Table of Contents
AMERICAN POETRY HELP

To learn how to use Help, press F1 or choose Using Help from the Help menu

Important Tips

Navigation

Playing Audio Performances

Finding Words and Phrases

Marking and Highlighting Features

Taking Notes

Viewing Annotations

Reading Poets’ Biographies

Large Print

Other Presentation Options


Important Tips

To display the menu bar, move the cursor to the top of the screen, and select Menu Bar from the Book menu.

To display or hide the Tool Palette, which contains several navigational and other features, select Tool Palette from the Books menu.

To go from page to page, press the right or left arrow on the keyboard.

To jump to another chapter of the book, click and hold on the Chapter button on the Tool Palette, or on the running header of any page. Select your desired destination and release.

To return to the last page you were on, click Retrace on the Tool Palette. To return to a page you visited recently, click and hold on the Retrace button and select the desired page.

Audio performances are marked by a speaker icon to the left of the text. Click on the speaker to begin the performance.

To go to the next audio performance, choose Find Next Performance from the Am.Poetry menu.

Underlined text is linked to explanatory material in the Line Notes section. To show or hide the underlines, choose Annotations from the Book menu. To read the annotation, click on the underlined text. To return to the text, click again on the annotated passage.


Navigation

American Poetry is divided into two major sections: “Contents” and “Text.”  The Contents pages are numbered 1 - 89, and the Text 1 - 4298.

• Contents contains the Contents Overview page, the Introduction, and three detailed tables of contents. “19th-Century American Poets”  is arranged in chronological order. “American Indian Poetry”  and “Folk Song and Spirituals”  are arranged in no specific order. Click on any item in Contents section to go to its corresponding section in the text.

• Text contains all the poetry and songs, as well as the appendices and indices. Each poet has his or her own chapter. Each line of “Index of Titles and First Lines,”  “Index of Poets,”  and “Audio Index”  is linked to a poem or song. Click the line to go to that poem or song.

To go to the next or previous page, press the right or left arrows on the keyboard, or click the right or left arrows beside the Page button on the Tool Palette.

To go to a specific page, click the Page button on the Tool Palette, or the page number at the bottom of the page. In the “Go Page”  window, select “Contents”  or “Text,”  enter the desired number, and click Go.

To go to the next or previous chapter, click the right or left arrows beside the Chapter button on the Tool Palette. To jump to any chapter of either the Contents or the Text, click and hold on the Chapter button on the Tool Palette, or on the running header of any page. Select your desired destination and release.

To return to the last page you were on, click Retrace on the Tool Palette. To return to a page you visited recently, click and hold on the Retrace button and select the desired page.

Another navigational aid is the Progress Gauge. To display the Progress Gauge, select “Progress Gauge”  from the Book menu. A slider gauge representing your position in the program will appear at the bottom of the page. To jump to another page using the Progress Gauge, drag the slider to the right or left, and release it when the page-number indicator has reached the desired page.


Playing Audio Performances

Audio performances are marked by a speaker icon to the left of the text and by an audio controller to the lower right. As performances progress, the speaker icon will move, and pages will turn automatically.

To begin a performance, click on the triangle icon in the lower right of the screen, or select Play Performance from the Am.Poetry menu. To pause a performance, click on the pause icon.

To begin or replay the performance from any line of text featured in the performance, click on the desired line. You can also drag the moving speaker to any line of text in the performance.

To find the next audio performance in the text, select Find Next Performance from the Am.Poetry menu.

To start or stop the speaker from moving, select Moving Speaker from the Am.Poetry menu.

To control the volume of a performance, click on the speaker icon in the audio controller and select the desired level from the pop-up.


Finding Words and Phrases

To display a pop-up menu listing Find options, click and hold on any word in the Text section. From the pop-up, you can choose to find the first, last, next, previous, or all occurrences of the word you clicked on, or choose to find something else. From the Tool Palette’s Find button, you can find all occurrences of any word or phrase you enter.

If you choose to find all occurrences of a word or phrase, finds will appear in a results window with a few words of context, and with the location of each find in the text. To go to an occurrence of the found word or phrase, click on it in the Results window.

When you close the Find Results window, you will be prompted to save your finds. If you choose to save finds, you will be able to use the right and left arrows beside the Find button on the Tool Palette to go to the next or previous instance of all the words or phrases you have saved. You will also be able to call up the Results window later, without having to perform a search again. To load a saved find, click and hold on any word in the Text section and select “Load or Delete Previous Find”  from the pop-up.


Marking and Highlighting Features

To mark a page, click the Mark button on the Tool Palette or click in the upper right corner of the page. To mark a page with a message, press Shift while clicking in the upper right corner and type a short message in the pop-up window.

To find the next or previous marked page, click the arrows to the right or left of the Mark button. To select from a list of marked pages, click the Mark button and select from the pop-up.

To highlight text, click the Highlight button on the Tool Palette. This will display a palette of four highlight colors. Select the text you wish to highlight by dragging across it - as you would in any word processor - then press the highlight color button of your choice.


Taking Notes

To take margin notes, click in the left margin of the Text section and type.

To bring up a Notebook, in which you can enter and organize several longer notes, select “Notebook” from the Book menu.


Viewing Annotations

Underlined text is linked to explanatory material in the Line Notes section. To show or hide the underlines, choose Annotations from the Book menu. To read the annotation, click on the underlined text. To return to the text, click again on the annotated passage.


Reading Poets’ Biographies

Biographies are available for all poets. To view a biography, go to the first page of the poet’s chapter in the Text section, and click the poet’s name.


Large Print

To display the text in large-print format, select “Large Print”  from the Book menu. Selecting Large Print will also bring up a large version of the Tool Palette.


Other Presentation Options

To display a large, simplified version of the Tool Palette, select “Large Tool Palette” from the Am. Poetry menu. This palette features a large-print navigation system.