F8: Dir Ctrl-F8: Long directory Alt-F8: Change directory
F9: Load file Ctrl-F9: Insert file Alt-F9: Quit program
F10: Save file Ctrl-F10: Save with same name Alt-F10: Save buffer to disk
F11: Swap screens
F1: Using Help.
F1 Gives you a menu of help screens. Press the letter of the page you want to see. The command line at the top of the screen shows the keys you can use. You can jump from help screen to help screen by pressing letters at any time.
If nothing happens when you press F1, ABZ either did not find enough memory to store help screens or it could not find the help files on disk. See below for how to specify the help files' directory.
You can also read the help file by opening HELPTXT.TXT with ABZ, but the index at the top may give you some trouble. If you read HELPTXT directly:
-- DO NOT SAVE IT. Use Alt-F7 to clear the screen.
-- Don't try to print it.
-- You're better off reading this document anyway. This one can be printed.
Ctrl-F1 gives you the list of function keys above.
Alt-F1 is a menu of special functions such as changing screen color.
A. SET SCREEN COLOR. Repeat until you have what you want.
The color you picked will appear as the background color
of the reverse bar at the top of the screen.
B. SET LETTER COLOR. Ditto. The color will appear as the letter color of the
letters ABZ at the top of the screen.
C. SET SCREEN 40. Sets double-wide characters on color screens. This is
nice with LCD screens and others hard to read in dim
light.
D. SET SCREEN 80.
E. SWAP SCREENS. Same as F11.
F. DELETE EXCESS SPACES. On the same line, to the right of the cursor only.
G. SHOW WORD COUNT...
H. SHOW CHARACTER COUNT...
I. SHOW FREE SPACE. All three apply to text currently in memory.
J. SET HELP DIRECTORY. If ABZ beeps and says "file not found" as it is
starting, select J for "Set help directory." Enter the correct directory as follows, substituting your own directories:
\DOS\Utils -- enter backslash at beginning but not end.
Type the name of the directory or disk drive where you keep
HELPTXT.TXT.
Press Enter.
A full "Path" and filename of the help file appears next. If it is correct,
press Y. If not, press N.
K. Resets margins and printer commands to those built into the software.
Otherwise, the last settings you used remain in effect.
S. Speeds up the key action of an AT-class or later keyboard.
T. Slows it down, in case a problem develops.
Press ESC to clear the menu from the screen.
F2: Enter search.
Type the word or words you want to hunt for, up to 20 characters.
-- To search for a carriage return, use Shift-Enter.
-- To search for a printer-command character created by using the ESC
key, press Shift-Esc, then the character.
-- Use Alt-F7 to clear the search or replace strings.
C-F2: Enter replace.
Press Alt-F7 to clear away anything already present.
Enter a word or words, or nothing, to replace the search entry.
A-F2: Case.
Use Alt-F2 to switch back and forth between searching for inexact
matches, where capitalization does not matter, and exact ones.
A case-insensitive search will find Dog and dog and doG. A case-
sensitive search for, say, Dog, will find only one of the three.
F3: Search once. Press again to repeat.
C-F3: Automatically search and replace all instances of the search text with
the replace text -- or delete them if replace is blank.
A-F3: Replace the search entry one by one.
(Hold your left hand over F3, your right over an ALT key. Press F3,
hold down ALT, press F3, release ALT, and so on.) It's easier to do
than to describe.
F4: Cut.
Copies text to a separate area of memory, the "paste buffer," and removes it from the screen.
You may cut forward or backward from the cursor, and you may opt to
combine the text with something cut before and left in the buffer.
Press Alt-F4, then A to merge cuts in the paste buffer.
Press S to cut to the end of the sentence; W to cut a word, P to cut
a paragraph.
Copy you cut remains available if you swap screens or clear the screen
with Alt-F7 and open another document, but not if you quit ABZ.
-- There is a roughly 16,000-character limit, about 8 screens, on the
amount of text you can put in the buffer.
C-F4: Instead of cutting by sentence, word, or paragraph, use Ctrl-F4 to mark
the beginning of a "block" to cut. Move the cursor to the end of the
block and press Ctrl-F4 again to mark the end and cut the block.
A-F4: Press A or D to change two settings.
-- `A' (Add) controls adding to the cut text instead of clearing the
paste buffer first. This is useful for making drastic rearrangements
in your copy, for example, or manually alphabetizing a list.
-- `D' (Do/Don't) controls whether the cut text is removed from the
screen as well as being copied. Not removing it allows you to
transfer to another document without altering the original.
F5: Paste.
Inserts "cut" text back into the document. You can do this
as often as you wish, for multiple copies of a heading or codes, for
example.
C-F5: Clears the cut-text storage area, the paste buffer.
A-F5: Displays what is in the paste buffer. Use Page Up and Page Down to see
more.
-- You can save the contents of the buffer to disk with A-F10. See below.
F6: Print.
See below for more about printing.
C-F6: Print to screen. A handy way of checking where your pages will end. Also
useful for setting up a list of printer commands to avoid cluttering up
documents with them. See below.
A-F6: Print on a second printer, to disk file, or printer on a serial port.
When you print to a disk file, you will be prompted for a filename to
print to. See below.
F7: Rename a file on disk. Enter the old name first, then the new name. The
file in question must be in the current directory.
Use Alt-F8 to change the current directory.
C-F7: Kill a file on disk.
A-F7: Erase what's on the screen and in the main memory, the "text buffer."
This does not affect anything on disk.
F8: See a directory, with filenames, sizes, times and dates.
You may select a directory other than the current one by entering its
name at the top of the screen. Begin and end directory names with a
single backslash.
\letters\*. ... lists all files in LETTERS directory that
have no extensions.
\letters\ ... lists all files in LETTERS directory.
\letters ... returns the name of the directory, if it
exists.
See your DOS manual for information about directory names and using
partial filenames.
You can clear the DIR: entry line with ALT-F7.
-- If enough memory is available, ABZ will allow you to page
back and forth in the directory and use F7 and F9 to rename, kill and
load files. If memory is short, the directory appears on the screen
but you aren't permitted to page back and forth.
C-F8: In addition to a list of files, see a 4-line extract from each file.
Useful for finding documents you've forgotten the filenames of.
Extracts of programs and text with printer commands will show you some
gibberish.
A-F8: Change the current directory, the one the operating system checks first
when reading and writing to disk.
F9: Load a file.
Type the filename and optionally the disk or directory it's in, thus:
A:Mytext ... on the A: drive.
\PETER\MYTEXT ... in the \PETER directory of the current drive.
Mytext ... in the current directory.
Mytext.doc ... A different file with ".doc" as its extension.
Press enter.
-- If the file is too big for the text buffer, the work area in memory
(about 64K characters, 32 screenfuls), you will be asked if you want
to open it anyway. If you do, it will be chopped off at the end.
***** IF YOU DO THIS, DO NOT SAVE THE COPY. USE A-F7 TO CLEAR THE SCREEN,
or rename the file as you save it.
Use TEXTUTIL (described below) to break up huge files.
-- ABZ will start the new text at the cursor and replace anything
below as it reads the new file.
-- If memory is short, you may see a message "No memory for new buffer";
your document will load anyway, but it may take longer.
C-F9: Insert a document at the cursor.
Gets new text as above, but doesn't overwrite the old.
A-F9: Quit ABZ.
On exiting, you will be asked if you want to save your work if you have
typed anything.
F10: Save file.
To change the filename, edit it on the command line.
You can copy the file to a new directory by adding or changing the
directory name as you save the file.
Press Enter when the filename is OK.
C-F10: Save file but don't confirm filename. The two keys are required to keep
you from accidentally saving garbled text.
A-F10: Save the paste buffer to disk.
F11: Swap screens. You can do anything on Screen 2 that you can do on Screen
one. Use the same key to swap back and forth.
-- If memory is short, the message "no memory for new buffer" will
appear and nothing else will happen.
F12: Reserved for future functions.
PRINTING:
To print wth the default settings provided by ABZ, make sure the printer is ready and just press F6. Note that by default, there is no top margin.
How to change the default settings:
Press Esc and release it, then type a LOWER CASE letter. Here is the list of commands. In the list, "x" stands for a 1-digit number, "xx" for a 2-digit one.
-- In the notes that follow, press Esc before typing any of the letter
commands.
-- You can search for and replace the commands. As you type a search or
replace entry on the command line, hold down shift before you press Esc.
-- Commands remain in effect from document to document until you change them.
Therefore, you could create a file of your favorite settings and commands
for your brand of printer and change all the settings at once by printing
that file to the screen with C-F6.
-- Case is important. Use lowercase letters only. Uppercase letters can
be programmed to 5-character printer macros.
To return all the settings to their original state, use the A-F1 menu.
The default settings are in parentheses in this list:
lxx Left margin (10) m Right margin release (off)
rxx Right margin (70) w Page wait for cut sheets (off)
txx top (0) n Print flush-left (on)
bxx bottom line (58) e Print flush right (off)
pxx Page length (66) c Print centered (off)
xxx Page width for centering (80) j Print justified (off)
sx Space lines (1) See `Printing with Epson codes:'
z Force a page break o Formfeeds toggle (on)
k Linefeeds toggle (off) a Toggle Epson underline (on)
Notes:
l, r and x:
Numbers for margins count "units" from the left edge of the paper. If the type size changes, then the unit size does, too: In "Pica" type, there are 10 spaces per inch. In Elite, there are 12. Some printers provide many other possibilities.
-- The right margin may not exceed the page width setting.
Therefore, Elite-size printing, with margins at, say, 8 and 96, must have
both r96 and x96.
t, p, and b:
t Sets the number of blank lines above the text.
b Sets the number of lines to print before going to the next page.
p Sets the number of lines on a full page. While ordinarily, a printer can
eject a page on its own, ABZ needs the figure for use when the
formfeeds option is off.
s Sets the number of line-feeds per line; in typewriter terms, 1 is
single-spaced; 2 is double-spaced, and so on.
z Forces the rest of the text onto the next page.
e, j, c, n
Print flush right (e), justified (j), centered (c), normal flush left (n).
m releases the right margin the same way as on a typewriter, to keep a word
on a single line.
Place these only at the top of a document:
w Wait for cut sheets.
o turns off formfeeds. Needful if it causes a problem for your printer or
you are creating a disk file.
a turns off the Epson code for underlining, which is sent to the printer when
the "u" command (see below) is found. When "a" is used, text is underlined
by printing a letter, backing up the printer and printing an underline.
This method won't work on a laser printer. For printers not in the Epson FX-
LQ series, substitute the correct underline (and other) codes using instruc-
tions below.
Examples
l6r88x96t5b56wE ... Elite printing w/ 1/2 inch side margins on cut sheets.
("E" is one of the Epson printer commands provided);
l0r75t0b0p0o ... Format text with line endings and no page breaks for
transfer to a bulletin board or other word processors.
Headers and footers:
These are titles that appear on every page after they are defined in text. As always, press Esc first.
Use the commands with those above to print center, left or right.
f defines one-line footer. Prints after 1 blank line at end of page.
h defines one-line header. To define at top, but start on Page 2, put
a carriage return (press Enter) above the definition.
# Use in place of a page number. ABZ will supply the appropriate one.
@xx If you don't print from the beginning, set the page number with this.
?xx Skip over pages. Processes file until required number is reached
before printing anything. If there are type-style and underlining
printer commands in the text, there may be unpredictable results, as the
commands that should have been sent to the printer will not be, either.
Example of a header:
hcZicari/# Centered header with page number.
Linked files:
To get around the 64K limit on files, this feature permits you to tie documents together daisy-chain fashion. Use this command only at the end of a file, as it will dump the original text out of memory and replace it with the new.
g Goto next file. Accepts drive/directory names with filename.
Filenames with the extension .FMT are treated somewhat differently. See below.
Example of a linked file:
g\letters\boilrplt adds "boilerplt" from the LETTERS subdirectory to copy.
Character & text codes
u turns underlining on and off. Put it at both ends of the text to be
underlined.
i begins non-printed notes in text. Notes end with Enter.
User-defined printer commands:
-- Escape and capital letters may be used for control commands for printers.
Press Esc, then a capital letter, then add = (equals) and up to 5 letters or
numbers as described below. Numbers must be in the range 0 to 255.
For example:
(esc)E=27 sets E to the ASCII value for Escape, 27.
-- Enter up to 5 codes. Commas must separate numbers. Put letters in quotes:
E=27,"M" sets E to (Escape)M
E=27,"D",10,15,0 sets E to (escape)D10150 (sets 2 tabs on Epson printer)
-- Some Epson commands are predefined in ABZ. If your printer doesn't
recognize them, define the ones your printer needs. See `Printing with
Epson codes.'
-- Printer codes do not affect the layout of text. You will need to adjust
margins when using extra-wide or small text.
-- Printer codes remain in effect as long as you are using ABZ. This
allows you to set up a group of one-letter commands for your printer, then
call it up and print it just once to establish the rules for all the other
documents you will print. 5 characters will do for most printers, and laser
printers usually have a "macro" feature of their own that you could
combine with this one.
Printing with formats:
Formats are predefined sets of printer commands that are called from disk
at the time of printing. To create one, type the commands you need on a
blank screen and save them with the extension .FMT
BOLDFACE.FMT might contain boldfacing commands, for example.
The original document will resume printing after the contents of the .FMT
file are finished.
-- Complex formats are possible.
Use (esc)v to swap printing back and forth between the format and the main
document.
v in the format returns control to the main text.
v in the document returns control to the format.
Formats do not repeat.
IMPORTANT: if you use v in a format, you must END the format with v.
Since ABZ retains changes to printer commands from document to document, an alternative way to set up printing is to call up a file of printer commands, print it to the screen, and then print the original document.
Tips on finding the bottom and other printer notes:
Many people find their printer runs out of paper before the computer runs out of text or vice versa.
t sets the number of the top line and b sets the number of lines to print before going to the next page.
Most printers recognize the form-feed command to skip to the next page. If you cancel formfeeds with the o command, you must define the page length with p to eject pages from the printer properly.
If you use single-sheet paper, you may find your printer will not grip the paper adequately to print near the bottom or that it stops printing before the bottom. The only recourse you have is to set b to a number that WILL print.
Use the z command to force text onto the next page, if you don't want a paragraph broken.
Headers print with 2 blank lines above the text. The top margin is inserted
first. Footers print after 1 blank line under the bottom line set by b.
Saving and formatting documents:
ABZ saves documents in disk files without line endings. Some word processors can't read them that way. Uploads to bulletin boards and online services often require line endings, as well. To make the transfer, print your work to a disk file using this command at the top:
l0r75t0b0p0o
l0 for no left margin;
r75 for a 75-character line;
t0 for no top margin;
b0 and p0 to defeat spacing at the bottom;
o defeats the form-feed command.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THE KEYBOARD
Quit ABZ. (A-F9).
Type: Newkeys (Newkeys <enter>)
Restart ABZ (ABZ <enter>).
HOW TO USE TEXTUTIL, THE TEXT UTILITY PROGRAM:
What it does:
TEXTUTIL can separate a long file into chapters less than 64K to get around the memory limit in ABZ. This is useful for long files of documentation; long, downloaded articles and long threads from bulletin boards and info services, for example.
It can de-format text, to make it shorter or more usable in ABZ:
-- By stripping out the high-bit characters Wordstar and some other word-
processors (such as older Leading Edge versions) use.
-- By removing excess spaces found in documents printed to disk
with margins.
-- By stripping out Carriage-return/line-feed codes included in such
documents.
It can re-index the ABZ help file, if you want to rewrite it.
And it will convert an all-caps file to proper-name style, with the first
letter of each word capitalized, for use with lists of names and addresses.
The original document is not affected by any of these procedures.
HOW TO RUN TEXTUTIL:
Quit ABZ.
Type TEXTUTIL on the DOS command line and specify the files you will work with:
textutil sourcefile outputfile
and press <enter>.
Note there is a space between each word and that case doesn't matter.
If you don't specify the files you want to work with, you'll be prompted to provide the filenames later.
A menu appears:
Press the appropriate letter to select
"a. Split file into chapters,"
"b. De-format files"
"c. Make a help file index."
"d. Convert all-caps file to proper-name style."
Press enter.
If you typed a letter other than A, B, C or D, the program will end.
SPLITTING A FILE:
Type A or a. Press enter.
If you did not specify a source filename on the command line, you will be asked
to provide one now.
TEXTUTIL does not need an output filename for this process. It will add a numeral from 1 to 999 to the input filename, so that when it is finished,
you will have:
(from a monster called PROCOMM.LOG)
PROCOMM1.LOG
PROCOMM2.LOG
PROCOMM3.LOG
... etc.
You will be prompted for the desired length, in thousands of bytes, of each
chapter. 64 (32 screenfuls) is the maximum for TEXTUTIL and ABZ. If you plan to work with the documents extensively, you may want something shorter.
The program will report its progress as it works.
The original document is not affected.
DE-FORMATTING A FILE:
Type b or B. Press Enter.
A second menu asks for another choice.
a: Strip Wordstar characters
b: Remove excess spaces
c: Remove line endings and excess spaces.
If you did not specify source and output filenames on the command line, you will be prompted to provide them now. Be sure the output filename is not in use anywhere else in the current directory: TEXTUTIL will not check before rewriting it, and you might lose something you wanted to save.
If you selected:
A: Remove Wordstar characters
TEXTUTIL will process the source file with no further ado.
Print, margin, and other commands in some documents will leave a few
characters of gibberish behind as they are converted to readable ASCII
characters. Though named for Wordstar, the process will convert graphics
characters with code numbers higher than 127 in any file.
B: Strip out excess spaces
You will next be prompted for the width of tab indents if you want to
preserve the paragraphing in the original.
If you don't know the width, you can quit TEXTUTIL by pressing Ctrl-C
this point. The easiest way to check is to view the document with the
DOS command
TYPE filename
Press control-C again after a couple of paragraphs appear on your screen.
Then count the indent spaces and start TEXTUTIL over again.
C: Strip out excess spaces and line endings
After following the steps in B, TEXTUTIL removes line endings except those
it can recognize as paragraphs. The program recognizes both indented
and block paragraphs. Block paragraphs are the style with no indent but
a blank line between them.
Remaking the index:
OK, OK, you don't like the help screens. So rewrite them. You may have up to 36 screens. These instructions will also allow you to reindex a help file you trashed by reading it in ABZ.
Step 1: Rename the original HELPTXT.TXT. It will be your source file. Then make
a copy of it to save, just in case.
Step 2: Call up the new source file in ABZ.
Delete the spaces and odd characters up to the beginning of the text.
That's the index; you don't want to make it part of a help screen.
Step 3: Make your editing changes.
Step 4: Each screen must begin with a caret: ^. Put an additional one at the
end of the last screen.
Step 5: Save your work. Quit ABZ.
Step 6: Run TEXTUTIL, specifying your edited file as the source file and
HELPTXT.TXT as the output file:
textutil myhelp helptxt.txt
Step 7: Select C from the initial menu. The program will do the rest.
-- TEXTUTIL searches the text for ^ characters and records their position in
the file. When it finishes processing, it writes the positions into a space
it makes at the top of HELPTXT.TXT. The help feature of ABZ reads
the index and is then able to skip directly to the appropriate page in the
file when you press F1 and choose a topic.
-- The ^ characters are not saved.
-- Pages are limited to 2,000 characters, approximately a screenful.
Convert all-caps text.
Rather an esoteric function, it's useful in working
with borrowed mailing lists. Use it the same way as the Wordstar function under de-formatting.
CHANGE HISTORY:
Speedscript was updated in 1992 and renamed Zeescript.
ABZ is Zeescript 2, renamed so it does not wind up at the end of files directories.
ABZ enhancements in 1993:
Swap screen.
Format merge for printing.
Faster load and save functions.
Screen messages slightly improved.
Bugs corrected in memory management and replace functions.
TEXTUTIL upper-lower case function added.
101-key keyboard recognition enhanced.
Superkey speed-up feature.
WHOM TO CALL
This is freeware. It is offered without charge to interested users,
at the user's own risk.
All other rights are reserved.
I m Peter Zicari; leave messages for me at Compuserve 71760,2575 or on the
