Tex-Edit is a multi-window, styled text editor that fills the gap between Apple’s bare-bones TeachText and a full-featured word processor such as WriteNow. Tex-Edit is small, fast, easy-to-use and requires little memory. Tex-Edit is ShareWare ($5). (4/5/94)
With Tex-Edit you can:
• Quickly create, edit and print short (32000 character) styled text documents.
• View and print TeachText or SimpleText read-only (“ReadMe”) documents, including
pictures.
• View and print color PICT files, such as those produced by draw programs or
Apple’s built-in screen snapshot utility.
• Copy a selection from a PICT file, cropping the image for use in a word processor, etc.
• View, edit and print text documents created by virtually any word processor or computer.
• Reformat downloaded e-mail or text, correcting word-wrap problems and removing
extraneous, non-Mac characters.
• Prepare text for upload to a BBS, so that people with MS-DOS systems can view the
document as it was intended to be viewed.
• Instantly quote a brief passage from received e-mail, allowing the sender to remember
their original message.
• Read any text document aloud, if you have Apple’s Speech Manager extension. (Listen
to a TeachText read-only file, for example, as the text and pictures scroll by!)
• Quickly optimize a document for printing, substituting professional-looking typographical
characters for generic, typewriter-era characters.
• Create simple hypertext documents.
• And more…
MS-DOS versus the Mac…
You may have noticed that your e-mail sometimes has funny little boxes at the beginning of each line. This problem arises because MS-DOS and the Mac have different opinions about line endings.
MS-DOS editors commonly use a character-based line width. When the cursor gets to the last (usually 80th) character position, the editor obligingly backs up to the beginning of the word being typed, inserts a CR (carriage return) and LF (linefeed character) and then carries the unfinished word down to the next line. This prevents lines from extending past the right margin and also prevents words from being split between lines. In a similar manner, most generic BBSs terminate each line with a single CR.
In the Mac world, text editors dynamically “word-wrap” at the right margin and do not insert any special characters until the end of the paragraph, at which point they insert a single carriage return. When viewing a non-Mac file, therefore, the Mac user may note that each line is preceded by an empty box (signifying the terminating LF character from the preceding line). In a large window, the text may not extend to the right margin, and in a small window, there is usually an odd mixture of alternating short and long lines. The Mac thinks each line is a separate paragraph!
You may have also noticed strange squiggles and misspelled words scattered throughout your downloaded text. This is because the Mac and MS-DOS have different ideas about the use of the “upper” ASCII range. (ASCII is a standard convention used to define how all computers store alphanumeric characters.) Unfortunately, the ASCII convention only specifies values for the first 128 (out of 256) characters. The Mac uses the remaining upper range of characters to hold diacritical markings, foreign characters, typographical (curly) quotes and a host of other goodies not found on a standard typewriter. Unfortunately, MS-DOS uses this upper 128 characters for a completely different set of characters.
Fortunately, Tex-Edit can easily handle all of these problems using the Modify dialog (below).
Tex-Edit versus other Editors…
You will discover that Tex-Edit documents lose all their style attributes when opened by other word processors (and visa versa). This is because most word processors use their own private method for storing character styles (font, size, color, etc.)
Tex-Edit can swap styled documents with America Online, Joliwrite, SimpleText and Stylus, since they all store style information in the same way. You have to rely on the clipboard, however, to swap styled text with most other word processors. Curiously, at least one expensive word processor does not support Apple’s standard clipboard format for styled text. Go figure…
Apple Menu
About Tex-Edit…
Here you will find a few helpful hints as well as instructions on how to contact me for suggestions or bug reports.
File Menu
New
This opens a new blank document window. Up to nine windows can be open simultaneously, depending on Tex-Edit’s memory allocation. To increase Tex-Edit’s memory allocation, enter a new “preferred size” in the Finder’s Get Info dialog box. You will need to add about 50K per extra window.
Open…/Open Any…
Use this command to pick the TEXT or PICT document you wish to open. If the text exceeds 32000 characters, you will be asked to select a 32K portion of the document.
If you wish to view a non-TEXT document, such as a Normal Word document, hold down the shift key before choosing this command. (Technically, Tex-Edit only opens the “data fork” of the chosen file.) You may notice some strange characters embedded in the text. (For example: “ 4 4 2Real Mac users do it with Tex-Edit”) These proprietary formatting characters are used by the parent program.
Open Selection…
Use this command to jump directly to another document. This allows you to create simple hypertext documents. For example, the main (root) Tex-Edit document could serve as a jumping-off point for a whole group of related documents. Select the word of interest and choose Open Selection to activate the “hyperlinked” document.
The desired document (or its alias) must reside in the same folder as the root document. If the selected file cannot be found, Tex-Edit will beep and display a standard Open dialog. If the selected file exists and is not a TEXT, PICT or TeachText document, Tex-Edit will open the document by launching its creator application. For example, if the desired document is an Excel spreadsheet, Tex-Edit will launch Excel and Excel will display the spreadsheet. (This feature requires System 7.)
Insert…/Insert Any…
Use this command to insert a bit of text from another document. The text from the chosen donor document is inserted into the active document at the cursor position, replacing any text which may be selected. The donor document is not affected. If you hold down the shift key before choosing this command, you will be allowed to insert text from any file, including non-TEXT files. (This command will not execute if the resultant combined document will exceed 32K.)
Close/Close All
This closes the active window. You will be prompted to save any changes you may have made. If you hold down the shift key, the menu item changes to Close All and all document windows will be closed rapidly. Likewise, holding down the shift key while clicking in the close box will close all windows rapidly.
Save
This saves any changes you have made to the file in the active window. Tex-Edit displays a standard Save As dialog if the document has not yet been saved to disk.
Save As…
This brings up the standard dialog for creation of a new text file on your disk. For System 7 users, there is a pop-up menu which allows you to choose the desired file format. Normal is the default styled Tex-Edit format. Plain Text will create a Tex-Edit document without any style information, thus saving a small amount of disk space (about 20%). Stationery Pad format creates a styled Tex-Edit boiler-plate. Read Only will create a styled document that can be viewed but not edited. (This is useful if you want a “ReadMe” file to remain unaltered.)
This version of Tex-Edit can also directly create Word, Word Perfect, MacWrite, WriteNow, TeachText and America Online documents (as well as a few others). To create another type of document, select the Other option. This displays a dialog box which allows you to enter any 4-character creator code.
Normal, Stationery Pad and Read Only Tex-Edit documents remember their size and screen position during each save. They will appear in the same place when re-opened, if you have selected Remember window size and position in the Preferences dialog.
Revert
Did you make a mistake that even Undo can’t correct? This command will restore the last saved version of the active document. All changes made since the last time the file was saved will be lost.
Page Setup
This displays the standard Page Setup dialog allowing you to set specific options for your printer.
Print Options…
This dialog allows you to set the page margins (in inches). You can also specify double-spaced printouts and page numbers (at the bottom of each printed page). None of these choices affect the actual file or the on-screen display.
The page margin settings are saved in the “Prefs” file when you quit Tex-Edit (see below).
Print…
This displays the standard Print dialog for the printer you have selected in the Chooser.
Preferences…
Do you like to use 18 point Times, save all your documents in Word format and use curly quotes? The Preferences dialog allows you to preset many of these features and store your preferred settings in a “Prefs” file in the System folder (System 6) or Preferences folder (System 7).
1) Show “Open…” dialog at startup. If this is selected, you will be greeted with the standard file selection dialog (instead of a new blank window) when Tex-Edit launches.
2) Open new windows to full screen size. If this is selected, new windows will nearly fill the main screen, leaving a thin strip of desktop on the right side (for the disk and trashcan icons). Otherwise, new windows will be slightly smaller than a 9 inch screen.
3) Smart (“”) quotes. If this is selected, typographically superior (“curly”) quotes will automatically be used whenever you hit the single or double quote key. You may wish to disable this feature if you are creating files to be sent to non-Mac systems, since they won’t be able to recognize these characters.
4) Change file “creator” to:___ If you want Tex-Edit to save documents so that another word processor (e.g. Word) will open when the document is double-clicked, check this option and enter the appropriate 4 character creator code. (For example, Word’s creator is MSWD.) The Finder uses this code to identify the document’s parent application and icon.
If you wish to save files as Tex-Edit documents, check this option and use TBB5 (Tex-Edit’s creator code). To open, edit and save a file without changing its parent application or icon, leave this option off.
5) Tab creates ___ spaces. This option may be helpful to indent the first line of a paragraph (or create columns if you are using a mono-spaced font like Monaco). If this is selected, pressing the tab key will result in the insertion of the chosen number of spaces into the text.
6) Wrap text inside window. If you are writing source code and want each entry to stay on a separate line, use this option to enable the horizontal scrollbar. Otherwise, you should leave this option off so that text can automatically word-wrap to fit between the left and right sides of the window. This option does not affect the document, only the screen display.
7) Smart cut and paste. In most cases, this option will save two keystrokes in the cut-and-paste cycle. Tex-Edit will include the trailing space (if any) when cutting a word to the clipboard. If the selected word is followed by punctuation instead of a space (as is the case for the last word in a sentence) the leading space will be cut. Cutting a word from the middle of a sentence will thus leave only a single space, which is usually what you want. Subsequent paste operations will insert the word along with its trailing space.
8) Remember window size and position. If this is selected, Tex-Edit will restore a document’s previous size and screen position when it is re-opened. This only works with Normal, Stationery Pad and Read Only Tex-Edit documents. If this option is off, document windows will be evenly “staggered” as they are opened.
9) Default Font/Size:___ These pop-up menus allows you to change Tex-Edit’s default font and font size. The default font and size are used when a new window is created or when a generic text file is opened.
Quit
This closes the Tex-Edit application. You will be prompted to save any altered or unsaved documents before Tex-Edit quits.
Edit Menu
Undo
This reverses your most recent editing action or style change. After you undo something, it can be redone if desired.
Cut
This removes the current selection to the clipboard, making it available for pasting into other locations or other documents. The clipboard holds the text as well as its “styl” information, making styled selections available to other programs.
Copy
This makes a copy of the current text or picture selection and places it in the clipboard.
Paste
This moves a copy of the text in the clipboard to the current insertion point, deleting any text which may be selected.
Clear
This erases the current text selection.
Select All
This hilites (selects) all the text in the document. If a PICT document is active, then the entire picture is enclosed in the selection marquee.
Paste Time
The current time is pasted at the insertion point. The clipboard is not affected. Use the “Date and Time” control panel (7.1) to alter the format of the date and time.
Paste Date
The current date is pasted at the insertion point.
Special Menu
Find/Replace…
Suppose you wish to quickly locate a specific name in a long text document? Or, you want to update a document by replacing all instances of the year “1993” with the current year? The Find/Replace dialog allows you to locate any given text string and optionally specify a replacement string.
The Find button hilites the first occurrence of the desired string. (You may then use the Find Next or Replace & Find Again menu commands.) The Replace All button replaces all occurrences of the find string with the replacement string, then reports how many replacements were made.
Perhaps you want to search for non-printing characters in order to clean up a passage of downloaded text. The small buttons labelled CR (carriage return), Tab and LF (linefeed) give you easy access to three commonly encountered invisible characters. This type of document conversion is completed more easily, however, using the Modify dialog (below).
All searches start at the top of the document, unless you select the Start search at cursor position option. The Cases must match option forces Tex-Edit to look for exact matches. Turn this switch off if you wish case to be ignored. (To properly find and replace words with foreign language characters/diacriticals, you must leave this switch on.) The Whole words only option limits matches to distinct whole words (i.e. looking for “the” will find “the” but not “them”).
Find Again
This option becomes available once a match has been found. It allows you to continue searching for the next match.
Replace & Find Again
This replaces the hilited word with the replacement string (from the Find/Replace dialog) and continues searching for the next match.
Enter Selection
If you see a word in the document and wish to find its next occurrence, select the word and use this command to instantly copy the selection (up to 255 characters) into the Find/Replace dialog. Then use the Find Again command.
Change Case
If someone sends you a file that is ALL CAPS, select the offending text and use this command to fix it. You can change all the selected text to uppercase, lowercase, title case or sentence case. Title case capitalizes the first letter of each word and sentence case capitalizes the first letter of each sentence.
Block Quote
Quoting a brief passage from received e-mail allows the sender to remember their original message and thus the context of your reply. This command will convert the selected text into a 60 character-per-line block format. (60 characters is a good compromise since it fits easily onto most BBS screens.) Each line is preceded by the “> ” characters (greater than-space-space, which is the standard convention to indicate quoted text) and ended by a carriage return. Words are not split. (Be careful not to go overboard by quoting more of the message than necessary. This wastes time and money.)
Strip LF’s
Sometimes you download a file with funny boxes in front of each line. These boxes are actually linefeed characters which are inserted by MS-DOS systems. (They generally follow each carriage return to signify line endings.) Macs don’t use linefeeds. Use this command to remove all these useless characters from the document.
CR’s -> LF’s
This is handy if you wish to upload a Mac file to a UNIX system. UNIX systems use a single linefeed character (without a carriage return) to terminate paragraphs. This command converts all carriage returns in the active document into linefeeds.
Modify Document…/Modify Selection…
File transfers between Mac and non-Mac systems often result in frustration for users at both ends. The non-Mac users end up with split words and run-on paragraphs, while the Mac users are greeted by a screen full of little empty boxes and oddly wrapped lines. If you’ve ever experienced these problems, you’ve come to the right dialog!
The Modify dialog is Tex-Edit’s most complex and powerful feature. It allows you to globally change (munge) special characters in the text. If you only wish to modify a portion of the document, select the text of interest before choosing this command. If you don’t like the resulting modifications, be sure to choose Undo before doing anything else. The settings in the Modify dialog are remembered until you quit Tex-Edit.
1) Replace each tab with ___ spaces. This is useful for aligning tab columns created by other programs. If this is selected, each tab character will be replaced with the specified number of space characters.
2) Strip control characters. If a downloaded document contains lots of little boxes scattered through the text, this option may help. It deletes all non-Mac control characters. Specifically, it deletes all characters with an ASCII value less than 32 (except for tabs, carriage returns and formfeeds, which are used by Mac programs).
3) Strip high ASCII characters. If your downloaded text is filled with “wrong” characters and misspelled words, use this option to delete all characters in the upper ASCII range (128-256). This option will strip many useful typographic characters (ligatures, ellipses, em dashes, curly quotes, etc.) as well as foreign language characters, so you should first convert (“stupefy”) any useful characters you wish to keep.
4) Strip leading spaces. Would you like all your text to line up nicely along the left side of the window? Use this option to remove the spaces and tabs from the beginning of each line.
5) Strip trailing spaces. Use this option to remove the unnecessary padding (spaces and tabs) that some editors add at the end of each line.
6) Strip double spaces. Many people who learned to type on typewriters are still in the habit of following each sentence with two spaces. When using proportional fonts, it is typographically preferable to separate sentences using a single space. This option will change each instance of double space characters (following a sentence) into a single space.
7) Strip diacritical marks. Many foreign languages use accents, umlauts, cedillas and the like. If you wish to upload text that contains foreign characters, use this option to remove the diacritical marks from letters, converting them to their ordinary (English) equivalent.
8) Quotes. The foot and inch marks ('") are poor substitutes for typographical (curly) quotes, however they are all that most BBSs understand. Use this popup menu to replace all ordinary quote marks with typographer quote marks and visa versa.
9) Ligatrs. The two available choices allow you to replace all occurrences of “fi” and “fl” with the single-character typographer ligatures or visa versa. Note that some fonts do not have these ligatures installed, thus producing empty little boxes. As with the smart quotes, ligatures are usually not recognized by less intelligent computer systems.
10) Ellipses. This popup menu presents two choices, allowing you to replace all ordinary ellipses (three consecutive periods) with a typographic ellipsis character or visa versa.
11) Dashes. This popup menu presents two choices, allowing you to replace all ordinary twin dashes with a typographic em dash character or visa versa.
12) Line Endings. These various choices allow you to easily convert BBS or MS-DOS line formatting to Mac line formatting and visa versa. (See the preceding section: “MS-DOS versus the Mac.”)
Use Strip CR/LF to convert downloaded text to Mac-formatted word wrapping text. If you wish to format text for upload to a BBS, use the Add CR option and set the Line Length to about 60 characters (which easily fits on most BBS editors). To convert a file for transfer to an MS-DOS computer, use Add CR/LF.
13) Reset. Use this shortcut to turn off all the selected modifications at once (resetting them to their default values).
Go To Line #…
If you are working with source code or a line-numbered legal document, use this command to jump to any specified line in the document.
This option is most helpful if you de-select “Wrap text inside window” (Preferences dialog).
Word Count…
It is sometimes helpful to know exactly how long your book report is so far. This command shows the word count, line count and character count for the active document.
Font Menu
The font menu lists all the fonts available to Tex-Edit. The current selection’s font is checked.
Size Menu
The size menu lists a selection of common font sizes. The current selection’s font size is checked.
Smaller
This decrements the current selection’s font size by one point (2 points minimum). The command keys are an easy shortcut for quickly changing font size.
Larger
This increments the current selection’s font size by one point (127 points maximum).
Other(_)…
If you wish to change quickly to an odd font size, use this command to select any point size between 2 and 127. Simply enter the desired value in the edit box (or use the arrow buttons).
The sample text is redrawn as its size changes.
Style Menu
Use the Style options to add a splash of color or emphasize important points. If you have a color-compatible Mac, then the standard color picker dialog is available in the Color submenu.
The Justification submenu may be useful for centering text on announcements or if you are using a right-to-left language script. The justification setting affects how the document is displayed and printed, but does not alter the file’s contents.
Speech Menu
Read Entire Document
This command is remarkably helpful for proofreading documents, catching grammatical errors which elude both spelling checkers and tired eyes. It reads the active window aloud, if the Speech Manager is installed in your Extensions folder (or System folder). The reading session starts at the top of the file and reads one sentence at a time, hiliting each sentence as it is read. Editing is not permitted while the text is being read. The reading can be canceled or paused at any time.
Read Starting At Cursor
Use this command to begin reading at any arbitrary point in the document.
Read Selection
If you only wish to listen to a specific passage of text, use this command to read the selected text. You may continue editing documents while the selection is read. The reading can be stopped or paused as desired.
Stop Reading
This command immediately stops the reading session.
Pause/Resume
This command temporarily pauses or restarts the reading session.
Turn Speech On/Off
This command activates the Speech Manager. It must be selected before any other speech-related commands are usable. Turning speech off will immediately stop all speech and release any memory allocated for the Speech Manager.
Speech Settings…
Want to try a different voice or listen to a document read at double-speed? This dialog allows you to modify some of the Speech Manager’s speech characteristics. The Voice pop-up menu lists all the currently available voices. Selecting a voice will adjust the Pitch and Rate to that voice’s default setting.
Try experimenting with different rates and pitches to get the most pleasing results. The Sample button will cause a sample sentence to be read aloud.
Windows Menu
All open documents are readily available using the Windows menu. Choose the document you wish to activate. The currently active window is checked.
Switch
Having trouble juggling several documents at once? Use this command repeatedly to “cycle” through all open documents.
Miscellaneous
Requirements
Tex-Edit requires System 6.0.7 or better. To use the speech facility, you need to copy Apple’s Speech Manager extension (along with any desired voices) into the Extensions folder and re-boot. Tex-Edit runs fine without the Speech Manager.
Extended Keyboards
Tex-Edit makes full use of Apple’s extended keyboard including the forward delete, home, end, page up, page down and cursor keys. The escape key can be used to cancel any dialog box (just like command-period).
Other Features
Tex-Edit is 32 bit clean, stationery aware, required Apple event aware, System 7 compatible, MultiFinder compatible, color compatible, big screen compatible and 68040 cache compatible. Undo is implemented for most functions and balloon help is available (under System 7).
Limitations
Tex-Edit is limited to 32K text files. This keeps the code as small and fast as possible. It also allows multiple documents to be stored in RAM, thus benefiting PowerBook owners. If the file is larger than 32K, a dialog will allow Tex-Edit to open any 32K chunk of text within the file.
Tex-Edit only allows nine documents to be open at once (regardless of memory allocation).
Tips
• To edit a TeachText read-only (ttro) document, you can open a new blank window
and use the Insert command.
• Open any file by dragging it onto Tex-Edit or its alias (System 7).
• To move a styled Tex-Edit document into another word processor without losing
style information, use the clipboard to copy and paste the entire document.
• Triple click to select a sentence.
• Quadruple click to select a paragraph.
• Shift-arrow extends a selection.
• Option-arrow moves the cursor one word at a time. Option-shift-arrow extends
the selection one word at a time.
• Shift-click on a close box to close all windows.
• To delete all occurrences of a string, use the Find/Replace dialog. Just leave
the replace field blank and choose Replace All.
• Count the number of occurrences of any given string using the Find/Replace
dialog. Choose Replace All, note the number of replacements then choose Undo.
• To see non-printing characters (tabs, CRs, etc.), use an ASCII font (available on
most BBSs).
• Enter or Return activate the default (outlined) button and Esc or Command-period
activate the Cancel button. All other buttons have command key equivalents based
on the first letter in the name of the button. (For example Command-d activates
the Don’t Save button in a “Save Changes?” dialog.)
• Tex-Edit’s PICT handling abilities are handy when it comes to cropping screen
shots (Command-shift-3) for use in other programs (e.g. Word). Just
click-and-drag a selection marquee and choose Copy.
• If you run out of memory during a PICT copy operation, try keeping the entire
selection marquee visible.
• If you run out of text space, break your document into “chapters” and use
Tex-Edit’s convenient Windows menu along with its ability to hyperlink between
documents (Open Selection).
• A TeachText read-only document can be read aloud (if the speech is turned on) by
choosing Read Entire Document.
• A document can be read in the background if you select the entire document and
then choose Read Selection. Once reading starts, you may use all of Tex-Edit’s
normal editing functions.
About The Speech Manager
The Speech Manager and the MacinTalk Pro voice files should be placed in the Extensions folder (or the System folder under System 6.0.7). The Speech Manager (MacinTalk 2) only requires 150K of RAM and will function on practically any Mac, while the higher quality MacinTalk Pro voices require a lot more memory and processing power (System 7, 700-2800K and 68020+).
You can purchase the Speech Manager direct from Apple or from Quality Computers (AOL: QualityPD). Quality Computers sells a reasonably-priced package that includes a fascinating group of speech-related programs and utilities.
Trouble Shooting
It is easy to use all of Tex-Edit’s memory allotment while manipulating large PICTs. If you see an “out of memory” message, simply increase Tex-Edit’s memory allocation in the Finder. I would suggest at least 1200K if you plan on doing a lot of PICT editing with a big color monitor.
If you have trouble with the speech functions, try increasing Tex-Edit’s memory allocation. The “Male Voice” and “Female Voice” use the most memory. “Marvin” uses the least.
If you are upgrading Tex-Edit from a previous version, I would suggest deleting the old version of Tex-Edit along with the “Prefs” file.
It is possible to overflow the text area if your text is very tall and/or the window is very thin. Tex-Edit will usually recover from such an error, but you may have to Undo your last command to get the text to re-display properly.
Source Code
Tex-Edit if ShareWare ($5). Registered owners may obtain a copy of the THINK Pascal source code (for personal use) by sending a disk and a self-addressed stamped disk mailer envelope to:
Tom Bender
5313 Beverly Drive
San Angelo, Texas 76904
On-Line Support
If you have questions, suggestions or bug reports, you can also reach me via modem:
America Online: TomBB
Internet: tombb@aol.com
Other Products
Please also try Eliza (clinical psychologist), Re-Pete (memory game) and Azile (Eliza’s evil twin)!
Credits
I am grateful to the many users who have contributed to the evolution of Tex-Edit, however I would especially like to thank E.J. Chichilnisky (for suggestions, feature development and extensive beta testing) and Martin Kimeldorf (for extensive help with this manual)!
