In this tutorial you should learn ❎Éthe different methods by which ètext can be entered, corrected ❎Éand ❎Émoved around. Before continuing, èyou will notice a strange line ❎Éof ❎Édashes and exclamation marks near èthe top of the screen and another ❎Éone just above this paragraph. You èdon't need to worry ❎Éabout ❎Éthem ❎Éfor ❎Éthe ❎Émoment, ❎Éas ❎Éthey will be èexplained in detail later ❎Éin ❎Éthe ❎Étutorial. ❎ÉFor ❎Énow ❎Éyou can just èaccept that they are 'ruler lines'.
Throughout this tutorial you will be encouraged to insert, remove èand generally chop up the contents of this document. There is no need èto worry about damaging the document, ❎Éas ❎Éthe original will still be èon the disc and unless you save ❎Éthe ❎Émodified one back onto the disc è(which you shouldn't), no permanent damage will result, so experiment èas much as you like.
PROTEXT has two distinct modes ❎Éof ❎Éoperation, 'Command mode' and è'Edit mode'. Edit mode is ❎Éthe ❎Émode ❎Éin ❎Éwhich ❎Éall entry of text is ècarried out, whilst command mode ❎Éis ❎Éwhere all instructions relating èto printing of documents, saving and ❎Éloading of files and many other èoperations are carried out. You ❎Éhave already encountered both modes, èperhaps without realising it. When PROTEXT ❎Éis ❎Éfirst loaded it is in ècommand mode, which ❎Éis ❎Éindicated ❎Éby ❎Éthe ❎É'banner' ❎Éline about two èthirds of the way down the screen, which gives details of the version ènumber of PROTEXT that you are using ❎Éas well as the selected printer èdriver and directory. When you entered ❎Éthe command 'LOAD TUTOR2' you èwere in command mode.
The ESC key is used ❎Éto ❎É'toggle' ❎Ébetween command and edit modes èwhenever you want. Pressing ESC will always switch you into the other èmode. When in edit mode, you ❎Éwill ❎Ésee ❎Éthat the command mode banner èline disappears, leaving only ❎Éthe ❎Éstatus ❎Élines ❎Éat ❎Éthe top of the èscreen and the text (if any) on ❎Éthe remainder of the screen. This is èthe first of several toggle commands that you will come across during èthe course of the tutorials.
PROTEXT has two methods of entering ❎Étext. These are 'Insert' and è'Overwrite' modes. By default, when you ❎Éenter PROTEXT edit mode, you èwill be in insert mode. This means ❎Éthat when you type in any letters èor numbers, the cursor ❎Éwill ❎Épush ❎Éany ❎Éexisting ❎Étext ❎Éahead of it, èrather than 'rub it out', or overwrite it.
Position the cursor in the middle ❎Éof ❎Éthis line and type in some èmore letters. You will notice that the ❎Éremainder of the line, to the èright of the cursor, will be pushed ❎Éfurther ❎Éto the right as the new èletters are inserted.
If you look at the top of ❎Éthe ❎Éscreen you will find the message, è'Insert', on the status line. If you ❎Énow ❎Éhold down the CTRL key and èpress ❎Éthe ❎ÉTAB ❎Ékey, ❎Éthe ❎É❎Émessage ❎É❎Éwill ❎Échange ❎Éto ❎É'Overwrite'.
Alternatively, the INSERT letters in ❎Éthe ❎Émiddle ❎Éof ❎Éa line and you èwill see that this time ❎Éthe ❎Énew ❎Életters ❎Éwill replace the existing èones. It is ❎Éstill ❎Épossible ❎Éto ❎Éinsert ❎Éextra ❎Écharacters whilst in èoverwrite mode and this is achieved by pressing CTRL-SPACE, which has èthe effect of moving the text ❎Éunder ❎Éand ❎Éto the right of the cursor èacross one column, leaving you room ❎Éto ❎Éenter the letter you want to èadd.
CTRL-TAB is a 'toggled' ❎Écommand, ❎Éwhich ❎Émeans ❎Éthat pressing it èagain will restore it to ❎Éthe ❎Éoriginal ❎Ésetting. Overwrite is useful èfor correcting or changing ❎Éthe ❎Éoccasional ❎Éword ❎Éand for other more èspecialised uses, but for the moment ❎Égo back into insert mode, which èis the most commonly used method of entering text.
One of the big advantages of a ❎Éword processor is that it is very èeasy to insert, alter and remove words ❎Éand letters. For now we shall èconcentrate on entering and ❎Éremoving ❎Ésingle ❎Életters. ❎ÉIn the blank èline below this paragraph try entering ❎Éthree ❎Éor four lines of text. èCopy ❎Épart ❎Éof ❎Éthis ❎Éparagraph ❎Éif ❎Éyou ❎Écan't ❎Éfind ❎Éanything ❎Émore èinteresting! Just type the letters as ❎Éyou ❎Ésee them, using the space èbar to insert a space between each word, but do NOT press RETURN when èyou get to the end of the line.
To obtain a capital letter you should ❎Éhold down one of the SHIFT èkeys whilst pressing the appropriate letter key. Similarly, to obtain èone of the characters marked on the ❎Éupper ❎Épart of some of the keys, èyou should also press ❎ÉSHIFT. ❎ÉIf ❎Éyou ❎Éwant ❎Éto ❎Étype a considerable ènumber of upper case letters, it is more convenient to press the CAPS èLOCK key, which will result in ❎Éall ❎Éfurther letters being treated as èupper case letters. Pressing CAPS LOCK ❎Éa second time will toggle the èkeys back to lower case.
Don't worry for now about ❎Éthe ❎Éodd ❎Éspelling mistake as we shall ècorrect them in a minute. When you ❎Éget ❎Éto ❎Éthe end of a line, don't èpress RETURN, as you would with ❎Éa ❎Étypewriter, simply keep on typing èand you will notice that if you were in the middle of a word when you ègot to the end of the line, ❎ÉPROTEXT will automatically move the part ècomplete word to the start ❎Éof ❎Éthe ❎Énext ❎Éline and continue entering èletters as fast as you ❎Étype ❎Éthem. ❎ÉYou ❎Éwill ❎Éalso see that PROTEXT èautomatically inserts a new line when it ❎Égets ❎Éto the end of a line, èso that any existing text is ❎Épushed ❎Édown to make room. This process èof not splitting words is called ❎É'word ❎Éwrap' and is another feature èof a good word processor.
If you look at the ❎Étop ❎Éof ❎Éthe ❎Éscreen ❎Éagain, you will see the èmessage 'Word-Wrap' on the status line. ❎ÉPress CTRL-W and the message èon the status line will change to ❎É'W-W Off'. Try typing in some more èwords and see what happens. This ❎Étime the cursor keeps moving across èthe screen, completely ignores the ❎Éright ❎Éhand margin and carries on èuntil the screen scrolls. You would ❎Énot ❎Énormally use this method of èentering text, though it can be ❎Éuseful ❎Éon occasions. For now, press èCTRL-W again to switch Word wrap back on.
The only time that you have to ❎Épress ❎Éthe RETURN key is when you èreach the end of ❎Éa ❎Éparagraph. ❎ÉPressing ❎ÉRETURN ❎Éhas ❎Éthe effect of èending the paragraph and moving the cursor ❎Édown to the next line. If èyou are in insert mode, which is ❎Énormal, a new line will be inserted èinto the document and the cursor ❎Éwill ❎Émove ❎Éonto ❎Éit. If you are in èoverwrite mode however, the cursor will ❎Émove ❎Édown to the next line, èbut no new line will be inserted.
If you made any typing mistakes ❎Éwhilst entering the paragraph of ètext, it would be a good ❎Éidea ❎Éto ❎Écorrect them now. Simply move the ècursor back ❎Éto ❎Éwhere ❎Éthe ❎Émistake ❎Éis ❎Éand ❎Éposition ❎Éit ❎Éover the ècharacter you ❎Éwant ❎Éto ❎Échange, ❎Éthen ❎Épress ❎Éthe ❎ÉDELETE ❎Ékey. ❎ÉThe èincorrect letter will disappear and the remainder of the text on that èline will move across to fill ❎Éthe ❎Éspace. ❎ÉYou ❎Écan then type in the ècorrect letter if necessary and the text ❎Éwill move back to the right èto make room for it. If you need to remove more than one letter, then èposition the cursor ❎Éover ❎Éthe ❎Éfirst ❎Éincorrect ❎Écharacter and press èDELETE as often as necessary.
If the mistake had ❎Ébeen ❎Énoticed ❎Éwhen ❎Éyou ❎Éwere typing it, you ècould have corrected it at ❎Éthe ❎Étime, ❎Ésimply by pressing BACKSPACE, èwhich has the ❎Éeffect ❎Éof ❎Édeleting ❎Éthe ❎Élast ❎Écharacter ❎Étyped. Try èdeleting a few characters and see ❎Éthe different effect of the DELETE èand BACKSPACE keys.
DELETE always deletes ❎Éthe ❎Écharacter ❎Éunder ❎Éthe ❎Écursor, whilst èBACKSPACE deletes the character to the ❎Éleft ❎Éof the cursor. In both ècases the space is ❎Éclosed ❎Éup. ❎ÉThe ❎Éeffect ❎Éof ❎Éthis is that DELETE èdeletes letters to the end of a line and BACKSPACE deletes characters ètowards the start of a line.
One very common mistake is to get two letters the wrong way round èin a word, such as 'teh' instead ❎Éof ❎É'the' and PROTEXT has a command èto take care of this without the ❎Éneed to delete and replace letters. èPosition the cursor on the first ❎Éof ❎Éthe transposed letters and then èpress CTRL-A. It will work equally ❎Éwell ❎Éwith ❎Éa space and a letter, èsuch as 'whol e', which is another common typing error.
This is a good time ❎Éto ❎Éintroduce ❎Éanother command, which really èbelongs ❎Éin ❎Éthe ❎Étutorial ❎Éon ❎Éformatting ❎Étext, ❎Ébut ❎Éas ❎Éyou ❎Éwill èinevitably be disrupting ❎Éthe ❎Éappearance ❎Éof ❎Éyour ❎Étext ❎Éduring the ècourse of this tutor, we shall ❎Éexplain ❎Éit now. Pressing CTRL-F will èreformat a paragraph ❎Éfrom ❎Éthe ❎Écursor ❎Éposition ❎Éto ❎Éthe ❎Éend ❎Éof a èparagraph. Positioning the cursor ❎Éat ❎Éthe ❎Éstart ❎Éof a paragraph and èpressing CTRL-F will reformat ❎Éthe ❎Éwhole ❎Éparagraph. Pressing SHIFT-èCTRL-F will automatically reformat ❎Éthe ❎Éwhole ❎Éof ❎Éthe paragraph the ècursor is in. Try ❎Édeleting ❎Éa ❎Éfew ❎Écharacters, ❎Éor words, from this èparagraph and then reformatting it.
Sometimes you will find that you want ❎Éto delete more than an odd èletter and PROTEXT provides a number of commands which permit you to èdelete part words, words, lines and whole blocks of text.
SHIFT-DELETE and SHIFT-BACKSPACE let you delete a word or part of èa word. If you position the cursor on ❎Éthe first letter of a word and èthen press SHIFT-DELETE, you will ❎Éfind the complete word disappears. èSimilarly if you position the cursor on ❎Éthe first space after a word èand press SHIFT-BACKSPACE, the previous ❎Éword will disappear. In both ècases the gap will be closed ❎Éup ❎Éby the remaining text moving across èto the left to fill the ❎Éspace. ❎ÉTo ❎Édelete ❎Éthe last part of a word, èposition the cursor on the first ❎Életter ❎Éyou ❎Éwant to be deleted and èuse SHIFT-DELETE. To delete the ❎Éfirst ❎Épart ❎Éof a word, position the ècursor on the ❎Éfirst ❎Életter ❎Éyou ❎Éwant ❎Éto ❎Éremain ❎Éand press SHIFT-èBACKSPACE.
As you have probably noticed ❎Éby ❎Énow, ❎ÉPROTEXT follows a general èprinciple (though for practical reasons ❎Éthis ❎Éis not 100% true) that èusing a command on its own, ❎Ésuch ❎Éas ❎Éthe cursor keys and the DELETE èkeys has a small effect on ❎Éwhat ❎Éhappens, whilst using it with SHIFT èhas a slightly ❎Égreater ❎Éeffect, ❎Éso ❎Éit ❎Éwill ❎Éprobably ❎Écome ❎Éas no èsurprise to find that ❎ÉPROTEXT ❎Éhas ❎Écommands ❎Éwhich will also delete èpart or all of a line.
CTRL-E and CTRL-BACKSPACE have ❎Éthe ❎Éeffect ❎Éof deleting the text èfrom the cursor to the end ❎Éand ❎Éthe ❎Éstart of the line respectively. èTry it on a line or two ❎Éof ❎Éthe ❎Éabove ❎Étext, to see the effect. You èwill notice that if you delete ❎Éall ❎Éthe ❎Étext from a line, either by èpressing one key after the ❎Éother, ❎Éor ❎Ébecause there wasn't any more ètext on ❎Éthe ❎Éline, ❎Éit ❎Édoesn't ❎Édelete ❎Éthe ❎Éline ❎Éitself ❎Éfrom the èdocument, merely the text ❎Éfrom ❎Éthe ❎Éline. ❎ÉIf ❎Éyou want to actually èremove a line from the document, whether ❎Éit ❎Ébe an empty one, or one ècontaining text, CTRL-keypad* is the command to use. This will remove èthe complete line from the ❎Édocument ❎Éand ❎Écause the remainder of the ètext to move up a line to fill the space.
Some of the above commands are ❎Éfairly ❎Ésevere in their effect on èthe text, so PROTEXT provides a ❎Écommand ❎Éwhich ❎Écan help to undo any èmistakes you may have made. CTRL-U ❎Éis the 'undelete' command and has èthe effect of restoring the last ❎Épiece ❎Éof ❎Étext deleted by the last èuse of any of the delete commands. ❎ÉNote that it can only restore the èlast bit of text deleted and that ❎Éany subsequent use of the deleting èkeys will cause previously deleted text to be forgotten.
There is one final delete ❎Écommand, which is SHIFT-CTRL-BACKSPACE èwhich has the effect of ❎Éclearing ❎Éthe complete document from memory. èThis command will prompt you for ❎Éconfirmation that you want to erase èthe complete file before doing so. It ❎Éhas exactly the same effect as èthe CLEAR command in command mode.
So far you have learnt several ways to delete text from lines and èeven to delete whole lines, so perhaps ❎Éthis ❎Éis a good time to learn èhow to insert new lines into the text. ❎ÉIf you just want to insert an èempty line at the end of a paragraph, then all that is required is to èpress the RETURN key a second ❎Étime. ❎ÉAs ❎Émany lines as wanted can be èinserted in this way, ❎Éwhen ❎Éin ❎Éinsert ❎Émode. ❎ÉIf ❎Éin overwrite mode èhowever, pressing RETURN will only make the cursor move down a line.
PROTEXT provides a command, CTRL-I, which moves all the text from èthe line that the cursor is on, down ❎Éa line and inserts a blank line èinto the text where the cursor is.
You will quite frequently find that ❎Éyou want to split lines into ètwo and join two lines together. ❎ÉThere ❎Éare two different ways to do èthis, depending on whether you are in insert or overwrite mode.
If Insert mode is in use, ❎Éwhich it will normally be, positioning èthe cursor where the line is to ❎Ébe split and pressing RETURN results èin the cursor and the remainder of ❎Éthe ❎Étext being moved down onto a ènew line beneath. If you want to join two consecutive lines together, èyou can do this easily, either by moving the cursor to the end of the èfirst line and pressing DELETE, or by ❎Émoving the cursor to the start èof the second line and pressing BACKSPACE.
If overwrite is in operation, pressing ❎ÉRETURN does not split the èline, but merely moves the cursor down to the start of the next line, èso two commands are provided to enable ❎Élines to be split and joined. èCTRL-* (the * on the 8 key) will ❎Ésplit a line at the cursor position èand CTRL-+ (on the ❎É= ❎Ékey) ❎Éwill ❎Éjoin ❎Élines ❎Étogether. Any leading èspaces that would have appeared at the ❎Éstart of the new line will be èdiscarded.
Finally there are a couple of ❎Écommands which are for the purpose èof changing the case of letters. If ❎Éyou press CTRL-/ when the cursor èis over a lower case letter it will change into an upper case letter. èKeeping the keys pressed results in ❎Éthe cursor moving along the line èof text changing any lower case ❎Életters ❎Éinto upper case. You do not èneed to worry about numbers and ❎Épunctuation marks etc., as these are èjust passed over. The reverse of ❎Éthis command is CTRL-\, which turns èall upper case letters into ❎Élower ❎Écase. ❎ÉBoth of these commands can èprove to be very ❎Éuseful ❎Éif, ❎Éafter ❎Écreating ❎Éa ❎Épiece of text, you èdecide that certain parts, perhaps a heading, should be in upper case èor vice versa.
So far most of ❎Éthe ❎Éfrequently ❎Éused ❎Éediting commands have been ècovered, though there are a ❎Énumber ❎Éof ❎Éothers which are detailed in èthe manual. One form of editing which ❎Éhasn't been covered at all yet èis the subject of moving, copying ❎Éand ❎Édeleting blocks of text. This èis such a powerful and ❎Éversatile ❎Éfeature ❎Éof ❎ÉPROTEXT that it has a ètutorial all to itself, so if you ❎Éwish to continue to the next tutor èfile, press ESC to go into command mode and type:-
