labels uses memory. Normally when a label file is loaded into memory the program will reserve all available memory for that label file and it is not released until you have finished using your file. This option tells the program to leave some memory for other programs that you may want to run when you shell out to DOS. Even if you leave this set to 0 the program will always leave about 50K, enough for working space and to load the command processor. This gives you enough memory to perform most of the basic DOS functions. Changing this option when a file is loaded into memory will have no effect until you quit Using the current file and load another. The rest of this window is used to enter your Qwik key definitions. See section 8.3 for more information on Qwik keys. 10.0 Potential Problems Simply Labels was written with the computer novice in mind and provides traps for most errors. For the most part the problems you may encounter won't be errors but rather unexpected results which occur mostly when printing labels to your printer. Areas which cause the most problems are printing labels or envelopes that use more than one typeface per label. If you select typefaces that change the pitch or characters per inch of your printer you will not get the desired results when printing multiple labels per line. Remember the pitch is also changed for the spacing between the labels which causes the different lines in your labels not to line up. This will also apply when printing envelopes. If your labels use graphic characters to draw boxes in your labels you may also run into this problem. The best way around this problem is to stick to typefaces which don't change the pitch of the printer when printing envelopes or multiple labels per line. You can still use settings such as bold, near letter quality and italics. Remember this is only a problem when using more than one typeface per label. You can use any typeface with no problems if that typeface is used for the whole label. Underlining can also cause some problems because some printers 57 will underline the whole line including all the spaces between the labels. Another area which may cause unexpected results is when using typefaces that change the line spacing of your printer. This may cause your labels to drift and not to line up on your printer. This problem can be avoided by careful design of your formats. When designing label formats check them from the Format menu by using the Print option to print out sample labels. When entering printer definitions that change the line spacing it is a good idea to use multiples of the normal line spacing. For example if your normal line spacing is 1/6" and you wanted small print you could set your printer to superscript with 1/12" spacing. This will allow two lines of small print to fit in one line of normal print. With this set up you could have 10 lines instead of five in a standard mailing label. Remember when designing your label formats that the size of your label only determines the number of characters that will fit in your label and not the actual printed size. This will depend on the number of characters per inch and the line spacing set on your printer and you have full control over this. If you have problems setting up your printer you can use Simply Labels to print labels without using any typeface selections. You can set up your printer any way you want before running Simply Labels and as long as you don't use any typeface settings, your printer setup will not change. 58 APPENDIX A Error Messages Program Errors: There are no labels in this file Some operations in Simply Labels cannot be performed until you add at least one label to your file. Label file is full This error may occur when adding or importing labels and means there is not enough memory for any more labels. You can remove any TSR programs, change the memory option (Section 9.4) or split your file into smaller ones. No labels selected for printing You selected Go to print labels with none flagged for printing. The left block in the information area shows how many labels are currently flagged. See section 6.3.1 No Match found The search found no labels that matched your search definition. No more formats allowed Simply Labels allows a maximum of 25 formats. You may delete any you no longer need. This operation not allowed with link files When using link files you cannot use the Add, Delete, or Sort functions. Not enough memory for label file Occurs when trying to load a file that is too large. Remove TSR programs or check memory option. Error in file format, cannot load file You tried to load a file that was not created by Simply Labels III. To convert files from other versions see appendix B. No files found This will occur in the Select File window if no files or directories are found. You will have to edit the path or press Esc. 59 Invalid registration number Occurs while trying to register the program and the registration name and number do not match. Try again, making sure both are typed exactly as received from SimpleWare. DOS Errors Please check your printer / Out of paper A problem exists with your printer. Fix the problem and press RETURN. Esc will cancel printing. Drive not ready You tried to access a drive that was not ready. Make sure a disk is in the drive and the door is closed. Write protect violation Program tried to save a file on a protected disk. Remove write protect from disk. Path not found / File not found This error occurs mostly with link files when the database program cannot be opened. Edit the path/name of the database file. Disk is full Not enough room on a disk for the file. Save file on a new disk. Bad Filename You entered an invalid file name or path when creating a new file. See your DOS manual. Access denied / Sharing conflict These errors occur with link files on a network when another program has control of the database file. Input past end The end of file has been reached when importing labels. 60 APPENDIX B Converting Files From Other Versions If you used an older version of Simply Labels you will have to convert your files before you can use them with version III. A file conversion program (SL2TO3.EXE) is included to do this for you. To convert your files just run this utility and enter the path for the version 2.xx files. Just press RETURN if they are in the default directory. You also have to enter the path for the new version III files. If you want them stored in the default directory just press RETURN. If you enter the same path for both the program will ask you if you want to backup your version 2.xx files. It does this by renaming them files with an extension of .BAK before creating the new version of the file. The program will read all label files it can find and prompt you before converting each file. You can answer with Yes/No/All. Selecting All will convert all valid version 2.xx label files without asking. Your files will now be ready for use with Simply Labels version III. 61 APPENDIX C Simply Floppies Simply Floppies is a utility to help print labels for your floppy disks. This program will load a Simply Labels label file and add one label to the file for each floppy disk that is read. After the disks have been read into the label file you may use Simply Labels to print the file like you would any other label file. Simply Floppies is capable of using any label file that was created with Simply Labels III but it cannot create new files. The program is used only to add labels to an existing file. This program is very flexible because it allows you to design your own formats and place information from your disks anywhere you want in your labels. Several sample files are included on your program disk for you to try. If one of these meet your needs, then by all means use it so you won't have to worry about designing a format. If you keep any collection of floppy disks at all you will find that by using this utility you can very easily print professional labels for your whole library. When you run Simply Floppies you will be shown a list of the label files in the current directory and asked to enter the name of the file you wish to use. You may enter one of the files displayed or any file from another drive or directory by entering the full path for the file. Entering no name will return you to DOS. After the name is entered the label file is loaded into memory and the background text for the file is displayed on the screen. If any errors occur while loading the file a message is displayed and you will be asked for another name. After the file has been loaded you are asked to confirm that this is the correct file. If you answer with "N" you will be asked for a new name. Once you have confirmed that the file is the correct one you will be asked to enter the letter of the drive you wish to read. Enter the letter of a valid diskette drive. Hard drives are not allowed. You may now insert the disk you wish to read into the drive and press any key to continue. Simply Floppies will now analyze the disk and read the directory. Note that the program will only read the root directory of the disk. Next it will make a label from this information and display it on the screen. You will be asked if you want to add this label to your file. After you answer this you will be asked if you wish to read another disk. You may read as many disks as you want until the label file is full. When you have finished reading all your disks just answer with a "N". You will now be asked if you wish to save your file. Answer with "Y" if you want to keep the labels you added. If your label file was in the drive you used to read diskettes you will be asked to insert the disk containing your label file. If any errors occur 62 during saving, a message is displayed and you will be given the chance to try again. The most likely error will be a full disk so you can change disks and try again. After the file is successfully saved you will be returned to DOS. How a Label is Made This program looks at the information contained in the background text for instructions on how to make your label. There is certain text that, when entered as background text in the label format, Simply Floppies will understand and replace with the desired information. These are called functions in this program. Functions for Simply Floppies are the "@" symbol followed by the name of the function. Some functions do not add any text to the label but control options that are used when making your labels. Any background text that is not understood as a function will be considered normal background text and will be left untouched as the label is built. This allows fancy boxes or company names or any other common text to be part of your labels. All functions valid in Simply Floppies are listed below. The program makes the assumption that you want to add file names to your labels and has several rules it uses for placing the file names into your labels. First of all a file name will never overwrite background text or text placed into the label by any functions. After a directory has been read Simply Floppies starts at the beginning line (See @Start) in the label and looks for a blank space big enough for a file name. For a normal file or directory name a blank of 13 spaces is needed (See @Full). If it can find a place in the line it will insert the name and move to the right of the name and look again. After the line is full it will move to the next line and continue adding names until the last line is full (See @End). A space will be added after each name to keep them from running together. The list of file names is added to the label from the top to bottom but you have a lot of control over how the list will look. (See @Dir, @Sort, @Full, and @Ext). Note that directory names are shown in upper case and file names are shown in lower case. It is important to know how the program adds names to your labels because the width of your label format will control how many columns of file names there will be. It is also important to note that the sample files on your program disk use a typeface called Condensed Baby. If these labels were printed with any normal size typeface, the label would never fit on your disks. 63 List of Functions @Volume - This function will place the volume name for the disk into your label. When the program sees this function it will display the current volume name for the diskette and ask you if you want to change it. Type the new volume name or just press enter for no change. Simply Floppies will write the new name to disk and place the volume name in your label, replacing the name of the function. @Input - This function will pause the program to allow you to enter any text you want. This may be used to enter a title or any instructions on how to run a program on the floppy. When Simply Floppies finds this function it will display the message "User input requested on line xx at position xx". The length of the text you enter is controlled by the background text on that line or the end of the label. You can type as many characters as you want but the program will only use as many as it can fit into the label. Remember you can't overwrite background text. You may use this function as often as you want and at any location in your label. When your file is loaded back into Simply Labels for printing you may edit the labels like you would edit any other file. This option just allows you to enter text while you are handling your disks so you don't have to worry about which label is for which disk. @Free - This function will insert the number of free bytes remaining on the disk. @Date - This function will place the system date into your label. @Format - This function will show the format of the diskette. Only standard DOS formats are supported and one of the following will be inserted into your label depending on the way the disk was formatted. 160K , 180k , 320k , 360k , 720k , 1.2M , 1.44M 64 @Count - This will insert the number of files on the disk. If you choose to include directory names (See @Dir) they will be added to this number. @Dir - This function does not place any text directly into your labels but it tells Simply Floppies to include any directory names it finds in your label. @Sort - This tells the program to sort all file and directory names before inserting them into your label. @Full - Normally Simply Floppies will only insert the file names (and directory names) into your labels but if you place this function into your label you tell the program to also include the file size and date. If this option is used a blank space of at least 30 characters is needed for a file name. @Ext - This function stands for extension. There will be times when there are too many files on a disk to fit into your label. This function will try to filter out the unimportant files and include only those that are meaningful. It does this by only including files with the following extensions: BAT, EXE, COM, ARC, ZIP. This function does not need to be included in your background text to be used but you may do so if you wish. When the program reads a directory, if there are too many files to fit into your label it will tell you and offer you the option of turning on this function for the current label. If you select to turn on the function the directory is read again and a new label is made using this function. Even with this option it is still possible that all files will not fit into your label. Any files that do not fit are just ignored but they are still included in the @Count function. @Start/@End - These functions are used to control where the file and directory names are placed in your label. The @Start function is placed in the first line that you want to contain names and the @End function is used to tell the program where to stop adding file 65 names. If these functions are not used the program will assume the defaults of the first and last lines in the label. Look at the sample files included on your program disk to get a better idea of how all this fits together to print labels for your floppies. All sample files for Simply Floppies start with FLOP. 66 APPENDIX D Command Summary for Simply Labels Ver III Moving Around the Label File (When labels are displayed) <PgUp> - Moves one label towards beginning of file <PgDn> - Moves one Label towards end of file <Ctrl><PgUp> - Moves to Previous flagged label <Ctrl><PgDn> - Moves to Next flagged label <Home> - Moves to first label in file <End> - Moves to last label in file <Alt><M> - Moves to any label Editing Label Text <Up> - Moves up one line <Down> - Moves down one line <Left> - Moves left one character <Right> - Moves right one character <Ctrl><Left> - Moves left one word or field <Ctrl><Right> - Moves right one word or field <Home> - Moves to beginning of line <End> - Moves to end of line <Ctrl><Home> - Moves to beginning of label <Ctrl><End> - Moves to end of label <Backspace> - Deletes character to left of the cursor <Del> - Deletes character under cursor <Ins> - Toggles between insert and typeover modes <Alt><C> - Centers a line or field <Atl><E> - Erases to the end of the line or field + <Alt><T> - Places current date at cursor position + <Alt><D> - Places current time at cursor position * <Alt><I> - Inserts a blank line * <Alt><R> - Removes a line of text <Alt><H> - Help / lists these keys <F1> - Toggles graphic mode on or off <Escape> - Ends editing label text * - These functions only work in labels that do not contain any background text. + - If these are used when editing background text they will insert the proper stamp, to be filled in during printing. 67 Command Summary for Simply Labels Ver III (Cont) Editing Program Input <Home> - Moves to start of input field <End> - Moves to end of input text <Backspace> - Deletes character to left of the cursor <Del> - Deletes character under cursor <Ins> - Toggles between insert and typeover modes <Left> - Moves left one character <Right> - Moves right one character <Ctrl><Left> - Moves left one word <Ctrl><Right> - Moves right one word <Atl><C> - Clears all input text <Alt><E> - Clears input text from cursor to end of field <Alt><R> - Restores original input text <Escape> - Cancels operation or quits editing <Up> or <Down> - will move to another field Other Keys <Alt><Q> - Displays a list of Qwik key definitions <Alt><0-9> - Enters Qwik key definition assigned by user <Alt><D> - Shell to DOS / Type EXIT to return <Alt><H> - Summary of Command keys 68 APPENDIX E Menu Tree for Simply Labels Ver III Main Menu | .. Input required |--New..------. -># Goto menu number | (File) |- Label..----------.->1 < Return to previous menu | |- dBase III Link --| * Only with link files | |- PC-File Link..---' | `- Quit < | | | <1> (Use Menu) <2> (Search Menu) |- Use..----|- Browse --. | | | |- Flag --------------------. |- Complete | | |- Toggle | |- Equal | | |- Search..->2-. | |- Less | | | |- Continue | |- Greater | | |- Move.. |- Toggle | |- Not Eq | | | |- Edit.. | |- Range | | | |- Delete | `- Quit < | | |- Edit..->3* `- Quit < | | | | | | | |- Delete -----.- Displayed | | | `- Quit < |- Flagged | | | |- Clear All | | | `- Quit < | | |- Print ---. | | | |- Flag ------------------->| | | |- Toggle | | | |- Go --------. |- All --------. | | | |- Printer |- Range..-----| | | |- Sample |- Disk.. |- Search..->2-| | | | |- Screen `- Quit < | | | |- Edit..->3* |- Label File.. |- Set | | | `- Quit < |- Clear | | |- Options ----. |- Toggle | | `- Quit < |- Labels.. `- Quit < | | |- Envelopes.. | |- Add -----. |- Report.. | | |- Blank.. |- Other.. | | |- Copy.. |- Typeface.. | | |- Import --. `- Quit < | | `- Quit < `--. | | |- Label.. * |- Delete.. | |- Column.. <3> (Edit Link) | (File) |- Sort.. |- Fixed Length.. | | | `- Quit < |- Add | | |- Delete | |- Configure -> 4 |- Move | | |- Position V `- Quit..< `- Quit 69 Simply Labels Ver III Menu Tree (Cont) | | | | <4> (Configure Menu) |- Configure ---------------| | |- Screen ----. | |- KeyBoard.. |- Custom.. | |- Printer.. |- Mono |- Formats ---. |- Other.. |- Default | |- New.. `- Quit.. < `- Quit < | |- Edit ..---. | | |- Size.. | | |- Descr.. `- Quit.. |- Delete.. |- Back.. (DOS) | |- Print `- Quit < |- Typeface.. |- Configure ->4 `- Quit < Keys Active at Menus ------------------------------ F9/Alt S - Save File Alt D - Shell to DOS Alt H - Help Screen Alt P - Page Eject (Form Feed) Print Menu Alt L - Line Feed Only 70 APPENDIX F Registration Form. Send completed form To: SimpleWare / P.O. Box 877 / Windsor, NF / Canada A0H 2H0 Qty. Description Amount ____ Single user Registration (Ver III) $25.00 ____________ ____ Printed Manual and Disk $10.00 ____________ (Can only be ordered with Registration above) Total: ____________ Payment: [ ] Check [ ] Visa Orders outside Canada and the USA Please Add $5.00 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Text to place in Registered Program (Maximum 30 Chars/line) Line#1: [_________________________________] Please Print Line#2: [_________________________________] Name: __________________________________________________ Address: __________________________________________________ City: ______________________ State:____ Zip:__________ Phone: (____) ____________ Visa #: ___________________________ Expiry Date:_________ Signature of Cardholder:___________________________________ Type of Computer: ________________________________________ Type of Printer: ________________________________________ Where did you Obtain your Copy: ________________________________________ Comments: ________________________________________________ 71