Copyright: TextShield Fusion


Changing cases
Upper case / Lower case / Invert Cases

When you accidentally type the wrong case, you could type it all again. For example when the [Caps lock] key is on while typing text and you don’t now that, ALL TEXT WOULD BE LIKE THIS.

That’s why TextShield has three build in case converters. The first one, UPPER CASE, will convert selected text to upper case. The second one, lower case, will convert selected text to lower case. The third one, iNVERT cASES, will invert individual characters of the selection. AbAbAbAb will become aBaBaBaB. This is especially useful when you accidentally type with the [Caps Lock] key on.

All these case converters are available from the Convert menu. You must first select text before you can use it.


AutoLineBreak

AutoLineBreak is a handy feature to set indentation in Plain Text files. Since Plain Text doesn’t save formats in the file the indentation is not measured in pixels but in characters. So if you have to write a column that may not exceed 56 characters in width, AutoLineBreak handles this automatically.

Using it is simple. You can bring up the dialog from “Font/Paragraph | AutoLineBreak settings…” from the menu. Note that this feature only works with plain text, so you must have a plain text file opened before you can use AutoLineBreak.

You can type the left indentation in the upper edit, the right indentation in the lower edit. If you don’t want to use the left indentation, you’ll have to type -1 in the regarding edit.

If you select text in your file and click the “Apply to current selection”-checkbox, the selected text will be AutoLineBreaked.

Then click OK to apply the settings or cancel to cancel.

See the Paragraph formatting topic for more information.


AutoPaste

When collecting large numbers of data from for example the Internet, AutoPaste could help you a lot. When you enable AutoPaste, every time you copy something to the clipboard outside TextShield will automatically be appended to the end of the file.

AutoPaste only works with one editor a time. Bring up the file you prefer and choose “Convert | AutoPaste” from the menu to activate AutoPaste for this editor. Now switch to another application, for example Netscape to browse the Internet, and copy something to the clipboard. When it has succeeded, you will hear a beep. Do not copy other data to the clipboard before you hear this beep, it could destroy the previous contents of the clipboard.

To deactivate AutoPaste, choose “Convert | AutoPaste” again.

Note that all OLE objects that can be copied to the clipboard will be inserted. If you enable AutoPaste in Plain Text mode, only plain text will be inserted.


Character formatting

A nice and simple way to make your text look much more attractive, is by using character formats. There are different types of character formatting, like bold and italics, but also both. And the size and the color of the font are also very important for headings and the body of the text.

An example of a well-formatted text:

_________________________________________________

De Bello Gallico

De Bello Gallico I

Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam, qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt. Gallos ab Aquitanis Garunna flumen, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit.

De Bello Gallico VI

In omni Gallia eorum hominum, qui aliquo sunt numero atque honere, genera sunt duo. Nam plebs paene servorum habetur loco, quae nihil audet per se, nulli adhibetur consilio.

_________________________________________________

Description of the character formats and there buttons:

 Bold

Accent important text with bold. Mostly used for word-groups, not for entire sentences.

 Italics

Mostly used for quotations.

 Underlining

Underline important sentences. In the submenu of the button are many different types of underlining available. Some won’t work because they’re not well implemented by Microsoft. They probably will work in the future.

 Strike out

Use this format to make corremctions, for instance in quotations.

 Superscript and Subscript

Mostly used in mathematical and chemistrial functions. Examples: x2 (Superscript) and 22Ti (Subscript).

 Colors

You can color headings and important text to make your text more “alive”. You can color the background of the text and the color of the font with this button in 16 colors. You can also use the full RGB palette with the Windows Color Dialog, located in the menu “Font/Paragraph | Advanced font colors.../Advanced background of text”.

You can also format fonts using “Font/Paragraph | Font...” or the Font-button [image] located on the Media Player-toolbar.

See also the Paragraph Formatting, the Format Copier, the Rainbow Colors, the Toolbars and the 3D Text topics for more information.


Converters

Although RTF is universal and the industry-standard for formatted files, it is certainly not the only format out there. You will often have to open files made by other major word processors, like Microsoft Word. To let you do this, TextShield can make use of the converters provided with certain Microsoft products. For example, when you install a recent version of Microsoft Internet Explorer, a converter will be provided with it to let TextShield and other applications open and save HTML documents (the Internet format). When you install Microsoft Word, you will be able to open its documents in TextShield.

Standard is every Windows computer equipped with two converters: a converter to open and save .WRI files (the old Windows 3.1 Windows Write format) and Word 6.0/95 .DOC files. These converters are installed with WordPad, the little standard word processor provided with each version of Windows.

When you want to open such files, just use the Open File dialog (choose “File | Open...” from the menu or press the [Ctrl]+[O] keys). TextShield automatically recognizes extensions of files that can be opened using converters. When you open such a file, TextShield asks to open it with the converter. If you agree, TextShield will automatically search for a save converter, so you can also save to the file. If it isn’t found, you’ll have to save to another format.

When you have a normal file opened and you want to save it to another format, you’ll have to use the File Save dialog. Open the file and use “File | Save as...” or press the [Ctrl]+[Q] keys to bring it up. Click the arrow next to the lower box to bring up a menu listing all available file types.

The items in the list below “All files” are the available converters. When you select one of these, the file will be saved to the selected format. The first converter available on the test computer is marked blue in above image.

TextShield has its own build-in HTML converter for optimal compatibility with the Internet. When you want to convert a file to the HTML format using this converter, open the file and choose “File | Export | Convert to HTML...”.

Be careful saving really large files using a Microsoft supplied converter. As you may expect from Microsoft, they’re full of bugs. Old converters may not have the ability to convert really large files. The only advice I can give: backup the file prior to save it with a converter.


Favorites

When you often open a file, you could add it to the favorites in order to open it faster next time or to let you remember it in an easy way. To bring up the Favorites dialog, choose “Extra | Organize favorites...” from the menu.

The list box will list all favorites. When you select one, the full path of the favorite file will be shown below the list. When you double click a favorite, it will be opened. There are several buttons:

•	Open...: Use this to open the selected files inside TextShield.

•	Add...: When you click this button, an Open File dialog will be shown to add one or multiple files to the list.

•	Add opened: This option adds the currently opened and displayed file to the list.

•	Delete: This option deletes selected files from the list.

You can open multiple files by clicking on them inside the list while holding the [Ctrl] key down.

Adding favorites without the dialog
To quickly add a favorite to the list without having to use the dialog, simply press the [Ctrl]+[Ins] keys, or choose “Extra | Add to favorites” from the menu.

The Favorites button located on the File-list Panel
There is a special button Favorites [image] located on the File-list Bar. When you click this button, the Favorites dialog will appear. When you click the arrow beside the icon, a sub menu will appear containing all directories of the favorites. When you click one of those menu items, the directory will be opened in the list box below the button.

See also the File-list Bar topic for more information.


File Statistics Dialog
The File Statistics dialog

Often you may not exceed a certain number of words when typing a text. When you want to check this, use the File Statistics dialog to count certain statistics automatically for you. If you have selecteda part of the text, only that part will be counted.

You can bring up this dialog by choosing “Font/Paragraph | File statistics” from the menu. An explanation of the items:

•	Paragraphs: the number of return characters in the text.

•	Sentences: the number of periods in the text.

•	Lines: the number of lines in the text.

•	Words: the number of spaces in the text.

•	Characters: the number of characters in the text.

•	Without spaces: the number of characters without the spaces in the text.

•	Pages: the number of printable pages in the file.

You can click OK to close the dialog.


File-list Bar
The File-list bar

You could use the open dialog for navigation through your files. But when you don’t want to open one particular file, you could also use the File-list bar. Bring it up by choosing “View | File list” from the menu or pressing the [Ctrl]+[F] keys. Now you see a panel on the left of the screen containing two lists and three items above them. When you want to make it smaller in width, go with the mouse to the right edge of the bar until the cursor changes into two black arrows separated by a vertical line. Now hold the mouse button down and drag it into the position you want it to be.

This bar will not only let you open files, but also rename, cut, copy, paste and delete them. The upper list displays the current directory and the directories above the current directory. The list below that one displays all TextShield-compatible files in the current directory.

When you right click the upper list, the directory will be opened in Windows Explorer. In this way you can organize them easily. When you right click the list below that one, a menu will appear. This is the description of the items in that menu:

•	Open: Opens the file in a new editor.

•	Rename file...: Brings up a new dialog where you can enter the new file name.

•	Delete: Deletes the currently selected file.

•	Cut: When you click paste after clicking cut, the file will be moved to the current directory.

•	Copy: When you click paste after clicking copy, the file will be copied to the current directory.

•	Paste: Paste the cut/copied file into the current directory.

•	Open in current editor: Opens the selected file in the current opened editor.

When you double click the selected file, it also will be opened in a new editor.

There are another three items above the list. The first one [image] will let you choose a drive. The second [image] will let you go back to the previous directories. When you click the arrow next to it, it will list all previous directories in a menu. When TextShield is closed, this history will automatically be deleted. For the description of the third item, see the Favorites topic.


Format copier

You can copy the format of one part of the text to another part with the Format Copier. To do this, simply bring the caret to the character you want the format attributes to copy from, then click the Format Copier button [image] (located on the “Media Player” toolbar), and use your mouse to select the text to copy the format to. When done, click the Format Copier button again to disable it.

When you enable the Format Copier, certain items on the toolbar will be highlighted like this:

This indicates the format attributes of the character you have selected when you pressed the Format Copier-button. In this way you can easily change the format by clicking the buttons. When you click for example the Bold-button when the Format Copier button is enabled, the selected text will not change formats. Only when you reselect text, this format will be applied.
This is the case for all character formatting items, except Rainbow Colors.

Note that the Format Copier is only available in Rich Text mode. See also the Character Formatting topic for more information.


Go to… Dialog
The Go to... dialog

When you quickly want to move the caret to a certain position in the text, you can use the Go to... dialog.

The line and column numbers are shown on the status bar like this: . They are 0 based, so the first line will have the number 0. When you double-click this area of the status bar or when you choose “Edit | Go to...” from the menu, the Go to... dialog will be shown.

Again, these numbers are 0-based. When you are done entering the numbers, click OK to close the dialog and TextShield will go to the position you just have entered.


Hot Keys

All commonly used features inside TextShield have a special combination of keys to activate them. Such combinations of keys one the keyboard are called Hot Keys.

Application

[Alt]+[F4]	Terminates TextShield
[Ctrl]+[F4]	Closes currently opened file
[Ctrl]+[Tab]	Next file
[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Tab]	Previous file
[Shift]+[F12]	Easter egg :-)
[F12]	Repaints the window
[Enter]	Apply changes and close a dialog
[Esc]	Close a dialog

Files

[Ctrl]+[N]	Shows the New... dialog
[Ctrl]+[O]	Shows the File open... dialog
[Ctrl]+[S]	Saves the current file
[Ctrl]+[Q]	Saves the current file as another file
[Ctrl]+[F1]	Switches to Rich Text Format
[Ctrl]+[F2]	Switches to Plain Text Format
[Ctrl]+[F]	Shows the File-list Bar
[Ctrl]+[Ins]	Adds the current file to the favorites
[Ctrl]+[P]	Prints the current file

Character Formatting

[Ctrl]+[B]	Makes the selection Bold
[Ctrl]+[I]	Makes the selection Italic
[Ctrl]+[U]	Underlines the selection
[Ctrl]+[M]	Strikes out the selection
[Ctrl]+[3]	Superscript
[Ctrl]+[4]	Subscript
[F5]	Assigns the default font to the selection
[Shift]+[F11]	Increases current font size with 1
[Alt]+[F11]	Decreases the current font size with 1

Paragraph Formatting

[Ctrl]+Left mouse button	Begins typing on the area you clicked
[Ctrl]+Double-click ruler	Shows the Tabs... dialog
[Ctrl]+[L]	Aligns the current paragraph to the left
[Ctrl]+[G]	Centers the current paragraph
[Ctrl]+[R]	Aligns the current paragraph to the right
[Ctrl]+[J]	Justifies the current paragraph
[Ctrl]+[D]	Bullets
[Alt]+[A]	Indent
[Ctrl]+[A]	Outdent
[Shift]+[F5]	Assign default indentation to the current paragraph
[Ctrl]+[1]	Single line spacing
[Ctrl]+[2]	Double line spacing
[Ctrl]+[5]	1.5 Line spacing

Typing

[Ctrl]+[E]	Incremental Search
[Shift]+ [Arrow keys]	Makes a selection
[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[F]	Displays the Find... dialog
[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[R]	Displays the Find/Replace... dialog
[Ctrl]+[Shift]+[A]	Selects all text in the file
[Ctrl]+[Z]	Undoes the last modification
[Ctrl]+[R]	Redoes the last modification
[Ctrl]+[X]	Cuts selected text
[Ctrl]+[C]	Copies selected text
[Ctrl]+[V]	Pastes text from the clipboard
[Ctrl]+[Y]	Displays the Insert Symbol... dialog
[Ctrl]+[F5]	Insert the last symbol inserted
[Ctrl]+[Home]	Goes to the beginning of the text
[Ctrl]+[End]	Goes to the end of the text


Incremental Search

Incremental Search is a real-time way to search for text in the file. Anyone who is familiar with Borland C++ Builder or Borland Delphi (http:///www.borland.com) will recognize this quick & easy way for searching through the text.

What makes it special is that it doesn’t use a dialog to find text. The only thing you’ll have to do is activating it by choosing “Edit | Incremental Search” from the menu or pressing the [Ctrl]+[E] keys. Now begin typing the word you’re looking for. Any characters you type won’t be inserted inside the text, but appended to the end of the searching string, which is shown on the status bar. You can go on typing characters until the word you were searching for is selected. Then click somewhere in the editor or press the [Enter] or [Return] key to go back to normal editing mode. When you type an incorrect character, press the [Backspace] key, normally located above the [Enter] or [Return] key. It is advisable to start at the beginning of the file (you can go to the beginning by pressing the [Ctrl]+[Home] keys).


Insert date or time… Dialog
The Insert date or time… dialog

It is common you’ll have to insert the current date and/or time in your letters. For that purpose a special dialog was made: the Insert date or time… dialog.

You can bring up this dialog by clicking the [image] button on the toolbar, or choosing “Extra | Insert date or time...” from the menu.
As you can see, the list contains multiple formats for showing the date and time. If you want to combine multiple items, just select a few. You can select multiple formats by clicking on them while holding the [Ctrl]-key down.
But it could also happen that you’ll have to insert another date then today’s date. To make such situations easier for you, a calendar has been added, where you can pick the date from by clicking on it.
Click on OK to close this dialog and insert the date/time or Cancel to close the dialog without making changes to the document.

This dialog is both available in Plain Text and Rich Text mode.


Insert file… & Save selected
Insert file... & Save selected

When you want to save an important part of the text to another file, or if you want to insert a file that is important to the current file, you can use the Insert file... and the Save selected menu items located in the Extra menu.

Insert file...

When you click this menu item, an Open File dialog will appear. Choose a file and click on the “Open” button to insert it. Note that it will not be inserted as an OLE-object, but the text will be extracted from the file and inserted in your document. If you want to insert a file as OLE-object, choose “Edit | Insert object...” from the menu and check the checkbox labeled “Use existing file”.

Save selected

First select the portion of the text you want to save as a new file. When you choose this menu item, a Save Dialog will appear. Enter a file name and click Save. The selected text will now be saved to a new file.

Note that converters will work with both menu items. See also the Converters topic for more information.


Insert symbol Dialog
The Insert symbol... dialog

Some symbols, like the copyright © symbol, are not representative on the keyboard. So when you want to insert such symbols, you’ll have to use the Insert symbol... dialog.

You can bring up this dialog by pressing the [Ctrl]+[Y] keys or choosing “Extra | Insert symbol...” from the menu.
When you move the mouse arrow above the table, a preview of the symbol will be shown in the upper-left gray-colored box. When you like the symbol, click on it once to add it to the edit. When you are finished and click the Insert button, all symbols in the edit will be inserted in the current document.
You can also switch fonts inside this dialog. Some fonts only contain symbols, like the Symbol-font. You can choose one from the list by clicking the arrow next to it.

The Insert symbol... dialog is both available in Plain Text and Rich Text mode.


Interface Plug-ins

When you don’t like the current background, you can change it using the Install Plug-in... menu item, located in the Extra menu. To change it, you’ll need little pieces of software with a .dll extension: Interface Plug-ins. Not every file with a .dll extension is an Interface Plug-in. Be careful installing such files, because they may contain virii. Always scan an Interface Plug-in before downloading it using a recent virus scanner. If you don’t have a virus scanner installed, you can download a free one from http://www.esafe.com. Secure Interface Plug-ins are available from http://www.textshield.com/plugins.

When you choose “Extra | Install plug-in...” from the menu, a File Open dialog will appear. Select and open the file. A new dialog will be displayed.

This dialog contains three edits. The first one displays the file name including the file path. The second one displays the title of the plug-in. The third displays a short description of the plug-in. As you already may have noticed, the background of this dialog was made using this plug-in. In this way you can preview it.
When you click OK, the plug-in will be installed.

Disabling the Interface Plug-in

When you don’t like the interface anymore, you could either install a new plug-in or disable the current plug-in. You can disable and re-enable the current plug-in by choosing “Extra | Enable/disable Plug-in” from the menu.

See also the Options Dialog topic for more information.


Links

For optimal compatibility with the Internet, TextShield has some features that enable you to insert links. There are Interactive Links, the link formatting attribute and there is an Insert Hyperlink... dialog.

Note that inserting links can only be done in Rich Text Mode.

The link formatting attribute

When you want to convert certain text to a link, select the text and choose “Convert | Link” from the menu. This is especially useful when AutoUrlDetect is disabled. See for more information about AutoUrlDetect the Options Dialog topic.

The Insert HyperLink... dialog

You could use Interactive Links to insert a hyperlink, but it is quicker and easier to use the Insert Hyperlink... dialog. This only works with files with a .tsce or .zip extension. You can bring it up by choosing “Convert | Insert Hyperlink” from the menu or by clicking the [image] button on the toolbar.

In the first edit you’ll have to type the title of the link. You will see this title in the file (for example: Click here to visit TextShield’s homepage). If you have selected text before bringing up this dialog, you can choose to make the link from the selected text by clicking the “Create link from selected text” check box.
Type the URL (like http://www.textshield.com or mailto:textshield@textshield.com) or a file name in the second edit. You can browse for a file by clicking the button next to this edit. When you remove the file path (for example: rename C:\windows\desktop\myfile.rtf to myfile.rtf) the file will be opened if it is in the same directory as the source file. Then it doesn’t matter in which directory both files are located, the link always works.
Finally, click Insert to insert the hyperlink into the current document or Cancel to close the dialog without inserting.

Interactive Links

0	You can use InteractiveLinks to make your text more interactive. You can play sounds when a hyperlink is clicked, you can open an external program and open a text file inside TextShield. To let you do this all, a special dialog has been made. You can bring it up by choosing “Convert | Interactive links...” from the menu.

The list on the left displays all links and their names. When you select a link, the Link verb area and the gray panel below it will be activated. Every link has another verb; every link can do different things. These verbs are possible:

•	ShellExecute: This verb will let you open a file or run a program.

•	PlayWaveMedia: This verb plays a sound file.

•	OpenNewFileEditor: This opens a TextShield supported file inside TextShield. On the gray panel will be two extra options:
Open file in a new editor: When enabled, the file will be opened as another file. When disabled, the file will be opened in the editor of the file where the link was located.
Register file as opened: When enabled, the opened file will be added to the list with recent files. (“File | Reopen” from the menu.)

•	ShowMessageDialog: Shows a dialog displaying a message.

•	ExecuteURL: Opens an URL in the default web browser (for example Netscape).

There are three buttons located in the upper right area. The upper one will display a dialog to add a new link, the middle button creates a link from the selected text and the lower one deletes a selected link from the list.


Recorder
The Task-Recorder

If you want to automate a commonly repeated task, you could use the Recorder-feature. You can bring it up by clicking “View | Special-bars | Record-bar” from the menu.

Simply process the task you want to automate when you click the yellow record button, and hit the green stop button on the same bar when your finished. To repeat the recorded task, click the red play button. If you want to stop the recorded task, just hit the [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Delete] keys from your keyboard.

You can save and open recorded tasks by clicking on the regarding buttons on the record-bar. Note that not everyone has the same screen lay-out if you want to distribute your recorded tasks to different computers. You can work around this problem by using keyboard-hotkeys.

You can speed up a recorded task by setting the play-speed in the edit on the Record-bar. A speed of 100 equals the original speed, below 100 speeds the recorded task up and above 100 slows it down.

Be careful opening alien recorded tasks, because they could damage your computer. (The creator of TextShield is not responsible for this kind of damage.) If something strange happens while playing a alien recorded task, hit the [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Delete] keys IMMEDIATELY to abort the task and delete the task from your disk.


Media Player
The Media Player

While creating a file it could sometimes be fun to listen to music. TextShield has a special feature to play music from your computer: the Media Player. It is located on the Media Player toolbar and looks like this: .
As you can see, it consists of four buttons. The first one is used to open a music file. The second one plays them, the third stops playing and the fourth pauses playing. As you can see, it is simpler then controlling your Walkman :-).
Only the Open file dialog of the Media Player requires some attention. You can open multiple files while holding the [Ctrl] key down and clicking on them. All files will be continuous played. When you want TextShield to stop playing the files until you reopen them, just open the File open dialog and click the Cancel button.
When you’ve opened multiple files, you can skip a file by clicking once on the Stop button and after that on the Play button.

If you’ve a recent version of the Windows Media Player (http://www.windowsmedia.com) installed, you’ll be able to play MP3 files too.


New dialog & Templates
The New dialog & Templates

The New dialog

When you want to create a new file, you’ll have to bring up the New... dialog. Click on the [image] button on the Media player-bar, choose “File | New...” from the menu or press the [Ctrl]+[N] keys to do so. Now you’ll have three large buttons. When you click one of them, a new file of that type will be created. You can choose between three types of files:

•	Compatible RTF file: This creates a file in the universal Rich Text Format. This is formatted text.

•	Compact TSCE file: A TSCE file is just a compressed RTF or plain text file with some extra features like Interactive Links.

•	Plain Text File: This will create a file without formatting.

See also the Character Formatting, Paragraph Formatting, File types and Links topics for more information.

Templates
When you frequently use the same file base, you can make it a template to begin faster next time you use that base. You can organize your templates from the second tab of the New... dialog. Bring it up and press the Templates button to go to the second tab.

When you haven’t already created templates, the white list should be empty. To create one, open the file you want to create it from and bring up this dialog again. Now click the From currently opened file button on the lower New template area to make it a template. After you have entered a title for the template in a new dialog, the file will be added to the list. Select it from the list and all buttons will be enabled. Next to the list are three buttons located:

•	Open: Opens the selected template so you can add text and save it to a new file.

•	Save to new file: Saves the selected template to a new normal editable file on the disk.

•	Delete template: Deletes the selected template from the disk. Be careful with this, once deleted you can’t get it back without difficult utilities.

In the area titled New template are another four buttons located:

•	From currently opened file: Uses the currently opened file to make a new template.

•	From a file from disk: Uses a file from the disk to make a new template.

•	From another template: Copies the selected template to make another new one.

•	Edit a template: The selected template will be opened in a way you can make and save changes to it.

When you want to save the template as a normal file, just hit the save [image] button, choose “File | Save...” from the menu or press [Ctrl]+[S] to do so.


Options/Settings dialog
The Options/Settings dialog

A special dialog had been created for you to customize TextShield. When you start TextShield for the first time, it applies the default (factory) settings. When you don’t like them, you can adjust them easily using the Options/Settings dialog. To bring it up, choose “View | Options...” from the menu.

On the left on the dialog you just brought up are some buttons located:

•	First Panel: Switches to the first panel with settings.

•	Second Panel: Switches to the second panel with settings.

•	OK: Applies the settings and close the dialog.

•	Cancel: Closes the dialog without applying the settings.

•	Factory: Restores default (factory) settings.

The First (upper) panel

You can adjust most settings on the first panel. There are several areas:

•	Compression: This area can be used to adjust the compression rate used on .zip or .tsce files. You can type a number between 0 and 9 in the edit box. “0” Means the file isn’t compressed at all, “9” means a very high compression rate. The higher the compression rate, the more time it will cost to save the file, but the tighter it will become. When you will send the file by email, a compression rate of 9 is advisable.

•	AutoSave: When you enabled this option, the file will automatically be saved after the number of minutes you specify in the edit box. When you check the “Only save backup file” option, the file will only be saved to the filename+.bak.

•	Opening files: When you check the boxes in this area, Windows will use TextShield to open the files with that extension. See Windows Help for more information about associating other types of files with TextShield.

•	WordWrap: In Plain Text mode, the words can be wrapped according to the printer margins or to the screen. When you check the “Use Inches” box, the inch will be used instead of the metric centimeters.

•	Options: A list of miscellaneous options. AutoUrlDetect will automatically detect URLs while typing. AutoWordSelect will select entire words instead of individual characters. The Add to document menu option will automatically add opened documents to the Documents sub menu in the Windows’ Start menu. AutoCapital will automatically make the first character of a new sentence upper case (this only works when the proceeding sentence is terminated with a period and a space). When you disable HOT Interface, the colored background of dialogs and the usage of Interface Plug-ins will be disabled.

•	Default file type: In this area you can select the type of file that will automatically be created when you start TextShield.

The Second (lower) panel

0	There are several more options available on the second panel:

•	Save options: If a file is modified and you decide to terminate TextShield, TextShield can do several things. It can show a warning, save the file automatically or do nothing and just exit. When you choose the second option, you can let TextShield only save a .bak backup file. Be careful enabling the third option, you could lose important unsaved documents.

•	Editor settings: Here you can make special settings for the editor itself. The edit gives an impression of the colors. Next to it are three buttons. The upper one will let you adjust the background color of the edit. The middle will let you select a default font. The lower one will let you set the default indentation.

By default, all colors are adjusted to the way they are configured inside Windows.


Paragraph dialog

You can use the Paragraph dialog to set paragraph formatting in exact pixels. It is for example more easy to just use the ruler to set the indentation is stead of this dialog, but when you want to set the same indentation to a paragraph as another, the Paragraph dialog is far more easy.
Note that this dialog is only available in Rich Text mode.

Bring this dialog up from “Font/Paragraph | Paragraph...” from the menu.
You can choose the alignment from the combo box in top of the dialog. Set the indentation in pixels in the field below that. Note that you can also use the toolbars to set the alignment and indentation.
Set the line spacing in the field below indentation. This might not work (Microsoft has made the text engine, but it is not complete yet). Strangely enough, you can switch between single line and double line indentation by pressing respectively [Ctrl+1] or [Ctrl+2] on the keyboard. To apply 1.5 line spacing to the selection, use the [Ctrl+5] keys.

See the Paragraph formatting topic for more information. See also the Tabs dialog topic.


Paragraph formatting

Besides character formatting is the paragraph format essential for an attractive text. The main features are alignment and indentation. This is in every paragraph important. There are other types as well, like bullets for enumerations.

The toolbar buttons for paragraph formats:

 Left align
Aligns the text to the left side of the page.

 Center
Centers the text.

 Right align
Aligns the text to the right of the paragraph.

 Justify
Justifies the text. This gives the text a more symmetric appearance, often used in newspapers.

 Bullets
Use bullets for enumerations. There are many different types available in the sub-menu. Please note that some might not work. Again, Microsoft, the creator of the text engine, causes this.

 Indent
Moves the first-line and left indentation 1,25 centimeters to the right.

 Outdent
Moves the first-line and left indentation 1,25 centimeters to the left.

 Ruler
Change the specific indentation. The upper left button is for the first line indentation, the lower left for the left indentation of the remaining paragraph and the right button for the indentation of the right side of the paragraph. Sizes are given in centimeters, the standard for lengths.
When you click the ruler, a tab stop will be added on that place. When you hold the [Ctrl] button down and double click the ruler, the Tabs dialog will be opened.

The Paragraph dialog
You can find this dialog in the menu “ Font/Paragraph | Paragraph...”. Line spacing might not work. Again, Microsoft, the creator of the text engine, causes this. See for more information the Paragraph dialog topic.

AutoLineBreak
This sets the indentation of Plain Text. If a line exceeds a specified amount of characters, it will automatically go to the next line.

See for more information the AutoLineBreak and the Tabs dialog topics.


Protected text

When you want to make a part of a text read only, for example the questions in an inquiry, you can make it protected. Protected text cannot be changed in any way. You can only disprotect it. To protect/disprotect selected text, choose “Convert | Protected” from the menu.

Note that Protected text is only available in Rich Text mode.


Rainbow Colors

Rainbow Colors can make your text (like headings) look attractive in a very fast and easy way. This feature needs two colors. It begins with the first color and ends with the last; the program will calculate the colors between the two and apply them to the text. The heading above this paragraph is a Rainbow Colors effect.

Note that this feature is only available in Rich Text mode.

You can bring up the Rainbow Colors dialog by clicking “Font/Paragraph | Rainbow Colors...” from the menu. The dark-blue colored panel represents the first color and the panel below that the second. You can change a color by clicking the “Other...” button next to the panel.

When you click the “Switch” button, the first color will become the second and backwards.

You can apply the effect on the font itself (less visible) or  on the background of the font. You can switch between these options by clicking one of the regarding checkboxes.

Please note that this effect cannot be copied on other characters using the Format Copier, because the Format Copier only uses the attributes of a single character.

See also the Character Formatting and Format Copier topics for more information.


Rich Text & Plain Text files

TextShield is a multiformat editor. It had build in functionality for both formatted (Rich Text) and plain text files (unformatted, usually files with a .txt extension). Font attributes like Bold and Italic are examples of formatting. It can’t only open both types of files, but you can also switch between them. Plain Text files can be converted to Rich Text files and backwards.

To convert a Rich Text file to a Plain Text file, choose “Convert | Plain Text Format” from the menu or press the [Ctrl]+[F2] keys. You should see the internal formatting code now. If you know how the RTF format works, you could edit it to your preference. When you only want the Plain Text extracted from this code, choose “Convert | Remove Rich Text Format...” from the menu. Please note that all formatting will be lost when you do this. So when you convert it back again to the Rich Text Format, you will reformat the entire text.

When you want to convert a Plain Text file back to the Rich Text Format, choose “Convert | Rich Text Format” from the menu or press the [Ctrl]+[F2] keys.

Most commercial word processors can also open both formats, but they don’t support them both entirely. For example, the ruler will still be visible in Plain Text mode in such word processors. TextShield is really both a word processor and text editor in one single executable.

See also the Paragraph formatting, Character formatting and Converter topics for more information.


Running TextShield from a floppy disk

You can run TextShield from a single floppy disk, so that you can run it from any computer available. In this way you can use TextShield at your work, at school and at your friend’s place without having to install the entire program on those computers.

TextShield has got a special dialog to copy the necessary files to the floppy automatically. Choose “Help | Copy to Floppy” from the menu to bring it up.

The floppy requires 810 Kb of free space, without templates and spell checking dictionaries. Put a floppy with enough space in drive A: and click OK to begin. TextShield will begin copy the necessary files. After this is finished, it will ask you if you want to copy your templates to the floppy (if you have any templates). Please note that templates with a lot of images will need a lot of space, that is why this isn’t done automatically. When finished, the A:\ directory will be opened in Explorer.

When you want to spell check your documents from the same floppy, you’ll have to copy the dictionary to it. These dictionary files are quite large, so it is recommended that you only copy one. The American dictionary in usually located in C:\Program Files\TextShield\American.dct.

Please note that TextShield needs at least Windows 98 to run properly. If you want to let it run on Windows 95, you need to install the RichEdit 3.0 update which is currently downloadable from: http://www.smartftp.com/smartftp/Riched30.exe. It is about 325 Kb, so it should easily fit on the same floppy.


Sending emails from TextShield

Certain files may be published by sending them via email to somebody. This can be very easily done by using the “File | Send mail...” sub menu. The are three menu items:

•	As Plain Text: Only the unformatted contents of the file will be send.

•	As Rich Text (HTML): The text will first be converted to the HTML format before it will be send. (This will need Rich Text mode.)

•	As attachment: The file will be send as an attachment. This has the advantage above other methods that the file’s formatting will remain the same. When the file has a .tsce extension, you can rename it to .zip by choosing “File | Export | Rename extension to...” from the menu, or by simply pressing the [Ctrl]+[F3] keys. Most people who haven’t got TextShield installed, do have a program for opening .zip files. When send, you can rename it again to .tsce in the same way.

When you click on of above menu items, your email client program (like Netscape Mail or Outlook) will be started. This requires a MAPI-supporting email client to be installed. If you don’t have one, you can download a good one for free from http://www.eudora.com.

Please be careful sending large files (for example with a lot of images). It may take a lot of time to send such files, and often they will be returned because they are too large for the receiver’s mailbox.


Tabs Dialog
The Tabs dialog

When making tables, indexes etc., tab stops can become very important to line things up. By default, a tab stop is 49 pixels long. But this could not be enough. An example of an index using tab stops:

Chapter 1: The Beginning	Page 1
Chapter 2: The End of the Beginning	Page 2
Chapter 3: The Beginning of the End	Page 2
Chapter 4: The End	Page 1

Only one tab is used in above example to put the pages on one line below each other.

The first item in the list box represents the first tab stop, now at 228 pixels (about 9 centimeters).
When you want to add a tab stop, enter the location in pixels in the edit and click the Add-button next to it. Select one or multiple tab stops from the list and click the Delete-button to remove them from the current paragraph.
Each paragraph can have different tab stops. When you make a new paragraph by pressing the [Enter] button, the tab stops of the previous paragraph will automatically be copied to the new one.

See for more information the Paragraph dialog, the Paragraph Formatting and the Character Formatting topics.


Toolbars

The toolbars bring the most commonly used functions one mouse click away.

General information

When you double-click the [image] grip of the toolbar, the toolbar will become a window that you can drag over the entire screen. When you double-click the title bar of this window, it will become a docked toolbar again. (Note that only the File-list cannot be dragged around, it is too large for that purpose.)
You can make a toolbar visible/invisible by using the submenu “View”.

There are several different toolbars in TextShield:

The “File” toolbar

This toolbar contains all buttons that have to do with file actions, like opening and saving, and printing and previewing.
Standard it is the left-upper toolbar.
When this toolbar isn’t visible, you can bring it up from “View | File-Bar “.

The “Text tools” toolbar
Functions like cutting and pasting, searching and replacing are located on this toolbar.
It is standard located next to the “File” toolbar.
You can bring this toolbar up via “View | Text tools-bar”.

The “Special tools” toolbar
This toolbar lists a collection of buttons that doesn’t have a specific cathegory, like spell checking and 3DText.
This toolbar is standard located next to the “Text tools” toolbar.
You can bring this toolbar up by choosing “View | Special tools-bar” from the menu.

The “Toolbar” toolbar  :-)

This toolbar is only available in Rich Text mode. All format-related functions are located on this toolbar (see the Paragraph formatting topic for more information about the individual formats). Standard it is the lower toolbar.
Bring this toolbar up via “View | Toolbar”.

The “File-list” toolbar

This toolbar is both available in Rich Text and Plain Text mode. It is located on the left of the screen. You can use it to open files without using the Open-dialog, for example when you quickly want to open a file while typing.
The bar consists of to three lists and two buttons. The lists:

•	The first is located in the top-left. It is a combo box to choose the drive.

•	The second is located below the first. This is a list of directories on the selected drive. Click once with the left mouse button to select a directory, click twice to open the selected directory. When you right-click this list, the directory will be opened in Windows Explorer.

•	The third is the list with files. Click once with the left mouse-button on a file in this list to select it, twice to open it. You will get a menu when you right-click this list, which you can for example Rename files with.

There are also two buttons located next to the drive list:

•	The button with the arrow. You can use this button to go back to the directories you have opened before. When you click on the small black arrow that points to the bottom, you’ll get a menu with a list of the directories.

•	The button with the folder. When you click this button the favorite dialog will appear. When you click the black arrow next to it that points to the bottom, you get a list of directories your favorites are stored in.

You can make this toolbar visible/invisible by pressing [Ctrl]+[F] on the keyboard or choose “View | File list”. See also the File-list Bar topic for more information.

The “File Index” toolbar

On this toolbar is a button located for each opened file. Click on the button to display the file you want to see. This can be faster then using the Window button located on the “Media Player” toolbar.
You can display this toolbar by choosing “View | Special bars | File index” from the menu.

The “Insert common HTML tags-bar”

This toolbar is available in both Rich Text and Plain Text formats, although you will only need it in Plain Text. You can use this bar to insert the most common HTML tags (HTML is the markup language for the internet). You can or first click a button on this bar and then type the text, or you can first type the text then select it and click the button. Since HTML is already a format, it doesn’t make sense to use this toolbar in Rich Text mode.
Choose “View | Special bars | Insert common HTML tags-bar” from the menu to display this bar.

See also the Paragraph Formatting and Character Formatting topics for more information.


Three Dimensional Text
3D Text

3D Text is an advanced way to make attractive headings. It is, once inserted, not editable text but an image. In this way the text is rendered very fast to the screen. In TextShield Fusion the 3D Text looks really 3D. But there is only one appearance: from the back left to the right front.

You can bring up the dialog by clicking the 3D Text button from the toolbar [image] or by choosing “Extra | Insert 3D Text...” from the menu.

Note that this dialog is only available in Rich Text mode.

Using it is quite simple. Just enter some text in the white edit, choose the font and colors, maybe some effects and click OK. But there are some things that require some knowledge:

Setting the distance

Next to the button “Default” there is an edit to set the distance between the overlapping fonts. The higher the distance is, the more text will look like shadow when InterChar is disabled (see the InterChar description below). When InterChar is enabled, the 3D Text will have more depth.

InterChar

When InterChar is checked, the text will look truly 3D. When not, there are only two layers of fonts.

Using effects

There are several effects like Pool Ripples and Fragmented. Some need the bars to change their appearance, some don’t. One of the effects is very important: AntiAliasing. This gives the images a smoother appearance.

Rendering the text on a bitmap

You can render the text on a bitmap, to make a “final touch” to the text. It looks like it is printed on transparent plastic. See the example on top of this page for a good impression. The higher the transparency value is, the less you see the background shining trough the text.

Using different fonts

When you want to apply a new font to the text, just right-click the Preview and choose an option from the menu.

If you have a slow machine, turn the Preview Effects checkbox off. In this way the text will not be rendered for a preview. And if you want a preview after making settings, just click this checkbox again.