Mega CD-ROM 1/megacd_rom_1.zip/megacd_rom_1/HANDICAP/JBNS16.ZIP/FORMMATE.DOC

Text File | 1990-01-30 | 10KB | 187 lines

                 DESCRIPTION OF Form-Mate from Henter-Joyce


Form-Mate is a program that enables a person to fill out a
preprinted form using a computer and a printer.  This is very
beneficial if you are blind and cannot see to position the head
of a typewriter over the blanks in the form.

Form-Mate is prompt driven and features a pop-up Lotus style
menu.  It can handle any number of forms, any number of
individual response files, and fill out any number of different
forms from the same group of information.  You can take the
information about a person or event one time and use that
information to fill in many different forms.

When the program is executed it looks on the disk for the various
files that describe the form currently in use.  The cursor is
initially positioned on the very first prompt or question to be
asked.  This prompt appears on the screen and is quite short,
such as first name, to give the user an idea of what is expected.

A longer version of the prompt appears in the status window to
help assist the users memory or for learning purposes.  In this
example a longer version may be "enter the persons first name".
The user should then fill in the appropriate name and press the
enter key.  The cursor then moves to the next prompt and waits
for a response.  There is only one prompt per line.  As the
cursor gets to the bottom of the screen the screen will
automatically scroll to bring more prompts into view.  At any
time the user can review the responses and edit them.  The arrow
keys move you through the text, the page up and page down key
take you to the beginning or the end of the prompts, and the go
to feature allows you to position the cursor on any prompt
immediately.

Also visible on the screen and speakable at any time is the name
of the current prompt file, current form file, current field, and
current activity (data entry, menu, etc.).

What we have described above is the data entry mode, where the
user functions interactively with the computer.  The computer
will ask the question and the user is expected to fill in the
answer.  At any time the user can hit the Slash (/) key or the
alt-m to access the menu system.  The menus pop up at the top of
the screen just like Lotus 1-2-3.  Line 2 has the major choices
such as Files, Print, Options, Go to, Clear and Quit.  Line 3 has
an explanation about the enhanced choices on line 2.  For example
when "files" is enhanced on line 2 (selected) then line 3 says
"save and retrieve form, prompt and response files".  As the
enhancement is moved to the next selection by pressing the right
or left arrow keys (or next/prior word) line 3 changes to help
explain the new selection.  To make a selection simply press the
enter key or the down arrow.  To back up one level press the up
arrow or escape.  Since you use simple keys to move around in the
menus, and since an explanation is always visible and speakable,
it is very easy to learn.  Once you become expert at using the
menu simply press the first letter of the choice and the
selection will be made for you.  This menu system is a well
proven design pioneered by Lotus Development Corporation and
provides easy access for the learning user and quick access for
the expert user.

The files option allows you to save on the disk the responses or
answers for a given form.  At any time you can reload these
responses and edit them or use them as a template for a
completely different response file.  You can also load and print
different forms using the same information you have already keyed
in, since it is common to require more than one form on a given
person or event.

The print menu allows you to print information out to the printer
or you can first print the information to the screen so it can be
reviewed and checked for errors.  The go to submenu allows you to
enter the field name to go to.  For large forms this is a quick
way to get to a particular field. The fields are designated by a
letter like a,b,c, and a number.  The clear menu allows you to
erase all the responses in the current form and the quit option
will take you back to Dos.

One thing that we have discovered over the years is that many
preprinted forms are not designed to be filled in by a computer.
Their lines and or blanks are not evenly spaced and may not
always line up properly with a computer printer.  Form-Mate's
micro spacing capability handles this very nicely, any field can
be positioned with great accuracy and independently of any other
field.  You can also print enhance any field such as bold print
or underlining for extra emphasis.

We have tried to describe some of the flexibility and power that
is built in to Form-Mate.  But how difficult is it to set up a
form?  Obviously Form-Mate doesn't figure out size and shape of
the form all by itself.  Three separate files are used to control
Form-Mate, and these are quite easy to produce using a word
processor or a text editor.

The prompt file contains the prompts or questions that the
program will ask the user.  It has the short prompt for each
question such as "First Name" and the long prompt such as " Enter
the First Name of the Person".  It also has a line describing the
type of field or data that can be entered in this field.  We have
adopted commonly used picture clauses, such as used in Dbase III,
to describe the type of data.  We have text fields, numeric
fields, date fields, phone number fields, social security number
fields, dollar values, uppercase only letters, and a technique
for describing almost any data format that you would like.  The
error checking is done at the time of entry so any mistakes can
be corrected immediately.  We also have equation or formula
fields that support multiplication, division, addition, and
subtraction.  The responses to other prompts are used to
calculate the answers for this type of field.  Let the computer
figure out the sales tax on an invoice item and leave your
talking calculator in the desk.  Prompts can also be dependent on
responses to other prompts, there is no sense asking for spouses
name if the answer to marital status was single.

The prompt file is a simple text file created in a word processor
that has information about each prompt.  Without it the computer
would not know which questions to ask and which type of data to
allow for an answer.

The Form file is also a simple text file that can be created on a
word processor. It is a facsimile or electronic copy of the paper
form.  One needs only to type in to the computer the information
as it appears on the form.  The blanks where data is to be
entered are represented by the caret or up arrow character (^) at
the beginning and the end of each blank field.  The fields are
also numbered by the above mentioned letter and number
combination.  It is not necessary to calculate the X,Y
coordinates of each field or count the number of spaces in each
field.  The form file is quite simple, and it can actually be
read into the computer with an optical character reader such as
the Arkenstone or Kurzweil.

If you do not want to create your own form files we will do that
for you.  We charge $30 per hour.  We will need several copies of
each form, a copy of the manual for the printer you will be
using, and a narative description of how to fill out the form.
This is very important, we must know what the form is requesting
before we can set up Form-Mate.   What you will receive will be
our best guess or first shot at interpreting the form.  You can
try it out and report back to us.  We will make the appropriate
changes based on what you tell us.  We will send you the
revisions for further testing.  you can do them yourself with a
standard word processor.  We also offer training.

The third file is a control file which provides the micro spacing
information and enhanced printing information for each field.
This is again a simple text file with an easy way to describe the
spacing or printing requirements.  The fields are identified by
the letter/number combination, if a field requires nothing
special then it is simply omitted from this file.

When the Form-Mate program is executed it gets the prompt and
data-type information from the prompt file, the position and
shape of the form from the form file and any special spacing or
printing requirements from the control file.  After the user
fills in the information desired he or she puts the preprinted
form into the printer and using the menus tells Form-Mate to
print.  Form-Mate knows how many lines down and how many columns
over each field is, information that it calculated from the
positions of the blanks in the form file.  After the first form
is printed the user can load a new form file and put a new paper
form in the printer and print out a new and different form with
the same basic information that was asked for in the prompt file.
This new form may have different spacing and enhancing
requirements so the program will automatically pick a new control
file.  At any time the user can store the information that has
been gathered in a response file, which can be reloaded at any
time to review the information or to change it.

Form-Mate is designed with the priorities of a Blind user in
mind.  It can be used with JAWS to provide speech output. Form-
Mate will also work with most otherspeech, Braille, or Large
Print systems.  It works with the IBM PC,XT,AT and PS-2 family of
computers.  Form-Mate costs $495 plus $10 shipping and handling.
It includes the software on5.25 or 3.5 inch floppy disks, manuals
in print, on disk, and ontape, and a tape training session.

For more information please contact us at:

Henter-Joyce inc.
7901 Fourth St. N. Suite 211
St. Petersburg, FL  33702
813-576-5658
in the USA, toll-free 800-969-5658