Complete Bookshop/CompleteWorkshop.iso/lists/reviewb/formtool.txt

Text File | 1989-04-19 | 4KB | 69 lines

                   FormTool - "Create Forms, Not Confusion"
                       Copyright 1989 David W. Batterson


     The average office cannot get along without business forms.  They save
time, increase productivity and improve accountability (who did what when?).
Imagine what a nightmare it was running businesses a century ago, with early
crude typewriters, no copier, no fax, and few forms!
     Before PCs came along, companies designed forms which then had to be
typeset, and that wasn't cheap.  Or they did a paste-up job with transfer
lettering sheets, a typewriter, and lots of white-out liquid.
     Such forms often were difficult to use in a typewriter, since the spacing
wasn't done properly.  Making any design changes meant starting over again.
     BLOC Publishing Corp., following in the footsteps of early shareware
software such as EZ-FORMS, published FormTool, which has become popular with PC
users at the office.
     FormTool Version 2.01 comes with three bonuses: FormTool's Greatest Hits
(60 pre-designed forms of various types), The FormTool Business Forms
Collection (62 pre-designed forms), and a design booklet:  "Ten Easy Steps to
Designing and Producing Efficient, Productive Forms."
     Many of the forms supplied will work just fine, with few modifications.
These include: work order, personal goal planner, net worth statement, overdue
account collection notice, invoice/statement, purchase order, packing list and
sales activity recap sheet.
     I spotted one which should be very popular: a fax transmittal cover sheet.
There are over a hundred more useful forms like these on disk.
     Forms can be created or modified to a wide variety of sizes, besides the
usual letter and legal size.  Sizes can range from postage stamp proportions up
to 13 1/2 inches.  Since FormTool displays the form dimensions on the monitor,
this is useful for making necessary changes.
     These ready-made forms can be photocopied and distributed to workers; or
you can use also FormTool to fill in the forms at the keyboard.  Another useful
feature lets you use dBASE, DIF or ASCII files, for automatic preparation (data
merging) of completed forms.
     I previously designed an invoice form, using PFS: First Publisher.  I
liked the format OK, but it was a slow process entering the text and numbers
to complete an invoice.
     However, FormTool has a built-in word processor, to make it easy to
complete individual forms in this manner.  You can set tabs and center text;
word wrap can be toggled on or off.  To edit a form, you can do word, sentence,
paragraph and block editing, just as you would with your regular word
processor.
     International character sets and ASCII symbols (high-bit characters) are
supported, as are type sizes, bold, underlining, italics, subscripts and
superscripts.  You can likewise add shading, patterns and borders, plus
variable character and/or line spacing.
     You may prefer working on more than one form at a time.  FormTool lets you
toggle between them (up to four forms) or view them on the screen
simultaneously.  You can mark, move and copy blocks among the multiple forms,
allowing quick editing.
     The Form Organizer menu is used to keep tabs on form file names, form
sizes, when it was created, and so forth.  You can sort alphabetically, and
then print out the list of forms.
     The various forms on disk--or new ones you create--can be printed out
using the default printer setups: LPT1 port, portrait (standard vertical
format), and draft printing.  As you become more familiar, and want advanced
options, you can change the page length, margins, lines per inch and characters
per inch.
     The FormTool Accessories Disk includes a printer utility program
(PRNTUTIL) just in case you need to create a customized printer driver.  This
is not too likely, as FormTool supports practically any printer you're apt to
be using, including most laser printers.
     On-screen help is available by pressing <Alt>-H.  Since FormTool uses a
large number of function key commands, there's a handy reference card you can
keep by your PC.
     If you use a lot of forms, and want an effective way to produce them, you
won't go wrong with FormTool, Ver. 2.01.  The suggested list price is $95.
     Contact BLOC Publishing Corp., 800 Southwest 37th Avenue, Suite 765, Coral
Gables, FL  33134; 305-445-0903, 800-888-2562, FAX: [phone].