LOGIC Apps/Logic-APPLE_II_APPS.iso/mac/LOGIC Apple II 5.25" Library - ProDOS/PRO083.dsk/COLUMNIST.DOCS.txt

Text File | 2012-02-16 | 23KB | 436 lines

Columnist
---------
Version 2.01

   Columnist is a text file post-processor which takes any TXT (ASCII
text) or AWP (Appleworks Word Processor) file and converts it into a
new file in which the text is formatted in two or three columns on
each page. This converted file can be then loaded back into your word
processor for additional editing and printing, or can be printed by
Columnist. Before converting a file, you adjust various format
settings to control the page layout of your document. These format
settings include such things as: Number of lines per page, width of
left margin, width of each column, amount of space between the
columns, number of columns, and whether the columns will be full
justified. You can add multi-line page headers and/or footers to the
formatted file, and can include printer control-characters. These and
other features of Columnist will be explained in detail below.

   Columnist is shareware. This means that you are encouraged to give
away copies of it, and you can try it out to see if you have any use
for it. If you decide you want to keep Columnist, you are asked to
send the fee of $15.00 to me at the address below. You will receive a
5.25" disk with the latest version of Columnist. If you prefer or
need a 3.5" disk, please send an additional $1.00. The Columnist disk
comes with a utility program that allows you to scan through the
on-disk instructions for a word or phrase. This can greatly
facilitate looking up a particular topic in the documentation.

Karl Bunker  321 S. Huntington Ave.  Boston, MA 02130

   Columnist is for all Apple II's but the ][+, and requires 80
column display. Although it makes some use of MouseText, it has
alternate displays if it is run on an un-enhanced IIe.

What Columnist is good for
--------------------------
   With Columnist you should be able to do simple, newsletter-type
desktop publishing projects. Columnist is text based, rather than
graphics based as most desktop publishing programs are. This has both
advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include the following:
Columnist is fast; it prints as quickly as your printer allows. This
can mean a savings of HOURS over most IIgs DTP programs. Columnist
works with all types of printers, including daisy-wheel and other
letter-quality printers. Columnist uses the fonts that are built into
your printer; this gives you clearer, better looking text than is
available with most 8-bit graphics based DTP programs. Columnist is
simple to use; most of the formatting options available to you are
listed on a single menu screen. The major disadvantages to
Columnist's text-based nature are that it doesn't allow true WYSIWYG
(What You See Is What You Get), imported computer graphics, or
proportional type fonts.

   Columnist can also be used for such things as printing 2-across or
3-across mailing labels, or columnized data base reports. With an
AppleWorks data base of addresses, you would first "print" a data
base report to disk as an ASCII test file, and then load this file
into Columnist to format and print it.

Using Columnist
---------------
   After the title screen, the first thing you have to do with
Columnist is select a source file to be converted. The source file
must be type TXT or AWP. About the only restriction on the source
file is that it should not have "hard" margins - that is, spaces
inserted before each line to make a left margin. Columnist can
process files of ANY length. To select a file, enter the directory
you want to catalog at the prompt, or accept the one shown by
pressing <return>. When the catalog is displayed, you select a file
by moving the inverse bar and pressing <return> to select a file for
formatting. If you press <return> while the inverse bar is on a DIR
file, this directory will be added to the current prefix, opened, and
cataloged.

   In addition to selecting a file to be formatted, there are two
other options available from the catalog display, and these are noted
in the catalog screen prompt. First, you can press V to view the
contents of the highlighted file. You'll want to do this if you're
having difficulty remembering just which file it is that you want to
format. Second, you can press P to print a file. This option is
primarily intended for use with files that have been previously
formatted with Columnist. It will not work correctly with files that
are "soft formatted" i.e., which do not have <return>s at the end of
each line. I'll have more to say about this print-from-the-catalog
option later in these instructions, under "Hints and Suggestions".

   After selecting a file for formatting, you'll need a name for the
new, multi-column object file that Columnist will create. A default
name, the same as the source file's name with the suffix ".COL" is
offered. You can accept this or enter another. If you want the object
file to be on different disk from the source file, just enter a full
pathname for at the "Object file:" prompt. Columnist supports
disk-swapping on single drive systems.

The Page Format Settings Menu
-----------------------------
   After some disk access to prepare the files, Columnist will show
you a screen entitled "Page Format Settings". I'll explain each of
the items in this list in the order they appear:

Lines of text per page:
   This is, of course, the number of printed lines that appear on the
printed page. Since 66 lines of standard-size text will fit on an 8
1/2 by 11 sheet, the number of printed lines will usually be about
58, to allow for top and bottom margins. Columnist will actually
format the page with one less line of text than the number you enter,
and will insert one blank line between pages.

Left margin:
   This is the width, in characters, of the left-hand margin. If you
set this to 8, Columnist will insert 8 spaces before each line of
text.

Two or three columns?
   2 gets you two, 3 gets you three. Sorry, those are your only
choices for this option.

Width of each column:
   Also in characters. Readability studies have shown that the
optimum width for columns of text is about 35 to 40 characters.
   Note: If, during the formatting process, columnist encounters a
word in the source file that is longer than the selected column
width, it will be forced to abort the conversion. After showing you
the offending word and explaining the problem, it will send you back
to the start of the program.

Space between columns:
   This is something of an esthetic choice. It should be enough so
that it's immediately obvious that the page is divided into columns,
but not so much as to waste space. If the columns are going to be
full justified (even on both sides), the space between can afford to
be smaller. 3 to 6 is usually good.

   The rest of the Page Format Setting prompts ask you yes/no (Y/N)
questions. Some of them ask for further information if you answer "Y".

Full justify the columns?
   This is also an esthetic choice. Since Columnist can't do "micro
justification", it full justifies by inserting additional spaces
between words. If overdone, this gives the text a "toothy"
appearance,  sort   of    like     this. Left-only justified columns,
on the other hand, can look pretty ragged. So I guess you have a
choice between teeth and rags. Using the hyphenation editor
(explained below) can markedly improve the appearance of both full
justified and left-only justified columns.

Even-off columns on last page?
   For most applications, this will be a useful and important option.
Here's what it does: Say you have a file that you want Columnist to
format in two columns, and this file is slightly more than one and a
half pages long. With this menu item set to "N", Columnist will
format this file as you might expect: It will fill the first page
with two-column text, and on the second page, it will print a
left-hand column all the way down the page, and then print a short
partial column on the right side of the page, until the end of the
text is reached. This leaves you with a lop-sided page.
   If you have the Even-off option set to "Y", Columnist will behave
differently. It will format the last page of text in two shorter,
equally lengthed columns. The columns will end "evenly"; in this
case, about half way down the page. If there is less than one full
page of text in the source file, setting this option to "Y" will
simply cause all of the text to be formatted in two or three columns
of equal length.

Open a box in the text?
   This allows you to print out a page with an empty "box" area in
the text. This area can then be used for an illustration or a "pull
quote". If you answer "Y" to this option, you will be prompted for
some additional information, namely:
lines:   start:   l/c/r:
"lines" means the height of the box to be left open, measured in
lines of text. "start" refers to how many lines down on the page you
want the box to start. "l/c/r" is asking you if you want the box to
be on the left of the page, in the center, or on the right. The width
of a box will always be equal to the width of one of the columns on
the page. You can only open a box on the first page of your document.

Use Hyphenation Editor?
   As noted earlier, you can get a much cleaner looking document by
hyphenating the longer words that fall at the end of a column-line.
Columnist's hyphenation editor allows you to do this. If you select
to use the hyphenation editor, then Columnist will take each word
that it decides is a good candidate for hyphenation, and display it
for you. Using the arrow keys, you then move the cursor to the
appropriate point in the word, and insert a hyphen. Either the "-"
key or the space bar will insert a hyphen in the word. If you make a
mistake, the hyphen can be removed with the <delete> key. Pressing
<return> accepts the word, and Columnist will continue until it has
another word to offer you. You can also accept the word as-is by
pressing <return>. (Columnist may occasionally display a one syllable
word that can't be hyphenated.)
   Immediately above each displayed word, you will see a vertical
line. This marks the furthest point into the word at which you can
insert a hyphen; if you were to hyphenate the word to the right of
this point, the word-segment to the left of the hyphen would still be
too long to fit on the line. For this reason, you will find that the
cursor won't move past this point in the word. The vertical line does
NOT mark the point where you are "supposed" to insert the hyphen;
that decision is up to you (and your dictionary).

Enter headline/printer-code?
   This performs two distinct, but connected, functions: First, it
gives you the option of entering some text onto the formatted page
which will appear above the main body of your text. If the text of
your source file is an article for a newsletter, for example, you
could use this option to enter a headline to the article. This
headline will NOT be formatted in columns like the rest of the text;
it will just extend across the page. The second function has to do
with printer control codes. In addition to (or instead of) adding a
text headline to your formatted file, you can also add
control-characters which send special instructions to your printer.
   As an example, let's say you're using an ImageWriter II printer,
and you want to format a newsletter article with a headline. To do
this, you will set "Enter headline/printer-code?" to "Y". Before
Columnist starts processing your text file, it sends you to an editor
screen. This is where you will enter the text of the headline, and
also some printer control codes. First, since you want your headline
to be in (let's say) underlined, boldface text, you check your
ImageWriter reference card and see that the control codes to start
this type of text are ESCAPE X and ESCAPE !, so you press these keys.
(The <esc> character will appear on the screen as an inverse "[".)
Then you enter the text of your headline. As a prompt on the editor
screen explains, you can erase mistakes with <delete>. After your
headline, you'll want to turn off the boldface and underlining, so
following the ImageWriter card, you enter the characters ESCAPE Y and
ESCAPE ". Now let's say you want the body of your text to be in
Elite, semicondensed. The codes for this are ESCAPE E and ESCAPE e,
so you enter these characters. You want to have a blank line between
your headline and the main text, so now you press <return> once to
start a new line in the headline editor. Your headline is finished,
so you can press open-apple-<return> (as the editor screen prompt
explains) to exit the editor.

Enter a page header?
   Answering "Y" to this will allow you to enter one or more lines of
text which will appear at the top of each formatted page. If your
document has both a page headers and a headline, the header will be
printed above the headline. You will enter the header text using the
same editor that was described above for entering headlines. Again,
you can enter text, or printer control characters, or both. Since
you'll (most likely) want some blank lines between your page header
and the body of the text, remember to enter these blank lines as part
of the header.
   The lines of the header will NOT be counted as part of the "Lines
of text per page" setting described above. So if you have
lines-per-page set to 56, and enter a 4 line header, there will
actually be 60 lines to your formatted page.
   If you select to enter a page header, an additional prompt on the
Format Settings screen will ask you "Skip first page?" You might want
to leave the header off of the first page of your formatted document
--  to leave room for a newsletter masthead, for example -- and this
second prompt allows you to do so.

Enter a page footer?
   This is the same as the page header option, only the text you
enter will appear at the bottom of each page. With a page footer,
you'll want to enter a few blank lines BEFORE you enter the text of
the footer, so there will be space between the body of the text and
the footer. As with page headers, you have the option of leaving the
footer off of the first page of the formatted document.

   Both page headers and footers can include automatic page
numbering, and can have segments that are left justified, centered,
or right justified. For page numbering, simply include the character
"#" in the text of a header or footer, and Columnist will replace
this character with the appropriate page number. If you want the page
numbering to start with something other than 1, enter a one- or
two-digit number immediately after the "#". For example, the header
"Page #7" would appear in the formatted file as "Page 7" on the first
page, "Page 8" on the second, and so on. Columnist's page numbering
is limited to two digits; i.e., 99 is the highest allowable number.
   To center or right justify part or all of a header or footer, the
backslash character ("\") is used, like so:
Left segment\Centered segment\Right segment
Thus, if you wanted a footer that put the page number at the center
of a line, you would enter something like:
\This is page #
as your footer text. The footer:
Columnist News\\Page #
would put "Columnist News" at the left side of the page, and the page
number on the right. The centering and right justification will work
correctly only if the text of the header or footer is the same size
(in characters per inch) as the text of the body of the page.

The line-length prompt:
   At the bottom of the Format Settings screen there is a status line
reading:
"Length of each line (including left margin) will be ## characters".
   As you enter changes into any of the menu items that effect the
line length, you'll see that the number in this line is updated.
Remember, if you are going to be printing your file with a standard
10-characters-per-inch type font on standard sized paper, this figure
should not be more than 80.

   You can use the up and down arrow keys to move the cursor to
different items on this screen. Move the cursor past the bottom item,
or press open-apple and <return>, and you will be prompted with
"Settings okay?". Press Y or <return>, and Columnist will go to work
and format your document.

Just one more:
   There is one more option available on the Page Format Settings
screen, but because it's something you will rarely want to use, it's
hidden away. This option controls the speed of Columnist's blinking
cursor. Apples run at quite a range of speeds these days, so I
thought this would be a nice thing to give the user control over.
With the cursor in one of the upper levels of the Page Format
Settings screen, press open-apple-B (for Blink). A new line will
appear on the screen, prompting you: "Cursor blink (0 - 9):" Enter a
digit and the change will be immediate. As is explained below, this
setting, like the other format settings, can be made permanent to
your copy of Columnist.


The "Done" Menu
---------------
   When Columnist has finished formatting a file and has saved it to
disk, it displays a "Done!" message and a final menu. The items on
this menu are:

<V>-View this file:
   Pressing V will cause the formatted file to be displayed
on-screen. The file will be shown one page at a time. If the page is
too long or too wide (more than 80 characters to each line) to fit on
the screen, then the four arrow keys can be used to scroll the text
up, down, left and right. Above the displayed page, there is a prompt
showing the current page and the total pages, like: "Page 1 of 5".
Pressing <N> will load the next page for viewing, and <P> the
previous page. An on-screen prompt explains this.

<P>-Print this file:
   Reasonably self-explanatory. After pressing P, you will be
prompted for your printer slot number.

<F>-Format another file:
   This selection will send you back to the beginning of Columnist to
choose another file for conversion.

<A>-Format another file, appending it to this file:
   This allows you to put several source files together into one
formatted object file. Several articles in separate files could be
combined into one formatted newsletter file, for example. The text of
a file that is appended will "pick up" wherever the text of the
previous source file ended -- usually somewhere in the middle of a
page. When you select to append a file, all of the page format
settings will remain the same, including any page header or footer
that you entered. You will be prompted to enter a new headline for
each appended file. The <A>ppend option will only be available if you
selected to even-off the columns on the last page.

<S>-Save format settings to disk for future defaults:
   This item will appear only if you have made changes to the page
format settings or to the default printer slot. When the page format
settings menu is first displayed, there are default settings already
in place. You can accept all of these values, or change any of them.
If you have made changes, you may want the values that you entered to
be the default values that appear the next time you use Columnist.
This menu selection lets you do this. After you press S, the page
format settings will be re-displayed, and you will be asked: "Make
these settings the new defaults? Y/N" Press Y or <return>, and the
new defaults will be written into your copy of Columnist. You may
want to keep several copies of Columnist on hand, each with different
default settings for different jobs.

<Q>-Quit:
Exits you from Columnist.



Using a formatted file in your word processor
----------------------------------------------
   The multi-column file that Columnist creates will be a type TXT
file. As mentioned, you may want to load this file back into your
word processor to modify and/or print it. To load a TXT file into
AppleWorks, you first select "Make a new file for the Word Processor"
from AppleWorks' Add Files menu, and then select "From a text (ASCII)
file" from the Word Processor menu. When you load a Columnist file
into any word processor, there are some things that should be kept in
mind. For one, make sure that the line length in your WP is set to at
least the length of the lines created by Columnist. Otherwise, if
your WP inserts its own line-breaks, your file will look completely
jumbled on your WP's display. In AppleWorks, you get maximum line
length by setting the left and right margins to 0. Most word
processors, including AppleWorks, cannot correctly display a
Columnist file if the line length of the file is more than 79
characters. One exception to this is the FreeWare WP "FrEdWriter"
which is available from most Apple user groups for a few dollars.
   You must also make sure that the point at which your WP inserts a
page break is in agreement with the lines-per-page setting used by
Columnist. Since the text flows from the bottom of column 1 to the
top of column 2 on the same page, and then (assuming a two-column
document) to the top of column 1 on the next page, the file won't
make sense if the page breaks are in the wrong place. Your WP may
have "Top Margin" and "Bottom Margin" settings which will also have
to be taken into account.
   If you are printing a Columnist-created file from a WP, be sure
NOT to use a "proportional" font, as this would defeat the formatting.

Hints and Suggestions
---------------------
   If your Apple has 128k or more, you may find it helpful to use the
/RAM disk to save your object file while you experiment with
different page format settings. That is, enter a pathname like
/RAM/TEMP at the "Object file:" prompt. Then, when you have a layout
you like, you can save it permanently by formatting the source file
again with the same settings, this time saving the object file to a
real disk.

   As has been noted, Columnist provides you with a "Print" option at
two points in the program. Usually, you will want to print the object
file immediately after formatting it, using the Print selection in
the "Done!" menu. Sometimes, however, you may want to print a file
that you formatted at some earlier date. The Print option in the
catalog display is provided for this purpose. When you press P from
the catalog display, you will be prompted: "Enter number of lines per
page, or press <return> if file includes form-feeds:" This prompt
isn't needed when you print a file from the "Done!" menu, because
Columnist already knows the lines-per-page count for the file. If you
expect that you will be using the catalog-screen print option with a
file, you can save yourself the trouble of remembering the
lines-per-page count by including form-feed characters in the file.
To do this, select to "Enter a page footer" in the Page Format
Settings screen. Then, when entering the text of the page footer,
enter control-L as the LAST (or only) character of your footer.
Control-L is a "form-feed"; when your printer sees this character, it
will automatically move to the top of the next page.


Help?
-----
   If you have any problems or questions regarding Columnist, the
best way to reach me is on GEnie. My Email address there is K.BUNKER.
You can also phone me at [phone], 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm, eastern
time.

Karl Bunker