Lesson 4 - Special Functions
Steps for building a form:
1.  Design your form on paper.
2.  Enter text onto blank form (Lesson 1)
3.  Add input fields to form (Lesson 2)
4.  Add borders to your form (Lesson 3)
5.  Add special printer control functions (Lesson 4)<
 You are here  
You should proceed through these lessons in order.  If you make any mistakes  
just reload the form and begin editing again.
Alternate Characters
There are 26 alternate characters you can insert into your form that
have special meaning when your form is executed.  These characters are
inserted by holding down the Alt key and pressing a letter of the
alphabet.  They are seen only when you are editing a form, never when
you are executing.  The functions that the special characters control
take effect immediately following the character.
Press PgDn
Three of these special characters are reserved for placing information
on your form:
Character
Function
Symbol
Alt-D
Place current date on form
Alt-F
Place current form number on form
Alt-T
Place current time on form
The 'Symbol' is what you see when you type the Alt-letter.
Note:  Date and time will only be as current as your computer clock.
One of these special characters is reserved for writing two lines on
top of each other (overstriking).
Character
Function
Symbol
Alt-O
Cancel line feed after this line
Example
 The last word in this sentence will be overstriked with '/':  word 
There are 22 letters left.  These are used for up to 22 different print
functions such as switch to and from italics, boldface, elite, etc.
Press PgDn
You can define these characters any way you like (see Configuring Your
Printer in the documentation).  Currently the following defaults are
used:
Character
Function
Symbol
Alt-B
Boldface text
Alt-C
Compressed text
Alt-E
Elite text
Alt-H
Higher (superscript)
Alt-I
Italic text
Alt-L
Lower (subscript)
Alt-P
Pica text
Alt-U
Underlining
Alt-X
Expanded text
The first time you insert one these characters in a line turns on that
function.  The second time turns it off.  The third time back on, and so  
on.  These functions take effect when you print.
PLEASE DO NOT PRINT THIS SCREEN.  THE SPECIAL CHARACTERS ABOVE WILL NOT
PRINT CORRECTLY AND WILL LEAVE YOUR PRINTER IN AN UNKNOWN STATE.
Press PgDn
Using Special Characters
These special characters are always inserted whenever you use them.  Text 
from the cursor to the end of the line will be shifted one column to the  
right.  This will distort your form if you have characters on the line
which are supposed to line up with characters on other lines.  However,
when the form is executed, the special characters are not shown and the
form will then look normal.  (If you press Alt-F1, the editor will show
how the form will look when executing it.)
The following example will cause the word 'lazy' to be underlined during  
printing:  Move the cursor to just above the first '^' and press Alt-U.
Move the cursor to just above the second '^' and press Alt-U.
The quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog.
Now press Alt-F1 to view without the special characters.
 End of Lesson 4 
 TNow return to DOS and print the file TUTORIAL.DOC.  Following the instructions
 7to build your first working form!