QED
The original large document editor for
PalmPilot
organizers.
INTRO
The "notepad" application built in to the PalmPilot family of organizer has
a tiny limit on document size (4K).
QED
has no such limit and can be used for
editing very large documents.
QED
uses standard DOC format files. DOC refers to the defacto standard
file format used for large text documents on the PalmPilot organizer.
This file format optionally compresses the contents, using
dramatically less of the organizer's memory.
Such files are also called "e-texts". One popular source of e-texts
is MemoWare.
INSTALLATION
- You may need WinZip
to uncompress QED.ZIP after downloading.
Mac users may need ZipIt.
- Install QED.PRC
using the standard Pilot PC desktop install tool.
QED
can be used freely as a DOC reader. When used to edit,
QED
will regularly nag you to register. If you're like me,
you'll quickly see that
QED
is what you've been waiting
for... Unlimited size document editing on the PalmPilot.
Easy to use, very stable, and it's CHEAP!!! So come to
http://visionary2000.com/qed
to buy.
After registering, you'll receive by email a registration code keyed
to your organizer's HotSync ID.
HotSync ID is the "user" name maintained in the Pilot desktop program.
HotSync ID is NOT the same as the "owned by" name maintained in your
organizer on the Applications/Preferences/Owner screen.
QED
has been extensively tested and works perfectly on
all Palm models running OS2.0 or later.
This includes the original Personal and Professional,
as well as all Palm III, V, and newer models.
It is not compatible with the old 1000/5000 models
unless an OS2 upgrade chip has been installed.
QED
works fine with
TRG
memory expansion products, and with the
GoType
keyboard.
PURCHASING
The freely downloadable copy of
QED
is intended as a trial version.
It allows customers to confirm that
QED
is satisfactory and
compatible with their organizer. It has no limits, it just nags.
To register
QED
which deactivates the nag messages, go to
http://visionary2000.com/qed
and fill in the order form.
Enter your PalmPilot HotSync ID on the order form.
HotSync ID is the "user" name maintained in the Pilot desktop program.
It is shown on
QED's
Options/Register menu.
HotSync ID is not the same as the "owned by" name maintained in
your organizer.
For fastest processing, enter a credit card order on our
standard
or secure
forms. Email support@visionary2000.com
for info on other ordering options.
LEGAL
QED
is copyright 1999, Kurt Schuster, all rights reserved.
The trial version file may be freely distributed
in unmodified form. The
QED
executable may be
used freely by individuals assessing it's suitability
for purchase. No other use, distribution, reproduction
or modification whatsoever is permitted.
Registration entitles the purchaser to a single user
license to use
QED
on a single organizer. No other use
is permitted. Changing an organizer's HotSync ID or
installation on multiple organizers may require the purchase
of additional registrations.
Purchasers may freely download future updates and will be
able to use their existing registration number. This
policy may not continue indefinitely.
It is assumed that the purchaser has evaluated
QED
prior to purchase and accepted it as satisfactory.
Therefore no refunds will be given.
Though tens of thousands of users have shown
QED
to be stable and
safe, no program is perfect. The purchaser must be aware
of the possibility of data loss connected with the use of
any program.
AUTHOR
QED
was created and is maintained by Kurt Schuster who resides in
Weiden in North Bavaria. Please direct correspondence to
support@visionary2000.com
though you may also send praise, problem reports, or questions to
the author at kurt.schuster@t-online.de You may also visit Kurt's home page at
http://home.t-online.de/home/kurt.schuster
INSTRUCTIONS
Screen buttons:
The screen buttons are as follows:
1. Create new document.
2. Open a document.
3. Search / Search Again
Split arrow button functions are listed by base / point.
4. Line Up / Screen Up
5. Line Down / Screen Down
6. Column Left / Screen Left
7. Column Right / Screen Right
8. Move through document.
Tap the head or foot of this scrollbar to skip to the
top or bottom of document.
9. Bookmark functions.
Note that the small SEARCH icon mentioned above searches only
the current DOC. For a GLOBAL FIND through all DOCs in the
currently selected category tap the Palm's built-in FIND button.
To search all DOCs, select the category ALL from the file list.
File Manager:
The buttons on the file dialog are as follows:
1. Category functions.
Select which category's documents are currently listed above,
and maintain the database of categories.
2. File Functions.
By default, this menu is set to select a file to load.
Simply select a file and click OK.
To change the category of a document, or to delete or
rename a document, tap the desired function then tap
a document name. You will be prompted to confirm
a rename or delete.
3. Cancel/OK.
FILE menu
The FILE menu includes the expected OPEN, NEW, SAVE, RENAME, DELETE,
and INFO commands. NEW creates a blank document, either compressed or
not depending on your default preferences. SAVE and CLOSE are not really
necessary on an organizer where there is no disk drive, and they both simply
perform a buffer flush. INFO shows the document size and name.
SAVE AS allows you to make a copy of a DOC, optionally with a different
compression from the original.
EDIT menu
Standard CUT, COPY, PASTE and UNDO operations.
Also includes FIND and FIND AGAIN for searching the current
DOC. For a GLOBAL FIND through all DOCs in the currently
selected category tap the Palm's built-in FIND button.
BOOKMARK displays the bookmark menu, described later.
OPTIONS menu
Use the REGISTER menu to stop the nags after you have
purchased your QED registration.
Tap MENU, tap OPTIONS, tap REGISTER and enter your registration code.
DEFAULT PREFERENCES controls how newly loaded or
created documents will be configured. There are settings
for creating new documents compressed or not, as well as defaults
for all the DOC PREFS shown below.
DOCUMENT PREFERENCES controls settings for a given DOC
including SCREEN WIDTH, FONT, EDITABLE, RULED,
BACKUP and PRIVATE. SCREEN WIDTH is one of
QED's best features.
QED uses a wide
"virtual screen" where a user can pan left and right.
The width is specified in pixels, from 160 to 1200.
Your document will be word wrapped at the specified width.
The PalmPilot screen is 160 pixels. Use this setting for
reading bulk text such as books. Use higher settings
for documents such as lists, source code, and documentation
where wide formatting must be retained.
EDITABLE is an important flag. If a document is left
not editable it is "read only". In this mode
QED
operates like older DOC viewers. A document can be browsed by
tapping the screen to scroll. The Ruled option displays the
dotted screen lines. You may also select a FONT from
any of the standard proportionally
spaced ones, the large extremely readable one,
or a special mono spaced font perfect for programmers.
If marked PRIVATE a document is only shown on
file lists when the organizer's security is set to show
private records. The BACKUP flag indicates that a document
has been changed and will be copied to the PC during the
next HotSync. Use this to manually force or prevent
a backup.
DOCUMENT PREPARATION
Win95 users can use
QEX,
our PC/QED Document Exchange Utility.
QEX
registration is free with the purchase of
QED.
Download from
http://visionary2000.com/qed/qex.htm
Word97/2000 should use
PalmDocs,
an add-in to directly load/save PalmPilot DOC files at
http://visionary2000.com/palmdocs
You can also prepare a file for
QED
using one of these utilities:
For the most current list of converters visit
MemoWare's How To page at
http://www.memoware.com/mw-helpm.htm.
M.S.Word and other similar high end programs store documents
in complex binary formats. To convert a file for use on your
organizer it must first be saved as text. In Word for example,
one must use SAVE AS and select TEXT as the TYPE. Similarly,
the document once converted back from QED is a simple text
file. It can be opened in Word or Notepad or
BigDOC for example.
QED
works fastest on DOCs which will be edited,
if they are prepared without compression.
ADVANCED
BEAMING
Use BeamBox available at
http://www.inkverse.com/beambox.html
to send DOCs by infrared between
QED on two organizer.
QED
and BeamBox must be installed on both organizers.
CLIPBOARD LIMIT
Though
QED
has no document size limit, the PalmOS clip board is
limited to only 1K! That's just a few screens full.
The program ClipHack available at
http://www.deskfree.com/ClipHack.html
increases this limit to 28K and is compatible with
QED.
BACKING UP
QED is certified to work
well with the popular BackupBuddy program available
from http://intellisys.base.org
to preserve the entire contents of your organizer's memory.
BOOKMARKS
QED
is compatible with DOC standard bookmarks.
The bookmarks feature has several distinct usages:
- An author may include bookmarks in a PC source document.
This is done by placing a special character between <> symbols
(less than / greater than) at the end of a file. Example (as the
last line in a document):
<*>
Then, place that mark (without the <> symbols) at the start of lines
in the content. Convert the file and view it on a PalmPilot.
In QED, tap BOOKMARK, SCAN (if not set to auto-scan).
The DOC is scanned and the marked points are automatically added to the
bookmark list, using the text after the mark as the bookmark name.
Many DOC files come with bookmarks included in this way.
- A user may add bookmarks while viewing a document.
While viewing a document, tap the bookmark symbol (paper clip),
tap add, and enter a name when prompted.
- A user may manually insert bookmarks using QED.
Like the PC method, a user can manually type bookmark characters
such as * in a DOC, and append a <*> at the end.
Running SCAN would then find and record these.
Technical notes:
In may sometimes be necessary to manually tell QED
the bookmark character if the automatic scan does not work right.
Get to the end of the document. Mark and Edit/Copy the bookmark character
(the character between the < > marks).
Bring up the Options/BookChar field, pop up the keyboard and
Edit/Paste the character in. Then use Bookmark/Scan.
The DOC format stores the list of bookmarks in a table of data appended to
the end of the document text. This occurs when a DOC is scanned, or if
bookmarks are added when viewing.
QED
adheres to this format.
This can be troublesome for authors. If a DOC is edited
and bookmarks are added, then the DOC is converted back to PC text
(using
QEX
for example), the PC file will appear to have lines
of garbage appended to the end. This chunk may be safely marked and
deleted off. Alternately, do not use the bookmark feature in documents
being editing.
Also, do not attempt to reinstall a file with bookmarks taken from a Pilot
user backup directory. It has been reported that the appended bookmark
data will cause unintended results if reused as an original DOC file PDB.
TECHNICAL FACTS
QED
compresses "on the fly" if a memory page has changed when the cursor
is moved off that page (not equivalent to a screen page) or when a different
program is invoked. Compression time is therefore not dependent on document size.
QED
works well with
TRG
RAM and ROM memory products, as well as the flash ROM
included in newer model organizers.
DOCs and even the QED program can be stored in flash ROM.
QED
works well with the
GoType
keyboard. Almost all functions have been given keyboard shortcuts.
The QED
program is incredibly small, requiring only about 28K
of your organizer's memory.
You may view the revision history here.
We recommend taking a full backup of your organizer
occasionally using a program such as
Backup Buddy.
QED is Backup Buddy certified, meaning it only causes
a document to be copied to a PC on HotSync if the document
has been changed.
PROBLEMS
Q. QED
documents do not appear on the PC after HotSync.
If you change a document in QED
it will be transferred to the PC on next HotSync. You may also
set the backup flag on the OPTIONS/DOC PREFS menu to force
a document to be backed up on next HotSync.
HotSync will copy it to the Pilot desktop user backup directory,
which is usually like:
C:\PILOT\<abbreviated user name>
Problems with a file not appearing on the PC after HotSync are almost
certainly due to one of these issues:
A1. The Pilot desktop program HotSync settings
are wrong.
Run the desktop program, click the
HOTSYNC menu, then CUSTOM. The SYSTEM CONDUIT
must be set to HANDHELD OVERWRITES DESKTOP.
A2. When HotSyncing with multiple PCs, the
DOC only automatically copies to the first
PC.
This is because the transfer resets the backup flag.
QED
considers it backed up and will not copy it again until some
change is made or you manually set the backup flag.
A3. A newly converted document loaded to QED
from a PC does not HotSync back.
Nor will it HotSync to another PC until some change is made or
you manually set it's backup flag.
QED
considers the document unchanged, and thus there is no
reason to HotSync it to the PC.
A4. You are running some third party PalmPilot
backup program or HotSync conduit.
Consult the documentation for that product.
QED is BackupBuddy certified and no special steps are necessary,
however one can manually force a document to HotSync by checking
it's box in BackupBuddy and tapping APPLY.
A5. The DOCs are being copied to the PC but to a different
directory than you expect.
After HotSyncing (with all the above conditions met)
use the FIND function on your computer to search for
files modified today. Under Windows click START, FIND,
FILES, named *.PDB, look in C:\, include subdirs,
date modified between today and today. This should reveal
your HotSync directory.
Once transferred, use a program such as
QEX
to convert it out of the user backup directory
and into a PC editor usable file.
For QED
documents, usually the file name is the
document's title, with underscores instead of
spaces. Do not use characters in a document title which
are possibly not valid file name characters,
such as any punctuation or symbols.
Q. QED
says "no valid username".
A. Older versions of QED
required a HotSync ID of at least three letters, the current version does not.
Simply download the current version.
Q. QED
immediately crashes when run.
A1. QED
is not compatible with the basic 1000/5000 model organizers.
A2. Download and install the latest version.
A3. Make sure you have some reasonable amount of RAM free.
Q. QED
crashes on certain documents.
A1. Delete and reload the DOC from an original source. If the DOC
still will not open it is not a valid file and should not be used.
A2. If the problem persists or spreads, your organizer's memory may be
corrupt. This can occur from prior organizer crashes or loading
invalid files.
QED
has never been known to cause this problem.
Fully backup your
organizer. Hard clear the organizer (reset button while holding
power button). Reload contents USING ORIGINAL FILES wherever
possible rather than copies from the Pilot user backup directory,
which may be corrupt. Do not attempt this if you do not understand
these instructions. Install
QED
and only load those other programs
you really really need. Always use the most current
QED
release.
Q. All the documents disappear sometimes.
A. Do not delete DOCs using the organizers built-in memory
management tool. That deletes all DOCs. Delete DOCs ONLY using
QED's DOC
management screen.
Contact us at support@visionary2000.com
with a full description of your hardware, software and symptoms.
To download or register QED
visit the QED Home Page.
Come see PalmDocs, an M.S. Word add-in to directly load/save PalmPilot
DOC files at
http://visionary2000.com/palmdocs