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Public Address
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Copyright 1991, 1992, 1993 Chris M. Davies, all rights reserved.
No part of this manual or program may be reproduced in any way
without the advance written permission from the author.
You may make backup copies of Public Address or make copies of
the complete unregistered program and documentation on disk to
share with your friends or colleagues. If you wish to distribute
Public Address as a vendor, please read the file entitled
VENDOR.DOC. If you use Public Address for more than 30 days you
are required to register. Public Address is marketed as
Shareware. It is not free or in the public domain. Please read
the file entitled ASP.DOC.
TRADEMARKS
Brand and product names mentioned in this manual are the
trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
This manual was last updated on June 10, 1993.
This manual and program were written by
Chris M. Davies
Paradise Programming
P.O. Box 1231
Shelton, WA 98584
Compuserve 70322,231
1
LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
The information presented in this manual has been reviewed for
accuracy and is as complete as possible at the time of printing.
However, there may be changes made to the software subsequent to
the printing of the manual. Please look for any file named
READ.ME that would be in the directory Public Address resides.
This software has been tested as thoroughly as possible for
reliability, accuracy, and stability. Also, I have no control
over how this software is being used on your machine. Therefore,
Chris M. Davies assumes no liability for damages incurred
directly or indirectly from the use of this manual and/or
software.
This software is provided to you "as is," without warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to
the implied warranties for merchantability and fitness for a
particular purpose.
INTRODUCTION
Public Address is a data base program designed to hold
information on people. It is like a computerized Rolodex, but
better. It will do most anything anyone would need, and it is
very fast. The idea behind Public Address is simple, computer
programs do not have to be hard to learn or complicated to use,
they also do not have to take up two or three megabytes of your
hard disk. When writing Public Address I kept this in mind, so
although Public Address has a wealth of features which are easy
to use, it will still run on a 360k diskette.
Although quite capable of running on a 360k diskette, I would
strongly recommend that Public Address be installed on your hard
drive, if you have one. Running Public Address on a hard drive
will allow you to search through thousands records in very little
time. That type of speed is not attained when using a floppy
disk.
2
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
1) IBM compatible computer.
2) DOS version 3.2 or higher.
3) 384k of RAM base memory.
4) A single floppy drive. A hard drive is preferred for
greater speed and record capacity.
5) CGA, EGA, VGA, SVGA monitor. Public Address even supports
Tandy 16 color.
6) Dot-matrix or HP compatible laser printer is needed to
print.
7) A Hayes compatible modem if you wish to use the dial
feature.
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
Public Address is an easy to operate Address Data Base. Public
Address was designed to be inexpensive and useful for most
businesses or at home. It requires very little learning time and
is extremely compact. It will work on a single floppy system or
notebook computers where disk space is at a premium.
Public Address features non-case sensitive searches on whole or
partial words. You can search on as little as one character. It
will search eight fields:
1) Group
2) Business
3) Name
4) City
5) Zip
6) Birthday Month
7) Country
8) Ride Share
Public Address will print Labels, Envelopes, Phone book, Report,
and WordPerfect Secondary Merge File on the above fields. It can
be used on any dot-matrix or laser printer. If you are going to
print envelopes on your laser printer, your printer must be
Hewlett Packard compatible, (uses the PCL printer language). You
can even choose the fonts that are in your printer from the
program as long as your laser speaks the PCL-5 language. If it
does not, I have included a place so you can enter the printer
code yourself.
Public Address will print up to five lines per label. Everything
that is printed or displayed is left justified, no big gaps
between fields on your labels. You can have your return address
printed on every envelope. You can have up to six different
return address stored for you to choose from.
3
Public Address has fields for: Group, Title, First Name, Last
Name, Business, Address, City, State, Zip+4, Country, Birthday,
Telephone Number, Fax number, and one-hundred sixty characters
for memo space.
There is no limitation to the amount of groups, records or input
files you may have. Password protection is provided and you can
also dial your phone. You can configure Public Address to sort
by Name or Zip-code and it can automatically delete duplicates.
You can turn automatic sorting off so you will not be bothered
waiting for it when you get a couple thousand records. Just
resort once a week or however often you want.
I offer custom programming to anyone who has nonstandard labels
to print, at a very reasonable price. The phone book is printed
by either NAME or BUSINESS and is on standard size paper. It is
indented to allow for binding holes to be punched. The phone
book is automatically sorted when printed. Public Address' phone
book includes last name, first name, business, city, state, dot-
leaders and the phone number.
Anything that can be sent to the printer can also be sent to a
file. Example: You would like to edit the phone book. All you
need to do is go to the configuration menu and chose T (Printer
port). There should be a string that reads LPT1. This is where
your output goes. LPT1 is your printer port. Give this a VALID
DOS name such as PHONE.BOK and then print the phone book from the
PRINT MENU. The whole phone book will go to a file in the
current directory and you can load this ASCII file into your
favorite Shareware text editor or word processor and edit it. I
use another Shareware program called 4BOOK that will take the
file I created and turn it into a book.
For information on 4BOOK write to:
Korenthal Associates, Inc
230 West 13th St.
New York, NY 10011
4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT NOTICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
TRADEMARKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
LIMITATION OF LIABILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
A QUICK START TO GET YOU GOING! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
WHY YOU NEED PUBLIC ADDRESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
IN THE BEGINNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
ABOUT DATA BASES PROGRAMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
THE MAIN MENU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
SEARCH MENU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
DISPLAY SCREEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
PRINT MENU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
ADDRESS EDITOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
PRODUCT INFO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
CONFIGURATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
TIPS, TRICKS, AND TECHNICAL THINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
A QUICK START TO GET YOU GOING!
This section is for people who are familiar with computers and
just want to get going on Public Address. I am assuming you are
familiar with installing software and have already installed
Public Address to a directory on your hard drive. If you are not
familiar with installing software please see the section entitled
"In The Beginning" later in this manual. Also please read all
documents with the extension DOC.
By now you should have all the files that came on the disk in a
directory on your hard drive or are just running from a floppy.
Go to that directory or drive and type PA and press enter. The
program will start and create two files, one named PA.CFG and one
named FRIENDS.PAF. PA.CFG is your configuration file. It tells
Public Address how you want it to work for you. More on that in
a minute. FRIENDS.PAF is the file in which all your information
you enter into the program, will be stored. The file extension
PAF identifies it as a Public Address File.
Ok, by now you should be looking at the main menu. Notice on top
of the screen information will be displayed for you on how many
records you have, the label number, what input file you are
currently using and who the program is registered to. Your name
will be here when you decide to register. Notice that you
already have one record. It is information on me. I thought I
would throw this one in to help get you started.
Type 4 and lets go to the Address Editor. You have three choices
here. 1 Previous Menu, 2 Add, and 3 Edit or Delete. Let's type 2
and Add a record. We will then see the screen you will enter all
your addresses and information in. Let's take a closer look. On
the very top it will tell you how many records have been entered
and on the bottom is a quick reference on how to get around. It
says you can use Tab and Shift-Tab to move. In reality you can
use your Arrow keys, the Enter key, the Tab key, Home, and End.
The exception is when you get to the bottom of the screen and
press Enter. The Enter key will then write the record. You can
also write the record by pressing the Esc key at anytime and in
any field. There is also a T at the very bottom right-hand
corner. This indicates you are in Typeover mode. If you press
your Insert key it will turn into an I.
Lets enter a record. Type Christmas in the Group field, enter
some information on your best friend or a relative in the rest of
the fields. Note: You must have something in either the Last
Name field or the Business field. If you do not Public Address
will assume you are done and exit the input screen.
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___________________________________________________Public Address
Once you have all the information entered, press Esc once.
Notice that everything is still where you typed it and Total
Records Added now equals 1. The cursor will be placed back in
the Group fields. Go ahead and put this person in your Vacation
group too. After all, they are a good friend. Just type
Vacation and press Esc again. Let's add another record and we
will call it quits for now. The cursor should still be in the
group field. Just press enter or tab and the cursor will move to
the Title field. Now hold your Ctrl key down and simultaneously
press End (Ctrl-End) and all the fields from the cursor down
should be clear. Type the second record in and when you get done
press Esc twice. The first time will write the record and the
second time will exit the screen.
Go ahead and press the Esc key again and exit the Address Editor
menu. Now we can do a little configuration so Public Address
will know what kind of system you have. Type 6 and the
configuration screen comes up. I will go through all the option
later so lets just get the ones that are really important for
now. You will need to select P (Printer type) if you have a
laser printer and then just type L. Most printers are connected
to LPT1, but if yours is not, you better change this too.
Now type L to setup the label you would like to print on. If you
have selected a laser printer as your printer type from above you
will be shown the labels for a laser printer. If you have
selected a Dot-matrix printer as your printer type from above you
will be shown the labels for a Dot-matrix printer. Just enter
the label # for the label you want. Example: 4145 to print on a
label that is 15/16" x 3 1/2". This is the most common label
size for dot-matrix printers.
Everything else should do for now. Press Esc or X and exit back
to the MAIN MENU. Type 2 and you will see the Search Menu. You
can Search on any one of the fields listed, but just for this
Demo lets search on the Group field. Press 2 and you should see
three groups listed to the right side of the screen. What we are
going to do is type ALL and press enter, but you could choose one
of the groups by typing the first letter or two and pressing
enter.
Well, unless one of the records you entered has a last name that
is before mine you will see a record on me. Go ahead and press
enter a couple times and see all the records. When you get to
where it says at the bottom of the screen "There are no more
records to see!" you can press enter one more time and it will
take you back to the Search Menu. Press Esc to exit the Search
Menu.
7
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
Press 3 and go to the Print Menu. Turn on your printer! Now
type 2 to print. The menu now looks just like the one at the
search menu. All the same choices. Select any field you want
and then type in the required response. Let's say you want to
print a label for my address so you can register this wonderful
program {grin}. Type 2 for group, now type P for Programmer and
press enter. It will start printing a label just the way you
like it.
Well, that is about it for a quick introduction to Public
Address. It will do much more and I encourage you to read the
rest of the Manual to get the full benefit of the program. Have
fun!
8
___________________________________________________Public Address
WHY YOU NEED PUBLIC ADDRESS
RIDE MATCH FOR CAR POOLING
Starting with version 3.06h I added a special feature that will
help employers to match their employees up for car pooling.
After you have everyone's address in your business entered into
Public Address you can search on option #9 (Ride Share) from
either the search menu or the print menu and it will find the
people who are the most likely to be able to car pool together.
As more and more cars are on the freeways and byways and as the
price for parking is not getting any less expensive this is
really getting to be a must for any large employer.
AROUND THE HOME
I use Public Address to remind me of birthdays and anniversaries.
All you need to do is print from the birthday field and take your
labels to the store and get the cards. You can do the same thing
for Christmas or any other holiday. I also take preprinted
labels with me on vacation. Preprinted labels can be put on post
cards and a couple words entered and I am ready! Also, Public
Address may be useful for any clubs or support groups in which
you participate. The phone book is worth its weight in gold.
You will never have to write another phone number in the back of
your phone book.
REAL ESTATE
If you have clients looking for a particular house or piece of
property, just input their information in a record and put them
in a group that describes the kind of house or property they are
looking for. Example: 3BR 5ACRES or WATERFRONT could be a group
name. There is no limit to the amount of group names you may
have. Up to forty group names can be displayed on the screen.
Public Address would also work well to keep track of rental
property.
INDUSTRIAL
If you restock parts or just need to replace them occasionally,
you will never need to dig through that old stack of requisitions
again. You can list all the parts you use under group names.
For example, if you need a new motor, all you will need to do is,
bring up the group name MOTOR, and a list of all the suppliers
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Paradise Programming____________________________________________
that you receive your motors from will be displayed. This would
also work well in a warehouse.
SHAREWARE AUTHORS
You can create a group name for every program you write. Enter
all the names under that group who have registered. When an
update comes out, just send that group to the printer and your
newsletter is on its way. You can also keep track of the disk
size and any other information you need in the memo spaces.
10
___________________________________________________Public Address
IN THE BEGINNING
When you receive Public Address, you should back it up by making
a copy. Just place the disk containing the program and all the
files that came with it in drive A of your system. From your DOS
prompt, type (DISKCOPY A: A:) without the brackets of course.
Just insert a blank diskette in drive A when it tells you to put
the target disk in. To install Public Address just place the
disk you received into your A or B disk drive, make that drive
current, and type INSTALL and press enter. Follow the
instructions on the screen.
The program should come with the following files:
1) PA.EXE The main program file.
2) TESTPRT.COM A utility to check your printer status.
3) MANUAL.DOC This manual.
4) VENDOR.DOC Information to shareware vendors.
5) REGISTER.DOC Registration information and order Form!
6) ASP.DOC Information about Shareware & The Association
of Shareware Professionals.
7) ADISCTRL This controls how the program accepts data.
8) MAIL51.WPM A WordPerfect 5.1 macro to convert merge
codes.
9) MAIL50.WPM A WordPerfect 5.0 macro to convert merge
codes.
10) LH51.WPM A WordPerfect 5.1 macro to help create a
merge letter.
11) LH50.WPM A WordPerfect 5.0 macro to help create a
merge letter.
12) MERGE.WPM A WordPerfect macro to merge the file's MAIL1
and MAIL2.
13) FILE_ID.DIZ Program information file for BBSes.
14) INSTALL.COM The install program.
To print all the documentation, go to the directory Public
Address resides and at the DOS prompt type PRINT *.DOC. Make
sure your printer is on and has paper.
The only files that are absolutely needed to run Public Address
are PA.EXE, ADISCTRL and TESTPRT.COM. With these files in a
directory or on a separate disk, you can start Public Address by
typing PA and pressing ENTER. A message on the screen will inform
you the program is checking the configuration at this time. If
it does not find a file named PA.CFG in the current directory, it
will create one and put the default values in. If you have never
used Public Address before, it will also create a file named
FRIENDS.PAF. This file will be your input file. Public Address
will always remember the last input file you used and load it
next time you start the program providing your PA.CFG file is in
11
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
the current directory or drive. You can change input files from
the configuration screen in the program.
12
___________________________________________________Public Address
ABOUT DATA BASES PROGRAMS
A Data Base program is a program that will store information for
you and allow easy access to the information later. You will
usually be offered a choice how you want the information
displayed, such as labels, envelopes, phone book, report, or you
can also have it displayed to the screen. A Data Base program
will let you find this information by searching on most fields.
Before we get started, there are some words that are commonly
used when talking about a Data Base. FILES: A file is a
collection of information with a physical name on disk. You can
compare it to one of the drawers in a filing cabinet. A valid
DOS filename will have eight characters or less with a
three-letter extension or less, separated by a period. There are
certain letters that are not allowed in a file name and you
should check your DOS manual for that list. An example of a
valid file name would be: ADDRESS.PAF Notice that I only used
seven letters in the name with three letters for the extension.
The name and the extension have to be separated by a period. The
input file for a data base program is commonly referred to as
"The data base." I will be referring to this file as the input
file because you input your information to it and it inputs the
information to the program.
RECORDS: A record is the information in a file. You can compare
it to a file folder in the filing cabinet drawer. A record will
hold information on one person. You can have more than one
record on each person and you can have as many records as your
disk will hold.
FIELDS: A field is a part of a record that holds one piece of
information. Public Address has fourteen fields. They are:
Group (10), Title (20), First Name (20), Last Name (20), Business
(40), Address (40), City (20), State or Province (20), Zip+4
(20), Country (40), Birthday (08), Phone # (20), Fax # (20), and
Memo (160). The number in the brackets ( ) represents the number
of characters in that field. Fields are searched when you want
to view information or print. The fields you can search are:
Group, Last Name, Business, City, Zip, Country, and Birthday
month.
13
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
THE MAIN MENU
P) Password.
P is not listed on the Main Menu, but is an option for you
to create a password or to quit using one. Just type P, and
follow the directions. DO NOT FORGET YOUR PASSWORD!
1) EXIT TO DOS.
This will take you out of the program, back to your DOS
prompt. If you press your Escape key you will be ask if you
really want to exit. You can then either press it again or
press enter and you will be exited to your DOS prompt. If
you press N for NO you will remain in the program. Every
time you run the program ten times you will be reminded to
Backup your records. You will just see a message on the
screen that ask you "Have you backed up your records
lately?" You don't have to press any keys or anything. If
you have a menuing program that takes you directly back to
the menu after you exit the program you may miss this
message. Please remember to backup all your important file
regularly. The easiest way to do that with Public Address
is to just issue the DOS command COPY *.PAF A: when you are
in the Public Address directory and you have a blank
formatted disk in your "A" drive.
2) SEARCH MENU.
Search menu will enable you to search for information on a
record in the input file. You can search and display
information on the screen, dial the phone, print a single
label or envelope or tag a record to merge with another
input file. See SEARCH MENU later in this manual.
3) PRINT MENU.
Print menu will enable you to print labels, envelopes, phone
book, report, and a mail merge file. See PRINT MENU later
in this manual.
4) ADDRESS EDITOR.
Address editor will enable you to Add, Edit, or Delete
records. See ADDRESS EDITOR later in this manual.
5) PRODUCT INFO.
This option provides you with all the information necessary
to reach me in case you have problems, need special
programming or want to register. See PRODUCT INFO later in
this manual.
6) CONFIGURATION.
14
___________________________________________________Public Address
This is one of the most important options on the main menu.
You should select this option first when you receive Public
Address. You will need to enter information so Public
Address will know how to work for you. Please see
CONFIGURATION later in this manual.
15
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
SEARCH MENU
The Search Menu is for searching and displaying information on
the screen or printing one record at a time. The following
choices are available from this menu:
1) Previous Menu.
Moves you back one screen to the Main Menu.
2) GROUP.
Group will ask for the group name to search on. All the groups you have
in your input file (up to forty) will be listed on the right-hand side
of your screen. Type the group name in either upper or lower case
letters. You can even type in part of the word. Example: You have
three groups; one is named PA10, another is named PA20, and the last one
is named PA21. If you typed PA and press enter, you would see all the
records in all three groups. If you were to type PA2, you would see all
the records in the group's PA20, and PA21. Now, if you where to type
PA21, the only group you would see is the one by that name. The more
letters you enter, the more exact the search will be. This works for all
searches in all the fields with the exception of the Birthday field.
You can have more than forty groups, but only forty will be displayed on
the screen.
If you have some people who are not in a group, just press ENTER and it
will start displaying them one at a time on the screen. See (DISPLAY
SCREEN). If you wish to see all of the records you have in your input
file, type ALL in the group name to be searched and Public Address will
display all the entries, one at a time. If no records are found, the
following message will appear on the bottom of the screen: "THERE ARE
NO MORE RECORDS TO SEE, HIT ENTER TO CONTINUE". This means you have
looked through the input file and have either viewed all the records in
that group or there are no records to view. If you could not find a
record you know is there, you should check your spelling and make sure
you entered it correctly.
3) LAST NAME.
When you select 3 from the Search Menu, it will ask you for the person's
last name. You must enter the person's last name or at least the first
letter or two. Just as with GROUP from above.
4) CITY.
City works exactly as Name. See Name above.
5) ZIP.
Zip works exactly as Name. See Name above.
6) BIRTHDAY.
When you select Birthday, Public Address will ask you for the person's
birthday month. It must be as you entered it in the input file. An
16
___________________________________________________Public Address
example would be 08 for August or 01 for January. Public Address will
then display every record with a birthday in that month, one at a time
on the screen. The birthday month is the first two characters in the
birthday field.
7) BUSINESS.
Business works exactly as Name. See Name above.
8) COUNTRY.
Country works exactly as Name. See Name above.
9) RIDE SHARE.
Ride share works like Name from above. The only exception is you are
ask for the phone prefix and the zip code. You must also enter ALL the
information and NOT just the first few numbers. The phone prefix is the
first three digits of the phone number field. By searching on both the
phone prefix and the zip code a search can be narrowed and a better
match made for prospective car-poolers. If people are going to be car-
pooling from a great distance you can always search on the zip code from
above.
17
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
DISPLAY SCREEN
With the Display Screen, you can view the information on your
monitor without having to print it.
You can also dial your phone, and print single labels or
envelopes from this menu.
You can also tag a record for merging into another input file.
Just scroll through the records tagging the ones you want merged
with another input file. Once they are all tagged go to the
configuration screen, choose the new input file and when you exit
the configuration screen you will be ask if you want the tagged
records merged with the new input file. Choose Y for Yes and all
the tagged records will be merged. Every time you start a new
search the tagged records are reset to zero.
The Display Screen will show one record at a time listing all the
information in the record. To see the next record press ENTER.
To exit, type 1 and you will be back at the SEARCH MENU. If you
would like to dial the person on the phone, make sure your modem
is on and type 2. After the phone starts to ring, you will need
to pick your receiver up from your phone and press enter on the
computer. Public Address is not a communication program. It
only acts like an auto-dialer. In order to print a single label
or envelope, turn on your printer and type 3. You will be asked
how many labels to print. Just enter the number and press enter.
NOTE! You must be setup to print ONLY single labels or envelopes
in order to print from the Display Screen. You must also have
your output going to a printer and not a file. MAKE SURE YOUR
PRINTER IS ON AND READY!
I have a record on myself in my input file. When I need some
return address labels I just print them from the Display screen.
I search on my name and when my record is on the screen I type 3
and tell how many I want and it does the rest.
18
___________________________________________________Public Address
PRINT MENU
The Print Menu is for printing only. If you wish to view your
records, go to the Search Menu first. The following choices are
available from this menu:
1) PREVIOUS MENU.
Previous Menu, moves you back one screen to the Main Menu.
2) PRINT.
If you choose PRINT, Public Address will ask if you want to
print 2) GROUP, 3) NAME, 4) CITY, 5) ZIP, 6) BIRTHDAY,
7) BUSINESS, 8) COUNTRY 9) RIDE SHARE. Choosing one of
these is just like choosing one on the SEARCH MENU except it
will print the labels, envelopes, or file instead of
displaying them. Most of your printing will be done from
here. When you are setup to print labels, envelopes, or a
WordPerfect Secondary Merge file, you will choose this
option. If you are printing a WordPerfect Secondary Merge
file you will be prompted for a file name. If you do not
enter a name, Public Address will print to a file named
MAIL2. You can use a path and file name of up to 50
characters.
3) PHONE BOOK.
If you choose PHONE BOOK from the menu, Public Address will
print a phone book for you alphabetically, last name, first
name, business name, city, state, dot leaders and the phone
numbers as you have entered them in the input file. It does
this for the whole input file. It will not print someone's
name twice even if you have them in two or more groups
unless they have two different phone numbers. If you have
chosen to have your phone book sorted by business, the
business name will be on the left side of the page instead
of the person's last name.
4) REPORT.
If you choose REPORT, Public Address will ask if you want a
report for 2) GROUP, 3) NAME, 4) CITY, 5) ZIP, 6)
BIRTHDAY, 7) BUSINESS, 8) COUNTRY 9) RIDE SHARE. Choosing
one of these is just like choosing one on the SEARCH MENU,
except it will print a report instead of displaying them.
Type in the appropriate response and a report will be sent
to your printer. The report contains all of the information
you have in your input file and formats it in report form.
19
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
ADDRESS EDITOR
When you select 4 on the Main Menu, it will take you to a menu
which will ask you 1) Previous Menu, 2) Add, 3) Edit or Delete.
Select 2 and the screen you will see is the Input Record Screen.
The default for Public Address when doing any editing is
typeover. This is indicated by a T on the bottom right corner of
the screen. You must press your Insert key if you want to be in
the insert mode, indicated by an I on the bottom right corner of
the screen. When you are in the input record screen, enter the
information into the appropriate place, tab to the next field and
repeat the process. The LAST NAME and/or BUSINESS NAME is
required for each record. If you do not have a last name or a
business name, it will not write your record and will drop you
out of the Input Record Screen back to the ADDRESS EDITOR Menu!
When you are finished with the record, press ESC. The record
will be written to disk, the counter at the top of the screen
will increment one and the cursor will return to the group field
again. All the data you entered will remain in the same fields
so you can enter the same person in more than one group, all you
will need to do is change the group name and press ESC. If you
want to clear all the fields, just hold down the Ctrl key and
press the End key (Ctrl-End). This will clear all the fields so
you can enter the next record. When you get all your records
entered, just press ESC twice. This will take you back to the
ADDRESS EDITOR Menu.
There are lots of ways to get around in the Input Record Screen.
I suggest you try using your Arrow keys, Enter, Tab, Shift-Tab,
Home, and End.
If you select 3 from the ADDRESS EDITOR menu, Public Address will
take you to a screen which will ask what to look for: 2) GROUP,
3) NAME, 4) CITY, 5) ZIP, 6) BIRTHDAY, 7) BUSINESS, 8) COUNTRY 9)
RIDE SHARE. After you choose one, type in the response, press
ENTER and you will see the first record you are searching for.
If you want to edit the record, select 2 and the cursor will be
placed in the group box of the Edit screen. The information in
the record will be displayed above the box. You do not have to
change all the fields, just the field you want updated. Example:
You want to give someone a new address, TAB to the address field
and type in the new address and press Esc. The record is then
updated and you are returned to the menu with the same record
displayed on the screen. You can edit as many fields as you
need. To clear a field just put an asterisk (*) in that field,
if you want to delete someone from your list, select 3 on the
menu. Use caution when you do this. Once a record is deleted,
it is permanently removed from your file. Do not forget you may
have someone in more than one group. You will need to delete
them from every group. If you choose 4 on the menu you can add
20
___________________________________________________Public Address
the record to another group. Note: This will not delete the
person from any group, it will create another record for that
person and change the group name.
Once you have seen all the records that were being searched, you
will get a screen which informs you the input file is being
resorted, unless you have turned auto sorting off. Once the file
is resorted, you will be returned to the ADDRESS EDITOR menu.
PRODUCT INFO
When you select 5 from the MAIN MENU, you will see a couple
different screens depending if you are registered or not.
Basically, the screens will tell you how to order Public Address
or how to get in contact with me for questions you may have.
There is a 1-800 number to call FOR ORDERS ONLY! Please do not
call this number for information on the program. All they know
is how much the program cost and how to send your order as fast
as possible. If you need information on the program, please
write me or send E-mail on CompuServe. I have also included my
phone number. Please call between 5pm and 10pm any day except
Mondays, Pacific Time zone. I will answer all letters from
registered users as well as people evaluating Public Address.
Any suggestions on improving Public Address would be appreciated.
I really do listen! For the complete list of benefits for
registering Public Address, please read the file entitled
REGISTER.DOC.
21
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
CONFIGURATION
When you select number 6 from the MAIN MENU you will see the
CONFIGURATION SCREEN. You will have the following choices.
X) EXIT AND SAVE.
Will take you out of the Configuration Screen and update the
PA.CFG file. Esc will do the same thing. If you changed
the input file and have tagged records you will be ask if
you want to merge them with the new input file. Just answer
Y for Yes or N for No.
S) PRIMARY SORT FIELD.
This is how your input file will be sorted. Valid choices
are either Name or Zip-code. Enter N or Z in this place.
When you enter N the primary sort field will be last name,
the secondary sort field will be first name. When you enter
Z the primary sort field will be Zip, the secondary sort
field will be last name, the third sort field will be first
name.
P) PRINTER TYPE.
This is for the type of printer you will be using with
Public Address. Valid choices are Laser or Dot-matrix.
Just put L or D in this place. NOTE: You can have separate
configurations for each of your printer-types. You can save
different printer ports, fonts, return addresses, and label
numbers.
H) PHONE TYPE.
This is for the type of phone you have. Valid entries would
be either Tone or Pulse. You can put either T or P in this
space.
B) PHONE BOOK SORT.
This has nothing to do with the Primary Sort Field from
above. This will dictate the kind of phone book you choose.
The phone book can either be listed by Name or Business.
Valid entries would be N or B.
C) COM PORT.
This is the COMmunication port you are using on your system.
All you need to do is enter the COM port number. Valid COM
port numbers would be 1, 2, 3, or 4. Most people would use
either 1 or 2. This entry is not needed if you are not
going to use the Dial feature.
T) PRINTER PORT.
This is where all your output will go. You can designate
any port you have your printer connected. Valid ports would
22
___________________________________________________Public Address
be LPT1 through LPT3 or COM1 through COM4. You can also
enter any VALID DOS NAME, and all your output will go to
that file. Be careful! If you enter a file name that
already exist that file will be overwritten. You can also
enter path names up to 50 character's total. An example:
C:\ADDRESS\LABELS.TXT You must remember to change this file
name every time you print or the previous file will be
overwritten. The data IS NOT appended to the end of the
file. The path must already exist. You can save different
printer ports for each printer type you have.
F) FONT
If you have a Laser printer that is HP 3 compatible you're
in for a real treat. I have included an area that will now
let you choose the fonts you would like to use. Even if
your printer is not HP 3 compatible it will be a lot easier
for you to control. Read on!
Laser printer users:
First of all, P from above (Printer Type) has to be set to L
for Laser. Now if you choose F you will be presented with a
menu that will allow you to choose a font that is compatible
with most Laser printers that are HP 3 compatible. That
means they will use the PCL 5 printer language. If your
printer does not, you can choose L -User definable and enter
your own printer code for the font you want. There quite
easy, just read the following section for Dot-matrix
printers on how to do it. Everyone else can just choose one
of the fonts from the list and will be returned to the
configuration screen. The font you choose will be saved to
your laser printer configuration.
Dot-matrix printer users:
You should have P from above (Printer Type) set to D for
Dot-matrix. You will now be placed in a screen that will
allow you to enter your own Printer code for the fonts in
your printer. Here is how: hold the Alt key down and at the
same time enter the three digit code from your printer
manual for the font you want. Example: Lets say your
printer manual says the printer code for a proportional font
is 026 011 016. Now what you would do, is hold the Alt key,
type 026 and then release the Alt key. Then push it down
again, type 011 and release the Alt key again. Then hold it
down one more time, type 016 and release it, then just press
the Esc key to exit and accept the entry. Special note: In
order to enter the escape sequence 027 you will need to
place the / (forward slash) in its place. So a sequence may
look something like this when you get done / ₧ . You
see these characters cannot be typed from the keyboard.
This is why you need to enter them in this fashion. Some
23
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
codes can be entered normally by just putting the letters
in. From my understanding, to set an IBM Proprinter X24
compatible printer up to print proportional fonts you need
to enter /P1. Letter quality would be /E. So, you can see
that some control codes can be entered using the standard
keys on the key board. Be sure to read you printer manual
first. Good luck!
I) INPUT FILE PATH.
The first part of this is your path to your input files. If
it is blank you can enter the path you want to store your
input files or just leave it blank and the current directory
will be chosen. It is best to just let the program take
care of this for you and just press enter. The current path
will be entered and you will be offered all the current
Public Address Files to the right of the screen. If you do
store your files someplace else, you can enter the full
path. An example would be C:\PA\FILES. This path must
already exist or else you will get a message telling you it
does not and the current path will be selected for you.
The next step is to select one of the files from the right.
This is your input file. (The file Public Address accesses
to store or find your records). You can have as many input
files as you want, but you can only use one at a time. This
is where you put the full file name. You can use up to 8
characters. If you enter Illegal DOS file name characters
they will be converted to the - (dash) character. I try to
protect people from themselves as much as possible. Do not
use an extension on the filename. The default is PAF and
can not be changed.
If the file you enter does not exist, Public Address will
create it. You can use different input files for different
people, such as work and home or maybe different clubs.
Remember . . . the phone book prints the whole input file.
You might not want your friend's phone number showing up on
the company phone book.
R) RETURN ADDRESS.
Here, you enter the return address you want on your
envelopes. EVERY ENVELOPE YOU PRINT WILL HAVE THIS RETURN
ADDRESS! If you have preprinted envelopes or if you do not
want a return address printed on every envelope, Select a
return address number that is blank.
If you decide to use this feature, just type your name,
business name, and address, up to five lines and 40
characters on each line and press ENTER at the end of each
line. Public Address will take care of the rest. You can
24
___________________________________________________Public Address
edit your return address at any time just by selecting R on
the CONFIGURATION menu. To clear the fields, do everything
you would for editing them except, press the Delete key in
the field you want to delete. Public Address will now
support up to six return addresses. To enter a new one just
press S for select and you will see 1 or 2 screens with
numbers on the left side. Just choose one of the numbers
and you will be returned to the screen with the envelope on
it and asked if you would like to edit this return address.
Note: if you selected a number that already had a return
address you will be return directly to the configuration
screen.
D) DYNAMIC MENU'S.
I have had a lot of request to change some of the field
names. For whatever reason, I do not know, but your request
is my command (if possible). Dynamic menus are menus that
you get to rename to whatever you want. Instead of
searching on Name maybe you would want to call it Part # and
search on that. It would be handy for our neighbors up
north in Canada. They have Provinces instead of States.
When you choose D you will see three columns. The first
column is the Defaults. The second column is what they are
now. It should be the same if you are using Public Address
for the first time. The third column is blank. You will
only need to change the field name you want to change.
Let's go to the state field. Now Enter Province in that
field and press Esc. Now everywhere in the program that
State used to appear, Province will be there now.
E) SORT EVERY TIME.
This is for people who really do not care if their data is
sorted or not. You can get a little bit more speed out of
the program when using the Address Editor when this is set
to No. Valid selections are either Yes or No. Note: If it
is set to No you may get duplicate labels printed under
certain circumstances. It would be a good idea to sort your
records before doing any major print jobs to avoid
duplicates. You can sort everything by selecting Yes and
when you exit the configuration screen your input file will
be resorted at that time.
L) LABELS NUMBER.
This is where you format which label or envelope you would
like to print on. EVERY TIME YOU WANT TO PRINT ON A
DIFFERENT LABEL OR ENVELOPE SIZE YOU WILL NEED TO COME HERE!
If you have selected "L" for laser printer, from printer
type above, you will see the laser label selection.
Otherwise you will see the Dot-matrix label selection. All
25
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
you need to do is choose a label format you like and type in
the appropriate label number. These label numbers are Avery
label numbers. If you have Avery labels already, get the
number from the box.
In order to print envelopes with a laser printer, your
printer must be Hewlett Packard compatible. It has to
understand the PCL language. When printing envelopes be
sure to select envelopes on your printer menu too. Example:
I have a Hewlett Packard 3P. I press the ON LINE button to
take the printer OFF LINE. Then I press the MENU button
once and SIZE appears in the window. I then press the +
button until COM10 appears in the Window. I then press
ENTER to select it and press ON LINE one more time to put
the printer back on line.
If you choose envelopes, you will notice an extension at the
end of the description that is either PRO or FIX. What this
means, is you can print either PROportional fonts or FIXed
fonts. You will need to access the internal fonts from your
printer for this. If you are only printing envelopes, you
can either set this up on the menu from your printer or you
can use Fonts on the configuration menu to set up your
printer from Public Address. See FONTS from above. Public
Address automatically sets your printer to landscape for
printing envelopes and resets it when done.
If you have a Dot-matrix printer. Enter the appropriate
four digit number for the label you want to print and press
ENTER. The envelopes Public Address prints for dot-matrix
printer are tractor feed. If you choose to print envelopes,
you will also be prompted to enter the line spacing between
the last line on your envelope being printed (The country
field on the sending address) and the first line on the next
envelope being printed (your name on your return address).
This number will be somewhere around 28 for most envelopes.
To get an idea, figure six lines per inch or about 6 lines
per 25.5 Centimeters. The easiest way to figure this is to
measure from the top of one envelope to the top of the next.
So let's say it is seven inches or 178 Centimeters. The
formula would be 7 x 6 - 14 = 28 (envelope spacing). This
is seven inches times six lines per inch minus fourteen
equals what you should enter for envelope spacing. You may
want to experiment with this before printing envelopes.
Once you have it, you will never have to change it again
unless you change envelope size. The 14 is the amount of
lines Public Address prints on an envelope: Return address =
5, Sending address = 5, and 4 lines in between. You could
also adapt this to work with large shipping label. Just set
it up to print with no return address and adjust the spacing
26
___________________________________________________Public Address
accordingly. The label number will be saved to your laser
or dot-matrix printer configuration.
O) OUTPUT TO WP FILE.
Turning this option to Yes will allow you to print a mail
merge file to be used with WordPerfect. You will be
prompted for a file name when you print. If you do not
enter a filename, MAIL2 is the default. This file will be
written to the current directory. You will need to convert
this file to work with WordPerfect.
To do this; I have included two WordPerfect macros. One is
called MAIL51.WPM (for WP51) and the other is MAIL50.WPM
(for WP50). These macros will assume that the file MAIL2 is
in a directory named PA. You can always edit it to suit
your needs. To use them, copy the files named MAIL51.WPM or
MAIL51.WPM to your WordPerfect Directory. COPY C:\PA\*.WPM
C:\WP51 or COPY C:\PA\*.WPM C:\WP50 should do the trick for
most people. To use them just type (Alt-F10) and when it
ask for the macro name type MAIL51 if you are using Word
Perfect 5.1 or MAIL50 if you are using Word Perfect 5.0.
The file Public Address creates will then be compatible with
WordPerfect.
I have also included two other files: LH51.WPM and LH50.WPM.
These will help you get a start on your primary file for a
merge. LH stands for Letter Head. I have also included one
last file to help you, MERGE.WPM. This file will do the
merge for you. It will depend on you having the primary
file named MAIL1 in your default directory for WordPerfect
and MAIL2 in the PA directory on drive C. You can always
merge the letter in the regular way (check your WordPerfect
Manual).
What MAIL51.WPM does is retrieve MAIL2 from the C:\PA
directory (CTRL-F5, 1, 2) and convert the old merge codes
(CTRL-F9, 3) and exit with save (F7 Save document? Yes
C:\PA\MAIL2, Replace? Yes, Exit WP? No). What MAIL50.WPM
does is retrieve MAIL2 from the C:\PA directory (CTRL-F5, 1,
2) and go to the end of the file (Home Home Down Arrow) and
exit with save (F7 Save document? Yes C:\PA\MAIL2, Replace?
Yes, Exit WP? No). This file needs to be retrieved in this
manner and saved before it will work with WordPerfect. This
is necessary because WordPerfect will write what is referred
to as header information in a file to identify it as a
WordPerfect file. This header information will tell
WordPerfect what fonts and what printer you are using among
other things.
27
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
The secondary merge file will contain nine fields for you to
choose from for your merges. I tried to include most
everything you would need. I hope I did not miss anything.
The mail merge fields are:
Field-1 Title First-Name Last-Name
Field-2 Business
Field-3 Address
Field-4 City, State Zip-code
Field-5 Country
Field-6 First Name
Field-7 Title Last-Name
Field-8 Phone Number
Field-9 Fax Number
Lets do a merge!
Alright, Start Public Address and go to the configuration
screen by pressing 6 from the main menu. Type O for output
to WP file and type Y for yes. Now press X to exit and
save. Go to the print menu by pressing your 3 key and now
press 2 to print a group. When it ask for a group name just
type ALL and press enter. You will now be ask for a
filename, just press enter again and except the default
(MAIL2). You can now exit Public Address by pressing you
Escape key a couple times.
I will assume you are using Word Perfect 5.1. If you are
using 5.0 just substitute 50 for every time I say to type
51. Now start Word Perfect and without doing anything else
first, hold your Alt key down and press the F10 key (Alt-
F10). Word Perfect will ask you for a macro name. Type
MAIL51 and press enter. This will make the file you just
created with Public Address compatible with Word Perfect.
Now start another macro (Alt-F10) and type LH51. You will
see the start of a letter. It will have most of the merge
codes you will need for the average business letter already.
Just for this example and to see how this merge works lets
just save the letter just the way it is. Press F7 and when
it ask for a filename type MAIL1. When it ask to exit Word
Perfect press N for no. Now start another macro (Alt-F10)
and type MERGE and press enter. MAIL1 and MAIL2 will start
merging and will be displayed on your screen when they are
done.
Writing Macros for Word Perfect that will work on someone
else's computer is not an exact science. If you run into
any problems you may need to edit the macros to better suit
your needs. Please, if you don't understand macros and how
28
___________________________________________________Public Address
they work you should find someone who does or read you Word
Perfect Manual.
U) DELETE DUPLICATES.
Public Address has always tried to protect people from
themselves. Some how people always manage to get more than
one record into there file for the same person. I have
always had the program look for duplicates and just not
write the second one it found. This way you wouldn't end up
printing more than one label or sending more than one letter
to the same person. This is the only routine in Public
Address that will get rid of a record in your input file.
It looks at the complete record. If the complete record is
IDENTICAL, it will not write the second record it finds
(delete it). You can now turn this feature off. Off is the
default and you will have to turn it on if you want it.
29
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
TIPS, TRICKS, AND TECHNICAL THINGS
Printing I tried to make Public Address work with a
variety of computers and printers. Public
Address has error checking for printers, but
because of the wide variety of printers on
the market, it would be impossible to cover
them all. This is why it is important that
you set up your printer AND TURN IT ON when
you print with Public Address. If you do not
have your printer on when Public Address
sends either a printer code or data to the
printer, you will get a message that tells
you to check your printer. Make sure your
printer is on and has paper. If you do not
check your printer, you will get a DOS
message that will look like this:
Write fault error writing to device LPT1
Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?
All you need to do is turn your printer on,
make sure it has paper and press R for Retry.
Setting up your printer only involves making
sure that it is on and has paper or labels.
Fonts to use You will need to ensure your printer is set
to print 10 characters per inch with 12 point
characters (the standard size for ASCII
characters). The only exceptions to this
would be if you are printing single labels, a
report, or envelopes. In these situations
you can use proportional printing, but you
must still use 12 point characters.
Everything is dependent on this size font.
If you do not use this size, you may have
unpredictable output. Most printers require
no setup because these are already the
default settings. When selecting fonts in
the configuration screen be sure to take this
into consideration. You should also not have
your printer setup to print more than 60
lines per page.
Undo If you ever start entering something in a
field and decide you have made a mistake all
you need to do is hold the Ctrl key down and
press A (Ctrl-A). This will only work as
long as you did not use your arrow keys
first. Also, in the configuration screen.
30
___________________________________________________Public Address
If you are unsure what needs to be in a field
and just want everything to go back to the
defaults, delete the field you want and it
will automatically go to the defaults.
SHARE.EXE There seems to be a compatibility problem
with SHARE.EXE. For those of you who are not
familiar with SHARE.EXE, it comes with DOS.
If you have it loaded in upper memory and
plan on using Public Address to print more
than one print job after starting it, you
will be out of luck. It will print the first
time just fine. The second time it drops you
back out to DOS. It took me more than a week
to find the culprit of this one and it turned
out to be my compiler. Microsoft takes
responsibility for the compiler and there
does not seem to be much I can do about it
other than upgrade my compiler to the next
version at a cost of $500. Well, maybe next
time. I have had some problems with the same
thing using Public Address under OS/2 2.0.
Sequential Files I have had a few people ask me if I can make
the access of the files go forward and
backwards. Well, no. I guess I could if I
really wanted to, but I feel this would limit
the program in other ways. The way it's done
now is called sequential file access. This
simply means a record is read from disk
processed and put back, then the next record
is read, processed and put back. No more
than one record is ever in the computers'
memory. This enables the program to have
unlimited records, and run on computers that
do not have a lot of memory.
Postscript Printers Public Address will not print using a
postscript printer. I have heard there are
programs out that will allow a postscript
printer to work with regular DOS programs.
Sorry!
Faster Searching Public Address will be plenty fast for most
people with its searches, but for the real
speed demons out there here is another trick.
When searching on something, enter as few
characters as possible. It will not be a big
difference, but it will make a difference.
31
Paradise Programming____________________________________________
Also, make sure you are running Public
Address from your hard drive.
Label sizes If you add up the characters in the title
field, First Name field, and Last Name field.
You will find they add up to 60 characters in
all. Well it's quite obvious this will not
fit on a label if you do decide to use all
the characters in all the fields. If the
label will only hold forty characters that is
all you are going to get. The rest of the
characters will not carry over to the next
label. They will just not be printed.
Run time Errors Once in a while something could go wrong. It
should not, but you never know. If for
whatever reason you get a run time error when
you try to start Public Address and cannot
get it to start. Try deleting the PA.CFG
file. Chances are, this file got corrupted
some way. You will need to go back to the
configuration screen and reenter everything,
but at least it will get you going again.
If you should have problems. Try to make the program do it
again, just to make sure you did everything ok. If you can
duplicate it, write everything down what you did to make it
happen and also what happened. I will also need to know what
kind of system you have including the DOS version. Just type VER
at the DOS prompt to find out. I will also want the kind of
printer your trying to print with if it's a printing problem.
Also if you can print out a copy of your AUTOEXEC.BAT and
CONFIG.SYS files and send them to me it would help. The more
information you give me the better the chance I have of figuring
it out.
For you that are interested. Public Address was written entirely
using COBOL with the exception of one file (TESTPRN.COM) which
was written in assembly.
32
INDEX
Delete Phone book . . . . . . 22
a field . . . . . . . 20 Undo . . . . . . . . . . . 30
a record . . . 14, 20, 21
Duplicates . . . . . . 29
Dial . . . . . . . 14, 18, 22
Files
Backup . . . . . . . . 14
input . . . . . . 11, 13
printing to . . . 4, 23
program . . . . . . . 11
Fonts . . . . . . . . . 23, 30
Label number . . . . . . . 26
Macros
LH50.WPM . . . . . . . 27
LH51.WPM . . . . . . . 27
MAIL51.WPM . . . . . . 27
MERGE.WPM . . . . . . 27
Menus
Dynamic . . . . . . . 25
Editor . . . . . . 14, 20
Main . . . . . . . . . 14
Print . . . . . . 14, 19
Search . . . . . . 14, 16
Password . . . . . . . . . 14
Ports
COMmunication . . . . 22
Printer . . . . . . . 22
Print
A file . . . . . . 4, 23
envelopes . . . . 18, 19
labels . . . . . . 18, 19
Phone book . . . . . . 19
Report . . . . . . . . 19
Printer code . . . . . . . 23
Printer Type
Dot-matrix . . . . . . 22
Laser . . . . . . . . 22
Records
Delete . . . . 6, 14, 20
edit . . . . . . . 14, 20
merge . . . . . . 14, 18
Ride share . . . . . . 17, 19
Run time Errors . . . . . . 32
Screens
Configuration . . 14, 22
Information . . . 14, 21
Sort
Input file . . . . . . 22
33
