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Peak InfoSystems, Inc. ------------------------------------ 727 Manitou Avenue Box 992 Manitou Springs, Colorado 80829-0992 (719) 685-1137 ------------------------------------ BULKMAIL Release 4 September 6, 1989 Copyright (c) 1984-1989 by Peak InfoSystems, Inc. 727 Manitou Avenue Manitou Springs, Colorado 80829 SHAREWARE by Peak InfoSystems, Inc. All of the programs in this package, and the manual that accompanies them are copyrighted by Peak InfoSystems, Inc. All rights are reserved. If you intend to use the software in this package on a regular basis, we require that you register your copy of BULKMAIL with us by sending a copy of the information on the registration form at the end of this preface. A second copy of the registration form is included with the software under the name, "invoice". Your registration application must be accompanied by the specified fee, payable in United States currency. We accept Master Card or VISA. We will accept your personal check, subject to a ten day delay in shipping a current copy of BULKMAIL. WHAT NON-REGISTERED USERS ARE PERMITTED TO DO Non-registered users are hereby granted a limited license to use Peak InfoSystems, Inc. BULKMAIL programs on a trial basis, and to copy the full package for trial use by others. This permission is subject to the following limitations: 1. A complete copy of all disks, including documentation, must be provided. It is a violation of our copyright to supply a less- than-complete copy. 2. Each disk containing Peak InfoSystems, Inc. software must be labeled with the following notice: Copyright (c) 1984-1989 by Peak InfoSystems, Inc. 3. No charge may be solicited or accepted for any part of Peak InfoSystems, Inc. BULKMAIL. 4. No commercial or governmental use may be made of unregistered Peak InfoSystems, Inc. BULKMAIL software. WHAT REGISTRATION ENTITLES YOU TO Each registered user will receive the following: 1. A current copy of Peak InfoSystems, Inc. BULKMAIL. 2. Notices of updates as they become available. Notices will be mailed to the address you furnish on your registration form. There will be a charge for each update. 3. Telephone support. Each registered user is entitled to 15 minutes consultation time. If additional time is required, it may be purchased at a rate of $60 per hour. 4. Information on other Peak InfoSystems, Inc. shareware. PLEASE NOTE: YOU MUST BE REGISTERED IN ORDER TO RECEIVE TELEPHONE SUPPORT. PLEASE DON'T ASK FOR HELP UNTIL YOU'VE REGISTERED WITH US. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY Copyright (c) 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 by Peak InfoSystems, Inc. Peak InfoSystems makes no representations or WARRANTIES with respect to the contents of this publication or with respect to the computer software it describes, and specifically DISCLAIMS any IMPLIED WARRANTIES of MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Further, Peak InfoSystems reserves the right to make changes in the content of this manual or the computer software it describes without obligation to notify any firm or person of such changes. ------- INVOICE ------- Peak InfoSystems, Inc. 727 Manitou Avenue Manitou Springs, Colorado 80829-0992 Phone: (303) 685-1137 Registration for Peak InfoSystems, Inc., BULKMAIL $50.00 Colorado residents add 3% sales tax: $ 1.50 El Paso county residents add 1% sales tax: $ .50 ______ Total enclosed: [ ] Check [ ] Money Order [ ] Master Card [ ] VISA Make check payable to Peak InfoSystems, Inc. If Master Card or VISA: Card Number: _________________________ Expiration Date: _____________________ ================================================================= Name: ---------------------------------------- Firm or Agency: ---------------------------------------- Address: ________________________________________ ---------------------------------------- City, State, Zip Code: ________________________________________ Telephone: (Area)__________ Number ________________ (4.5) CONTENTS 1. OVERVIEW...................................................... 1 1.1 Speed.................................................... 1 1.2 Safety................................................... 1 1.3 Subset Selection......................................... 2 1.4 Searches................................................. 2 1.5 Name Reversing........................................... 2 1.6 Form Letter Support...................................... 2 1.7 Label Configuration...................................... 2 1.8 Utilities................................................ 3 2. SETTING UP BULKMAIL........................................... 4 2.1 Installing BULKMAIL...................................... 4 2.2 Speeding up BULKMAIL..................................... 4 2.3 Starting a Mailing List.................................. 5 2.4 Mailing List Variables................................... 5 2.5 How to Use This Manual................................... 5 3. TERMS AND CONVENTIONS......................................... 7 3.1 Screen Entry Terms....................................... 7 3.1.1 Prompt............................................ 7 3.1.2 Menu.............................................. 7 3.1.3 Records and Fields................................ 7 3.1.4 Field Caption..................................... 8 3.1.5 Field Prompt...................................... 8 3.1.6 Prompt Line....................................... 8 3.1.7 Press............................................. 8 3.1.8 Enter............................................. 9 3.2 Special Terms............................................ 9 3.2.1 Template.......................................... 9 3.2.2 Filter............................................ 9 3.2.3 Merge File........................................ 9 3.2.4 Transfer File..................................... 9 3.3 Case Distinctions........................................ 9 4. CREATING A MAILING LIST....................................... 11 5. ENTERING AND EDITING RECORDS.................................. 14 5.1 Adding New Records....................................... 16 5.1.1 Entering Name..................................... 16 5.1.2 Entering Address Lines, City, State and Zip....... 16 5.1.3 Entering the Attention Line....................... 17 5.1.4 Telephone Number.................................. 17 5.1.5 Code.............................................. 17 5.1.6 Setting the Switches.............................. 17 5.1.7 Accepting the New Record.......................... 17 5.2 Editing and Deleting Records............................. 18 5.2.1 Changing a Record Field........................... 18 5.2.1.1 Editing Name............................. 18 - i - 5.2.1.2 Editing Other Record Lines............... 19 5.2.1.3 Editing Switches......................... 19 5.2.2 Deleting a Record................................. 19 5.2.3 Inserting an Item Into the Template............... 19 5.2.4 Accepting a Record................................ 20 5.3 Finding Records in the File.............................. 20 5.3.1 Search Key and Filter Settings.................... 20 5.3.2 Locating a Record................................. 22 5.4 Setting a Template....................................... 23 5.4.1 Using a Circumflex in the Template................ 23 5.4.2 Using an Asterisk in the Zip Code Template Field............................................. 24 5.4.3 Switches in the Template.......................... 24 5.4.4 Updating the Template on the Fly.................. 24 5.5 Marking and Unmarking Records............................ 25 6. PRINTING LABELS AND LISTS..................................... 26 6.1 Printing Labels.......................................... 26 6.1.1 Setting Printer Label Output...................... 26 6.1.1.1 Margin................................... 27 6.1.1.2 Vertical Space........................... 27 6.1.1.3 Horizontal Space......................... 28 6.1.1.4 Labels in a Row.......................... 28 6.1.1.5 The Initialization String................ 28 6.1.1.6 The Cleanup String....................... 29 6.1.1.7 Testing Label Output..................... 29 6.1.2 Setting the Filter................................ 29 6.1.3 Configuring the Attention Line Output............. 29 6.1.3.1 Using a Blank Top Line................... 30 6.1.3.2 Using a Title on the Top Line............ 30 6.1.3.3 Putting the Attention Line at Top or Bottom................................... 31 6.1.4 How the Address Lines Work........................ 31 6.1.5 Printing.......................................... 32 6.1.6 Bundle Markings on the Labels..................... 33 6.2 Printing Record Lists.................................... 33 6.3 Printing Summary Lists................................... 34 7. HOUSEKEEPING UTILITIES........................................ 36 7.1 Defining the Switches.................................... 36 7.2 Turning Off Record Switches, Marks and Flags............. 37 7.2.1 Turning Off Switches.............................. 37 7.2.2 Turning Off Marks and Flags....................... 37 7.3 Finding and Marking Records.............................. 38 7.3.1 Marking Records From a Filter Setting............. 38 7.3.2 Marking Records From a Context Search............. 38 7.4 Converting Marks......................................... 39 7.4.1 Converting to Switches............................ 39 7.4.2 Converting to Code................................ 39 7.5 Checking For Duplicates.................................. 39 7.6 Importing, Exporting, and Purging Records................ 40 - ii - 7.6.1 Exporting a Transfer File......................... 41 7.6.2 Exporting a MailMerge File........................ 41 7.6.2.1 Creating a Merge File.................... 41 7.6.2.2 Merge File Format........................ 42 7.6.3 Importing a Transfer File......................... 44 7.6.4 Importing an ASCII File........................... 45 7.6.4.1 WARNING -- ASCII File Import Errors...... 45 7.6.4.2 ASCII File Import Format................. 45 7.6.5 Purging Records................................... 46 7.7 Configuring the Printer.................................. 47 7.8 Repairing a Damaged Mailing List......................... 48 7.9 Changing the Password.................................... 48 8. THE FILTER.................................................... 50 8.1 Selecting and Rejecting Records With Switches............ 50 8.1.1 The Or Select..................................... 50 8.1.2 The And Select.................................... 51 8.1.3 The And Reject.................................... 51 8.1.4 The Or Reject..................................... 51 8.1.5 An Example of Switch Filtering.................... 52 8.2 Selecting and Rejecting Records Using Name............... 53 8.3 Selecting and Rejecting Records With Zip Code and Code..................................................... 54 8.4 Selecting and Rejecting Records With Edit Date........... 54 8.5 Selecting Records on Marks and Import Flags.............. 55 8.6 Resetting The Filter..................................... 55 8.7 Counting Filter Selections............................... 55 8.8 Exiting the Filter Setting Screen........................ 56 - iii - Section 1 Overview 1. OVERVIEW BULKMAIL is a specialized system of computer programs designed to make the job of preparing U.S. domestic bulk mail as fast and as easy as possible. BULKMAIL is not a "data base management system" or a "list management system" within the meanings most widely accepted nowadays for those terms. BULKMAIL is based on experience with large quantities of bulk mail and is the latest in a series of mailing list programs. Because of this, and because it wasn't designed to water your garden and do your dishes in addition to preparing your bulk mail, you'll find that BULKMAIL is full of features found on any bulk-mailer's wish list. 1.1 Speed BULKMAIL has a number of features to speed up entering records into a mailing list and accelerate the job of bundling mail. The speed with which BULKMAIL runs in your computer is one of those features. BULKMAIL was written in the C Programming Language, a language that produces machine code so efficient it's used to produce most modern operating systems and compilers. BULKMAIL's "Template" lets you repeat fixed information without having to re-type it for each record. The Template is designed so that you can update it on the fly. When you print labels in zip code order, BULKMAIL marks the labels so you'll know, without counting, when to tie off a bundle of letters. 1.2 Safety No matter how careful you are, the day will come when the power fails in the middle of a record entry session and forces you to re-enter a number of records. BULKMAIL puts your records directly on disk as you enter them. If the power fails during an entry session, you can recover what you've entered with BULKMAIL's data recovery feature. In addition, BULKMAIL contains a password protection feature that lets you lock your mailing lists away from prying eyes. Although no data stored on disk is really inaccessible to a good programmer -1- Section 1 Overview with the proper tools and plenty of time, BULKMAIL's password pro- tection is good enough to keep out at least the casually inquisi- tive. 1.3 Subset Selection BULKMAIL contains a feature called a "Filter" that lets you select records to be printed on the basis of a starting name, an ending name, a starting zip code, an ending zip code, a starting date, an ending date, two flags, an alphanumeric category field, and a group of sixteen "switches" in each record that may be used in any combination to select or reject records. BULKMAIL's Filter is more powerful and much easier to apply than the "data base query" languages usually used to identify subsets of a data base. 1.4 Searches BULKMAIL maintains all records in a mailing list in both name and zip code sequence. The touch of a function key takes you directly to the first record, last record, previous record, or next record in either sequence. An efficient binary search lets you find any specific record in an instant. BULKMAIL's records may be re-sequenced at any time on any field. Re-sequencing may filter the records to include only those currently of interest. Out of a list of local professionals, for instance, you might produce a list of Doctors sorted by telephone number. 1.5 Name Reversing BULKMAIL doesn't require you to isolate first name and last name in separate fields. You may enter a name in last-name-first order. When it prints a label, BULKMAIL will reverse the name. 1.6 Form Letter Support One of BULKMAIL's printing options allows you to create a data file that can be used with MicroPro International's MailMerge form letter feature, as well as with the merge letter features of a number of other good word processors. 1.7 Label Configuration BULKMAIL contains all the usual features that will let you config- ure your printer output to a specific label format. In addition, BULKMAIL lets you see your label format graphically on the screen while you set it up. -2- Section 1 Overview 1.8 Utilities BULKMAIL contains facilities that let you: * Transfer a subset of one mailing list to another * Import ASCII files produced by other mailing list and database management systems * Purge a subset of records from a mailing list * Do alphanumeric context searches within all fields and mark records which contain the search object. For instance, you may mark all records containing a particular city or street name in the address field. * Check a mailing list for duplicates * Configure each mailing list for a particular printer. -3- Section 2 Setting Up 2. SETTING UP BULKMAIL BULKMAIL is supplied on a formatted distribution disk with no operating system. Four files are on the disk: * TYPE-ME is a short file to be viewed on the screen using the DOS "TYPE" command. It tells you how to get this manual into hard copy. * BULKMAIL.MAN contains the text of this manual. * MAIL.EXE is the standard BULKMAIL program. This version of BULK- MAIL is very fast, and will handle about 8000 records. * BIGMAIL.EXE is a second version of BULKMAIL that will handle up to 32767 records, but doesn't run quite as fast as MAIL.EXE. 2.1 Installing BULKMAIL Once you've read "TYPE-ME", and have printed a copy of this manual, the next step is to install BULKMAIL on your system. How you do this will depend on what kind of computer configuration you're using. If you don't understand the following information, re-read the manual that came with your computer system, with par- ticular attention to the portions dealing with DOS, or MS-DOS. If you're using a floppy disk system, format a disk, using FORMAT's "system" option, "format b:/s" (or "format b:/s/v", if you want to put a volume label on your system disk). Now, copy MAIL.EXE, and BIGMAIL.EXE to your new disk. This will become the system disk for use with all your mailing lists. If you're using a fixed disk, copy MAIL.EXE and BIGMAIL.EXE to a directory that's in your system's execution "path". 2.2 Speeding up BULKMAIL BULKMAIL makes heavy use of its disk files while it's running. How often it has to access the disk depends partly on how many "buffers" you've allocated for your operating system. For optimum speed, we recommend you allocate at least 20 buffers. To do this, you must install a "config.sys" file that contains the command, -4- Section 2 Setting Up BUFFERS=20 If you're using a floppy disk, you'll want to make sure this "config.sys" file is on the disk you use to boot the computer. If you're using a fixed disk system, make sure your root directory has a "config.sys" file with the BUFFERS statement in it. 2.3 Starting a Mailing List To build a mailing list, first format a blank disk for drive B to hold your mailing list file, or, if you're using a fixed disk, use the "cd" command to change to a directory where you want your mailing lists to reside. If you're using a floppy system, you may want to move DOS's "FORMAT" command to your BULKMAIL system disk in order to have it readily available any time you want to create a new mailing list. Once your formatted disk is ready, or you're in a directory you've created for mailing lists, read Section 4, and create your mailing list. Once the mailing list file has been created, use the instructions in Section 5 to enter and edit records in the mailing list. When you're ready to do some printing, make sure you're familiar with Section 6 first. 2.4 Mailing List Variables As you read this manual, you'll find out about setting special parameters such as printer configuration codes, the Template, the Filter, etc. All of these variables are stored in the mailing list disk file. If you have special printer configuration codes or other variables that aren't produced by default when BULKMAIL makes a new mailing list, you must enter this information each time you create a new mailing list. 2.5 How to Use This Manual We've put BULKMAIL's manual on disk so that you can make more than one copy if you want to. The reason we want you to have as many copies as you need is that we want you to read it all the way through and then read it a second time as you actually begin to work with BULKMAIL. BULKMAIL is deceptively easy to use. Its menus and prompts will let you work with it without referring to any manual. We know this is true because we've tested it with people who have never used computers before. -5- Section 2 Setting Up The problem with that approach, however, and the reason we said "deceptively" is that underneath its apparent simplicity, BULKMAIL is a very sophisticated system. We want you to use the features of BULKMAIL that will speed up and simplify your work. If you don't read the manual, BULKMAIL can appear to be "just another mailing list program" when, in fact, it's a superior tool that can save you hours, days, or weeks of work and greatly improve your bulk mail operations. An example of this is the "Attention Line". Section 5 tells you how to enter an Attention Line in a record, but unless you've read the relevant parts of Section 6 that tell you how BULKMAIL prints the Attention Line, you may wish later that you'd entered all your thousands of Attention Lines differently than you did. Switches are another example. You can use BULKMAIL without ever turning on a switch or even knowing what they're for, but if you understand how they work, and use them, they can let you make dis- tinctions between records in your mailing list that you wouldn't be able to make in any other way. -6- Section 3 Terms 3. TERMS AND CONVENTIONS BULKMAIL contains a few terms and display conventions both in its program screens and in this manual that you need to know about. 3.1 Screen Entry Terms The following words and display conventions are used consistently on BULKMAIL's screens and in this manual. 3.1.1 Prompt A prompt is a message on the screen that tells you about an option you may exercise at that point or a choice you may make. 3.1.2 Menu A menu is a set of one or more prompts that gives you all the choices available at that point in the process. 3.1.3 Records and Fields A "record" contains all the information about a single person or business you've put into your mailing list. A "field" is a uniquely addressable element in a record. A BULKMAIL record con- tains the following fields: 1. Name 2. Address Line 1 3. Address Line 2 4. City 5. State 6. Zip Code 7. Attention Line 8. Telephone Number 9. Arbitrary Code -7- Section 3 Terms 10. Switches 11. Date of Last Edit In addition, BULKMAIL contains some control flags that are not directly accessible from the console. 3.1.4 Field Caption A field caption is a name on the screen that identifies a field. In Edit mode, for instance, the main screen has a field caption associated with each of the fields listed above. 3.1.5 Field Prompt A field prompt is a number from 0 through 9 next to a field cap- tion, that you press to gain access to the field so that you can enter something into it or modify something that's already there. Field prompts are always bracketed with angle brackets, e.g., <1>. 3.1.6 Prompt Line In any case where BULKMAIL must accept more than a single key "press", it presents a "prompt line" consisting of as many under- lined spaces as are acceptable for that input. An example is the prompt and prompt line BULKMAIL gives you when it's ready to accept a password: Enter your password: ______________________________ In this case, the prompt line is 30 characters long. If you attempt to enter more than 30 characters for your password, BULK- MAIL won't accept them. The cursor will remain at the end of the prompt line until you either backspace or press <Enter>. 3.1.7 Press "Press" means that if you press the indicated key, an action will take place immediately. When BULKMAIL says "press", the selec- tions you may press are always bracketed with angle brackets. The prompt, "<A>dd Records" in BULKMAIL's main menu, means that if you press the letter "A", with or without the shift key, BULKMAIL will take you immediately to the "Add Records" function. The prompt, "<Enter> to Exit", used in most of BULKMAIL's screens means that as soon as your finger presses the "Enter" key, you'll be out of the current function. -8- Section 3 Terms 3.1.8 Enter "Enter" means that you must type something and then press the <Enter> key. In some cases, what you type may be just one letter or number. When BULKMAIL says "enter", the selections you may enter are always bracketed with square brackets. The prompt, "[ ] Switch Number to Toggle" in the Filter setting screen means that you must type in a number between 1 and 16, and then press the <Enter> key before anything else will happen. 3.2 Special Terms BULKMAIL has specific names for several features in its programs. The terms are capitalized when used. 3.2.1 Template The Template is a feature in BULKMAIL that allows you to avoid re-typing standard information each time you enter a new record. Section 5.4 explains the Template. 3.2.2 Filter The Filter is a feature in BULKMAIL that allows you to define a subset of your mailing list for display, printing, merging or purging. Use of the Filter is explained in Section 8. 3.2.3 Merge File A Merge File is a file created by BULKMAIL that can interface directly with MicroPro International's "MailMerge" and other word processors with similar form letter capability. Section 7.6.2 explains how to make a Merge File. 3.2.4 Transfer File A Transfer File is a file that BULKMAIL creates and then, later, reads to transfer records from one mailing list to another. Sec- tion 7 explains how to use a Transfer File. 3.3 Case Distinctions BULKMAIL makes no distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters in any of its operations. If one of BULKMAIL's programs says, "press <P>", you may press "P" or "p" and get the same effect. When you're looking for a name, or part of a name with BULKMAIL's search feature (Section 5), you may enter the name in lowercase, uppercase, or any combination of lowercase and -9- Section 3 Terms uppercase. -10- Section 4 Creating a Mailing List 4. CREATING A MAILING LIST A mailing list is a file with a special structure, recognizable BULKMAIL. Before you can enter records into a mailing list, you must create the mailing list. Before you create a mailing list file, decide how large you want it to to be. You can put a 2,260 record mailing list onto a blank, formatted, double-density, double-sided disk. In general, it's a good idea not to make your mailing list larger than it really needs to be. If you keep it small, it'll be easier to back up, and you'll have some space left over on your data disk for other files - Merge Files, for instance. Later on, if your entries begin to outgrow the size of the file, you can always create a larger file and move the smaller mailing list to the larger one. If you want to create a very large mailing list, you'll need either to split the list into several 2,260 record lists or create it on a fixed disk. The actual number of records BULKMAIL can support in a single mailing list is limited only by the capacity of your storage medium and the amount of memory addressable by the version of BULKMAIL you're using. The amount of memory required to run BULKMAIL increases by six bytes for each record in your mailing list. If you're using MAIL.EXE, you'll be limited to around 8000 records. If you're using BIGMAIL.EXE, and have enough memory, the limit will be 32,767. If you attempt to create or load a mailing list that exceeds your computer's memory capacity, BULKMAIL will tell you about it and then exit to the operating system. To begin creating a mailing list, invoke BULKMAIL by typing: BULKMAIL Once BULKMAIL has displayed its banner and opening menu, press <6>. Your disk drives will run for a moment, and BULKMAIL will say, New Filename or <Enter> to continue--> The prompt will be followed by a series of 63 underline charac- ters. -11- Section 4 Creating a Mailing List If you're creating a new mailing list on a floppy disk, type, drv:filename.ext where "drv" is an optional driveletter, "filename" is the name of your mailing list, and ".ext" is an optional extension. For exam- ple, if your BULKMAIL system disk is in drive A, your formatted mailing list disk is in drive B, and you want to create a mailing list called "customer.lst", type: b:customer.lst If you don't use a driveletter, BULKMAIL will create your new mailing list on the default drive if possible. If you're working on a fixed disk system, you may want to create your mailing list in a directory distant from the one you're currently "in". If this is the case, you may enter a pathname that's up to 63 characters long. As soon as you've given BULKMAIL the name of your new mailing list file, the screen will blank for a moment, and the drive light will stay on on the disk that's going to hold the file. In a moment, BULKMAIL will say, Number of records desired, or <F>ull disk: --> ________ At this point, you may enter a number, or press "f" or "F". If you press "f", BULKMAIL will calculate how many records will fit on the drive you've designated to hold the mailing list. In either case, BULKMAIL will ask you to confirm what you've just entered, by saying, Number of records in this mailing list: xxxxx (y/n)? : where "xxxxx" is the number of records you entered, or the number BULKMAIL calculated to fill the disk. If you mistyped the number of records, or if the number BULKMAIL came up with isn't what you want, press <N>, and BULKMAIL will let you try again. If the number is correct, press <Y>. Next, BULKMAIL will say, Password: ____________________________ If you want to password-protect your mailing list, enter a pass- word. If you don't want to be bothered with a password, press <Enter>. Putting a password in your file isn't important at this point. You can add a password or change the one you assigned at any time. -12- Section 4 Creating a Mailing List If you entered a password, BULKMAIL will ask, xxxxxxxxxx (y/n)? : where "xxxxxxxxxx" is the password you entered, and will give you a chance to change it at this point if you want to. Before you answer with <Y>, be sure the password is one you'll remember. If you didn't enter a password, BULKMAIL will say, No Password (y/n)? : Again, you may change your mind if you want to. As soon as you've made your decision about a password, BULKMAIL will begin creating the mailing list. If you're making a large mailing list, this may take a couple of minutes. Finally, BULK- MAIL will return to its master menu. At this point, you've created your mailing list and you may begin entering records into it. -13- Section 5 Entering and Editing Records 5. ENTERING AND EDITING RECORDS If you're using a floppy disk system, place your system disk in drive A, and the disk with your mailing list file in drive B. If you're using a fixed disk system, change directory (or drive) to the disk or directory that holds your mailing list file. There are two different ways to start a session with a particular mailing list: * You can invoke BULKMAIL with the name of the mailing list file on the command line. In other words, if you have an "A>" prompt, and you say, mail b:customer.lst BULKMAIL will start and will open the file, "customer.lst" on drive B. When BULKMAIL displays its main menu, the name, "b:customer.lst" will appear between two horizontal lines, indi- cating that this is the file you're currently working on. * The second way to call up a mailing list is simply to say, mail When BULKMAIL displays its main menu, the file name position will say, "No Mailing List Active". To begin working with a mailing list, press <4>, the number next to the caption, "Change Mailing List". BULKMAIL will say, New Filename or <Enter> to continue--> and will give you a prompt line. You may enter a pathname up to 63 characters long. Regardless of which way you start BULKMAIL, if you used a password when you created your mailing list, BULKMAIL will clear the screen and ask you to enter the password. The password won't be echoed on the screen as you type it. If you give BULKMAIL the wrong password, you'll get a message that says: ** INCORRECT PASSWORD ** If this happens, BULKMAIL will give you a second chance to enter the correct password. If you fail on your second try, BULKMAIL -14- Section 5 Entering and Editing Records will say: >>>> ACCESS DENIED <<<< and will exit to the operating system. If you've invoked BULKMAIL properly, your disk drives will run for a moment, and BULKMAIL will display its main menu. To get to the editing screen, press <1>. The top line in the edit display contains the name of your mailing list, excluding the driveletter BULKMAIL found it on. In addi- tion, the line tells you how many records are in your file, how many of those records are in use, and how many records are free. Below these lines, still in the top part of the screen, are some field captions which we'll explain as we discuss the specifics of entering and editing, and a reverse-screen block where the infor- mation you put into each record will go. Offset at the bottom of this section of the screen is a caption that says, "Date of Last Edit". Toward the bottom of the screen, you'll see a menu with four selections. "<A>dd Records" is the selection you'll use to put new records into your mailing list. "<F>ind/Edit Records" is the selection you'll use to search for and, optionally, edit records in an existing mailing list. "<S>et Template" allows you to enter fixed information such as a city name, state, or zip code that you want to use each time you enter a new record. "<Enter> to Exit" is the selection that takes you back to DOS. Throughout BULKMAIL, <Enter> is used to move back from your current selection to the previous one. Since all the prompts in this menu are surrounded by angle brack- ets, pressing an indicated key will make the selection. You don't have to press <Enter>. Before you begin entering records, you may want to define some of BULKMAIL's switches. If so, first read Section 8 to learn how you can use the switches to select a subset of your mailing list for printing. Figure out which switches you want to use, and then consult Section 7.1 to find out how to define the switches you want. -15- Section 5 Entering and Editing Records If you're entering a series of records from the same city or state, you may want to set up a Template. If so, read Section 5.4 before you go on. 5.1 Adding New Records To begin putting records into your mailing list, press the <A> (Add) key. BULKMAIL will put a prompt line next to the caption, "Name", and will change its menu in the lower part of the screen. Only two options are available at this point -- enter a name, or press <Enter> to return to BULKMAIL's edit menu. BULKMAIL requires some kind of name in each record. 5.1.1 Entering Name You may enter a name in either of two ways. If you're entering a name like "Ajax Company", you'll want the name to appear among the A's on an alphabetical listing, but if you're entering a name like "Henry Jones", you'll probably want the name to appear with the J's rather than the H's. On the other hand, you don't want "Henry Jones" to print as "Jones Henry" on a mailing label or in a Merge letter. You can have the best of both worlds by entering "Henry Jones" as "Jones; Henry". BULKMAIL treats the semicolon as a special edit- ing character. When Prtmail prints a mailing label, or builds a Merge File, it throws away the semicolon and swaps whatever comes before it with whatever comes after it. You don't need to be fussy about how you enter the semicolon. You could make your entry as "Jones; Henry", or "Jones;Henry". A word of caution: DON'T USE A SEMICOLON IN A NAME UNLESS YOU WANT THE NAME TO BE SWAPPED. 5.1.2 Entering Address Lines, City, State and Zip As soon as you've entered a name, BULKMAIL will put a prompt line after the first "Address Line" caption, and will display a new menu in the lower part of the screen. You have three choices at this point. If you press <Enter>, BULKMAIL will go on to the next entry line. If you press the escape <Esc> key, BULKMAIL will skip all the rest of the possible entries for this record and go directly to the point where you can abandon, edit, or enter the record. Your third choice is to type in a line. In a similar fashion, BULKMAIL will move from the first "Address Line" to the second "Address Line", then to "City", "State", and "Zip" lines. -16- Section 5 Entering and Editing Records 5.1.3 Entering the Attention Line When BULKMAIL presents its prompt line next to the caption, "Attention Line", you'll have to know whether or not and how you intend to use the "Attention Line". The "Attention Line" is used in various ways on labels and in a Merge File. If you're not sure how you want to use the "Attention Line", read Section 6.1.3 first to determine what the outcome will be for the various options. 5.1.4 Telephone Number This version of BULKMAIL will accept a ten character telephone number. 5.1.5 Code BULKMAIL provides an eight character "code" field that can accept any of the characters you can type on the keyboard. The purpose of the code field is to provide another means of selecting records -- in addition to BULKMAIL's switches, etc. 5.1.6 Setting the Switches Once you've entered a "Code" or have bypassed the code field, BULKMAIL will ask you to "toggle" the switches you want to turn on for this record. One of the prompts you'll see in the lower part of the screen for switch entry is a little different than the oth- ers you've seen so far. There's a prompt down there that says, [ ] Switch Number to Toggle. The square brackets "[ ]" mean that you must type something and then press enter. In this case, what you must enter is the number of the switch you want to "toggle". "Toggle" means that the first time you enter a number, that switch number will be turned on. If you enter the same number a second time, the switch will be turned off. If a switch is on, it'll be displayed black on white. If it's off, it'll be displayed white on black. To turn off all the switches at once, use the <Del> key. If you've forgotten the meanings you assigned to your switches, press <D>. The normal switch entry menu will disappear and the names you assigned to the switches will be displayed. 5.1.7 Accepting the New Record Once you've turned on the switches you want for your record, ini- tial entry is complete. As soon as you press <Enter> from the switch entry mode, you'll see BULKMAIL turn on a reverse-printed field prompt number next to each of the captions in the upper part of the screen. At this point, you're in edit mode. You may go -17- Section 5 Entering and Editing Records back and correct anything in the record you just entered, you may delete the record and start over by pressing <D>, or you may press <Enter> to accept the record as it is. The things you may do from edit mode are explained in the next section. 5.2 Editing and Deleting Records Each time you enter a new record, BULKMAIL puts you into edit mode and allows you to correct any errors in the record before you accept it. BULKMAIL's "Find" feature, discussed in Section 5.3 lets you display and edit any existing record in the file. In both cases, BULKMAIL lets you know that you're in the edit mode by turning on a reverse-printed field prompt next to each of the field captions in the top part of the screen, and by displaying an edit menu with the following selections: < > Number of Item to Change <T> To Insert Item Into Template <D> to Delete This Record <Enter> to Accept This Record 5.2.1 Changing a Record Field To edit one of the fields in the record, press the appropriate reverse-printed number. In other words, to edit the name, press <1>. To edit the switches, press <0>. The displays and actions for making changes are almost identical to those associated with initial record entry, with a few addi- tions: 5.2.1.1 Editing Name We discussed reversing names in Section 5.1.1. It's easy enough to make an entry like "Jones; Henry" without becoming confused about how the output will look on a mailing label. Obviously, it's going to come out as "Henry Jones". But how about a name like, "Mr. & Mrs. Henry Jones, Jr."? Where does the "Jr." go? If you're not sure how a name is going to look on a label or in a Merge letter, while you're in edit mode, press <1>. The reversed version, just as it's going to appear on output, will be printed in the prompt area in the lower part of the screen. If you're satisfied with the result, press <Enter>, and your original entry will be restored. If you're not satisfied, re-enter the name and then press <1> again to see if things are better this time. -18- Section 5 Entering and Editing Records In general, when you're editing a name, you have two choices: either enter a new name, or press <Enter> to restore what was there before. BULKMAIL won't let you delete the name entirely. 5.2.1.2 Editing Other Record Lines Editing the other lines in a record is similar to editing the name line except that in each case you may delete the line by pressing the <Del> key. If you just press <Enter>, the line will be restored. 5.2.1.3 Editing Switches Editing the switch settings involves the same actions described above in Section 5.1.6. You must press <Enter> to exit the switch edit mode. 5.2.2 Deleting a Record To delete the record that's being displayed in edit mode, press <D>. BULKMAIL will ask you, Delete (y/n)? : and get your confirmation just in case you hit <D> by mistake. If you answer <Y>, the record will be deleted. If you've entered edit from search mode, once you delete the current record, the screen will display the next record in the file in either "NAME" sequence "ZIP" sequence, or the "SPECIAL" sequence you've selected. 5.2.3 Inserting an Item Into the Template BULKMAIL's Template, explained in Section 5.4, can be changed from edit mode as you go along. If you've just entered a series of records for "Denver", for instance, and you want to switch to a sequence for "Colorado Springs", type in the first "Colorado Springs" in edit mode and then press <T>. BULKMAIL will ask you: < > Number of Item to Insert or <Enter> to Exit: Since the city name is what you want to replace in the Template, press <4>. When you begin entering the next record, "Colorado Springs" will appear in the Template's "City" position. You can transfer any field except "Name" to the Template using this feature. If you try to transfer name to the Template, BULKMAIL will give you an error message and refuse to make the transfer. -19- Section 5 Entering and Editing Records 5.2.4 Accepting a Record When you're satisfied with the record as it appears, press <Enter>. The record will be accepted and placed in your disk file. If you've made changes in the record, any earlier Date of Last Edit will be replaced with today's date. 5.3 Finding Records in the File Pressing <F> from BULKMAIL's edit screen puts you into search mode. When you enter search mode, BULKMAIL displays the first record in either "NAME", "ZIP", or "SPECIAL" sequence, depending on the current setting for the "Search Key". The Search Key set- ting is displayed at the upper left corner of the prompt portion of the screen, and a menu appears which contains the following options: <Home> First Record <End> Last Record <<-> Edit <F9> Set Filter <Pg Up> Previous Record <Pg Dn> Next Record <->> Mark/Unmark <F10> Change Search Key <Enter> Exit Or Enter Value to Search For Your Choice: ___________________________ 5.3.1 Search Key and Filter Settings Search sequence is determined by the "Search Key" setting. The Search Key may be in "NAME", "ZIP", or "SPECIAL", state. BULKMAIL always maintains two fixed sort keys for its records: an alphabetical key by name, and an alphanumeric key by zip code. In addition, a third key is available that may be used to sort on any field in BULKMAIL's record. To change the search key, press <F10> at the search screen. BULK- MAIL will display a screen with options that include, -20- Section 5 Entering and Editing Records Check / Reset Filter Parameters followed by a list of the record fields accessible from the edit screen. If you press <1> to obtain a "NAME" sequence, or <6> to obtain a "ZIP" sequence, and if the Filter is clear, BULKMAIL will return you immediately to the search screen. If you select one of the other fields as a sort key, or if you've set up the Filter to accept or reject some of the records in your mailing list, BULKMAIL will begin a sort. The sort will check each record in the mailing list file, will accept only those that meet the criteria established in the Filter, and will sort the records it accepts on the field you've called for. For example, suppose you have a large customer mailing list, but you want to work only with the customers in the Colorado Springs area, and you want to work with them in telephone number order. Knowing that all Colorado Springs zip codes begin with 809, you can isolate and sort the list you want by setting the Filter to begin and end with an 809 zip code, then by calling for a sort on the telephone number field. Once it's finished sorting, BULKMAIL will return you to the search screen. Now, when you call for the first record in your list, it will be a record from the 809 zip code subset, and it will have the lowest telephone number in that subset. When you press <Pg Dn> to go to the next record, BULKMAIL will skip over all records not in the 809 zip code subset, and will give you the record in that subset with the next highest telephone number. If you search for the name, "jones", BULKMAIL will find it only if it's in the 809 zip code subset. A sort may take some time. If you're satisfied with the current sort, and just want to exclude records not in a particular subset, you may press <F9> and simply set the Filter. The disadvantage of this is that when you change records (Press the <Pg Dn> key, for instance), BULKMAIL may have to skip over a number of records before it finds another one that satisfies the Filter setting. This can delay moving from record to record. After you've used the Filter to select a subset of your mailing list, it's as if only that subset existed -- until you go back and change the Search Key or Filter again. -21- Section 5 Entering and Editing Records 5.3.2 Locating a Record If you press <Home>, BULKMAIL will display the "first" record in the file. If you're in "NAME" search mode, the "first" record will be the one with the lowest alphabetical value, disregarding the case of the letters. In other words, "PEAK INFOSYSTEMS" and "Peak InfoSystems" are identical as far as BULKMAIL is concerned. If you're in "ZIP" search mode, the "first" record in the file will be the one with the lowest zip code value. If you press <End>, BULKMAIL will display the "last" record in the file, based on the same considerations put forth in the paragraph above. <Pg Up> will give you the record "prior to" the one you're currently displaying. If you're in "NAME" sequence, you'll get the name with the next lower alphabetical value. If you're in "ZIP" mode, you'll get the next lower zip. <Pg Dn> will give you the next name in the sequence, or the next zip. In both cases, the "previous" name or zip and the "next" name or zip may be identical to the one you were looking at. The name's not likely to be the same unless you have duplicates in your file, but you may have dozens, or even hundreds of records in the file with the same zip code. It's possible to bypass the zip code field when you put records into BULKMAIL. If you've done that, the "first" record in zip sequence will have a blank zip code field. To find a record with a particular name, make sure the Search Key is set to "NAME", and then type in the name you want to find. The length of the name you enter is significant. If you have someone in your file with a name like "Burleson", or "Burle", or "Burl", or "Burt", and you can't remember which it is, enter [bur]. BULK- MAIL will display the first record in the file that begins with "bur". Notice again that case isn't significant in a search. Once you've found the first name beginning with "bur", you can use the <Pg Dn> key to move "down" through the file from "Burl" to "Burle" to "Burleson" to "Bert", until you find the one you're looking for. If you want to find the first record in the file beginning with "L", enter [L], and BULKMAIL will take you to be beginning of the "L"s. A zip code search works in the same way. All of the zip codes in Colorado Springs, Colorado, begin with "809". If you want to look at your records for Colorado Springs, first make sure you're in "ZIP" search mode and then enter [809]. BULKMAIL will display the first record in the Colorado Springs sequence, and you'll be able to move down through them with the <Pg Dn> key. -22- Section 5 Entering and Editing Records To edit or delete the record that's being displayed, press the left-arrow key. The edit mode display discussed above in Section 5.2 will appear and all of the edit options will be available to you. When you're through searching for records, press <Enter> and BULK- MAIL will return you to the main menu. 5.4 Setting a Template BULKMAIL's "Template" is a feature designed to make entering records into your mailing list easier and faster. Information you put into the Template appears automatically each time you enter a new record, and saves you the trouble of re-typing items such as city, state, and zip code. To set up a Template, press <S> from the edit screen. BULKMAIL will give you a display very similar to the edit mode display. All of the field prompts -- the reverse printed numbers -- are on except for the <1> next to Name. The choices displayed in the menu are: < > Number of Item to Change <Del> to Delete This Template <Enter> to Accept This Template You may enter information into any of the fields in the Template except for the name field. The fields you'll probably use most are the City, State and Zip fields. Press <4> to enter a city into the Template. Notice that when you do that, BULKMAIL gives you three options. If something was already in the City field, you may restore it by pressing <Enter>, or you may delete it by pressing <Del>. 5.4.1 Using a Circumflex in the Template The third option says, "Enter a ^ to skip this field during entry". If you put a circumflex "^" into the very FIRST character position of the field, BULKMAIL will skip over the field during record entry so that you don't have to press <Enter> to go on to the next field. This feature is available for each of the fields in your Template. You'll probably use it most with the second address line. A lot of addresses require only a street address. A few, such as those that include an apartment number, will require a second line. Even if you have a few records to enter that will require an apartment number, it may be worthwhile to use the circumflex in -23- Section 5 Entering and Editing Records the second address line, since BULKMAIL lets you go back and make the apartment number entry from edit mode in the skipped line. 5.4.2 Using an Asterisk in the Zip Code Template Field If you press <6>, BULKMAIL will give you the same prompts it gave you for the other Template fields, but it will also say, Enter * after digits for entry at end This is a cryptic way of saying that if you enter a number in the Template's zip code field, and follow it immediately with an asterisk "*", when you enter a new record, BULKMAIL will automati- cally insert the digits in the Template up to the asterisk and then will let you put in more digits beginning at the place where the asterisk was. For example, if you've entered "809*" into the Template, when you get to the zip code field during record entry, BULKMAIL will give you the following prompt: 809_______ The cursor will be positioned just after the "9", waiting for you to enter two or more additional digits. If you're entering a whole series of records for a single city that uses the same first three zip code digits throughout, this can be a real time saver. 5.4.3 Switches in the Template You can pre-set any of the switches in your Template so that they'll automatically be turned on when you enter a new record. You can also bypass the switches. When you press <0> from the Template entry menu, BULKMAIL gives you the same prompts and options it gives you in the switch edit mode, discussed above in Section 5.1.6. In this case, however, when you press <Enter> to leave the switch edit menu, BULKMAIL will ask you: Do you want to bypass switches during record entry (y/n)? : If you answer <Y>, BULKMAIL will bypass the switches during record entry. The effect is similar to the effect of the circumflex in one of the other Template fields. 5.4.4 Updating the Template on the Fly Having to return to the main menu to change your Template can be time consuming and can cut down on the speed advantage the Tem- plate gives you. As we explained above in Section 5.2.3, you can change the Template as you go along. If you use the <T> option from the edit mode, what goes into the Template is exactly what -24- Section 5 Entering and Editing Records you see in the field. If you want to put a circumflex into a field on the fly, first edit the line so that it has a circumflex in its first position, then use the <T> option to move it to the Template. The same thing applies to the zip code field. If you want to change zip codes and use the asterisk option, set up the zip code field exactly as you'd set it up from the Template menu; then use the <T> option to move it to the Template. You can change the switches in your Template with the <T> option, but you can't change the switches' "bypass" condition. If the Template is bypassing the switches or not bypassing the switches and you want to change that, you'll have to go back to the Tem- plate entry menu. 5.5 Marking and Unmarking Records Sort fields and the Filter give you a great deal of control over which records you edit or print. There are times, however, when individual examination is the best way to select what you want. BULKMAIL's "Mark" is a flag that you can set to identify a record you later want to print, delete, or do something else to. To set the Mark, press the right arrow key. The word, "->MARKED", will appear, reverse-printed, in the upper right portion of the record's display. To "un-mark" the record, press the right arrow key again. "Marked" records are recognized by the Filter. -25- Section 6 Printing 6. PRINTING LABELS AND LISTS To print labels or lists, press <2> at BULKMAIL's master menu. You'll get a new menu that contains the following entries: <1> Print Labels <2> Print Summary Lists <3> Print Record Lists <Enter> to Exit 6.1 Printing Labels If you press <1> from BULKMAIL's printing menu, you'll see the following menu: <1> Print Labels in Name Sequence <2> Print Labels in Zip Sequence <3> Check / Reset Printer Label Output <4> Check / Reset Filter Parameters <5> Configure Attention Line Output <Enter> to Exit Before you do anything else, it's a good idea to check, and if necessary, reset parameters in the three functions that determine which labels you print, how many you print, what the labels look like, and whether or not the printer output will fit on your labels. 6.1.1 Setting Printer Label Output You get to the Printer Control screen by pressing <3> from the label printing menu. The Printer Control screen allows you to set the left margin on your printer, number of spaces horizontally between labels, number of spaces vertically between labels, how many labels you're going to print in a row (number of labels "up"), what control codes you're going to send to your printer before you begin to print, and what control codes you're going to -26- Section 6 Printing send to your printer after you finish printing. Notice that there are three prompt numbers in the upper left part of the screen. Each prompt number is associated with a "ruler" line of numbers which allows you to read the setting for <1> Mar- gin, <2> Horizontal Space, and <3> Vertical Space. In this part of the display, the upper left corners of three labels are shown. As you change the settings, the labels will move around on the screen so that you can see graphically what the effect is. In the lower right part of the screen are three more prompt numbers which set <4> Labels in a row, <5> Initialization String, and <6> Cleanup String. The prompt at the bottom of the screen says, < > Dimension to Change, <T>est Output, or <Enter> to Exit: 6.1.1.1 Margin To tell BULKMAIL how many spaces to leave blank before it begins printing on the leftmost label, press <1>. BULKMAIL will ask you: [ ] New Margin (0 to 15): If you press <Enter> without entering a number, BULKMAIL will leave the margin setting unchanged. Otherwise, it will immedi- ately re-print the screen with the new margin width. If the number you enter is less than 0, BULKMAIL will set the left margin to 0. If you enter a number larger than 15, BULKMAIL will set the left margin to 15. 6.1.1.2 Vertical Space "Vertical Space" is the distance in spaces from the first line printed on one label to the first line printed on the next, in a vertical direction. To change the Vertical Space setting, press <2>. BULKMAIL will ask you: [ ] New Vertical Space (3 to 11): Enter an appropriate number and BULKMAIL will re-print the screen with the new Vertical Space. -27- Section 6 Printing 6.1.1.3 Horizontal Space "Horizontal Space" is the distance in spaces from the first letter printed on the leftmost label to the first letter printed on the next label to the right. When you press <3>, BULKMAIL will ask you: [ ] New Horizontal Space (32 to 50): and will re-draw the screen with your entry. 6.1.1.4 Labels in a Row "Labels in a Row" is the number of labels laterally across your sheet of labels. Press <4>, and BULKMAIL will ask you: < > Number of labels in a row (1 to 6): Entering a number higher than 2 won't add another label to the screen display, but when you print, you'll get the number of labels "up" that you called for. 6.1.1.5 The Initialization String The "Initialization String" is a string of characters BULKMAIL will send to your printer just before it begins printing labels. What you put in the string depends on what printer you're using and what you want your labels to look like. In order to enter a proper Initialization String, you'll have to do a little research in your printer manual. The Initialization String is always entered using the hexadecimal numbering system. For instance, one of the most common initiali- zation strings used with the Epson or IBM printer is the string "1B45", which sets the printer to "emphasized" mode. To enter an Initialization String, press <5>. BULKMAIL will tell you to enter: [ ] Initialization String (hex): ________________ The prompt line is 16 characters long. Each pair of hexadecimal digits represents a single character output to the printer. Enter your initialization string and press <Enter>. BULKMAIL will re- draw the screen with its interpretation of your initialization string. If you've used a number or letter that isn't a valid hex- adecimal digit, BULKMAIL will chop off your initialization string where you made the mistake. Check to make sure that what BULKMAIL displays is what you thought you put in. -28- Section 6 Printing 6.1.1.6 The Cleanup String In most instances, you won't want to bother with a "Cleanup String". You'll reset the printer anyway by turning it off to remove your labels. Just in case, though, BULKMAIL will accept a "Cleanup String" that re-sets the printer to its original state before "Initialization". Entering the Cleanup String is exactly the same as entering an Initialization String. 6.1.1.7 Testing Label Output Once you've configured your labels on the screen, you may want to make a trial run to see if the printer prints on the labels or misses them. To do that, press <T>. BULKMAIL will print two rows of labels with all the lines filled with "X"s. If the spacing isn't right, or you don't get the effect you expected from your Initialization String, make changes and then test again. 6.1.2 Setting the Filter It's important always to check the setting of BULKMAIL's Filter before you do a printing job. To get to the Filter configuration screen, press <4>. Setting the Filter is described in Section 8. 6.1.3 Configuring the Attention Line Output BULKMAIL's "Attention Line" is a flexible feature that allows you to do a number of things. If you print the Attention Line at the top of a label, it'll be printed exactly as you've entered it in your records. In other words, if you had a record for a business named "Acme Body Shop", with an Attention Line entry of "Mr. Robert Jones", and you printed a label with the Attention Line at the top, the label would come out: Mr. Robert Jones Acme Body Shop address line address line On the other hand, if you decided to have BULKMAIL print the same label with the attention line at the bottom, it would come out: Acme Body Shop address line address line Attn: Mr. Robert Jones -29- Section 6 Printing If you're creating a Merge File (Section 7.6.2 the attention line will be placed in the file in two ways: as "Mr. Robert Jones", and as "Mr. Jones". To configure the attention line for label printing, press <5>. BULKMAIL will give you a screen that shows a depiction of your label and will give you the following menu of choices: <1> Blank the top line <2> Use a title on the top line <3> Put the attention line at the top <4> Put the attention line at the bottom <Enter> to Exit 6.1.3.1 Using a Blank Top Line If you press <1>, BULKMAIL will re-print your label configuration screen to show the label with four lines on it. If you blank the top line, the printer will advance once before it prints the name line. 6.1.3.2 Using a Title on the Top Line A "Title" is a line -- up to 24 characters long -- that will be printed on the top line of each label in place of the Attention Line. For example, suppose you wanted to send a collection letter to a list of customers, and you wanted each letter to go to the Direc- tor of Purchasing. To do that, press <2> from the label confi- guration screen. BULKMAIL will say, Title: ________________________ and will let you enter "Director of Purchasing". When BULKMAIL re-draws its label configuration screen, the label will look like this: Director of Purchasing Name from the file Address Line Address Line Address Line The literal term "Director of Purchasing" has been substituted for an Attention Line. -30- Section 6 Printing 6.1.3.3 Putting the Attention Line at Top or Bottom Section 6.1.3 explained the effects of these two choices. To put the Attention Line at the top of the label, just as it's stored in your records, press <3>. To put the Attention Line at the bottom of the label, press <4>. In each case, BULKMAIL will immediately re-draw the configuration screen to show the appropriate confi- guration. 6.1.4 How the Address Lines Work Notice that when you were looking at the configuration screen, the label always contained three address lines. The number of address lines actually printed will depend on what's in a record. To see what happens when address lines are printed, let's look at some examples. In each case, we've configured the label so that the top line is blank. If you have a record with the following data in it: Name Marathon Mittens Address Line (blank) Address Line (blank) City State Zip Orogsburg CO 80823 The label will come out: Marathon Mittens Orogsburg, CO 80823 If you have a record with the following data in it: Name Jones; John Address Line 123 Woody Street Address Line (blank) City State Zip Colorado Spgs. CO 80901 The label will come out: John Jones 123 Woody Street Colorado Spgs., CO 80901 If you have a record with the following data in it: Name Jones; John Address Line (blank) Address Line 123 Woody Street City State Zip Colorado Spgs. CO 80901 -31- Section 6 Printing The label will come out the same as the previous one. If you have a record with the following data in it: Name Jones; John Address Line Kalverstraat 158 Address Line Amsterdam 1012 XE City State Zip Netherlands The label will come out: John Jones Kalverstraat 158 Amsterdam 1012 XE Netherlands Notice that in the first few examples, BULKMAIL put a comma after the name of the city and before the state. In the last example, since the state field was empty, BULKMAIL left out the comma. As we said at the beginning of this Manual, BULKMAIL was built for U.S. domestic mail, but, within limits, it's also useful for overseas mail. 6.1.5 Printing. Once you've configured the printer, the Filter, and the label, it's time to print. As soon as you press either <1> or <2> from the Label Printing menu, BULKMAIL will ask you to check to make sure your printer is ready and give you a chance to change your mind. Once you press <Enter> from this prompt, BULKMAIL will tell you how many labels there are in your file and will begin printing them. If you've set the Filter to exclude some of the records, you'll notice that as the printing progresses, the number of the record being printed will skip over some of the records. BULKMAIL tells you it's printing a record only when that record actually goes to the printer. You'll also notice that BULKMAIL runs through several records and then halts while the printer prints several labels. What's hap- pening is that your computer is filling its print buffer before it actually transfers data to the printer. The buffer can hold data for several labels. If you decide you want to quit for the night, press <S> -- just once. Depending on where in the process you caught it, BULKMAIL may go on and print a few more labels, but in a moment it will stop. -32- Section 6 Printing If you want to pick up next day where you left off, before you begin, reset the Filter as described in Section 8.2. 6.1.6 Bundle Markings on the Labels If you print your labels in zip code sequence, BULKMAIL will mark certain labels for bundling. BULKMAIL will supply markings in accordance with U.S. Postal Service bundling rules for "D" and "3" stickers. What these rules say is that: (1) if you have ten or more pieces whose first five zip-code digits are the same, you should bundle them together and place a "D" sticker on the bundle. (2) If you have ten or more pieces which haven't been bundled with a "D" sticker, but whose first three zip-code digits are the same, you bundle them together and place a "3" sticker on the bundle. Each time the first three digits in the zip code change, BULKMAIL will put either a hyphen "-" or an asterisk "*" in the lower right part of the label. If BULKMAIL has counted less than 10 labels that didn't qualify for a "D" sticker since the last change, you'll get a hyphen. If BULKMAIL has counted 10 or more labels that didn't qualify for a "D" sticker since the last change, you'll get an asterisk. Each time the fourth or fifth digits in the zip code change, pro- vided the change isn't accompanied by a change in the first three digits, BULKMAIL will put either a dot "." or a plus sign "+" in the lower right part of the label. If there have been less than 10 labels since the last change, BULKMAIL will print a dot. If there have been 10 or more labels since the last change, BULKMAIL will print a plus sign. If you're bundling bulk mail, every time you see a plus sign or an asterisk on a label, you know that you have to bundle the letters beginning with the one before the asterisk and going back to the one including the last hyphen, dot, plus, or asterisk. 6.2 Printing Record Lists Labels don't contain all the information you've put into your mailing list records. In order to get a complete picture of what's in your mailing list you must print a list that contains all the record's fields. To print a Record List, press <3> from the BULKMAIL printing menu, and BULKMAIL will give you the following menu: -33- Section 6 Printing <1> Print List in Name Sequence <2> Print List in Zip Sequence <3> Check / Reset Filter Parameters <Enter> to Exit As was the case with labels, you can set the Filter to give you a Record List that's a subset of your mailing list. To see how to set the Filter, see Section 8. When you press <1> or <2> to begin printing, BULKMAIL goes through the same sequence we described above for labels. Before it begins printing, however, BULKMAIL asks, [Title] or <F10> to Quit-->______________________________ You may enter a 30 character title that will appear at the top of each page in the output. If you press <Enter>, printing will begin without a title. If you press <F10>, printing will be aborted, and you'll be returned to the record list printing menu. Record lists require 132 column paper. If you have a printer that will produce compressed print, you may print record lists on stan- dard 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper. Otherwise, you'll have to print on wide paper. Section 7.7 explains how to set up BULKMAIL for compressed print. Each page of a Record List has a heading that contains the name of your mailing list file, a title, if you included one, the date and time you started printing the list, and the page number. Each page contains 18 records. A record in the list contains all of the information you've entered in each record. The number of a switch is printed only if it's turned on in the record. If no switches are on, no switch numbers will appear. 6.3 Printing Summary Lists A summary list is an abbreviated record list that prints each record on a single line of output, and includes name, both address lines, city, state, zip code, telephone number, and code. A significant difference between a record list and a summary list is that the summary list may be sorted on any field in the record, while a record list is confined to name and zip code sorts. To print a Summary List, press <2> from the BULKMAIL printing menu, and BULKMAIL will give you a screen that is identical to the -34- Section 6 Printing screen discussed above in Section 5.3.1. You may use BULKMAIL's sort and Filter features to print any sub- set of your mailing list that you want, sorted in the order you want. Once you select a sort order, BULKMAIL asks for a title, which will be printed at the top of each page in the same way it was for a record list. A Summary List is output in 132 column lines. -35- Section 7 Housekeeping 7. HOUSEKEEPING UTILITIES BULKMAIL has a number of utility functions, less often used than the functions that allow you to create and load mailing lists, enter and edit records, and print outputs. These functions are grouped together under the heading, "Housekeeping". 7.1 Defining the Switches BULKMAIL's switches allow you to set up categories of records that can be included or filtered out in any combination when you print lists or labels, create Merge Files, or transfer records from one mailing list to another. For a full discussion of how you can use BULKMAIL's switches, see Section 8. Naming the switches has no effect on BULKMAIL's performance. The names are there to remind you of what you're using the various switches for. For example, suppose you have a mailing list of customers. Some of the customers have an excellent credit history, others have a good one while still others may be deadbeats. You might want to define some of your switches as follows: 1. Good Credit 2. Fair Credit 3. Questionable Credit 4. Lousy Credit You don't need to worry too much about reserving a particular switch for a particular purpose. BULKMAIL will let you turn off a specific switch in all of the records in your mailing list and then re-define the meaning of that switch. You redefine the switch the same way you define it. You turn off the switch in all records using the "Switch Purge" option discussed in Section 7.2.1. To define or re-define switches, press <1> while you're at BULKMAIL's houskeeping menu. You'll get a new screen with two columns of eight numbers. The bottom line of the display will say, [ ] Switch Number to Define or <Enter> to Quit: -36- Section 7 Housekeeping To assign a name to a switch, type the number of the switch and press enter. A prompt line will appear next to the switch number you typed. If something was already in the switch definition and you decide you don't want to change it after all, press <Enter>. If something was there that you want to delete, press <Del>. Oth- erwise, type in the description you want to associate with that switch, and then press <Enter>. Once you've assigned descriptions to the switches, the descrip- tions will be available at the touch of a key when you turn switches on or off during record entry or record edit, and when you set up a Filter to do a printing job. 7.2 Turning Off Record Switches, Marks and Flags BULKMAIL's records contain three classification methods. One classification method is the sixteen switches referred to above, and discussed in detail in Section 8. A second method of classi- fying a record is to turn on its "Mark", discussed above in Sec- tion 5.5. A third method of classifying a record is the record's "Import Flag". The import flag is another "mark" that's turned on automatically when the record is first imported either through a Transfer File or an ASCII file. The operator has no control over this mark. It's created so that if there's been a mistake, you can purge the records you just loaded without having to go through and hand-mark all of them. 7.2.1 Turning Off Switches To turn off any single switch or group of switches, press <1> from the "Turn Off Switches and Flags" menu. BULKMAIL will display a screen very similar to the one you saw when you defined your switches. You may toggle switches on and off until you have the combination you want. When you're ready, press <P>. Since there's no way to turn the switches you've selected back on once they've been turned off, BULKMAIL asks you one more time, Are you sure--> (y/n)? : If you answer, "y" or 'Y', BULKMAIL will proceed to turn off the selected switches in every record in your mailing list. 7.2.2 Turning Off Marks and Flags The action of turning off Marks and Import Flags is identical. In each case, as soon as you press the appropriate number in the "Turn Off Switches and Flags" menu, BULKMAIL will ask you if you -37- Section 7 Housekeeping really mean it. Think for a moment before you answer, "y". Turn- ing off Marks or Import Flags is an irreversible action, unless you've made a backup just before you started doing this. 7.3 Finding and Marking Records You may mark a record manually, by using the right arrow key in edit mode. You may also use a Filter setting or a context search to set the "Mark" in each record that satisfies the Filter or search object. 7.3.1 Marking Records From a Filter Setting Why you'd want to mark records from a Filter setting may not be immediately evident. After all, the Filter setting itself will select a subset of records, and marking those records seems redun- dant. The reason you might want to mark records from a Filter setting is that once the mark is set, you can then convert the mark to some- thing else. For example, suppose you wanted to re-use a combination of switches, but wanted to identify the records that use those switches by setting a particular code in the record's "Code" field. To do this, you'd set up the Filter, using the switches you wanted to re-use, and mark the records that contained that particular switch combination. Once the mark has been set, you can turn off the switches, and then convert the mark to a Code, as described below in Section 7.4. The process of marking records from a Filter setting involves two obvious steps. First, you set up the Filter you want, and then you tell BULKMAIL to go ahead and set the marks. No "are you sure" safeguard has been included for this action, since the marks can be re-set. Note, however, that all records which DON'T meet the Filter criteria will have their marks turned OFF. 7.3.2 Marking Records From a Context Search This feature allows you to search any of your records' fields for a string of alphanumeric characters, and mark the record if the string was found. When you press <2> from the "Find and Mark Records" menu, BULKMAIL gives you a display somewhat similar to the display you got when you were ready to sort your data base on a field other than name or zip code. -38- Section 7 Housekeeping One significant difference is that both address lines are lumped together into a single field, called, "Street Address". To begin the search, select the field you want to search. BULK- MAIL will say, Search Pattern <Enter> to Quit-->____________ The length of the prompt line will be appropriate for the field you've selected. Enter a search pattern, and BULKMAIL will try to find that pattern in the field you selected, in each record in your mailing list file. The search ignores case in all fields except Zip code, Telephone Number, and Code. 7.4 Converting Marks Once a Mark or an Import Flag is set in a record, it may be con- verted to a switch pattern, in which specific switches are turned on, or it may be converted to an alphanumeric Code. Note that the word "converted" means what it says. When BULKMAIL finds a Mark or Import Flag, it takes the appropriate action, and then turns OFF the Mark or Import Flag. 7.4.1 Converting to Switches When you tell it you want to convert Marks or Import Flags to switches, BULKMAIL gives you a screen very similar to the one you saw when you turned off switches. This time, however, instead of turning off the switches you select, BULKMAIL will turn them on. 7.4.2 Converting to Code If you ask it to, BULKMAIL will convert Marks or Import Flags to a specific alphanumeric entry in the Code field. When you press <2> from either conversion menu, BULKMAIL will ask you to enter up to eight characters to be placed in the Code field of each record that contains a Mark or Import Flag. If you want to blank the code field of marked records, press <Del>. 7.5 Checking For Duplicates If you press <5> from the Housekeeping menu, BULKMAIL will say, Press <Enter> when printer is ready, or <Q>uit: Make sure your printer is on and loaded with paper. Then press <Enter>. BULKMAIL will go through your entire mailing list, -39- Section 7 Housekeeping looking for possible duplicates. Each time it finds a pair of records that may duplicate each other, it will print a pair of lines containing the names and zip codes of the two records. Checking for duplicates in a mailing list is an art rather than a science. Although it's possible to build an exhaustive duplicate checking routine, running such a routine can take a very long time. BULKMAIL's method of checking for duplicates isn't exhaus- tive. Sometimes it will report possible duplicates that aren't duplicates, and sometimes it will fail to report duplicates that actually exist. The main purpose of BULKMAIL's duplicate checking function is to eliminate duplicate records you've moved from another mailing list with a Transfer File (Section 7.6.3). The checking algorithm BULKMAIL uses is as follows: 1. Read in the next record in alphabetical order. 2. Read in the record after that in alphabetical order. 3. See if the first three digits of the zip codes are the same. If not, start over with 1. 4. See if the first word in the first record's name field can be found in the second record's name field. If not, start over with 1. 5. See if there's a numeric "word" in the first record's address 1 or address 2 fields. If not, start over with 1. 6. See if there's a numeric "word" in the second record's address 1 or address 2 fields that matches the numeric "word" from the first record. If not, start over with 1. 7. Print the names and zips for both records and start over with 1. Each time BULKMAIL "starts over with 1", the "next record" it reads in is the record that was the "record after that" on the previous check pass. As a result, if you have three or more records in a row that BULKMAIL thinks are duplicates, you'll see the same record repeated at least twice in the output. 7.6 Importing, Exporting, and Purging Records The "Import/Export/Purge Records" menu has five entries. -40- Section 7 Housekeeping 7.6.1 Exporting a Transfer File Transferring records from one mailing list to another involves two steps. First, you must create a Transfer File containing the records you want to transfer. Second, you must import the Transfer File into the object mailing list. To make a Transfer File, press <1> from the "Export/Import" menu. BULKMAIL will give you a new menu with the following choices: <F> Check / Reset Filter <E> Extract Records <Enter> to Exit The Filter will tell BULKMAIL which records to put into your Transfer File. Before you go any farther, press <1> to get to the Filter screen. Setting the Filter is explained in Section 8. Once you've set the Filter, press <2>. BULKMAIL will ask you to enter the name of your Transfer File. Make sure you specify a disk drive for the output that has enough space to hold your file. As soon as you've specified the name of the Transfer File, BULK- MAIL will create the file and begin putting records into it. You may stop the output at any time by pressing <S>, but you won't be able to continue the job later. Once your Transfer File is complete, use the import function described below in Section 7.6.3 with your object mailing list to complete the transfer. 7.6.2 Exporting a MailMerge File Most good word processors contain a feature that will let you merge "variables" from a data file into a form letter. BULKMAIL will create a data file that can be used with the merge feature of many such word processors. BULKMAIL's Merge File output is designed to be compatible with MicroPro International's "Mail- Merge", which works in conjunction with their "WordStar" word pro- cessor. 7.6.2.1 Creating a Merge File Creating a Merge File is very similar to exporting a Transfer File. When you press <2> from the "Export/Import" menu, you'll get the following menu: <1> Check / Reset Filter -41- Section 7 Housekeeping <2> Create Merge File in Name Sequence <3> Create Merge File in Zip Sequence <Enter> to Exit Check to make sure that the Filter (Section 8) is set up the way you want it to be. Then press <2> or <3> to begin creating the Merge File. Before it begins, BULKMAIL will ask you for the name of the Merge File you want to create. If your mailing list is on a crowded disk, make sure your output filename contains a driveletter for a disk that has space to take the file. Once you've specified a filename, BULKMAIL will proceed to create your Merge File with much the same screen information it used when it created a Transfer File. You may stop at any time. If you do stop, you can't pick up again later. 7.6.2.2 Merge File Format The Merge File created by BULKMAIL is an ASCII file. One line is printed for each record. A record line consists of the following fields: 1. "name (reversed)", 2. "first address line", 3. "second address line", 4. "city", 5. "state", 6. "zip", 7. "attention line", 8. "phone", 9. "code", 10. "modified attention line" 11. CARRIAGE RETURN 12. LINE FEED -42- Section 7 Housekeeping Each of the fields in the line is separated by a comma. The line is terminated with a carriage return/line feed combination. All of the fields are surrounded with quotation marks so that a comma included in a field will be properly interpreted. Note that if you've used a semicolon in a name, the name will be reversed in your Merge File output, just as it was on label out- put. The attention line is put into the Merge File in two forms. In the seventh field it's printed just as you entered it in the record. In the tenth field it's compressed to contain the first and last words you entered in the record. If there's only one word in the attention line, only that word is output. For example, if you entered "Ms. Sally Jones" in the attention line, field eight will be printed as "Ms. Jones". If you entered "Sally" in the attention line, field eight will be printed as "Sally". The purpose of this squeezing is to let you construct a form letter that begins with a salutation like, "Dear Ms. Jones", or "Dear Sally". Although this is a useful feature, it has some pit- falls. If you try to mix both the "Dear Ms. Jones" and "Dear Sally" forms, and then create a letter using the attention line at the top and the "Dear Sally" salutation, the top of your letter will look like this: Sally Grindalong Axle Company 173 Blakensfield St. Overshoeville, OH 45454 Dear Sally, Unless you're going to have a mailing list that uses nothing but first names and nicknames in the attention line, better be more formal and stick with the "Dear Ms. Jones" format. Another pitfall is that if you use a title like "Lt. Col. Jones", your salutation will come out, "Dear Lt. Jones". This is not a good way to deal with Col. Jones as a customer. Once you've created a Merge File, you can see the actual format by using the DOS "TYPE" command. An example of what you'll see is as follows: A record containing: Name Whitby's Floor Coverings Address Line 123 Old Mill Address Line (empty) City State Zip Bordersville MO 56567 -43- Section 7 Housekeeping Attn Line Mr. Marc C. Whitby Phone Code 6851137 ABC will produce the following output line (as a single line): "Whitby's Floor Coverings","123 Old Mill","","Bordersville", "OH","56567","Mr. Marc C. Whitby","6851137","ABC","Mr. Whitby" 7.6.3 Importing a Transfer File The <3> selection from the "Export/Import" menu allows you to merge a Transfer File into the mailing list you're working with; in other words, to add a group of records extracted from another mailing list. Moving records from one mailing list to another requires two steps: First, you must create a Transfer File containing the records to be moved. Second, you must merge the Transfer File with your object mailing list. Section 7.6.1 tells you how to make a Transfer File. When you press <3> from the "Export/Import" menu, BULKMAIL will ask you, Transfer File Name or <Enter> to Exit: ______________ Enter the name of the Transfer File you created earlier. If BULK- MAIL can find your Transfer File, it will open it, check its con- tents, and give you one of the following responses: If the file you named wasn't a Transfer File, BULKMAIL will say: filename Is Not a Transfer File and will ask you for the Transfer File name again. If the Transfer File contains too many records to fit in your mailing list's remaining free space, BULKMAIL will say, Not Enough Free Records Available to Load Transfer File and will return you to the menu. If all is well, BULKMAIL will begin merging the records from the Transfer File into your mailing list. Once you begin this opera- tion, you can't stop it until it's complete. As soon as all the records from the Transfer File have been merged into your mailing list, BULKMAIL will ask you, -44- Section 7 Housekeeping Erase Transfer File (y/n)? : If you're making a single Transfer From one mailing list to another, press <Y>. If you intend to make a transfer from one mailing list to several others, press <N>. 7.6.4 Importing an ASCII File ASCII is an abbreviation for "American Standard Code for Informa- tion Interchange". A number of database management and list management systems allow you to make a disk file in ASCII code. To import an ASCII file, press <4> at the "Export/Import" menu. BULKMAIL will ask you for the name of the file to be imported, and, if it can find the file you've named, will begin importing what it understands to be records from that file. 7.6.4.1 WARNING -- ASCII File Import Errors Unlike BULKMAIL's standard Transfer Files, there's no way for the system to check the validity of an ASCII file. If the file isn't in ASCII, or if the file's in the wrong format, BULKMAIL will go merrily about the business of trying to import it. The result can be terrible garbage in your mailing list. For this reason, WE RECOMMEND STRONGLY THAT YOU MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR MAILING LIST JUST BEFORE YOU BEGIN TO IMPORT ASCII DATA. If it turns out that there's something wrong with the input file, you can recover quickly by bringing forward the backup file. If you do import garbage, you probably can remove it by purging the records with their "Import Flags" set. There's a possibility, however, that incoming garbage will corrupt your mailing list so badly that BULKMAIL can't understand it any more. In addition, if Import Flags were already set in other records, those records will be deleted along with the bad ones. 7.6.4.2 ASCII File Import Format BULKMAIL expects an ASCII file to be in a specific format for import. Each record ends with a carriage return / linefeed combination. In other words, each record is a single line of text. Each field in a record, except the first and last, is bounded by a comma at its beginning, and a comma at its end. The first field is bounded by a comma at its end. The last field is bounded by a comma at its beginning. -45- Section 7 Housekeeping If there are spaces within a field, the field must also be sur- rounded by double quotes. Each record may contain the following fields. The fields must be in the order indicated. Not all fields must be present. As soon as BULKMAIL comes to a carriage return / linefeed combination, it skips any fields in the current record not yet filled. 1. Name, 30 characters 2. Address Line 1, 25 characters 3. Address Line 2, 25 characters 4. City, 15 characters 5. State, 2 characters 6. Zip Code, 10 characters 7. Attention Line, 25 characters 8. Telephone Number, 10 characters 9. Code 8 characters The following would be a valid record, containing Name, Address Line 1, City, State, and Zip Code. Note that Address Line 2 is present, as a result of the two commas next to each other, but has no data in it. The Attention Line, Telephone Number, and Code have been left out, and will be blank in the resulting mailing list record. "Jones; John W.","123 Whitby Street",,Alakon,MO,12345 The following is an invalid version of the same record. The dou- ble quotes have been left off the name. Jones; John W.,"123 Whitby Street",,Alakon,MO,12345 In the following record, the double commas have been left out. As a result, Address Line 2 will contain, "Alakon"; City will con- tain, "MO", and State will contain, "12". 7.6.5 Purging Records In most instances, you'll want to delete records from your mailing list a record at a time. There are situations, however, that call for a whole class of records to be deleted at once. If you've moved records from one mailing list to another using a Transfer File, you'll probably want to delete the records you transferred -46- Section 7 Housekeeping from the source mailing list. For certain kinds of mailing lists, you may want to delete old records periodically -- ones that haven't been updated since a particular date. Purging records from a mailing list is a very extensive and poten- tially very destructive operation. BULKMAIL will purge exactly the records you tell it to, but it can't make sure that what you told it to do is what you really wanted to do. Once the purge is complete, there's no way to recover the records you've eliminated. BEFORE YOU BEGIN A RECORD PURGE, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A CURRENT BACKUP OF THE MAILING LIST YOU'RE PURGING! To delete a group of records, press <5> from the "Export/Import" menu. BULKMAIL will give you a new set of prompts: <1> Check / Reset Filter <2> Remove Records <Enter> to Exit First, press <1>, and make sure that the Filter is set to define the records you want to delete. Section 8 covers the use of the Filter. Once you're sure the Filter is set properly, press <2>. BULKMAIL will ask you "Are You Sure (y/n)? :", just in case your finger slipped and you pressed <2> when you meant <1> or <Enter>. As soon as you answer <Y>, BULKMAIL will proceed to eliminate the records identified by the Filter. 7.7 Configuring the Printer If you're using 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper in your printer, you'll have to use compressed type to print record and summary lists. Pressing <7> from the "Housekeeping" menu allows you to enter strings of hexadecimal numbers to be sent to your printer at the beginning of these lists. The first string should be the one you find in your printer book that produces compressed print. The second should be the string that puts your printer back into nor- mal printing mode. Note that these codes may be different than the ones you tell BULKMAIL to use in printing labels (Section 6.1.1.5). By default, BULKMAIL uses hexadecimal "0F" to compress print, and hexadecimal "12" to "uncompress" it. These are standard codes for the Epson and a number of other printers. -47- Section 7 Housekeeping The printer configuration codes you enter here, as well as the Template and label printing configuration are stored with each mailing list. If your printer uses configuration codes different from these, you'll have to be sure to change the codes in each mailing list you produce. 7.8 Repairing a Damaged Mailing List Some days are just bad days. A bad day is the day on which, after entering 529 new records into a mailing list, the power fails. After you get the computer turned back on and load BULKMAIL, you find that you can't locate any of the records you just put in. BULKMAIL's mailing list repair utility was created for just such a day. Unless you've physically damaged your disk, it's very prob- able that BULKMAIL will recover everything in your mailing list, except perhaps that 529th record that hadn't been entered com- pletely. To invoke the repair utility, press <8> at the "Housekeeping" menu. BULKMAIL will ask you whether or not you really mean it. The rea- son for this is that once you begin to recover records -- even on a mailing list in good condition, you must let the process run to completion. Otherwise, the sort keys will end up badly scrambled. As soon as you answer by pressing <Y>, BULKMAIL will begin recov- ering records, constantly reporting which record it's working on. If your mailing list is large, it may take some time for BULKMAIL to finish up. BULKMAIL has to look at every record in the mailing list, whether there's anything in it or not. But BULKMAIL won't take as long to recover your mailing list as it would take you to re-type all those records. 7.9 Changing the Password BULKMAIL has limited password protection to prevent casual intru- sion into your mailing lists. A good programmer or mathematician with the proper tools will be able to unlock your mailing lists even though you've protected them with passwords. If you're wor- ried about serious intrusion, use floppy disks for your mailing lists, and lock them up in a safe. In spite of this warning, you should recognize that BULKMAIL's password protection is good enough to keep you out of a mailing list unless you're a programmer and have the proper tools and a lot of time, or unless you're willing to turn the job of breaking the password over to a professional and pay the price to have it done. IF YOU USE PASSWORDS, DON'T FORGET THEM! -48- Section 7 Housekeeping You may enter a password at the time you create a mailing list, or you may leave it out. If you want to change the password later or put a password into a file that hasn't one, press <9> from BULKMAIL's "Housekeeping" menu. A prompt similar to the one you saw when you created your mailing list, will appear near the bot- tom of the screen. Enter your new password, or press <Enter> to delete the password. Your password may be any combination of letters, numbers, or spe- cial symbols that you can type on the keyboard -- up to 30 charac- ters long. -49- Section 8 The Filter 8. THE FILTER BULKMAIL's Filter is the feature that allows you to select subsets of your mailing list when you print labels or lists, create a Merge File, transfer records to another mailing list, or purge records. In addition, if you begin printing a very large set of labels or a long record list and decide you want to quit for the night before the job's complete, you can pick up where you left off by using the Filter to tell BULKMAIL where to continue print- ing. You can define a subset of your mailing list on the basis of the following factors: switches, name, zip code, date of last edit, code, mark, or import flag. 8.1 Selecting and Rejecting Records With Switches At the top of the Filter-setting screen you'll see four boxes with prompt numbers [1] through [4]. When you first look at the screen, the leftmost boxes will say, "SELECT ALL", and the right- most boxes will say, "REJECT NONE". In this configuration, BULKMAIL's Filter switches will accept all of the records in your mailing list. The switches let you define a subset of your records in two ways: you may select records using the first two boxes and you may reject records using the last two boxes. 8.1.1 The Or Select To alter the switches in the "Or Select" box, press [1]. The "[1]" will begin flashing and the sixteen switches you're familiar with will be displayed. The prompts at the bottom of the screen will be replaced with the switch definitions you entered as described in Section 7.1. You may now toggle any of the switches in the usual way (Section 5.1.6), you may turn off all the switches by pressing the <Del> key, or you may accept the switch settings by pressing <Enter>. When you exit the switch box by pressing <Enter>, if all the switches are off, the box will again display the "SELECT ALL" message. If any of the switches are on, the switch numbers will remain in the box. "Or Select" means that the Filter will select records from your mailing list that have any of the switches turned on that you've turned on in the "Or Select" box. In other words, if you turn on -50- Section 8 The Filter switches 1, 3, and 5, the Filter will accept any record from your mailing list that has either switch 1, 3, OR 5 turned on. If the Filter sees a record that has switches 1, 4, 8, 9, and 14 turned on, it will accept that record because it has switch number 1 turned on. If the Filter sees a record that has switches 2, 4, 8, 9, and 10 turned on, it won't accept it because neither switches 1, 3, nor 5 is on. 8.1.2 The And Select You turn the "And Select" switches on and off in the same way you toggle the "Or Select" switches. "And Select" means that the Filter will select records from your mailing list that have the combination of switches turned on that you've defined in the "And Select" box. In other words, if you turn on switches 1, 3, and 5, the Filter will accept any record from your mailing list that has all of switches 1, 3, AND 5 turned on. If the Filter sees a record that has switches 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 14 turned on, it will accept that record because it has switches 1, 3, and 5 turned on. If the Filter sees a record that has switches 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, and 14 turned on, it won't accept it because although switches 1 and 3 are on, switch 5 isn't on. 8.1.3 The And Reject "And Reject" means that the Filter will reject records in your mailing list that have the combination of switches turned on that you've defined in the "And Reject" box. If you turn on switches 1, 3, and 5, the Filter will reject any record from your mailing list that has switches 1, 3, AND 5 turned on. If the Filter sees a record that has switches 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 14 turned on, it will reject the record because it has all of switches 1, 3, and 5 turned on. If the Filter sees a record that has switches 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, and 14 turned on, it will accept it because although switches 1 and 3 are on, switch 5 isn't on. 8.1.4 The Or Reject Notice that we've been moving from switch Filters that are less restrictive to those that are more restrictive. The "Or Reject" is the most restrictive Filter of all. "Or Reject" means that the Filter will reject records in your mailing list that have any of the switches turned on that you've turned on in the "Or Reject" box. If you turn on switches 1, 3, and 5, the Filter will reject any record that has either switch 1, 3 OR 5 turned on. If the Filter sees a record that has switches 1, 4, 8, 9, and 14 turned on, it will reject it because switch 1 is on. If the Filter sees a record that has switches 2, 4, 8, 9, and 10 turned on, it will accept that record because neither -51- Section 8 The Filter switch 1, 3, nor 5 is on. 8.1.5 An Example of Switch Filtering Suppose you're a software author who sells material through vari- ous publishers. In order to pick a target market for each of your creations you build a mailing list with switch definitions that will let you zero in on the best prospects for a particular pro- duct. You define your switches as follows: 1 Simultaneous Submissions OK 2 3 Buys All Rights 4 5 Submit Program 6 Submit Proposal 7 8 9 Utility 10 Financial 11 Games 12 Specialized 13 14 MS-DOS 15 UNIX 16 TRS-80 You create a professional billing program and you're ready to sub- mit it to as many publishers as possible. You define the market you're aiming at as those publishers who: 1. Will accept simultaneous submissions. 2. Will accept a non-exclusive contract. 3. Will look at a proposal rather than requiring you to submit the complete program. 4. Publish utility or financial software. 5. Publish software for MS-DOS. You also decide that you don't want to submit your program to any game publishers. An "Or Select" with switches 9 and 10 turned on will take care of selecting only records for publishers who publish utility or financial software. An "And Select" with switches 1, 6, and 14 turned on will select only those publishers who allow simultaneous submissions, accept -52- Section 8 The Filter proposals, and publish MS-DOS software. You've also said you don't want to submit your software to anyone who buys all rights or who publishes game programs. The words "don't" and "or" indicate that you need an "Or Reject" with switches 3 and 11 set. Once your Filter is set up in this way, only those publishers who meet your requirements will be printed in your output list. 8.2 Selecting and Rejecting Records Using Name BULKMAIL's Filter allows you to start selecting and stop selecting records on the basis of the name field. As was the case with searches (Section 5.3.2), the length of the name you enter is sig- nificant. Suppose you have a mailing list that has the following entries in it: - - Brink; Allan Brower; Alice Brown; Henry - - Wallace; Priscilla Walrop; Billy Walters; Eugene - - You want to print a set of labels that begins with Alice Brower and ends with Billy Walrop. To do that, first enter [5] from the Filter-setting screen. You'll get a prompt line next to the "Start With" name. You may enter "brower, "brow", or simply "bro" in order to begin with the next name after "Brink". Now, enter [6] and on the prompt line next to the "End With" name, enter "walrop", or "walr" in order to stop printing with the last name before "Walters". Notice that if you enter only "wal", Engene Walters will be included in your labels. If you want to print all the names in your list that begin with "W", use the [5] call and enter [W]. Then, use the [6] call and enter [W] again. BULKMAIL will begin printing when it sees the first record whose name begins with "W" or "w" and will stop printing when it sees the first record that starts with something later in the alphabet than "W" or "w". -53- Section 8 The Filter If you're printing a long list in alphabetical order and want to quit for the night, you may use this feature to pick up the next day where you left off. 8.3 Selecting and Rejecting Records With Zip Code and Code "Start With" and "End With" works exactly the same way for zip code and "code" as it does for name. If you want to print all the records for a particular city, look up the range of zip codes for the city. Unless the city is very large, the first three digits of the code probably will be the same throughout the city. For example, Colorado Springs, Colorado has zip codes that begin with "809". To print all the records in your mailing list for Colorado Springs, use the [7] call and enter [809], then use the [8] call and enter [809] again. Only the records for Colorado Springs will be printed. If you want to print all records that have a code that begins with "C" through "K", enter "C" in the "Start With" field for Code, and "K" in the "End With" field. 8.4 Selecting and Rejecting Records With Edit Date As we mentioned in Section 5.2.4, each time you enter a new record or edit an existing one, the "Date of Last Edit" in the record is set to the system date you entered when you turned on your com- puter. It's possible to select records to print, transfer, or purge based on the "Date of Last Edit". Entering "Start With" and "End With" dates works very much like entering "Start With" and "End With" names or zip codes. When you use the [ 9] or [10] call, BULKMAIL will prompt you to enter a date in "MMDDYY", "MMDD" or "DD" format. What this means is that if no date is present, you should enter "MM" -- month, followed by "DD" -day, followed by "YY" -year. In other words, you'd enter March 12, 1984 as "031284". If a date is already present in the field, you may change month and day by entering just those items: ("0312"), or you may change just the day: ("12"). The most common uses of the date portion of the Filter are to cull out records that haven't been modified since a certain date, or to print a list of records that have been entered or modified since a certain date. To find all the records that haven't been modified since December, 1983, use the [10] call and enter "123183". BULKMAIL will then print only those records up to and including December 31, 1983. -54- Section 8 The Filter To find all the records you've entered since December, 1983, use the [ 9] call and enter "010184". BULKMAIL will print only those records that have a date equal to or later than January 1, 1984. 8.5 Selecting Records on Marks and Import Flags. Calls [13] and [14] from the Filter-setting function allow you to print only the records that are marked, or that have their import flags turned on. Both of these calls are "selection" calls. There is no corresponding "rejection" based on these elements. If you need to reject records on the basis of Marks or Import Flags, you'll have to convert the Marks or Import Flags to Switches. 8.6 Combining Filter Elements. You may use BULKMAIL's Filter with any combination of elements. For instance, in the example of Section 8.1.5, if you decided that in addition to the other criteria, you wanted to send your software proposal only to publishers in San Francisco and only to your most recently discovered publishers, say those you've entered into your mailing list since January, 1986, you could enter the zip code range for San Francisco using calls [ 7] and [ 8], and use call [ 9] to reject all the records entered before January 1, 1986. 8.6 Resetting The Filter If you press <Del> from the Filter-setting screen, BULKMAIL will ask you if you really want to do that, just in case you pressed <Del> by mistake. If you answer <Y>, BULKMAIL will turn off everything in the Filter and put it in a configuration that will select your entire mailing list for printing or purging. It's a good idea to get into the habit of clearing the Filter with <Del> each time before you set up the Filter for a particular job. 8.7 Counting Filter Selections You may be curious to know how many records BULKMAIL is going to print, transfer, or purge with a given Filter setting. To find out, press <C>. Bulkmail will make a run through your mailing list and will tell you how many records the Filter selected. Counting record selections is a good way to check the Filter set- ting. If you get a lot fewer or a lot more records in the count than you expected to get, you probably made a mistake in your set- tings. In our software submission example, above, a count may tell you that you've been too restrictive and that the Filter isn't selecting anyone. At that point, you can decide what res- triction you want to loosen in order to select at least one -55- Section 8 The Filter publisher. 8.8 Exiting the Filter Setting Screen When you're satisfied with your Filter setup for the job you're about to do, press <Enter> and you'll be returned to the menu from which you called the Filter setting screen. -56- INDEX access denied, 15 address, 16 address lines, 31 and reject, 51 and select, 51 angle brackets, 15 ascii file import format, 45 importing, 45 asterisk, with zip code, 24 attention line, 17, 29 BIGMAIL.EXE, 4 capacity, 11 buffers, 4 case, 9 circumflex, 23 city, 16 cleanup string, label, 29 code, 17 counting filter selections, 55 date, edit, 54 default drive, 12 deleting records, 19 drive, default, 12 driveletter, 12 duplicates, checking for, 39 extension, filename, 12 field, 7 field caption, 8 field prompt, 8 filename, 15 display, 14 extension, 12 filter, 9, 29, 50 settings, 20 fixed disk, 5 floppy disk, 4 number of records on, 11 horizontal space, 28 import flag, 55 import flags, turning off, 37 initialization string, label, 28 label output, testing, 29 labels, 26 bundling marks on, 33 labels in a row, 28 list record, 33 summary, 34 MAIL.EXE, 4 capacity, 11 mailmerge file exporting, 41 format, 42 margin, on labels, 27 mark, 25, 55 converting, 39 from filter setting, 38 marks bundling, on zip code order labels, 33 turning off, 37 menu, 7 merge file, 9 name, 53 reversing, 16, 18 or reject, 51 or select, 50 password, 12, 14, 48 printer configuring, 47 configuring for labels, 26 prompt, 7 prompt line, 8 purging records, 46 record, 7 record list, 33 records number of, 12 purging, 46 recovering mailing list, 48 reject and, 51 or, 51 reversing name, 16 search key, 20 search mode, 20 select and, 51 or, 50 semicolon, name divider, 16 state, 16 summary list, 34 switches, 17, 24 defining, 36 turning off, 37 telephone number, 17 template, 9, 19, 23 title on record list, 34 on top of label, 30 transfer file, 9 exporting, 41 importing, 44 vertical space, 27 zip code, 16, 54 asterisk with, 24