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What Mailing List? Mailing List Management & Printing Software for MS-DOS computers Shareware Edition User's Guide Written by Angel Babudro P.O. Box 132 Paonia, CO 81428 NOTE: The file WML.TXT is ASCII TEXT for fixed-pitch printing, whereas WML.WP is a WordPerfect 5.1 document, suitable for loading into a word processor for proportional-spaced printing. Programme & Documentation are (c) Copyright 1990-1995 by Angel Babudro All rights reserved What Mailing List? __________________ CONTENTS I. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 II. COPYRIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 III. LICENSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 IV. TECHNICAL SUPPORT (HOW TO REACH ME) . . . . . . . . . . 2 Support & Updates from Bulletin Boards . . . . . . . . 3 V. ORDERING METHODS AND REGISTRATION FEES . . . . . . . . 4 A. Benefits of Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 B. How To Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 C. Pricing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 INVOICE & REGISTRATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 VII. WHAT DOES THIS SOFTWARE DO? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 VIII. HOW TO READ THIS MANUAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 IX. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 A. Practical File Size Limitations . . . . . . . . . 10 B. Printers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 C. Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 D. Using With MS Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 E. Using With 4DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 X. USING What Mailing List? FOR THE FIRST TIME . . . . . 12 A. Quick Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 B. Quick Exit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 C. Updating To a Newer Release . . . . . . . . . . . 14 D. Choosing a Directory for WML . . . . . . . . . . . 14 E. Using an LCD or Monochrome Screen with a Colour Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 F. Specifying a Data Drive and/or Directory . . . . . 15 G. Using the Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 H. Status Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 XI. MANAGING & PRINTING YOUR FILES . . . . . . . . . . . 16 A. Creating a New File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 B. Opening an Existing File . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 C. Saving/Closing a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 D. Deleting a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 E. Changing a File's Name & Description . . . . . . . 18 -i- What Mailing List? __________________ F. Copying Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 1. Using DOS Commands (19) __________________ 2. Using Back-up & Restore (19) _______________________ 3. Using the back-up option (20) ________________________ 4. Using the restore option (20) ________________________ G. Formatting Floppy Disks . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 H. Fixing Damaged Index Files (Re-Indexing) . . . . . 21 I. Removing Records Which Are Marked for Deletion (Packing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 J. Importing Data from Other Software . . . . . . . . 22 1. Importing ASCII files (22) _____________________ 2. Importing WML files (24) ___________________ 3. Importing DBF (dBase) files (24) ___________________________ 4. Importing Dr. Data Label files (25) ______________________________ 5. Importing WordPerfect files (26) ___________________________ 6. Grouping imported entries (27) _________________________ K. Exporting Data to Other Applications . . . . . . . 28 1. ASCII, comma-delimited (28) ______________________ 2. ASCII, fixed field length (28) _________________________ 3. Ventura Publisher (29) _________________ 4. WordPerfect Merge (29) _________________ 5. Microsoft Word Merge (29) ____________________ L. Querying & Selecting Entries to Print . . . . . . 30 1. Selecting entries to be printed (30) _______________________________ 2. Acting upon selected entries (30) ____________________________ 3. Query examples (31) ______________ M. Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 1. 11-digit Zip Codes (33) __________________ 2. Other U.S. Postal Service considerations (34) ________________________________________ 3. Group List (34) __________ 4. Envelopes (34) _________ 5. Labels (35) ______ 6. Phone Book (36) __________ 7. Zip/Postal Code Distribution List (37) _________________________________ XII. DATA ENTRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 A. Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 1. Special keys and key combinations (38) _________________________________ 2. Function keys (F-keys) (38) ______________________ 3. Alt key combinations (38) ____________________ 4. Using filters (39) _____________ 5. Getting help (F1/Help) (40) ______________________ 6. Locating an entry (F2/Find) (40) ___________________________ 7. Grouping entries together (F3/Group) (40) ____________________________________ 8. Adding new records (41) __________________ 9. Changing existing records (42) _________________________ 10. Using the Delete/Omit/Bad Address/Select flags ______________________________________________ (42) -ii- What Mailing List? __________________ 11. Printing the Displayed Entry (43) ____________________________ 12. Using Smart Zip (43) _______________ 13. Macros & Key Words (44) __________________ B. Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 1. What are groups? (45) ________________ 2. Defining or changing groups (45) ___________________________ C. Abbreviations (Macros) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 XIII. INDICES & FILTERS: CONTROLLING THE SORTING SEQUENCE AND VIEWING OF ENTRIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 A. Changing the Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 B. Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 1. Setting a filter (48) ________________ 2. Clearing a filter (49) _________________ XIV. PREFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 A. Setting Your Return Addresses . . . . . . . . . . 49 B. Data Entry Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 1. Setting the point of origin: the Country ________________________________________ setting (49) _______ 2. Home country (50) ____________ 3. City & State formatting (51) _______________________ 4. Default 3rd phone description (51) _____________________________ C. Envelope Size & Margin Settings . . . . . . . . . 51 D. Selecting Continuous Label Types for impact/dot matrix printers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 E. General Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 1. Alert tone (52) __________ 2. Automatic 11-digit zip (52) ______________________ 3. Incomplete addresses (53) ____________________ 4. Import duplicate rule (53) _____________________ 5. Import technique (54) ________________ 6. Adhere to USPS guidelines (55) _________________________ 7. Start on DE/Names screen (55) ________________________ F. Defining Printers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 1. PCL (laser & deskjet) printer soft fonts (56) ________________________________________ 2. Scalable fonts (56) ______________ 3. Post Office considerations (57) __________________________ G. Duplicate Checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 XV. HELP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 XVI. PROBLEMS AND ERROR MESSAGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 A. EMS Memory Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 B. Text overlaps on reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 C. Information is Missing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 -iii- What Mailing List? __________________ XVII. FILES WHICH MAKE UP THE PACKAGE . . . . . . . . . . . 61 -iv- What Mailing List? __________________ I. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY WML IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THOSE CONCERNING MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NEITHER ANGEL BABUDRO NOR ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN THE CREATION, PRODUCTION, OR DELIVERY OF THIS SOFTWARE SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THIS SOFTWARE EVEN IF ANGEL BABUDRO HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES OR CLAIMS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR'S LIABILITY FOR ANY DAMAGES EVER EXCEED THE PRICE PAID FOR THE LICENSE TO USE WML, REGARDLESS OF THE FORM OF CLAIM. THE PERSON USING WML BEARS ALL RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE. Some States do not allow the exclusion of the limit of liability for consequential or incidental damages, so the above limitation may not apply to you. This agreement shall be governed by the State of Colorado and shall inure to the benefit of Angel Babudro and any successors, administrators, heirs and assigns. Any action or proceeding brought by either party against the other arising out of or related to this agreement shall be brought only in a State or Federal Court of competent jurisdiction located in Delta County, Colorado. The parties hereby consent to in personam jurisdiction of said courts. II. COPYRIGHT WML is copyright (c) 1990-1995 by Angel Babudro, all rights reserved. You may only use and/or distribute WML only under the License terms below. III. LICENSE The following terms and conditions apply to the use and/or distribution of What Mailing List?: __________________ 1. WML is being distributed as Shareware; it is not free. You are granted a limited license to use WML for an evaluation period of up to 60 days, to determine if it suits your needs. Any other use of WML or use past this period requires registration. 2. You may keep as many backup copies of WML as you wish. The Registered Edition is limited to simultaneous use on the -1- What Mailing List? __________________ number of computers indicated by the Use License. The Unregistered Edition may be used on any number of computers for the purpose of evaluation as specified in paragraph (1). 3. All files originally distributed as part of the package (including this notice) must be included without modification. The complete list of files can be found in the PACKING.LST file which is part of this package. The Registered Edition CONFIG.WDT files and files ending in SFP or SFL are NOT to be distributed. 4. Individual users may freely copy this disk and share it with friends, family, and acquaintances. Non-profit groups (including user groups and BBSs) may distribute copies of this disk. A fee of no more than $5 may be charged to cover disk copying costs. If the files on this disk have dates more than a year old please contact the author for a free update to the current version. 5. Disk distributors and dealers must have written permission before selling copies of this software. When you contact me you will receive a free copy of the latest version and you will be placed on my mailing list to receive updates as they are released. Disk distributors may charge no more than $10 per disk for copies of this software. If, as a distributor, you supply copies to other resellers, the end price to the user may not exceed $10. 6. You must obtain written permission prior to distribution as part of any "bundled" packages (e.g., CD-ROM, placing on new computer systems, etc.). Such permission is often granted; the author is a nice guy - please write to him with your ideas. 7. If the software is packaged for retail sale the packaging must explain that the software is Shareware, that the purchaser is receiving a trial version, and that use beyond the trial period requires registration with the author. 8. You must immediately stop selling/distributing copies of this software upon notice from the author. IV. TECHNICAL SUPPORT (HOW TO REACH ME) If you have questions or need help, just send a note to me through the mail or a BBS listed below. Registered users, those intending to register within 30 days, vendors, and BBS sysops may contact me via telephone as well. Sysops and shareware vendors please see VENDOR.DOC for concise distribution information. -2- What Mailing List? __________________ Mail Angel Babudro, "Organic Computer Wizardry", Box 132, Paonia, CO 81428 USA Phone (303) 527-6756 Tue-Fri 10am-6pm Mountain Time Note: area code is being changed to 970; Ma Bell says it will be fully implemented by 9/95 I am normally available by phone during the hours stated above. If you get the answering machine please leave a message. Unregistered users must call back later - I am happy to answer your questions but I cannot afford to return these calls. Support & Updates from Bulletin Boards My software packages are "free" downloads on the BBSs listed below (unless otherwise noted) - you need not subscribe to the BBS in order to download my shareware, although other files or functions may require subscription. You may send questions or comments to me on The Researcher's BBS and Expanding Horizons - address your comments to "Angelo Babudro" (I use "Angelo" to avoid gender confusion, and I'm used to both names anyway). Scan for the file name WML*.* to locate the latest version. West Coast Expanding Horizons (CO) 14.4k V.32 (303) 241-2847 This is my local BBS so it is the one I most often update and check for messages. The first time on you will have to fill out the registration form. If you tell the sysop, Lori, that you are one of my customers she will give you full access. * Enter "J;3" to join the Organic Soft conference * Enter "F" to view the list of available files * Enter "E Angelo Babudro" to post messages for me Researcher's BBS (CA) USR Dual (805) 949-8151 You must fill out this BBS' registration information the first time you log-on before gaining access to my conference. * Enter "J;136" to join the OrganicSftwr conference * Enter "F" to list files * Enter "E Angelo Babudro" to post messages for me. Messages can also be sent to this board at FidoNet address 1:102/1310. Midwest Rusty 'n Edie's (OH) USR HST 16.8 (216) 726-1804 USR V.Everything 28.8 (216) 726-3628 Hayes 28.8 (216) 726-3619 ZyXel 19.2k v.32/v.32bis (216) 726-3620 2400/v.32/v.32bis (216) 726-2620 CompuCom SpeedModem (216) 726-3584 -3- What Mailing List? __________________ East Coast Excalibur (Central NY) USR Dual (315) 736-3792 You can FREQ (File REQuest) my software from this board via RBBS Net address A:954/401, FidoNet address 1:26501, or I.C. Net address 91:315/101. WhiTech BBS (NC) ZyXEL 14.4kbps (910) 944-1165 File Request (FREQ) via FidoNet at 1:3636/2. Software Creations (Mass.) 2400/9600/14.4 USR HST Dual Standard (508) 368-7036 2400/9600/14.4/28.8 USR V.Everything (508) 365-6604 This BBS offers about 130 phone lines and tons of Shareware. They call it "Home of the Authors." It's also home of Night Owl CD-ROM. I believe you need to subscribe in order to download my Shareware from this BBS. V. ORDERING METHODS AND REGISTRATION FEES Years of effort have gone into this software in the hopes that many people will be willing to pay for a small part of the development. Kindly remember that if you use this software past the 60-day trial period you are honour-bound to pay the registration fee. Besides, there are several benefits to registration! A. Benefits of Registration The Shareware (unregistered) version of WML is fully functional so that you may try all of its features and know exactly for what you are paying. Past the 60-day evaluation period WML will display reminders to register your copy or discontinue use of the software, but it will always continue to be fully functional. When you register you have the following benefits: - You get the latest version direct from the author with automated installation, free PCL soft fonts, and bonus Shareware and Freeware. - You get thorough manual, including an introductory course in using computers with sections on hardware, software, and DOS, in addition to WML. - Unlimited telephone support - my business hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10am to 6pm Mountain Time. - Updates are free - get them from a local BBS or Shareware vendor. As new features are added, WML's -4- What Mailing List? __________________ price is sometimes adjusted to reflect the dramatic increase in its value to users. By registering now, you pay the current (low) price and are entitled to the higher-priced features developed in the future. Updates through the mail are available for just $4. - You can subscribe to receive updates & upgrades as soon as they are released so you will always have the latest features and enhancements. - The Shareware License display and Unregistered Edition delay go away. - It rewards the author for thousands of hours of software development from which you are deriving benefit. It's the right thing to do and will surely come back to you in blessings & good karma. B. How To Order Please send payment in one of these forms: 1. U.S. currency 2. Checks or Money Orders drawn on any bank in U.S. funds 3. Canadian cheque drawn on a Canadian bank in Canadian funds equivalent to the U.S. amount (if in doubt assume $1 Canadian equals 70 cents U.S.). Please do not send Purchase Orders. Instead use the invoice (below) and, since you are and have been using the Unregistered Edition, please consider it the case that you are paying for delivered merchandise. If you prefer to use a credit card, you can order WML from Public (software) Library with your MC, Visa, AmEx, or Discover card by calling 800-242-4PsL (from overseas: 713-524-6394) or by FAX to 713-524-6398 or by CompuServe to 71355,470. THESE NUMBERS ARE FOR ORDERING ONLY. I CANNOT be reached at those numbers. To contact me for information about dealer pricing, volume discounts, site licensing, the status of shipment of the product, the latest version number, or for technical information, call 303-527-6756 or write me at PO Box 132, Paonia, CO USA 81428. With Shareware you try the software before buying it; therefore, product returns are not allowed. When ordering from PsL ask for product #10800. C. Pricing Commercial Use License with Disk, US Zip Codes Data Base, and Manual -- $49. This gives you a license to use one copy of WML, the latest Registered Edition, automated installation, -5- What Mailing List? __________________ a data base of city names for over 70,000 US Zip Codes, the latest version of this documentation on disk, PCL soft fonts, notification of major updates, and a 3-ring-bound manual printed on either tree-free or recycled paper. The manual contains a mini-course in computers which covers terminology plus hardware & software basics. Wholesale & OEM -- If you want to bundle WML with your own special product or service (such as a special mailing list) and resell it, please write to me with your idea. Site License -- If your firm has multiple computers or network stations on which WML will be used you may purchase a Use License for the first copy (explained above) plus a Site License. A site license gives a discount based on the number of computers you are licensing, for which you received a disk for each computer and up to 10 printed manuals (additional printed manuals may be purchased as well). Discounts range from 30% to 80%. Use WML's Site License option on the Help menu to print the Site License order form. Free Updates -- When you register I will send you a "key" which will work with future releases. You can download updates from a bulletin board or otherwise obtain an update and it will recognize your registration "key".1 Updates Though the Mail -- An update disk with the latest versions of all my shareware costs $4 plus shipping. Updates are released every 1-8 weeks. You can print an update order form by selecting the Update/Sampler form option under WML's Help menu. Update Subscription -- You can subscribe to receive updates automatically through the mail. In return you agree to send $4 plus shipping within 30 days. There is no time commitment; either party may cancel at any time with written notice. Prices & specifications are subject to change without notice. Vendors & sysops please see VENDOR.DOC & SYSOP.DOC. ____________________ 1 Be sure to delete CONFIG.WDT from copies you share with BBSs and others. Not only does it contain all the settings on your system and certain pieces of your data, it also contains your registration key and your name. -6- What Mailing List? __________________ INVOICE & REGISTRATION Credit card orders see "How To Order" above REMIT TO: FROM: Angel Babudro Name___________________________ "Organic Computer Wizardry" PO Box 132 Company________________________ Paonia, CO 81428 USA Address________________________ _______________________________ Phone__________________________ Use License Disk, manual, & computer course ($49) _______ Shipping & U.S.A. - add $4 Handling Canada - add $6 Outside U.S.A. & Canada - add $22 _______ *** T O T A L = $________ Update Do you want to receive updates in the YES [__] Subscription mail every 1 to 4 months? Updates are $4 plus shipping; you'll have 30 days NO [__] to pay or return the disk to cancel. Disk size [ ] 3½" [ ] 5¼" [ ] Either Drive density [ ] Low required [ ] High density (HD) ok Do you use FDFORMAT? [ ] Yes, 1.48 and 1.72Mb disks okay Do you own a CD-ROM? [ [ Yes [ ] No Printer make(s) & model(s)______________________________________ Which version are you using now? (see Help/About screen)________ I got my copy from _____________________________________________ I saw a review in_______________________________________________ Upon receipt of this paid invoice the latest Registered Edition disk and any options ordered above will be sent. Mail with U.S. cash, U.S. funds drawn on any bank, or U.S equivalent in Canadian funds. Put comments on back. Allow 1-4 weeks for the latest version to land on your doorstep. Thank you for registering! -7- What Mailing List? __________________ VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the Bulletin Board sysops who have provided so much helpful feedback, especially Skip Taylor of The Researcher's BBS in Lancaster, California, Mike Halley of the Vietnam Vets BBS in Indiana, Tom McElvy of Pleasure Communications in Virginia, and Don Bearor of the Home Office On- line in Long Beach, California. I am also grateful for all of the WML users who have also provided a wealth of helpful comments. Any trademarks I happen to mention here are property of their respective owners. VII. WHAT DOES THIS SOFTWARE DO? What Mailing List? provides a simple and flexible way to __________________ easily manage and print mailing lists. WML has the tools to track relatively small amounts of information - hundreds or a few thousand names - although there is no limit to the number of files2 and a theoretical limit of 5.5 million entries per file. You'll need a faster computer and a new hard disk before any of that becomes a problem. WML is perfect for those times when you want a good-looking envelope or label, or maybe a hundred, but not fifty thousand. Software that is made to handle huge lists tends to be horribly complicated to use. WML is different. I use WML regularly as I develop it: when I need an envelope I print it on my laser, and when I need a few labels I switch to the dot matrix printer. It's very fast and easy for me, and I hope you find WML just as easy and fast to use. Learning WML can probably be done as you are using it, with little or no help from this manual. Keep an eye on the bottom of the screen since that is where I list special function keys. If you use a mouse, these commands can be accessed with the mouse as well. ____________________ 2 WML can handle up to 250 files per directory. You can have any number of files, though, by using more than one directory. You may supply the name of a directory when you start WML - for example, WML D:\WML\DATA will use the D:\WML\DATA directory for creating and opening files. -8- What Mailing List? __________________ VIII. HOW TO READ THIS MANUAL This shareware manual is intended for people with some knowledge of computers, DOS, and data bases. A detailed manual containing an introductory computer course and coverage of more advanced topics is provided with the Registered Edition. Check the System Requirements section (below) before you ___________________ begin. Next, read the Using What Mailing List? for the First ______________________________________ Time section. If you are an advanced user this is probably all ____ you will need to read before using WML, however you probably want to review the Preferences screens to be sure WML will behave as you wish. The rest of the manual is a reference guide, each menu item of WML being described separately. Once you have WML "up and running" use this guide to refer to specific things you want more information about. For example, if you want to understand how Groups are used, look up "Groups" in the Table of Contents or Index. IX. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS The bare minimum you will need is: 1. Any IBM-PC-compatible with a 720k (or larger) floppy disk drive or a hard disk drive 2. At least 400k of free RAM (use CHKDSK or MEM) 3. One of the operating systems listed below I recommend you have: 1. An 80286 or faster computer 2. A hard disk with at least one megabyte of free space and an access time below 30ms 3. 512k or more available expanded or extended memory 4. A hard disk cache WML has been tested and found to work properly with the following Disk Operating Systems (DOS) and command interpreters: * PC-DOS 3.33 and 6.1 ____________________ 3 PC-DOS or MS-DOS version 3.1 or later should work fine. Except for file locking, previous versions should also work fine. However, WML has only been tested with the versions listed above, so I cannot guarantee the performance with other DOSs. If you are using an older DOS, I recommend upgrading to one of the versions listed above. -9- What Mailing List? __________________ * MS-DOS 5.0, 6.2, and 6.22 * 4DOS 4.0, 5.0, and 5.5 * DR-DOS 6 and Novell DOS 7 * OS/2 2.1 and 3.0 (Warp) You will need 500-950k of disk space for the programme files, depending on which optional files you decide to keep on your disk, plus space for the files you will create. You may keep the data files and programme files in different directories or on different disks, so floppy disk use is possible (although it will be very slow compared to a hard disk). WML will detect whether you have a monochrome or colour card installed, but it cannot detect what type of monitor you have. If you have a monochrome (black & white) monitor with a CGA, EGA, or VGA controller (this includes laptop & notebook computers) the screen may be difficult to read. If so, try starting with the "/Monochrome" switch like so: "WML /M". A. Practical File Size Limitations Although WML has a theoretical limit of 5.5 million names ___________ per mailing list file, you would need a super-computer and a lot of time to manage such a mammoth file. The number of names you can manage within a single disk file depends on the speed of your computer. Here are my ideas of what you can reasonably expect from different computer systems: Computer Type Practical File Size Limit _____________ _________________________ PC/XT (4.77MHz) 300 entries per file 286/12 700 to 1,000 entries per file 386dx/20 1,000 to 1,700 entries per file 386dx/40 1,700 to 2,500 entries per file 486dx4 2,500 to 5,000 entries per file 586 (Pentium) 5,000 to 8,000 entries per file If you are a patient person, you may feel comfortable with going well over these guidelines, and vice versa for impatient people. In addition, in making these estimates I am assuming that a disk cache (such as SmartDrive) is being used on all but a PC/XT and that people running a 486 expect faster response than people using XTs. I think that WML would locate a name in a ____________________ 4 486 & 586 estimates are theoretical; the others are based on personal experience. -10- What Mailing List? __________________ 3,000-entry file on a 486dx/33 faster than it would in a 25-entry file on a PC/XT. You can store millions of entries by creating hundreds of files, although duplicate checking will only work within a single file. You can consolidate or separate files at any time, so you can enter your data now and experiment with different ways of organizing it as you please. B. Printers WML supports two types of printers concurrently -- a laser printer and a dot matrix printer on LPT1, LPT2, or LPT3. The laser printer must be a PCL 1-5 printer (compatible with H-P LaserJet I, II, or III). WML has been tested on Panasonic 4450 (H-P LaserJet I-compatible) and H-P LaserJet III & IV laser printers. I'm sure there are some lasers which could be better supported, so let me know if you own one of them. PCL 5 laser owners will be happy to know that they can use the scalable fonts. If your printer is not on the list check in your printer's manual for its compatibility. Most dot matrix printers are compatible with Epson or IBM, so try these if you can't find a proper match. If you have trouble, send me a note with your printer model & the problem. C. Networks With version 2.1 I have placed file "locks" to allow WML to be used on networks which use the DOS SHARE utility. LANtastic uses SHARE as do the majority of networks. OS/2 does not use SHARE but has a method which is similar and works with WML. Network users: Please share your experiences with me. One WML user has a Novell 3.11 network and had problems only when using a station running MS-DOS 6.22 and DoubleSpace (this problem has since been resolved). If you tell me about any problems you have I will work with you to correct them. I have designed WML to allow one station to open a particular mailing list (.WML) file. The configuration, abbreviation, group, and zip codes files may be shared by more than one station unless they are being updated (in which case you will see a message in a window and you may try the operation again, after the other user has completed her/his update). -11- What Mailing List? __________________ D. Using With MS Windows WML can be run as a DOS application under Windows 3.1 although it is not a Windows application (in other words, it runs the same in DOS or Windows and you cannot use any of Windows' features with WML, such as the clip-board). If you don't use Windows or use it only occasionally (as I do), then use WML from DOS since it will work better without Windows' quirks & overhead. If you normally have Windows loaded, however, then go ahead and set up an icon for WML. To do this, highlight or create a group, then use File/New to create a program item and define it as C:\WML\WML.EXE (or whatever directory you are using) and set the data directory to C:\WML or some other, as you desire. You may also use Windows' File Manager's "Associate" feature to connect ".WML" files with the WML programme. If you do this you can double-click on a WML data file from the File Manager and Windows will automatically launch WML using that data file. E. Using With 4DOS WML has been tested with 4DOS versions 4.0 and 5.0. WML uses the standard 4DOS "DESCRIPT.ION" file to store, update, and access long file descriptions. If you use 4DOS, when you issue the DIR command from DOS you will see the file descriptions that you entered for your WML files. Likewise, if you use the 4DOS DESCRIBE command to change the description of a WML file, the new description will be used by WML. X. USING What Mailing List? FOR THE FIRST TIME A. Quick Start If you received WML on disk you will have already used the INSTALL programme to install it on your hard disk or high- capacity floppy. Likewise, if you received WML from a BBS you have already expanded the archive in which WML came. So you should already have done these steps: 1. Created a directory for WML (or specified one in the INSTALL programme), such as C:\WML. I strongly recommend that you place WML (and all software) in its own directory rather than mixing packages in the same directory. -12- What Mailing List? __________________ 2. If you got WML from a BBS you should have changed to that directory (e.g., CD \WML) and then expanded the archive, placing all the files in that directory. Once WML is installed on your hard disk here are the steps needed to begin using it right away: 1. Type "WML" at the DOS prompt. 2. Press "P" to open the Preferences menu. 3. Go down the list and fill in each preference window as necessary. You can operate WML without setting any preferences, however, WML may not operate in a way which best suits you. For example, if you work in a quiet office and don't want an alert tone you can turn it off on the Preferences, General screen. 4. Use File, New to create a file or File, Open to open an existing WML file. All mailing list entries must be placed within a file, so you must open or create a file before entering data. NOTE To display information about an item on the screen: 1. Position the cursor (use keyboard arrows or move the mouse cursor then click the left button once) on the item you want more information about. 2. Look at the lower left portion of the screen for the "F1/Help" message which tells you whether help is available. Press the F1 key to open the Help window. NOTE WML may be started from any disk or directory. The configuration, group, abbreviation, and zip code files will be accessed from whatever directory contains WML.EXE (e.g., C:\WML). Before you can start entering addresses you will need to create at least one mailing list file. Do this by selecting the "New" option under "File" (described below). Before you can print anything you will have to set your Preferences, at the very least defining your printer(s). Before you print labels on a PCL (laser or ink jet) printer you may want to print a test on plain paper since laser label sheets are expensive. The first time you print laser labels I suggest you print them on a sheet of paper then hold the paper and the labels together up to a light source to see if everything lines up properly. You can adjust the top and left margins as necessary. Any changes you make will be saved for the future. -13- What Mailing List? __________________ B. Quick Exit WML has a Quick Exit feature which ends the programme with a single command: Just press the F10 key. C. Updating To a Newer Release If you download WML from a bulletin board (BBS) or get a copy from a friend or shareware vendor, just replace the old files with the new ones. As you extract an archive you will be prompted for each file to be over-written; using DOS COPY the files may be replaced without prompting. The new version will recognize your registration "key" in your CONFIG.WDT file (which is not distributed with the Unregistered Edition). If you can't find WML on a bulletin board in your area, ask a sysop about FREQing it from the BBS networks listed in the "Technical Support (How To Reach Me)" section or send for a floppy disk update (see "Updates" section above). D. Choosing a Directory for WML It is a good idea to install WML in its own directory under the root. Giving each software package its own directory keeps things organized and can improve file access speed. Besides this, the root directory has a limit to the number of files it may contain whereas a subdirectory may contain any number of files. The directory C:\WML (or another valid drive letter) is a good choice, or you might want to put all of business software under a directory called "\APPS" on drive D: and so would use "D:\APPS\WML". You may organize things further by placing your data files and programme files in different drives and/or directories. This makes it possible to have WML on your hard disk and use data files on floppy disks, for example. E. Using an LCD or Monochrome Screen with a Colour Card If you have a monochrome (Black & White) monitor connected to a colour adapter card or a lap-top or notebook computer with an LCD screen, you will see shades of grey instead of colours. This may not be very readable. You can force WML to run in monochrome mode by using the "/M" switch like so: WML /M -14- What Mailing List? __________________ F. Specifying a Data Drive and/or Directory When you start WML it attempts to open the file which was open when it was last ended. This includes changing the drive and directory to that which contains this file. You may specify a disk drive, directory, and/or file name on WML's command line to override the automatic process, although these functions are available in WML's File Open window as well. The command syntax is: WML [d:[\pathname\[filename]]] Here are some examples: WML B: starts WML using the default directory on drive B: for data files. WML C:\DATA\ starts WML in the C:\DATA\ directory. WML C:\DATA starts WML; if the file C:\DATA.WML exists it will be opened for use, otherwise the directory C:\DATA\ will be the initial data directory. WML C:\DATA\MYFILE.WML starts WML in the data directory C:\DATA\ and opens the file MYFILE.WML. G. Using the Menus WML uses CUA-style pull-down menus, which is the standard used by QuickBASIC, Macintosh, and Windows. Basically, there is a horizontal menu of choices -- File, Data Entry, etc. Under each of the horizontal choices is a menu of functions pertaining to that item -- it is a two-dimensional menu, in other words. The last item of the left-most menu is always Exit, to end the programme or the sub-menu you are on. There are two ways to select an item from the main menu: 1. Press the letter which is highlighted in the option's name 2. Use the Up/Down/Right/Left arrows to highlight the option you want then press <Enter> (a.k.a. RETURN or CR). Certain pop-up menus do not have a highlighted letter associated with each option. On these menus you must use the arrow keys to highlight your choice then press <Enter>. -15- What Mailing List? __________________ If you want to cancel an operation you selected, just press the Esc ("Escape") key. H. Status Line At the top of your screen is WML's title followed by the WML file you have open (if any). At the bottom of the screen is a bar which looks like this: Total|Selected|Bad/Omit|Pack|Index|01-01-1980 From left to right the items are: 1. Total records in the open file 2. Total records selected for printing 3. Total records bad or excluded from mailings 4. The word |Pack| if there are entries which are marked for deletion 5. Active indexing method: name, company, address, or zip 6. To-day's date (so far as the computer knows). If you have a filter chosen, this will be replaced with "Filter" followed by a word indicating the single filter in use or the first letter of each of multiple filters in use. If the filter message is bright the selection is unchanged, otherwise changes have occurred. For example, suppose you have set the filter to "Selected" then cleared the selection status of a record. The filter message would change to dim since the filter is no longer accurate. XI. MANAGING & PRINTING YOUR FILES The "File" menu contains options to use and manage your files and to print entries from these files. Below is a summary of the choices under the File menu. The letter of each line which is shown in bold may be pressed to select the function or you can use the up & down arrow keys to highlight the choice then press the ENTER key. Open - Open an existing mailing list file New - Create a new mailing list file Close - Close the open file Delete - Erase a file from the disk Change - Rename a file and/or change its description Copy - Make a back-up copy of data files or restore data files from a back-up copy Format Floppies - Format floppy disks (for back-up use) -16- What Mailing List? __________________ Re-index - Re-build the index files for the open mailing list file. This is normally handled automatically, but there may be times when WML cannot detect an error and you must perform this function yourself. Pack - Remove entries which are flagged to be deleted Import - Bring data into the open file from another file format Export - Send data to a different file format Print/Select/Query - Menu of ways to print your list, choose which entries are to be printed or otherwise operated upon, and search the file Exit - End WML and return to DOS Many of these options cannot be used at certain times. For example, if you have an empty mailing list file the Print option is useless so WML won't let you use it. Valid options have a bright white letter; non-valid ones are gray with no highlighted letter. A. Creating a New File What Mailing List? can list up to 350 files in a single __________________ directory. If you need more than this number simply organize your files into more than one directory. When you choose the File/New option you will be asked to enter a name and description for the new file; the description is optional and can be changed as desired. The name will be checked for proper DOS syntax and you will be warned if the file name you entered already exists. If everything is okay your new file will be created and opened for use. B. Opening an Existing File Just like using a filing cabinet, you have to open a file before you can see what's in it. File/Open let's you open a file which has been previously created. After you select this option you will be presented with a list of the WML files in the current directory. Use the up and down arrow keys to highlight the file you wish to use, then press <Enter>. Note that entries will be displayed and printed in the order indicated on the bottom status line. To change the indexing sequence use the Index menu. -17- What Mailing List? __________________ C. Saving/Closing a File WML saves your information every time you change something. If you enter information and press the Esc key or click on a "Cancel" button with your mouse a message will warn you about losing any changes you have made. The only danger comes with a power outage or anything else that causes WML to end improperly (such as pressing the reset button or Ctrl-Alt-Del). However, even in this case the only thing you would lose are any changes to the entry displayed on the screen. Just the same, it's safest to use File/Close when you will be away from your computer for a while. That way if anything happens while you are away your information is saved. There are two functions which cannot be performed on an open file: Delete and Change. If you want to erase the open file from the disk or change its description you must close it first. D. Deleting a File The File/Delete function gives you a convenient way to remove files from your disk. When you select this option you will get the same file list you see with the "Open" option.5 Highlight a file and press <Enter>, and the computer will read the name back to you (to be sure you picked the right one) and ask for permission to continue. If you press <Enter> (or click on "Ok") then the file will be erased from the disk (along with it's indices). E. Changing a File's Name & Description The File/Change option let's you enter a new DOS file name and/or a new description for any unopened mailing list file. Once you choose this option you will see the file list. Choose a file and the file name window will pop open. Change anything you like and select "Ok" to save it. F. Copying Files To copy a particular file between computers (say, a lap-top and desk-top) you will need to copy more than just the data file for proper operation. A complete set of data consists of: ____________________ 5 The list will not contain the name of the open file (if any), only the files which are "put away." -18- What Mailing List? __________________ 1. The data file (ending in WML) 2. The index files (ending in IX*) 3. The group definitions (files matching GROUPS.*) You can re-create the index files if you do not copy them, but it is usually faster to copy them. If the GROUPS files are missing you will not be able to select records by group nor will you be able to change or view the group settings. The easiest way to be sure you have it all is to copy all of your data files using the Copy Files option under the File menu. Alternately, you can use the DOS copy command to copy the files outlined above. 1. Using DOS Commands __________________ The Copy Files function is described in the next section. Here is an example using DOS: Let's say you have several mailing list files and you only want to put one of them on a 3.5" floppy to use on your lap-top. Let's call the list MYLIST and assume that your 3.5" disk drive is B: 1. Go to your WML directory on the hard disk (e.g., CD \WML) 2. COPY MYLIST.* B: to copy the data & index files 3. COPY GROUPS.* B: to copy the group definitions 2. Using Back-up & Restore _______________________ Your computer is a machine and one day it will break down as all machines do. File/Back-up & Restore protects your information by allowing you to copy your data to and from other disks. To determine when it is time to make a back-up copy of your information consider a hard disk failure. Feeling suicidal? It's time to make a back-up copy. When using floppy disks remember that a disk must be formatted before use. You can use the same back-up disk or directory over and over again - each new copy will over-write the old one - but it is a good idea to alternate at least three back-up copies just in case there is a problem (such as a power outage) while you are creating a copy. In this case if the computer "crashed" and the back- up was incomplete you would still have two other back-up copies on which to rely. -19- What Mailing List? __________________ Using compression software packs more information in less space (so you can use fewer floppy disks) but requires more memory (RAM). The compression software WML is programmed to use and their memory requirements are as follows: ARJ 2.41 needs at least 300k free LHARC 2.13 needs at least 189k free PKZip 2.04g needs at least 157k free WML automatically checks the amount of free memory and allows you to choose only from those compression programmes which are found on your hard disk and will run with the memory you have available. 3. Using the back-up option ________________________ After you choose the back-up option a summary window pops open and a menu of methods will be presented, starting with "DOS Copy" and including each compression technique which is found on your computer (using your DOS PATH setting) and for which you have enough free memory. Once you choose a method you are asked to enter the back-up destination (which is typically a floppy disk drive, such as A:, but you may decide to back-up to another hard disk, a network drive, etc.). All WML data files will then be backed-up to the destination disk and directory using the method shown in the window. 4. Using the restore option ________________________ If you ever need to recover data files from a floppy disk you made using the Back-up operation, just place the floppy disk in its drive and select File/Back-up & Restore and then choose "Restore." The first thing you will be asked is to specify the disk drive from which to restore files. Once you highlight a drive and press ENTER the list of files on that disk will be shown - individual data files as well as any compressed archives. Highlight each file you wish to restore and press the SpaceBar key; you will see an arrow appear next to each file as it is selected. If you change your mind, just press the SpaceBar again and the arrow will go away, indicating that the file will not be restored. Alternately, you may use the mouse and click the left button instead of using the arrow keys and SpaceBar. -20- What Mailing List? __________________ Once you have selected all the files you wish to restore press the ENTER key or click on the "Ok" button with a mouse. Each file will be copied into the current data directory.6 Any compressed archives being restored will automatically be expanded. G. Formatting Floppy Disks This option is for those times when you have decided to make a back-up copy of your data but don't have a formatted disk handy or want to re-format a disk to check for any bad spots. File/Format Floppies lets you format a floppy disk to your computer's standard density without exiting WML. By "standard density" I mean that if you have a high density drive you can only format high density disks (in other words, WML doesn't pass any parameters to DOS FORMAT). There is an exception to this: If you have What Floppy Format? (WFF.EXE) available ___________________ somewhere in your DOS search path, WML will automatically access it for formatting floppy disks so you can format any kind of disk using FDFORMAT. (You will receive a complimentary copy of the latest version of WFF with your WML registration. FDFORMAT is a Freeware product by another author and can be found on my support BBSs.) H. Fixing Damaged Index Files (Re-Indexing) Sometimes a data base's index files can be damaged. This can typically happen with a power outage, resetting the computer (pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del or the Reset button) while running WML, etc. Most often WML will detect a problem with the index files and correct it automatically, but there may be times when it cannot detect a problem. If it ever seems like entries are missing from your files or the record counts are off, use the File/Re-Index option to re-build the indices and count the Selected, Bad, Omit, and Deleted entries for the open mailing list file. ____________________ 6 The directory from which WML is started is considered the data directory - it is where the data files are stored. For example, if you are in the C:\WML\DATA directory and you run WML from there, then files will be created in, backed-up from, and restored to this directory. -21- What Mailing List? __________________ I. Removing Records Which Are Marked for Deletion (Packing) File/Pack is used to remove deleted records from the mailing list data base which is currently in use. Entries which are marked for deletion remain in a mailing list file the file is Packed. This can be handy if you accidentally mark a record for deletion because you can "un-mark" it; or you could use this feature to mark all the records you want to delete then review the records on the screen before actually packing the file. J. Importing Data from Other Software File/Import allows you to read data from other files to become a part of the mailing list file you are using (the Open file, shown at the top of the screen). Once you select import, you will be shown a menu of file types, including: - ASCII file - What Mailing List? 2.x file - DBF file - WordPerfect file There are two items on the Preferences/Other screen which affect the way files are imported: Import Duplicate Rule and Import Technique. The former setting determines how duplicate entries will be handled, the latter determines how WML will handle missing data in the name and company name fields. Refer to the Preferences section for more details about these two items. While importing WML checks for a valid zip/postal codes. If an entry contains a potentially bad code the entry is flagged as "Selected to print" so that you may easily review these entries after importing is completed. Highlight the type of file you would like to import and press <Enter>. Descriptions of each file type follow. 1. Importing ASCII files _____________________ An ASCII file must have commas delimiting each field and one record per line (i.e., CR/LF or ASCII 13 10 terminates a record). WML automatically detects NAD and WML ASCII files and you can define the layout for any ASCII file. -22- What Mailing List? __________________ Once you have specified the ASCII file to import, WML will show you two windows: 1) on the right, a window with the names of each WML field, and 2) on the left, a window showing the input file's fields which are assigned to the highlighted WML field (initially "None"). Use the arrow keys to highlight a WML field then press the F3 key. A window showing the data from the first record of the file will open, with each field on a separate line. Just highlight the field which belongs to the WML field and press the <SpaceBar> - an arrow will appear indicating that the field is chosen. You may continue to choose as many fields as you like; fields will be added together with a space in-between. Of course, the input data may be truncated (cut) if a WML field is shorter than the data coming in. Once you have defined just how WML is to import the ASCII file you may wish to save the set-up in case you ever want to import this type of file again. Just press the F7 key and enter a name for the definition. If you press F9 without pressing F7 first, WML will ask if you want to save the definition. After you have saved definitions you can restore them from disk using the F5 key. When you press F5 WML will ask for a directory name (unless you have a reason to do otherwise, just press <Enter> to use WML's home directory). After you press <Enter> or click on "Ok" you will see a list of available definition files (if any). Highlight the one you want and press <Enter>. To view the definition of each WML field just press the up and down arrow keys and watch the contents of the window on the left - it will change to reflect the definition of each field. To clear the definition for a field press F3 to bring up the list of input fields (you will see arrows highlighting the chosen fields) and press the <Esc> key. Alternately you may highlight each input field and press the <SpaceBar> to toggle the arrow on & off. To begin importing, press the F9 key. -23- What Mailing List? __________________ 2. Importing WML files ___________________ This option is handy for consolidating several files into one. Just select File/Import/WML and you will see the file list box. Choose a file, then choose whether to import all of the records or just those which are selected for printing, and away it goes. As usual, you will see a progress graph and the record number count on the bottom status line will be updated. This is a handy way to separate a group of entries which have grown too large. For example, let's say you had a list of clients grouped by occupation and one occupation became so large that you wanted to put them in a separate file. You could select all of the records with that particular group for printing. Then, create a new file and import the selected records. Back in your old file you can delete all of the selected records. Now you have a new file with just the records you want in it. 3. Importing DBF (dBase) files ___________________________ WML's DBF import can handle any file made by dBase III, FoxBase, dB XL, dB Fast, QuickSilver, Clipper, or any other dBase clone. Many information organizers (including other mailing list managers) use the DBF file format. Chances are, if the file ends in DBF you can import it into WML. When you select this option from the menus you will be asked to enter a file specification and "*.DBF" will be the default answer. Type the name of the DBF file you want to import or use the DOS wildcards to scan a file list. For example, you might type "C:\DBASE\*.DBF" to see a list of files in that directory or you might type the whole file name something like, "C:\DBASE\MYFILE.DBF". Once the DBF file is established you will see two windows with field names. On the right are the WML field names. On the left are some or all of the DBF field names for the file to be imported. Once you have specified the DBF file to import, WML will show you two windows: 1) on the right, a window with the names of each WML field, and 2) on the left, a window showing the input file's fields which are assigned to the highlighted WML field (initially "None"). -24- What Mailing List? __________________ Use the arrow keys to highlight a WML field then press the F3 key. A window showing the list of input fields will open. Just highlight the input field which belongs to the WML field and press the <SpaceBar> - an arrow will appear indicating that the input field is chosen. You may continue to choose as many fields as you like - they will be added together with a space in-between. Of course, the input data may be truncated (cut) if a WML field is shorter than the data coming in. Once you have defined just how WML should import the DBF file you may wish to save the set-up in case you ever want to import a file with the same field names again. Just press the F7 key and enter a name for the definition. Unless you have reason to do otherwise, there is no need to enter a drive or path name. If you press F9 without pressing F7 first, WML will ask if you want to save the definition. After you have saved definitions you can restore them from disk using the F5 key. When you press F5 WML will ask for a directory name (unless you have a reason to do otherwise, just press ENTER to use WML's home directory). After you press ENTER or click on "Ok" you will see a list of available definition files (if any). Highlight the one you want and press ENTER. To view the definition of each WML field just press the up and down arrow keys and watch the contents of the window on the left - it will change to reflect the definition of each field. To clear the definition for a field press F3 to bring up the list of input fields (you will see arrows highlighting the chosen fields) and press the <Esc> key. Alternately you may highlight each input field and press the <SpaceBar> to toggle the arrow on & off. To begin importing press the F9 key. 4. Importing Dr. Data Label files ______________________________ If you have been using the mailing list package, Dr. Data Label, you can easily import your mailing lists into WML. DDLabel, as well as many other mailing list packages, uses a dBase-compatible file structure. To import these files just select the dBase DBF file import option and enter the path to your DDLabel files (e.g., -25- What Mailing List? __________________ C:\DDLABEL\*.DBF, or you may enter the entire file name such as C:\DDLABEL\MYFILE.DBF). Once you have entered the file name correctly and you see the import definition screen, just press the F5 (Load) key. WML will ask you for the name of your import definition; enter the name DDLABEL. That's all there is to it. Just press the F9 key to begin importing. For a more detailed description of the options on the dBase/DBF import screen refer to the preceding section, "Importing dBase/DBF Files." 5. Importing WordPerfect files ___________________________ You can import WordPerfect mail merge files into WML using this function. Once you have specified the file to import, WML will show you two windows: 1) on the right, a window with the names of each WML field, and 2) on the left, a window showing the input file's fields which are assigned to the highlighted WML field (initially "None"). Use the arrow keys to highlight a WML field then press the F3 key. A window will open showing the data from the first record of the file with each field on a separate line. If you are importing a WordPerfect 5.1 file which contains field names, then these names will appear in the window. Highlight a field which you want placed in the WML field and press the <SpaceBar> - an arrow will appear indicating that the field is chosen. You may continue to choose as many fields as you like; fields will be added together with a space in-between. If you define more data than a WML field can hold it will be truncated (i.e., chopped off). Once you have defined how WML is to import the WordPerfect file you may wish to save the set-up in case you ever want to import this type of file again. Just press the F7 key and enter a name for the definition. If you press F9 without pressing F7 first, WML will ask if you want to save the definition. When you want to re-use an import definition you can restore it from disk using the F5 key. When you press F5 WML will ask for a directory name (unless you have a reason to do otherwise, just press <Enter> to use WML's home directory). After you press <Enter> or click on "Ok" you -26- What Mailing List? __________________ will see a list of available definition files (if any). Highlight the one you want and press <Enter>. To view the definition of each WML field just press the up and down arrow keys and watch the contents of the window on the left - it will change to reflect the definition of each field. To clear the definition for a field press F3 to bring up the list of input fields (you will see arrows highlighting the chosen fields) and press the <Esc> key. Alternately you may highlight each input field and press the <SpaceBar> to toggle the arrow on & off. To begin importing, press the F9 key. 6. Grouping imported entries _________________________ When importing a data base from another application you may have some type of grouping code which you would like WML to use in grouping entries. This can be accomplished quite easily. First, import the file into a WML file, assigning the code field from the imported file to a comment line. Then use the Print/Select/Query menu to select entries based on the contents of the comment line using the Phrase sub-menu. Finally, use the Actions sub-menu to assign all selected records to the group of your choice. For example, let's say you had a list of people who were either members, contributors, staff, or volunteers for an organization, and assume that each entry had a field (or line) which contained a code such as MEM for members, CON for contributors, etc. When this file is imported you would define the field containing the code to a comment line, thus placing the codes in the comments of each entry. After the file is imported into WML you would access the Print/Select/Query menu and use the Phrase sub-menu to select records which contained an "MEM" in the comment line. Next, go to the Actions sub-menu and choose the Reset Selected to Groups option; WML will present the list of defined groups. Assuming there is a group called "Members" you would select that group and press the F7 key. WML would then assign all of these records to that group. Then you could use the All/Clear option to clear the -27- What Mailing List? __________________ selection and return to the Phrase sub-menu to select the next group of entries. K. Exporting Data to Other Applications File/Export allows you to write data to a file in a different format. Once you select export, you will be shown a menu of file types: - ASCII, comma-delimited - ASCII, fixed field lengths - ASCII, Ventura Publisher - Mail Merge, Microsoft Word - Mail Merge, WordPerfect Highlight the type of file you would like to import and press <Enter>. Next you will be asked whether you would like to export all of the entries in the file, just the domestic entries (U.S. or Canada, depending on your country setting), or just the entries which are selected for printing. Highlight your choice and press <Enter> and the export file will be created. 1. ASCII, comma-delimited ______________________ This creates an ASCII (text) file which contains personal name, company name, and address lines. Each field is enclosed in quotation marks and a comma separates each field. Carriage return & line feed codes (decimal codes 13 and 10) end each record (i.e., there is one complete entry (record) per line). 2. ASCII, fixed field length _________________________ This creates an ASCII file in which the fields are padded to their full length. For example, if the company name is "ABC, Inc." it will have 26 spaces following the name since the company name field has room for 35 characters. Carriage return & line feed codes (decimal codes 13 and 10) end each record. This is the file format required by the U.S. Post Office in order to check your files for correct address & 9-digit zip codes. Note: If your country setting is "USA only" then the State field will be a length of two, otherwise it will be a length of 15. -28- What Mailing List? __________________ 3. Ventura Publisher _________________ This is an ASCII text file with a "TXT" extension which can be loaded into a Ventura Publisher chapter file. Each line of the data begins with an "at" sign (@), the name of the field, a space, an equal sign (=), another space, and then the data. For example: @NAME = John Q. Public @COMPANY = ABC Company @ADDRESS = 123 Main Street @ADDRESS = Suite 102 @CSZ = Anytown, CO 81000 @COUNTRY = USA Lines are double-spaced in the file since this is how VP determines end-of-paragraph in an ASCII file. Each field type is a paragraph tag so you can define the font and formatting characteristics for each field. When you load the file (using Load Text/Graphic) into a VP chapter and select the paragraph tool, you will see the field names in the paragraph tags window. 4. WordPerfect Merge _________________ First you will be asked for a file name for the exported data. Enter the full file name you wish to use, including drive and path if necessary. Once you finish with this function you will have an ASCII file which contains WordPerfect's merge codes. To prepare the file for use, start WordPerfect and import the ASCII file (Ctrl- F5, 1, 2). This is all you need do for WordPerfect 4.2 through 5.0. If you are using version 5.1 you will have to create a "header" line at the top of the file which identifies each of the fields by a name. You do this by pressing Shift-F9, "M" (more), then select FIELD NAMES from the scrolling menu. You can use whatever field names you want but you must enter eight field names so that each WML field has a name associated with it. 5. Microsoft Word Merge ____________________ Just like with the WordPerfect Merge file, this option will make you an ASCII file which is in Word's merge format. I don't use Word, but in testing the mail merge -29- What Mailing List? __________________ operation I found that no special preparation was needed to use the file. L. Querying & Selecting Entries to Print Choosing this option under the File menu brings forth a whole new pull-down menu which lets you select or clear the records you wish to print and print labels/envelopes/etc. Under the Print sub-menu are options to print and exit back to the top menu. Before printing you must first select the records to be printed, so I'll go through the select/query options first then the printing options later. 1. Selecting entries to be printed _______________________________ Notice that the second item on the status line at the bottom of your screen shows the number of entries which are selected to print. This number will change as you use the options on this sub-menu. "All" lets you mark or un-mark all records in the data base. "Group" lets you select or clear records according to the groups to which they belong. "Date/New" will mark or un-mark records which have never been printed (i.e., the number of last mail date = 0). "Date/by Date" will select or clear records based on a specific date you provide. "Individual/All" will allow you to scan the entire data base, marking and un-marking records one at a time. If you try to Select an entry which is flagged as Bad or Omit WML will offer to clear the flags for you. "Individual/Selected" will only show those entries which are currently selected, and "Individual/Deleted" will only show those entries which are flagged for deletion. City and State/Province options let you select or clear entries based on exact matches in these fields. Zip lets you select or clear entries based on a zip or postal code range. 2. Acting upon selected entries ____________________________ The "Action" sub-menu lets you perform actions on the entries which are selected for printing. -30- What Mailing List? __________________ 1. Reset selected to group(s) will change the group setting for all selected records to the group(s) you choose. 2. Add group(s) to selected will add the group(s) you choose to the selected records, without changing the groups to which the entries already belong. 3. Mark selected for deletion will set the Delete flag for the selected entries. 4. Clear Delete flag of selected will turn off the Delete flag for the selected entries. 5. Omit selected from mailings will turn on the Omit flag for the selected entries. Since Omitted records can't be selected for printing, this also turns off the Select flag, resulting in zero entries being selected for printing. 6. Clear all Omit flags will clear the Omit flag for |all| entries in the file. 7. Set selected to a date let's you change the Times Mailed and Last Mail Date of the selected entries. This is handy for those times when you print a list but then don't actually mail to the people until a later date. 8. Make selected 'Never mailed' clears the Times Mailed and Last Mail Date fields. This is handy if you print a list and update these fields, then are unable to use the labels and need to print them again. 9. Process using Import Technique allows you to re-process entries which have already been imported. For example, if you imported a file without setting a Smart Import Technique or for whatever reason you end up with the personal name and company name fields containing each other's data or the first name and surname of each entry is in either the First Name or Surname field, this function will clean everything up for you using WML's built-in artificial intelligence! Once you choose this function WML processes each Selected entry according to the Import Technique defined on the General Preferences screen. Remember that entries marked for deletion are not removed from the file until you use the File/Pack option. 3. Query examples ______________ WML's Query may seem limited at first glance, but it is actually quite comprehensive. At the time of this writing I found myself thinking that WML couldn't do a certain type -31- What Mailing List? __________________ of query and then realizing that it could, so I think some examples are in order. Let's say you have two groups defined in a mailing list: Team A and Team B. Of the entries on file, some are part of Team A, some Team B, and some are both. Now, let's say you want to send a mailing to all Team A members. First you may want to choose All/Clear to clear any existing selection, then you would choose Groups/Select and flag the group Team A in the Groups Window. For another mailing you want to include all members of Team B who are not members of Team A. First, clear any existing selection. Second, use Groups/Select to flag all members of Team B. Finally, use Groups/Clear to clear all members of Team A from the selection. For another mailing you may want to include all members of Team A who have not yet received a mailing. Use the Date/New option to select these. Or you can use Date/by Date to select members who last received a mailing on a certain date. Whatever you need to do, chances are WML will do it. If you can't figure out how to get what you want, please let me know! M. Printing Note: You must define at least one printer and its fonts on the Preferences/Printer screen before you can select any printing options. The U.S. Post Offices prefer 10 to 14 point Helvetica type (a.k.a. Swiss or Univers) or another sans serif font (which means that it has no __________ tops or bases. Times Roman & Dutch are serif fonts). The post office also has a hard time with italic type. Some or all of the printing options on the "Print" sub- menu may be "grayed-out" and unavailable for use depending on certain conditions. For example, if you have not selected any entries for printing then all of the options except for "Group List" and "Exit" will be gray and you will not be able to select them. Note: The number of records which are selected for printing appears on the status line at the bottom of the screen. -32- What Mailing List? __________________ Here is an overview of the sequence of events for printing: Print Menu | Group List Phone Book Envelopes Labels Zip Dist | | | | | ------------------W h i c h P r i n t e r ?---------------- | | | | | Print Print Select Select Print return label address type | | Print Print | | + Update Times Mailed and Last Mail Date 1. 11-digit Zip Codes __________________ The USPS's latest thing is an 11-digit zip code which pinpoints the delivery location for an item. The 11-digit zip is made up of a 9-digit zip plus two extra digits and a check-digit.7 These two extra digits are normally the last two digits of the street address or Box, but there may be exceptions, the reasons for which are known to the USPS. My guess is that there are very few, if any, exceptions at this point, but the Post Office doesn't want to make a guarantee in case things change.8 If the 9-digit zip is known but the extra two digits are not known, WML will use the last two digits of the address.9 On a bulk mailing, if this turns out to be incorrect you will never know because bulk mailings are not returned for bad addresses, but the post office tells me that it won't have any effect beyond being undeliverable (e.g., it won't affect your bulk permit or anything like that). ____________________ 7 The 12th digit of the extended zip code is calculated from the other 11 zip code digits and is used by OCR equipment to verify the accuracy of what they read. 8 See USPS Publication 25, "Designing Business Letter Mail." 9 You can disable this feature on the Preferences/Other Settings screen. -33- What Mailing List? __________________ The way to get the exact 11-digit zip codes for your mailing list is to submit them to the post office or a third-party service on disk and get zip code and address corrections. You can use WML's fixed-field-length file Import and Export features to accomplish this. Ask your Postmaster for the forms and information about submitting a file for zip code correction. 2. Other U.S. Postal Service considerations ________________________________________ One common thing you should know about addressing envelopes: the U.S. post office delivers to the address line which is just above the zip code. If you have two address lines (such as, "123 Anywhere Street" and "P.O. Box 17") the post office will send it to Box 17. Some areas (such as Paonia, Colorado) do not provide USPS to-your-door delivery, so you may need two addresses: one for the USPS and one for UPS or some other carrier. 3. Group List __________ The Group List option lets you print a list of the groups you have defined. If you have two printers defined you will be asked to choose the one to use. Group List only appears if you have defined groups, and does not update the times mailed or last mail date. 4. Envelopes _________ If you defined two printers on the Preferences/Printers screen you will first be asked on which printer you want to print the envelopes. Next, you will be given a menu of return addresses to print on the envelopes. Select "None" if you do not want any return address to be printed or use the arrow keys to highlight the one you want and press <Enter> to select it. When printing on a PCL laser printer, any soft fonts you defined (on the Preferences/Printers screen) will be downloaded before printing. Note: If you are using an impact printer and have set the "Pause" field to "yes" then you will be prompted to load each envelope and press <Enter> before the data is sent to the printer. All dot matrix printers, with a few rare exceptions, have a sensor switch which detects when -34- What Mailing List? __________________ the paper has run out. Some dot matrix printers, especially older models, stop printing when the paper moves past the sensor, rather than printing to the bottom of the form. With envelopes this is a problem since the form is very short (typically about 4.5-inches long) and you want to print the return address about 2-inches from the bottom. If your printer has this problem with single-fed envelopes, one trick you can try is to put a business card or other piece of paper against the sensor so it will print to the bottom of the envelope. This defeats the paper-out sensor, though, so it's up to you to make sure everything is okay. After all envelope data has been sent to your printer WML will ask if you want to update the Times Mailed and Last Mail Date for the records printed. Answer by pressing the <Enter> key for "Yes" or the Esc key for "No." Answering "Yes" will change the Last Mail Date of the selected entries to today's date and the Number of Times Mailed field will be incremented by one. A laser printer tip -- if the print density is uneven try changing the left or top offsets (on the Preferences/Define Envelopes screen) so all of the return address is on a constant thickness of paper. Laser printers have trouble printing on uneven surfaces. You might also try using a different brand of envelope. As far as national brands go I have found that Meade recycled- fibre "security" envelopes work very well, but the Stuart Hall ones do not (too thick); Nobility recycled envelopes have a flat sealing edge which is perfect for lasers. During envelope printing you can press Esc to cancel printing. POSTNET (POSTal Numeric Encoding Technique) bar codes can automatically be printed on envelopes and labels for entries within the U.S. To print bar codes use the Preferences/Laser Labels and Preferences/Continuous Labels screens and select the Bar Codes line (you will see a check mark to the right of the line). 5. Labels ______ If you defined two printers on the Preferences/Printers screen you will first be asked on which printer you want to print the labels. -35- What Mailing List? __________________ For laser labels, you will be asked for the specifications of your label sheet -- the number of labels across and vertical distance between labels. You may also set the starting row & column, in case you have a partially-used sheet of labels. BE AWARE that some laser printers may not handle partially used label sheets well - check your printer's manual. It may be possible to ruin an expensive drum if some labels were to come loose. For impact printer labels, you will be given the menu of label types from which to choose the one you are using. Note: During label printing you can press Esc to cancel printing. You can change the left offset for impact printers on the Preferences/Label Types screen. Some impact printers, such as the NEC P5300, have the paper sensor a few inches from the left margin. If you use a narrow strip of labels, such as the common 3.5 x 15/16 labels, the printer will not "see" the labels and will, therefore, not print. This is where the left offset comes in handy. You can set a left offset of, say, 1.5 inches, then load your labels 1.5-inches from the left margin. WML will print as much of a bar code as will fit on a label. Thus, you may see a 5-, 9-, or 11-digit bar code printed, depending on the entry's zip code and the size of the label. To prevent wasting expensive laser label sheets, WML stops at the end of the first sheet of labels and waits for input from you so that you may check the printed output for proper alignment. 6. Phone Book __________ You can print the phone book on your dot matrix or laser printer. A 12cpi to 17cpi mono-spaced (fixed) font will work best for the phone book, although the entries themselves work quite well with proportional fonts. If you use a proportional font for the titles you will find that the index at the top right of the page "floats." Short of figuring out how to do width tables, this was the best I could come up with. So just use Courier 12 or something -36- What Mailing List? __________________ like that. Experiment to find the best method to print the phone book on your equipment. The phone book will only include records which have been selected for printing, and does not ask to update the Times Mailed and Last Mail Date. Entries without a phone number will just show the name & address (no trailing dots after the name). 7. Zip/Postal Code Distribution List _________________________________ Here is a useful report for people who do bulk mailings. It shows each of the zip codes included in the open file's Selected records along with a count of the total number of entries in that zip/postal code. U.S. zip codes are classified by the 5-digit zip even if the entry has a 9-digit zip. When you print your bulk mailing, just bring this report with you to the Post Office. It is my understanding that they will use the report rather than count each envelope bundle by hand. The Zip/Postal Code Distribution does not update the times mailed or last mail date since it does not print any entries. XII. DATA ENTRY This menu lets you enter data into a mailing list or define groups and abbreviations. A. Names This is the main data entry screen of WML since it is where you enter and change your mailing list information. You can only use this function when you have a mailing list file opened for use. When you choose Names a window will open which has room for all of the information for a single entry. If the open file has any entries the window will be filled with the first entry on file. If the file is empty, a blank form will be displayed. As you move through a mailing list file, a file position indicator on the right side of the screen will change to show you the displayed record's position in the file. When you are entering a new record the indicator turns yellow (or bright white on a monochrome monitor) and is positioned at the bottom. -37- What Mailing List? __________________ 1. Special keys and key combinations _________________________________ While on the Names screen there are several special keys (such as PgDn) and key combinations (such as ^PgDn) shown at the bottom of the screen. PgDn Move forward (down) through the file. If you press PgDn on the last record on file, What Mailing List? will beep. PgUp Move backward (up) through the file. If you press PgUp on the first record on file, What Mailing List? will beep. ^PgDn "Control-PageDown" -- hold down the key marked Ctrl and press the PgDn key. This tells WML to begin adding new records. ^Home "Control-Home" -- moves to the first entry on file. Hold down the Ctrl key then press the Home key. ^End "Control-End" -- moves to the last entry on file. Hold down the Ctrl key then press the End key. Alt-P "Alternate-P" prints the entry which is displayed on the screen on an envelope or label. 2. Function keys (F-keys) ______________________ On the bottom of the screen you will see several function keys defined. Function keys are labelled "F1" through "F10" along the left side of your keyboard, or "F1" through "F12" along the top of your keyboard. Some fields on the Names screen have different function key definitions than others. For example, pressing F1 while on the City field brings up a list of city names for the entry's zip/postal code, while on the State/Prov field it brings up a list of US States and Canadian Provinces, and on all other fields it opens a help window, giving information about the current field. 3. Alt key combinations ____________________ The Names screen uses some Alt-key combinations as commands. Use the Alt (Alternate) key on your keyboard just like the Shift key: hold down Alt then press the other key indicated. The Alt commands on the Names screen include Alt-P to print the displayed entry and the commands for the four toggles (on/off switches) shown on the right-hand side of the screen: Delete, Bad Address, Omit from Mailings, and -38- What Mailing List? __________________ Select to Print. The first letter of each toggle is highlighted to indicate the Alt-key combination to use. For example, to change Select to Print toggles hold down the "Alt" key then press the "S" key. 4. Using filters _____________ A filter works just like its name implies: it allows some things to "get through" while others are "blocked." WML has these filters: Selected, Deleted, Valid, and Included. One or more filters may be set at once. If a filter is selected then only records which match the criteria at the time the filter is created will be displayed; all others will not appear on the screen. When entries within a filtered set are changed, those records remain within the filtered set of records and WML displays the "Filter" message (at the bottom right of the screen) in low intensity to indicate a change has taken place. To illustrate, if you have the filter set to show you only those records which are "Selected" for printing, then you go to the Names screen and clear the Select flag for a record, that record no longer "belongs" in the filtered set. However, WML leaves this entry in the filtered set so you can review the changes you have made to the records which were originally filtered. It would be more difficult to manipulate the entries in a filtered set if they disappeared once you made a change which affected their status. For example, if you are reviewing entries Selected for printing and every time you change the Select status of an entry it disappears from the list you wouldn't be able to see the ones you had decided not to print. If you make changes to a filtered set of entries then want WML to show an accurate representation of the filter again, just turn the filter setting OFF then ON again. As you use the PgUp and PgDn keys the display will jump to the next or previous entry within the filtered set of entries. The F2 (Find) key will display only those selections included in the filter. If you want to reset the filtered list after changing many records, just go to the Index menu and turn the filter off and back on. -39- What Mailing List? __________________ 5. Getting help (F1/Help) ______________________ When you see the "F1/Help" message at the bottom left of your screen if means there is context-sensitive help available for the field on which the cursor is sitting. Whether or not the message is displayed you can press the "F1" key for help. If there is no specific help for the item you are on you will get the Help Index. In the State/Province field pressing F1 brings up a list of U.S. State and Canadian Province names from which you may browse and select one. The abbreviation for the selected State or Province will be placed in the record. 6. Locating an entry (F2/Find) ___________________________ Use this function key to navigate through your mailing list. F2/Find opens a window showing all of the entries on file, one line per entry. You can browse through the list to jump directly to the entry you want. You will notice new function keys at the bottom of the screen while the Find function is active. You can press a letter or number to go directly to the index-key entry beginning with that letter or number (if you are using the Zip index press a "9" to jump to the first entry with a "9" zip code; if you are using the Company Name index you could press "K" to jump to the first company beginning with "K")10. Use the arrow and PgUp/PgDn/Home/End keys to move around the list. Press <Enter> to use the entry which is highlighted. 7. Grouping entries together (F3/Group) ____________________________________ F3 opens a window showing all of the groups defined with arrows next to ones to which this record belongs. You define groups by using the Data Entry/Groups screen (defined below). Basically, just highlight a group and press <Enter>; the arrow will appear and disappear (toggle) ____________________ 10 The index is determined by the setting of the Index menu. If the index is set to Address, then the entries will be sorted by whatever is in the first address line -- starting with blanks, then numbers, then letters. The current index is displayed on the status line at the bottom of the screen. -40- What Mailing List? __________________ next to it -- an arrow means that the entry belongs to this group. When you press the F3/Group key a window appears showing the groups defined. Inside the window all of the group descriptions are displayed. You can move through the list using the up/down arrow keys, the PgUp/PgDn keys, or by pressing the first letter of the group description you wish to find. When a group is highlighted, press <Enter> to select it or clear the selection. Selected groups have an arrow to the left of them. When a group is Selected for an entry, it means that this person or business is a part of that group. For example, if you have a group called "Christmas List" you can Select this group for all people you want to be on your Christmas list. 8. Adding new records __________________ When you first use the Names screen on a new (empty) file, WML will automatically place you in Add mode. Once the file has information, however, you are initially placed in Edit mode (i.e., existing information is displayed for you to view and/or change). To add a new record to the file just press ^PgDn (hold down the Ctrl key then press the PgDn key). This places ____ ____ you in Add mode. You will see a blank data entry form and the file position indicator will go to the bottom and turn yellow (or bright white on a monochrome monitor). While adding new records What Mailing List? checks for duplicate names and addresses. If you have duplicate checking enabled (on the Preferences menu) you will see an information window telling you about any duplicates and asking permission to continue. An entry must contain something unique in personal and company name. You can't enter two records with the same personal names and company name. The only time I can think that you might need to enter a duplicate is if the same person & company has two offices. I may figure out a way around this soon... When you are finished entering new addresses you can change modes in one of three ways: 1. Press ESC on a blank form to return to the menu (if you press ESC and have changed any information on the screen you will be given a message and an opportunity to save it -- don't worry) -41- What Mailing List? __________________ 2. Press PgUp to move "up" to the existing records in the file (i.e., switch to "change" mode) 3. Press F2 (Find) to locate an existing record To abandon new information (i.e., if you have started entering something on the screen and decide you don't want to save it), press the Esc key before you finish the ______ screen. 9. Changing existing records _________________________ While an existing record is displayed you can change information, mark it for deletion, exclude it from being printed, or mark it as being a bad address. You can use your mouse to go to the field you want to change or use the arrow keys to move around. After you have made changes just press F7 (Save), or press Esc (Cancel) to abandon any changes you made. 10. Using the Delete/Omit/Bad Address/Select flags ______________________________________________ On the right side of the Names data entry window you will notice four lines which have square brackets [ ] to the left of them. These are called flags (since they flag _____ a condition) or toggles (since they act like toggle _______ switches, being turned on and off). If there is a check- mark ( ) inside the brackets then this item is active/on, otherwise it is not. For example, if a check-mark is next to the "Delete" flag then the record is marked for deletion and will be removed from the file the next time it is Packed. You can set the toggles either with a mouse or the keyboard: * Using a mouse, place the mouse cursor anywhere on the item you want to change and press the left button. The check-mark will turn on and off each time you click the left button. * Using the keyboard (method #1), use the arrow keys to move through the fields until you reach the flags. To toggle the flag on/off just press the Space Bar. * Using the keyboard (method #2), hold down the Alt key and press the highlighted letter of the flag you wish to toggle (e.g., Press Alt-D to toggle the Delete flag). The Delete toggle indicates whether a record is to be removed from the file the next time the File/Pack option is -42- What Mailing List? __________________ used. The Bad Address toggle indicates that the entry is a bad address and should not be printed. Likewise, Omit from Mailings indicates an entry which should not be included in print-outs (perhaps a customer who gives you bad checks, so you don't want to waste postage on him). Records marked Bad or Omit cannot be Selected for printing. The Select flag indicates whether the entry is selected for printing. Only those entries which are selected for printing will print. 11. Printing the Displayed Entry ____________________________ When printing batches of labels or envelopes you use WML's Print-Select-Query option under the File menu which provides many features to select and print groups of entries. When you want to print a single envelope or label there is a simpler method: locate the entry you want to print on the Names screen then press Alt-P. WML will ask which printer to use, whether to print an envelope or label, etc. and then print that one entry. 12. Using Smart Zip _______________ Smart Zip is a feature which automatically enters the City and/or State/Province for a given zip code or postal code. The State or Province will always be filled in for you. If the exact zip/postal code is on file11 the city will also be filled in. If the city is not on file you will be asked to enter it; the next time you type that zip/postal code the city and state/province will be filled in automatically. Some areas of the U.S. have more than one city served by a post office. For example, my post office (81428) serves three towns (Paonia, Bowie, and Somerset). If a zip code has more than one city a window will pop open after you enter the zip code in which all the available cities are listed. Use the up and down arrow keys to highlight the one you want and press ENTER to select it. ____________________ 11 For U.S. addresses only the first 5 digits of the zip code are used to identify the City and State. -43- What Mailing List? __________________ 13. Macros & Key Words __________________ Some mailing list packages use function key (F-key) macros to save you typing and let you define "key words" for entries. This is a very handy feature, but it limits you to the number of function keys on your keyboard. What ____ Mailing List? provides the same functionality but in a _____________ slightly different and more flexible way. The use of macros can be simulated using WML's Abbreviations (described below). A simple 1-5 letter abbreviation can expand to whatever you need. For example, you can define an abbreviation "POB" which expands to the full text, "P.O. Box" or even "Post Office Box." Abbreviations allow you to easily establish standards for your mailing lists, which is important for duplicate checking. See the section below entitled "Abbreviations (Macros)" for more on this topic. Note: Abbreviations are used on the company name, address, and comments fields. Letter case does not matter - "pob", "Pob", and "POB" will all access the same abbreviation. "Key words" are usually one or more short fields in which you can put short key words (like "PRO" for "Prospects", "XMAS" for "Christmas List", etc.). WML gives you two flexible ways of accomplishing this same goal without cluttering the screen with extra fields: 1. Define group names into which your entries fit (such as "Service companies," "Christmas list," etc.). While entering a new name or viewing an existing entry just press the F3 key to pop-up the Groups window. An entry can belong to none or as many as 20 groups. When you want to print your Christmas list just use Print/Select/Query (under the "File" menu, described above): Under the "Groups" menu choose the "Select" option. You will see the familiar pop-up window showing all group definitions. Select as many groups as you want then press F7. All entries in those group(s) are now selected to print. 2. Place key words or phrases in the comment lines. Let's say you had a customer list and in the comment lines you liked to keep track of which computer equipment your clients' own. You might put things like XT, AT, 386, Laser, Tape, VGA, DTP, etc. in your comments. When you -44- What Mailing List? __________________ want to mail a notice to all of your desktop publishing clients ("DTP" people), just use Print/Select/Query (under the "File" menu): Under the "Phrase" menu choose the "Select by phrase in comment" option; enter the key "DTP" and press <Enter>. All entries with "DTP" somewhere in the comments are now selected to print. B. Groups 1. What are groups? ________________ WML's Groups feature lets you organize your entries in ways which are sensible to you, rather than using short & cryptic codes. You may define and change up to 256 group descriptions. Grouping entries together makes it easy to select just the people you want for mailings. For example, in your business you may want to distinguish people by whether they are current customers or prospects, or whether they purchased Product A, Product B, or Service C. For example, John Jones and Arthur Smith have service contracts with you; Acme Drywall and Frank Smith purchased Product A from you. If you want to send a mailing to all people who have service contracts, you might ask WML to Select for Printing those entries which belong to group "Service Contact". Other examples of common group types are business types (automotive, general retail, attorney, etc.), and region definitions (northwest, west, southwest, etc.). Note: Groups are an optional part of each record. An entry may belong to no groups at all, or it may belong to a maximum of 20 groups. 2. Defining or changing groups ___________________________ Using the Data Entry/Groups screen is easy: Use the Up and Down Arrows to highlight an existing group definition then press the <Enter> key to change the text (e.g., you may have misspelled a word and want to correct it or you may find a better way to describe a certain group). Press the Ins (Insert) key to add a new group definition to the list. Press the Del (Delete) key to delete (erase) a group definition. Note: When you include an entry in a group WML remembers the record number of the group (rather than the descriptive text). -45- What Mailing List? __________________ * If you change the description of a group, all entries in all of your mailing lists will still belong to that group. * If you delete a group, any entries which were part of that group will remember the record number and then, when you define a new group which uses that record number, entries will be included in that group. For example, if you have a "Christmas List" group and you delete it then add a new group called "Black List", all of your "Christmas List" entries will now belong to the "Black List" group. The reason for this is that it could be a very slow process to have WML search through every mailing list file to remove a group codes from all files -- if you had many large mailing lists it could take minutes or hours to delete a group code. A way around this problem is to open each file and use the File/re-Index option - this will remove any invalid group references. C. Abbreviations (Macros) This handy feature lets you define abbreviations to be used in entering your data. This is the same concept as a macro, although it is a rather short macro (30 characters or less). Abbreviations are checked and expanded on the company name, address, and comment lines; other fields do not perform abbreviation checking.12 WML can store up to 5.5 million abbreviations, providing adequate disk space.13 An abbreviation entry consists of a key word (1-6 upper-case characters) and the text to which the key word will be expanded (up to 30 characters). When entering names WML checks for abbreviations using upper-case. Whether you enter "pob" or "PoB" WML will access the same abbreviation. This screen works the same way as the Groups and Messages screens: Use the Up and Down arrow keys to highlight an entry then press ENTER to change it or the DEL key to erase it. Press the Ins key to insert a new abbreviation. ____________________ 12 This allows you to create an abbreviation "ST" which expands to "Street", for example, and still use the letters "ST" in "St Paul" without having it become "Street Paul". 13 Each abbreviation consumes just 36 bytes - 1,820 abbreviations can be stored in just 64kb of disk space. -46- What Mailing List? __________________ Some common and helpful abbreviations for North Americans are "POB" for "P.O. Box" (or "Post Office Box", as you prefer), "ST" for "Street", "BLVD" for "Boulevard". You may find repetitive text in your mailing list which lends itself to using an abbreviation. For example, you may have a list of attorneys, in which case the abbreviation "ATTY" as "Attorney at Law" would be helpful. Abbreviations save typing and also allow you to easily establish standards for your mailing lists, which is important for duplicate checking. Once "POB" is set up every entry will say "P.O. Box", whereas if you had no such abbreviation you might have some entries saying "P.O. Box" while others might say "PO Box" or even simply "POB". This is a problem when it comes to duplicate checking because if you enter "POB 132" and "PO Box 132" WML has no way of knowing that these are duplicate entries. The same holds for "Ave" versus "Avenue", "St" versus "Street", and so on. Don't worry about making a bad choice for an abbreviation because you can always change it. You might set "St" to "Street" and then have need of the word "Saint" which is also abbreviated as "St". No problem - just enter "123 St. John St" - the period in "St." makes it different from "St" and, thus, WML will convert the line to "123 St. John Street". XIII. INDICES & FILTERS: CONTROLLING THE SORTING SEQUENCE AND VIEWING OF ENTRIES This menu lets you change the order in which the entries in your mailing list are displayed and printed. There are four indexing options and four filter options from which to choose: 1. Name index - sorts entries by Surname plus First Name plus Company Name. 2. Company Name index - sorts entries by Company Name plus Surname plus First Name. 3. Address index - sorts entries by the first address line plus Zip/Postal code plus Surname plus First Name plus Company Name. 4. Zip/Postal code index - sorts entries by zip/postal code plus Surname plus First Name plus Company Name. 5. Selected entries filter. When activated (a dot appears to the left), only entries which are selected for printing will be displayed. To state the reverse, any records which are not selected for printing will seem -47- What Mailing List? __________________ to be gone -- they will not show up on the screen nor on the F2 (Find) window. 6. Deleted entries filter. When activated (a dot appears to the left), only records which are marked for deletion will show up on the Names data entry screen, including the F2 (Find) window. 7. Valid Addresses filter. When activated (a dot appears to the left), only records which have a complete address will show up on the Names data entry screen, including the F2 (Find) window. 8. Included entries filter. When activated (a dot appears to the left), only records which can be included in mailings (i.e., neither the Bad Address nor Exclude From Mailings flags are set) will show up on the Names data entry screen, including the F2 (Find) window. A. Changing the Index The active index has a dot to the left of it. To select a different index press the first letter of the index you would like to use or highlight it using the arrow keys then press ENTER. Only one index can be active at a time. When you select an index it immediately becomes active; there is no need to re-index your files or perform any other process. You can instantly switch between the indices because WML maintains all four index files simultaneously. B. Filters A filter is a way of limiting what you see, just like a camera filter. This makes it easier to review certain entries, especially in very large mailing lists. 1. Setting a filter ________________ Let's say you selected all records in Group A for printing and then wanted to browse that list, eliminating a few here and there to reach a goal of 75 mailings. Just use the Index menu to set the "Selected filter" ON (a dot appears to the left when it is active). You will see a bar graph as the file is filtered (on smaller files it may fly by so quickly you'll barely know it was there). Then when you go to the Data Entry/Names screen you will see the first record on file which is selected for printing (which may not necessarily be the first actual record on file). -48- What Mailing List? __________________ Pressing the PgUp and PgDn keys will move you around in the filtered list. If you press the F2 (Find) key, the window will contain only the filtered list. It may seem as if the other records are gone, but a look at the status line at bottom of the screen will tell you that the number of records in your file has not changed. 2. Clearing a filter _________________ To clear a filter just select it again from the Index/Filter menu. Filters are toggles -- select once to turn ON, again to turn OFF, again to turn ON, etc. XIV. PREFERENCES The Preferences menu contains options which help you customize the operation of WML and set necessary parameters, such as the type(s) of printer(s) you have. Preferences are in two groupings on the menu, separated by a horizontal line. The upper options are screens; the bottom two options are toggles (i.e., they are either "on" or "off"). A dot next to any of the bottom three toggles indicates that it is "on." Please check each Preferences screen before making full use of WML, otherwise something might seem wrong with the software whereas it is due to the set of conditions under which WML is operating. A. Setting Your Return Addresses You can set up to two return addresses which you would like to print on laser envelopes. Each address may contain up to five lines and can include punctuation - even quotation marks and commas. When you are finished with this screen you can click on "Ok" to save the information and exit, "Cancel" to ignore any changes and exit, or use the keyboard keys F7 to save or Esc to cancel. B. Data Entry Settings 1. Setting the point of origin: the Country setting ________________________________________________ WML has been designed to validate data differently for U.S., Canadian, and other (International) addresses. By -49- What Mailing List? __________________ using the proper country setting you will have the following abilities and features: The "U.S.A Only" setting will only allow numerical zip codes in the format #####-######, telephone numbers in the format (###) ###-####, dates in the format MM/DD/YYYY, and state two-letter abbreviations. If you enter a full State name (properly spelled, of course) WML will find its abbreviation for you. The "Canada Only" setting allows postal codes only in the format A#A #A# (where A is a letter and # is a number), telephone numbers as (###) ###-####, dates in the format DD-MM-YYYY, and province abbreviations. If you enter a full province name WML will find its abbreviation for you. The "U.S.A and Canada" and "Canada and U.S.A." settings accept data in either of the formats mentioned above. Dates are presented in the format "## AAA ####". For example, "17 Sep 1992". When it is necessary to determine whether an entry is domestic or foreign, the "U.S.A. and Canada" setting assumes the point of origin to be the USA, and the "Canada and U.S.A." setting assumes the point of origin to be in Canada. The "International" setting does the least "work" for you: it does not format zip codes or telephone numbers and does not look up state/province abbreviations. Everything you enter is treated as literal information. Dates are displayed in yyyy-mm-dd format. 2. Home country ____________ This field contains the name of the postal origin country (the country in which you live, most likely). This field is used to determine the country name, if any, to print on envelopes or labels. This field gives WML the flexibility to have the same mailing list file used in more than one country. As an example, let's say you have a data file which contains international addresses and the Home Country is set to Germany. Entries which have "Germany" in the Country field will not print the country name, entries which have an empty Country field and a U.S. or Canadian address will print the appropriate country name, and all others will print whatever is in the Country field. If the -50- What Mailing List? __________________ data base is mailed to Canada, changing the Home Country to "Canada" would cause Canadian addresses to skip printing the country name while German addresses would then include the country name. 3. City & State formatting _______________________ The setting of this field determines how city names will be entered from the keyboard on the Data Entry/Names screen. There are three settings: All upper case, Capitalize, and Leave as typed. "All upper case" will accept only upper case letters for the city name. "Capitalize" will capitalize each word of the city name, regardless of how you enter it (e.g., "LOS ANGELES" will change to "Los Angeles" and "McLean city" will change to "Mclean City"). "Leave as typed" will leave the name as you enter it. 4. Default 3rd phone description _____________________________ Every entry has room for three phone numbers: a main number (typically a business/work phone), a FAX number, and a third, "other" number. The description of the third phone number may be set differently for each entry. When you add a new entry to a mailing list the description of the third phone number is set to the default description found on this Preferences screen. C. Envelope Size & Margin Settings I expect that most folks, like me, tend to use the same kind of envelope time and again, and it's probably a #10 "business" envelope. So I decided to keep this screen simple and just have a single definition for an envelope which can be changed from time to time, if necessary. There are just three numbers to fill in: The width of the envelope (left to right), the length (top to bottom), and the left margin for the return address. Enter fractions of an inch as decimal figures (e.g., 1/2 is .5, 1/8 is .125, etc.). The left margin adjustment can be negative or positive. A negative number will move the return address to the left, a positive number will move it to the right. -51- What Mailing List? __________________ D. Selecting Continuous Label Types for impact/dot matrix printers WML is pre-configured for a few common label types, such as the ever-popular 1-across 3½-inch by 15/16-inch labels which are commonly sold in boxes of 5,000. There are several undefined label types and you can change the pre-defined types to whatever you need. First you will see the menu of label choices. Highlight the one you want to change and press <Enter>. A window will open showing the name of the label and all of the measurements. Type a short name (such as "Mailing", "Shipping", "Disk", etc.) to indicate the type of label. Enter the width of the actual label (i.e., how much room there is upon which to print), the vertical distance from the top of one label to the top of the next, the horizontal distance from the left side of one label to the left side of the next, and the number of labels across. You can use the Up and Down Arrow keys to move between lines, or point and click with a mouse. When you are finished click on "Ok" to save or "Cancel" to abandon any changes, or use the keyboard keys F7 to Save or Esc to cancel. E. General Settings 1. Alert tone __________ When some type of error or warning message is displayed on the screen, you reach the end of a field, press a wrong letter in a menu, etc., WML can alert you with one of three sounds or you may select "No sound" for silent operation. 2. Automatic 11-digit zip ______________________ If this feature is enabled then WML will figure out the extended zip code for any address which has a 9-digit zip. According to the USPS this is normally accurate but there may be exceptions. When an envelope is pre-bar-coded it seems to me that it goes coast-to-coast a day faster. If you are doing ordinary first class mailings having a bad bar code would take away that one day advantage and maybe even add a day for them to correct it. If you are doing a bulk mailing, an improper bar code is grounds for trash- canning your mail - you'll never know about it (so you can't correct the mistake), but it isn't otherwise a problem. -52- What Mailing List? __________________ Of course, it is best if your mailing list is entirely accurate. This is almost entirely impossible with large lists, but you can get closer to that goal using the post office and third-party vendors who can correct your lists and provide the full 11-digit zip. Ask your postmaster for information about submitting a disk for free updating by the post office. The Post Office will verify a given mailing list file only once - after that you will have to go to the C.A.S. who provide the service for a fee. If your mailing list consists of local addresses, the Post Office's one-time free service will probably be all you'll ever need. If you get your list verified then a year later you go after a new market and create a new list, this new list is eligible for the PO's free one-time service. I'm really impressed that such an excellent service is free of charge and that it is beneficial to all parties. 3. Incomplete addresses ____________________ The setting of this option determines whether incomplete addresses will be printed. An incomplete address is one which is missing the street, city, state/province, or zip/postal code. If this field is set to "Print" then all Selected entries will print. If set to "Don't print" then Selected entries which have incomplete address information will not be printed. 4. Import duplicate rule _____________________ This field determines how duplicate entries will be handled when importing from another file. There are four settings for this field: Update, Add, Ignore, and Ask Each Time. Whether an entry is considered a duplicate depends on the duplicate checking options which are activated on the Index menu (i.e., if Duplicate Name Checking is active then WML will check for a duplicate personal name, etc.). Setting this option to Update Duplicates will cause WML to search for duplicate entries and, if found, the information will be replaced with that from the import file. If a duplicate entry is not found, the record will be added to the WML file. -53- What Mailing List? __________________ Setting this option to Add Duplicates will cause WML to add every record from the import file, not checking for duplicates. The Ignore Duplicates setting causes WML to search for a duplicate entry and, if found, that record is not imported (i.e., the original is left as is). If you set this option to Ask Each Time a window will pop open for every duplicate entry encountered, showing you the entry in the WML file and asking whether you wish to update, add, or ignore the imported record, or cancel the importing process entirely. 5. Import technique ________________ This setting determines how much WML will try to assist you when importing a file which does not contain the same name fields as WML. For example, you may have a file which contains a name field in which the first name and surname are grouped together. For the purpose of indexing it is much more convenient for WML to have each component of a person's name in a separate field, otherwise the entries will be sorted by each person's first name. Likewise, you may have a file which contains a single Name field which may contain a company name or a personal name. It would save a tremendous amount of re-entering if WML could automatically adapt imported data, and that is precisely what this setting is for. When set to "Standard", WML will import fields as you define them, without trying to figure anything out. When set to "Smart Name" WML will split a personal name into the first name and surname components when necessary. Setting this option to "Smart Name > Company" will cause WML to split the personal name components and also to check for the possibility of a company name being in the personal name field. It does this by checking for certain key characters - such as "Inc.", "Corporation", or an ampersand (&) - which are unlikely to be part of anyone's personal name. Finally, the "Smart Name <> Company" setting will attempt to move data in either direction: if it seems that a personal name is in the company name field it will be moved, and vice versa. The more assistance WML attempts to provide, the greater the chance that it will guess incorrectly (for example, interpreting a company name like "Organic Computer Wizardry" to be a personal name). Furthermore, if you are importing a file which only contains company names you -54- What Mailing List? __________________ would not want WML to attempt to interpret the data any differently. Keep in mind that these settings only come into play if some fields are missing data. If you are importing a file which contains first name, surname, and company name fields then WML will simply copy the data as it is. 6. Adhere to USPS guidelines _________________________ This setting determines whether WML will force compliance with U.S. Postal Service standards or will allow a more traditional printing of address information. The USPS uses computers with optical character recognition (OCR) to scan mail in an attempt to mechanically sort it (that is, without human intervention). For best accuracy they prefer that the address information be printed in all UPPER CASE letters without any punctuation. If you set this field to "Enabled" all U.S. addresses will be printed in UPPER CASE with symbols and punctuation removed. This setting does not affect the printing of Canadian or International addresses. 7. Start on DE/Names screen ________________________ The setting of this field determines whether WML will automatically go to the Data Entry/Names screen when it is first started. When |enabled| and a file was open when WML was last ended, the file will be opened and WML will go to the Data Entry/Names screen. When |disabled| or no file was open when WML was last ended, WML will wait at the top menu. F. Defining Printers WML can use two printers, a laser and a dot matrix. The laser can be used to print envelopes and laser labels. The dot matrix can be used to print continuous labels. Either printer can be used to print group lists and phone books. Until you define your printer(s) and font(s) there will be a flashing message at the bottom of the screen and you will not be able to use the File/Print option. -55- What Mailing List? __________________ The Printer definition window shows the current settings. Use the arrow keys to move around, and press the F3 key to change anything. For example, to set your dot matrix printer move the cursor to that line then press F3 and a menu of choices will appear. Highlight your printer (or one compatible with it) and press <Enter>. Then move down to the font definition and press F3 again. Highlight your font selection and press <Enter>. When you are finished, highlight the "Ok" button and press <Enter>. Alternately, you can press F7 to save the screen and exit. 1. PCL (laser & deskjet) printer soft fonts ________________________________________ You will need landscape (SFL) fonts for envelopes and portrait (SFP) fonts for everything else. You decide which fonts to use once -- on the Preferences/Printers screen -- and, from then on, WML automatically uses these choices. Consider an example: When you set the font for the envelope return address you may choose any of your printer's built-in fonts or a soft font. If you select the first item in the font list, "Select a soft font," you will first be asked for the drive and/or path containing the files. The last directory you used will be the default. After you enter a correct path you will be shown a list of the landscape soft font files (*.SFL) in that directory. Use the arrow keys and PgUp/PgDn keys to move around, highlight the one you want, and press <Enter>. The soft font file name will now be shown on the screen. 2. Scalable fonts ______________ A scalable font is a single font (e.g., CG Times, Helvetica, etc.) which can be printed in practically any size. I have yet to see how a scalable soft font works and ____ I have no idea how one would work with WML (try it and see) (then tell me!). Printers like the H-P LaserJet III and IV have scalable fonts built in. This means you can pick a font, such as Univers, and print in practically any size you want. When you select a scalable font WML will prompt you for the pitch (cpi) or the point size, depending on whether it is a fixed-pitch or proportionally-spaced font. In general numbers between 8 and 14 work best. My favourite font for both my laser and dot matrix is a Helvetica-type (sans serif) font at 12cpi or 12 points. -56- What Mailing List? __________________ 3. Post Office considerations __________________________ The USPS uses OCR (optical code recognition) equipment to automatically read machine-printed envelopes. When it works properly it can speed your mail through faster and on bulk mailings it saves money. For laser printers, a font size of 8 to 18 points must be used; 10 to 12 points is recommended. It is also recommended that you use Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica, Swiss, or Univers (a sans- serif PCL soft font is provided with the Registered Edition of WML). On dot matrix printers use a 10cpi or 12cpi font. G. Duplicate Checking WML can check for duplicate personal names, company names, and/or addresses while you are entering information. Just select any or all of these flags - a dot to the left of the item means that it is active. You can toggle them on and off as desired; the settings will be saved just as your Preferences settings are. Duplicate checking helps avoid duplicate entries which have different personal names or ones which have identical addresses but a different name. Duplicate checking also applies when you are importing a file into WML - whichever items are active will be tested while importing. Because WML keeps all index files active simultaneously, performing a duplicate check is very fast. On most computers you will not see any difference in speed regardless of the duplicate checking options which are active. On older 8088 and 8086 computers or any computer which is running WML from floppy disk (rather than a hard disk) duplicate checking can slow down some operations (especially importing), so you may want to experiment with turning some options off. * Personal name checks first name & surname * Company name checks the company name field * Address checks zip/postal code plus address line #1 An entry is considered a duplicate if all of the data entered exactly matches data in the file. For example, "P.O. Box 12" and "PO Box 12" are unique and so would not be identified as duplicates. "Smith" and "Smith, Jr." are unique, however if someone named "Joe Smith, Jr." were on file and the name "Joe Smith" were entered, WML would tell you that "Joe Smith, Jr." is a possible duplicate since it contains the same sequence of characters. "Joe Smith Jr" and "Joe Smith, Sr." would not be considered duplicates since they do not match "Joe Smith, Jr.". -57- What Mailing List? __________________ To make duplicate checking work well for you be sure to incorporate WML's Abbreviation feature into your data entry. Abbreviations reduce typing (which speeds up data entry) and establishes standards. "Ave", "Ave." and "Avenue" are all different and will not be caught as duplicates. Set the abbreviation "ave" to mean "Avenue", "St" to mean "Street", etc. and WML will give you much more accurate duplicate checking. NOTE Upper-case and lower-case letters do not matter for duplicate checking and indexing - WML stores and compares index information in upper-case. XV. HELP The Help menu contains information screens and print-outs. This menu is divided into three sections: 1. The on-line manual (Index) 2. Information about how WML is running on your computer 3. Registration, site license, and update order forms Choosing the Index option will bring up the table of contents for WML's help system. You may then use the arrow keys to highlight a choice and press ENTER to view the information on the screen. This is the same information which is displayed when you press the F1 (Help) key on data entry screens, plus there is additional information which is only available from this menu. The About option gives you the current version number, copyright information, and my address & phone number. The Files & Memory option tells you how about your computer's free memory (RAM and disk space) and shows statistics about the opened mail list file (if any), group file, abbreviation file, and zip/postal code file. The Settings option shows a summary of all your preferences settings. This gives you a way to view these settings without having to access each Preferences screen. The lower three options print various order forms. Order Form prints an order form for registering WML. Site License prints a site license form which shows discounted pricing if you wish to use more than one copy of WML at a single location. Update/Sampler Form prints a form to use when you want to order an update disk to the latest version of WML - you need not be registered to order an update disk. If you have a version of WML -58- What Mailing List? __________________ which is several months old please feel free to order the latest version for evaluation. XVI. PROBLEMS AND ERROR MESSAGES WML tries to handle most problems without any attention from you, however, there are times when an error happens which WML is unable to handle. There are three types of errors which you may experience: 1. Condition error - this is a problem due to an operating condition. Examples of this type of error are if a printer is off-line when you try to print, if duplicate checking is turned "on" and a duplicate entry is found, or if a file is locked by another user on a network. WML will report the condition in a window and, once you press ENTER or click the "Ok" button WML will continue operating. 2. File error - these problems cause an error screen to appear which suggests a possible solution to the problem and, if you can't fix it, my address and phone number is shown so you can contact me. A common reason for this error is that an index file contains a bad entry (perhaps due to a power outage). The most common solution to these problems is to re-index your files (File/re-Index). 3. Programme error - this is a mistake of mine and will cause the programme to abruptly end with a one-line error message and a message like "Press any key to return to system." Report these errors to me right away, please. Just like other large software packages, WML contains hundreds of thousands of instructions and the bigger it gets the more likely it is that a "bug" will creep in there somewhere. These errors get top priority and are usually fixed and a new version released within a day. All large software packages have "bugs" which are errors in the programming logic. For example, many Windows uses experience "General Protection Fault" messages which are caused by bugs in Windows and/or other software which was running. As WML goes through its evolution, bugs are removed; as new features are added new bugs sometimes find their way into the software. It is very helpful when someone informs me of a problem they found. -59- What Mailing List? __________________ The following sections describe some common errors and procedures to correct them. A. EMS Memory Error I have discovered a problem on a Packard Bell computer which results in WML refusing to run, giving the error message, "Not enough EMS to load overlays." This error is generated by the programming language, not by WML itself, which has left me unable to determine its cause. I saw the error happen with 250kb of free EMS memory and 0kb free XMS memory. My best guess is that since there is some free EMS memory the overlay manager tries to load portions of WML into EMS, but since there is not enough memory it fails and is unable to revert back to operating without EMS memory. There are three ways around this problem: 1. Remove the EMM386 line in your CONFIG.SYS file or change the "RAM" key word to "NOEMS". Either of these actions will remove EMS memory support from your computer. If there is other software in your computer which requires EMS to run this will not be a practical solution for you. 2. Change the EMM386 line to have either more or less memory, re-boot your computer, and try to run WML again. Experiment to find the memory setting which works for WML and also allows your other software to operate properly. 3. Change the memory settings for software which uses EMS, such as SMARTDRV, so that there is either more or less EMS memory available. B. Text overlaps on reports This problem is caused by choosing a font which is too large for the report layout - WVH has no way to detect this situation. To resolve the problem go to the Preferences/Printers screen and change the font to a smaller (lower) point size or a more dense (higher) character pitch. C. Information is Missing I place great emphasis on keeping data safe and know of no case where WML has lost data, however, problems with DOS or computer equipment may cause data to be lost in rare circumstances. -60- What Mailing List? __________________ If any of your data seems to be missing exit to DOS and type "CHKDSK C: /F" (without the quotation marks; replace "C:" with another drive, if appropriate). MS-DOS 6.2 users: Use the command "SCANDISK C:" since it performs a more thorough test. Either CHKDSK or SCANDISK will check that the recorded location of each file is valid. The SCANDISK utility can also perform a surface scan which tests the entire disk to be sure all areas of it are usable. If CHKDSK or SCANDISK find any errors they will be reported to you and you will be asked for input on correcting the errors. CHKDSK only knows how to clear any errors and turn "orphan" data into new files. By "orphan" data I mean data which is on your hard disk but for which DOS has lost the information about the file to which it belongs. Normally this data is not usable or requires tremendous effort to make it usable again. I suggest you do not create files from this data unless you have lost a tremendous amount of data which would be very difficult to re- enter or the data is irreplaceable. Beyond this point you will require the help of someone who knows how to recover damaged files. Contact me if you cannot find a local consultant to perform this service for you. SCANDISK is able to identify bad sections of your disk and attempt to move data to safe areas. If the area is badly damaged the attempt to move data may not be entirely successful. If SCANDISK tells you it has found problems on your disk I suggest you let it fix them. If your data is irreplaceable or would take a tremendous amount of effort to re-enter, then I recommend that you get the help of a consultant. At the very least make a complete back-up copy of your data files (or the entire hard disk) so that you can attempt to restore information in case files are so badly damaged that information becomes lost. In most cases you will find that no data is missing and all you need to do is re-index your files for the "missing" entries to re-appear. To re-build the index files just select the Re- index option on the File menu. XVII. FILES WHICH MAKE UP THE PACKAGE The unregistered Shareware Edition of What Mailing List? is __________________ made up of the following files: -61- What Mailing List? __________________ WML.EXE The executable file WML.HLP Help messages file WML.HX0/HX1 Help messages indices WML.TXT * The ASCII text file of this document WML.WP * The WordPerfect file of this document (so you can format it for your printer) WML.CO Smart Import file containing key phrases which indicate an entry is a company name rather than a personal name WML.MSG Screen messages file WML.MIX Screen messages index POSTAL.DAT U.S. and Canadian zip/postal code ranges file PRINTER.DAT Printer definition file DDLABEL.WID * Import definition for Dr. Data Label files PHONE.STY * Ventura Publisher style sheet for a 2-column phone book for VP version 3.0 or higher. READ.ME * A text file describing the latest features, enhancements, and corrections, plus information on installing WML. ORDER.FRM Order form for all of my software VENDOR.DOC * Information file for BBS Sysops & Shareware distributors/disk vendors SYSOP.DOC * Special deals for BBS sysops & co-sysops Files marked with an asterisk (*) are not required to run WML so they may be erased if disk space is a premium (such as if you are using WML on a floppy disk system). When you run WML for the first time it will create the following files in the same directory as the EXE programme file: CONFIG.WDT Your preferences settings and other data ABBREVS.WDT Abbreviations you define ABBREVS.IX Index for abbreviations GROUPS.WDT Groups you define GROUPS.IX Index for groups MESSAGES.WDT Envelope & label message file MESSAGES.IX Messages index The Registered Edition contains extra files which are for use by the registered owner only. So if you share WML with friends and BBSs, please ERASE these Registered Edition files from the copies you share: *.SFP Portrait PCL soft fonts *.SFL Landscape PCL soft fonts CONFIG.WDT Registration key & configuration info -62- What Mailing List? __________________ INDEX 4DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 12 Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Adding new entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Alert tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 ASCII Files Importing data from . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Bar codes Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Bulletin Boards Obtaining updates & upgrades from . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Changing a File's Name & Description . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Changing existing records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 City Capitalization preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Coding entries See Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Country setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 home country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 U.S.A. and Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 U.S.A. only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Creating a New File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Credit card Registering using . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 DBase/DBF files Importing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Deleting a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Deleting records Removing records which are marked for deletion . . . . . 22 Directory Choosing a Directory for WML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Directory. start WML from any . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Dr. Data Label Files Importing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 DR-DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Duplicate checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44, 47, 57 Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 EMS Memory Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Envelopes Defining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Erasing a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Exporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 -63- What Mailing List? __________________ ASCII, comma-delimited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 ASCII, fixed field length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 MS Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Ventura Publisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 WordPerfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 File name Changing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39, 47, 48 Clearing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40, 44 Defining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Printing a group list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Help Accessing help for a function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 using the F1 key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Importing ASCII (text) files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 20, 22 Data from other software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 dBase (DBF) files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Defining field assignments . . . . . . . . . . . 23, 25, 26 Dr. Data Label files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Duplicate checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53, 57 Grouping imported entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Loading (restoring) an import definition . . . . 23, 25, 26 Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Saving an import definition . . . . . . . . . . . 23, 25, 26 Standard or Smart Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 WML files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 WordPerfect mail merge files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Index Active indexing method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Changing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Re-index files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 International mailings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Key words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Labels Defining continuous (dot matrix) label types . . . . . . 52 Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Menus Using . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Monochrome (/M) switch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 14 MS-DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Names screen Auto start on Names screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Networks -64- What Mailing List? __________________ Using WML with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Opening an Existing File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Order Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 printing a Site License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 printing an Update order form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 printing from WML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 OS/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Packing a file Defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 PC-DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Phone book font . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Postal codes distribution list (report) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 query by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 testing during import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Printers Defining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 55 Laser printer soft fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32-34, 38, 43 a single entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 flow chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Incomplete addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Phone Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Selecting entries to be printed . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 U.S.P.S. considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Query . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 58 benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 invoice & registration form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 payment methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 pricing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Return addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Saving/Closing a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Scalable fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Site License printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Smart Zip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Soft fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Sorting sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Update Subscription . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6, 7 Update/Sampler Form printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 -65- What Mailing List? __________________ Updating to a newer release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 USPS guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Windows Using WML with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 WordPerfect Exporting to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Importing from . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Importing, Mail merge field names . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Zip codes 11-digit zip codes (U.S.A.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33, 52 distribution list (report) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 query by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 testing during import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 -66-