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Surefire User's Guide Page 1
Surefire User's Guide - Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction 10
What is a Smart Document 11
Chapter Preview 12
Chapter 2: Getting Started 13
Running Surefire 13
Running Surefire with a Document 14
Leaving Surefire 14
System Information 14
System Setup 14
Current Drive and Directory 14
Current Printer and Printer Port 15
Using Your Display 15
Document Related Parameters 16
Tab Size 16
Word Wrap 16
Auto Calc 16
Hints 16
Auto Backup 16
The Surefire Demo/Tutorial 17
Chapter 3: Getting Around 18
The Document 18
The Page Display 18
Menus 18
The Menu Bar 18
Choosing a Menu Item 19
Accelerated Menu Selection 19
Inactive Menu Items 20
Shortcuts 20
Windows 20
Window Fields 20
Data Entry Fields 20
Action Buttons 21
Multiple Choice Buttons 21
Logical Choice Buttons 21
Moving Between Fields 21
Changing Logical and Multiple Choice Buttons 21
Choosing Action Buttons 21
Getting Help 22
The Status Line 22
Hints 22
Context Help 23
Document Help 23
Chapter 4: Typing Text 24
Word Processors -vs- Typewriters 24
Creating a New Document 25
Saving Your Document 25
Cursor Movement 25
Entering Text 26
Surefire User's Guide Page 2
"Wrapped" and "Unwrapped" Paragraphs 27
Typeover and Insert modes 27
Using Typeover Mode 27
Using Insert Mode 27
Deleting Characters 28
Exiting Surefire 28
Chapter 5: Revising a Document 29
Opening a Document 29
Printing a Document 30
Preparation 30
Printing 31
Scrolling 31
Scrolling by Lines, Screens and Pages 32
Two Faces of Editing 33
"Scroll and Change" Editing 33
Moving the Cursor on the Screen 33
Changing Text 34
Removing Text 34
Adding Text 35
Adding and Deleting Lines 35
Good Editing Practices 35
Chapter 6: Locating Text 36
Finding Text 36
Finding Capitalized and Whole Words 36
Using Goto 37
Using Replace 37
Locating Text Using Bookmarks 38
Correcting Spelling Errors Using Replace 40
Chapter 7: Clipboard Editing 41
The Clipboard 41
Clipboard Commands 41
Selecting Text 42
Block Select -vs- Line Select 42
Selecting a Region with Block Select 42
Selecting Sentences with Line Select 43
Return to Normal Operations 43
Canceling a Selection 44
Viewing Clipboard Objects 44
Copying Text 45
Moving Text 45
Pasting Text 46
Paste & Keep 47
Sizing Clipboard Objects 47
Removing Text 48
Recovering Text 49
Chapter 8: Adding Emphasis 50
Character Attributes 50
Giving a Character Attribute to Text 51
Special Characters 51
Indenting Lines and Paragraphs 51
Surefire User's Guide Page 3
Drawing Boxes and Lines 52
Constructing Tables 53
Chapter 9: Page Layout 54
Formatting Choices 54
Changing Character Spacing 55
Changing Printers 57
Rewrapping Paragraphs 58
What is a Paragraph? 58
Changing Margins 58
Page Breaks 59
Adding and Deleting Pages 60
Headers and Footers 61
Automatic Page Numbering 61
Page and Paper Sizes 61
Printing Your Document 63
Chapter 10: The Calculator 64
Mathematical Expressions 64
Using Functions 65
Calculator Errors 66
Pasting a Result 66
Chapter 11: Introduction to Fields 67
Fields and Forms 67
Editing and Using Documents 67
Moving Around a Document via Fields 68
Cursor Tied To Fields 68
Free Cursor 69
Creating Fields 69
Sizing Text and Numeric Fields 70
Field IDs 70
Chapter 12: Field Types and Attributes 71
Format Attributes 71
Data Attributes 71
Text Fields 72
Justified Text Formats 72
Unjustified Text Formats 72
Single vs Multiple Lines 72
Numeric Fields 72
Numeric Appearance 73
Negative Representation 73
Numeric Justification 73
Other Numeric Format Settings 73
Single vs Multiple Cells 74
Date Fields 74
Date Styles 74
Default to Today 75
Logical Fields 75
Button Fields 75
Fixed vs Auto Sized Fields 76
Surefire User's Guide Page 4
Chapter 13: Working With Fields 77
Editing Fields 77
Single vs Multiple Line Fields 78
Modifying Field Attributes 78
Resizing Fields 78
Deleting Fields 79
Editing a Document with Fields as Text 79
Moving and Copying Fields 79
Entering Information into Fields 80
Entering Dates 81
Pop-Lists 82
Creating a Pop-List 82
Using a Pop-List 82
Clearing Field Values 83
Locating Specific Field Values 83
Printing a Document with Fields 83
Copying and Pasting Values Among Fields 84
Copying and Pasting Values To the Calculator 84
Chapter 14: Introducing Field Commands 85
What is a Field Command? 85
What Can Be Done with Field Commands? 86
Field IDs 86
Specifying Commands 87
Entering Field Commands 87
Executing Field Commands 87
Specifying Functions 87
Chapter 15: Using Field Commands 89
Viewing and Editing Field Commands 89
IDs and Names 89
Viewing Field Commands 90
Editing Field Commands 90
Pasting Values From the Calculator 91
IDs and References 91
Ranges 92
Numeric Fields 92
Sum of Numbers 92
Text Fields 93
Tracing References 94
Assignment Statements 94
Implicit Assignment 94
Explicit Assignment to a Field 95
Assignment to a Range of Cells 95
Multiple Statements 95
Operating with Numbers 95
Operating with Text 96
Conditions and Logical Expressions 97
Logical Operators 97
Complex Logical Expressions 98
Logical Condition Function 98
Control Operations 99
Errors in Control Functions 99
Document Levels 99
Surefire User's Guide Page 5
Changing Directories 99
More About Command Execution 100
Automatic Command Execution 100
Explicit Execution by Page or Document 100
Execution by Buttons 101
Execute on Enter 101
Order of Execution 101
Command Errors 101
Chapter 16: Spreadsheets 102
Creating a Spreadsheet 102
Using a Spreadsheet 102
Absolute and Relative References 102
Loading Commands with Relative References 103
Vertical and Horizontal Relative References 103
Absolute/Relative Toggle Key 104
Enlarging a Spreadsheet 105
Using a Range of Fields 105
Selecting a Range of Fields 105
Copy Commands Using Range Selection 106
Horizontal vs Vertical Execution Order 106
Chapter 17: Introduction to Databases 107
Storing Data 107
Specifying a Database Field 107
Database Limits 108
Adding a Data Record 108
Clearing All Fields 109
Simple Data Search 109
Viewing All Records 109
Database Status Information 109
Getting Specific Records 110
Updating a Data Record 110
Deleting a Data Record 111
Chapter 18: Searching a Database 112
Specifying a Query 112
Query Lines 113
Sort Order Multiple Choice Button 113
Sort Direction Multiple Choice Button 113
Field Name and Type 114
Condition Multiple Choice Button 114
Single Conditions 114
The 'All' Condition 115
Range Conditions 115
Adding a Query Line 116
AND'ed Conditions 116
OR'ed Conditions 116
Deleting a Query Line 117
Closing the Query Window 117
Clearing the Current Query 117
Setting Search Options 117
Setting the Record Type 118
Surefire User's Guide Page 6
Named Queries 118
Saving a Query 118
Getting a Query 119
Running a Query 119
Deleting a Query 119
Chapter 19: Sharing Data Among Documents 120
Base Documents vs Projected Documents 120
Projected Fields 121
Projecting Fields Using the Clipboard 121
Projection as a Field Attribute 122
Using Projected Fields vs Original Fields 122
Searching in a Projected Document 122
Printing Your Data 123
Printing the Current Record 123
Printing All Qualifying Records 124
Chapter 20: Forms and Form Letters 125
What You Need to Know 125
Documents with Fields and No Database 126
Documents with Stored Fields 126
Documents with Projected Fields 127
Mailing Labels 127
Printing Mailing Labels 128
Envelopes 129
Form Letters 129
Pre-Printed Forms 130
Chapter 21: Advanced Database Topics 131
Changing the Database Structure 131
Using Calculated Fields 132
Using Hidden Fields 133
Using Database Searching Functions 134
Recalling a Deleted Record 135
Manipulating Record Sets 136
Updating a Record Set 136
Deleting a Record Set 136
Recalling a Record Set 137
Importing and Exporting Data 137
Importing Data 138
Exporting Data 140
Merging and Extracting Surefire Databases 140
Joining Two Databases 141
Chapter 22: Generating Reports 142
Formatting the Report 142
Specifying Repeated Fields 143
Using Trim 144
Clearing the Repeat Specification 144
Displaying at the Top or Bottom of Pages 144
Displaying at the End of a Report 144
Displaying When a Sort Field Changes 145
Turning off Report Formatting 145
Generating a Report 146
Surefire User's Guide Page 7
Resetting a Report 147
Printing a Report 147
Printing After Display 148
Printing the Report Directly 148
Saving a Report 148
Using Statistical Database Functions 149
Generating Reports at the Push of a Button 149
Chapter 23: More About Printing 150
The Print Window 150
Pages to Print 150
Page Numbering 150
Number of Copies 151
Pause Before Printing 151
PRINT and SEARCH & PRINT 151
Printing the Current Document 152
Stopping and Starting the Printer 152
Printers and Printer Drivers 152
What Actually Gets Printed 154
Chapter 24: More About Surefire Documents 156
The Modes of Editing and Using Documents 156
Getting Documents 156
Saving Documents 158
Copying Documents 158
Renaming Documents 159
Deleting Documents 159
Creating a New Document 160
Protecting Documents 160
Specifying Document Help 160
Help File Format 161
Specifying a Document Help Context 162
Chapter 25: Surefire System Topics 163
Backing Up Your Files 163
Manual Backups 163
Automatic File Backup and Recovery 163
Surefire Files 164
Document File Format - WordStar Compatible 165
Database File Format - DBase III Compatible 165
Locking Documents 165
System Constraints 166
Surefire User's Guide Page 8
Appendix A: Surefire Function Reference 167
General Mathematical Functions 167
Absolute Value 167
Integer Value 167
Remainder 167
Rounding 167
Square Root 167
Trigonometric Functions 168
Pi 168
Sine 168
Cosine 168
Tangent 168
Logarithmic Functions 168
Logarithm 168
Power of e 168
Natural Logarithm 168
Financial Functions 169
Future Value 169
Payment Amounts 169
Present Value 169
Compound Growth Rate 169
Statistical Functions 169
Average 169
Count 169
Maximum 170
Minimum 170
Sum 170
Standard Deviation 170
Variance 170
Date Functions 170
Add Days to a Date 171
Date is After? 171
Date is Before? 171
Specify a Date 171
Day of Month 171
Find Days between Dates 171
Month of Year 172
Dates are Same? 172
Subtract Days from a Date 172
Today's Date 172
Year 172
Text of a Date 172
Text of a Month 173
Text of a Day 173
Text Functions 173
Find a String 173
Obtain a String 173
Replace a String 174
Obtain Length of String 174
Remove Trailing Blanks 174
Compare Two Strings 174
Force String to Upper Case 174
Force String to Lower Case 174
Convert a Number to a String 174
Surefire User's Guide Page 9
Put String to a Page 175
Text Buffer Functions 175
Copy Text to Buffer 175
Paste Buffer onto Page 175
Copy Text from Field to Buffer 175
Paste Buffer into Field 176
Time Functions 176
Current Time 176
Time Stamp 176
Control Functions 176
Go To a Page 177
Go To a Field 177
Go To a Document 177
Return to Previous Document 177
Return to Document at Level 178
Run a DOS Command 178
Reset the Document 178
Set Help Context 178
Present a Document 179
Database Statistical Functions 179
Database Search Functions 180
Set Query Conditions 180
Execute a Query 181
Join a Document 181
Start a Search 181
Update Record 181
Logical Value Functions 182
Logical Condition Function 182
Surefire User's Guide Page 10
Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION
We have developed Surefire to help you do a wide variety of tasks
in the office and at home. Whether you want to track expenses, send
timely correspondence, or keep information about all your clients,
employees or favorite recipes, Surefire can meet your needs.
You will find that Surefire is easy to use and easy to understand.
Menus and windows guide you through all of its features. Help is
available when and where you need it. And you know at all times what
your printed text will look like without special formatting and viewing
procedures.
The power of Surefire can be learned and incorporated in stages.
Your use and knowledge of Surefire will grow as you discover new ways to
automate various tasks. Through reading this manual and exploring the
Surefire system, you will gradually learn new powerful concepts. Once
you learn to do an operation, the methods for performing that operation
are the same no matter how complex your use becomes.
This manual presents the concepts of Surefire so you can easily
build upon what you know from one stage to the next. As you read this
manual, you should take time to understand the concepts that are
presented in each chapter. It is not necessary to read each chapter
completely before moving on, but understanding the key concepts will
make understanding subsequent chapters easier.
When you register your copy of Surefire, you will receive a nicely
bound printed Surefire User's Guide. This guide is loaded with
illustrations and step-by-step practices and has a complete index for
finding topics of interest quickly. Doing the practices will enable you
to benefit the most from the unique capabilities of Surefire.
In order that you can have a vision of what Surefire is about
before you begin, we are going to introduce the notion of Smart
Documents. The Smart Document is what makes Surefire unique.
Surefire User's Guide Page 11
What is a Smart Document
Normally, word processing features are used to edit and manipulate
text. Once the text has been typed into your document, you could print
it for yourself or others to read. But what if your document did some
things for you automatically? Or better yet, what if you could interact
with your document?
Suppose you were writing a letter. Your letter would probably have
your company letterhead and other information pertinent to you. However,
every time you write another letter you need to check your calendar so
that you can type the correct date. Having each new letter automatically
start with today's date would let you spend more time putting your
thoughts into your letter.
Or, have you ever filled out a travel expense form at the end of a
long week and found out that the figures did not add up? No matter how
carefully you added the amounts, all of your daily totals did not equal
all the totals for the weekly categories. Frustrating time-wasters like
this can be eliminated if you could teach the computer to make these
routine calculations.
With Surefire, you can put intelligence into your textual
documents. When you do this, you create Smart Documents. Surefire
builds upon your knowledge of word processing to allow you to
incorporate spreadsheet and database management features directly within
your documents. A Smart Document can be a data entry or retrieval form,
an expense report, a contact database, a profit and loss statement or a
job estimate. In fact, a Smart Document can be almost any application
for which a spreadsheet or database program is used. What's more, a
Smart Document can contain "buttons" to perform specific actions. And,
Smart documents can be linked together to build sophisticated custom
applications.
Automatically dating your letter and setting up an expense report
are two simple examples of Smart documents. But Surefire's power and
flexibility go far beyond that! On the following page is an example of
two smart documents that could be part of a larger application. One of
the documents is an organizational chart that shows the reporting
hierarchy at a company. The other is an example of the phone list of all
employees at that company. The phone list may be viewed by "pressing" a
button on the ORG chart. In this case, pressing the "Full Directory"
button will give the company phone list while pressing the "VP
Marketing" button will display a list of all the employees reporting to
Joan Lindle.
A Smart Document can be used as a fill-in-the-blank form. Take a
standard property lease for example. Generally, a lease has blank spaces
which will eventually hold information such as the names of the tenant
and landlord, the rent due each month and the required damage deposit.
With Surefire, you could enter the standard text of the lease once and
allow Surefire to quickly guide you through the blank areas to fill in
Surefire User's Guide Page 12
the missing information each time a new lease is needed. In addition,
this information can be stored so you can quickly find a lease for a
particular tenant or all leases starting in a particular month.
Perhaps you have trouble sorting your friends from your business
associates in your little black address book, or perhaps you travel
often for business or pleasure and would like to keep track of the best
places to eat in various cities. A database would allow you to keep
track of the information and would let you search through it in an easy
manner. You may want to send different holiday cards to your friends
than to your associates, or you may wish to look up restaurants by city
or by cuisine. Any of these can be a Smart Document.
Eventually, you may find that you have created a number of smart
documents that each do a specific task. With Surefire, you can create a
smart document that is a menu linking all of these other documents into
one personalized application. The uses of Surefire's Smart Documents are
almost limitless. As you will see, a smart document can become
increasingly more intelligent by incorporating features one at a time to
solve the task at hand. This manual will show you how to create useful
Surefire documents and gradually add more and more intelligence to them.
Chapter Preview
Chapter 2 guides you through the steps to install and run Surefire.
Chapters 3 through 9, show you how to get around in Surefire and
how to use the word processing features. These features range from
creating simple letters to manipulating more complicated documents.
Chapter 10 shows you how to use Surefire's handy calculator.
Chapters 11 through 15 show how to create Smart Documents that
directly calculate information. Chapter 16 shows specifically how this
applies to spreadsheets.
Chapters 17 through 21 describe Surefire databases. You will see
how Smart documents can store and retrieve many records of similar
information. Chapter 19 tells you how you can access a database in many
ways while Chapter 20 specifically shows you how to make forms and form
letters. In Chapter 22 you will learn how to generate reports from a
Surefire database, right in your document.
Chapters 23 and 24 include more detail on using printers and
managing Surefire documents. In addition, you will see how to import and
export data between Surefire and other programs.
Chapter 25 gives you more information about the Surefire system.
This includes a discussion of backing up your files.
Appendix A describes all of the functions that are available in
Surefire to manipulate Surefire data.
Surefire User's Guide Page 13
Chapter 2 - GETTING STARTED
Before you install Surefire, you should be somewhat familiar with
the DOS operating system and your particular hardware. You should know
about the DOS directory structure, the type of disks drive(s) you have
and the identifiers of these drives (i.e. A:, B:, C:, etc). Consult
your DOS reference manual for complete information.
After downloading surefire.zip onto your hard drive, and unpacking
the Surefire files from it, be sure to run the Surefire demo. See the
section "The Surefire Demo/Tutorial" at the end of this chapter for more
information.
You will see these files:
The Surefire program (surefire.exe), the Surefire system help file,
printer drivers and other miscellaneous files associated with the
Surefire system. You will also have the files needed to run the
Surefire Demo/Tutorial.
You may put the Surefire directory in your path by updating your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file so that the directory is in your PATH command. Read
your DOS manual for directions on doing this. This will allow you to run
Surefire from any directory.
Running Surefire
1. Type SUREFIRE at the DOS prompt.
If you have added the Surefire directory to your DOS path (in
your autoexec.bat file) you will be able to run Surefire from
any directory on your system. If you have not, you must change
directory to the Surefire directory before running Surefire.
Surefire will look in your default drive and directory for files
and documents that you access. If you type the command:
"SUREFIRE .", at the DOS prompt, Surefire will look in your current
drive and directory for any files and ignore the defaults saved in
the configuration file. See the discussion of current drive and
directory under System Setup later in this chapter.
2. Press (Enter)
This will run Surefire. You will see a copyright notice and then
the initial Surefire screen.
The screen appears with the Menu Bar/Status line at the top. Just
below this line is the top portion of an empty standard 8 1/2 by 11
sheet of paper. This is a new document. You may move about anywhere in
this document and immediately type in information. The document may then
be printed or saved for later use.
Surefire User's Guide Page 14
Running Surefire with a Document
You may specify the name of a Surefire document that you want to be
displayed immediately upon running Surefire. To do this, type SUREFIRE
and a document name at the DOS prompt. Surefire will look for this
document in your current DOS directory. Press (Enter). This will run
Surefire. You will see a copyright notice and then the screen will
appear with the first page of the previously saved document.
Leaving Surefire
You can leave or exit from Surefire by choosing "Exit" from the
File menu or by pressing (ALT + X). You may not exit from Surefire if
there are any windows or menus currently displayed. Surefire will
display a message window to warn you if there is the possibility of
data loss due to not saving your document changes.
System Information
System information is always available by choosing the option
"Info..." from the File menu. The Info window shows the current version
number of the system with a copyright notice. You will also see the
current date and time (provided you have set the DOS system clock) and
the amount of memory available for the document.
System Setup
You may define and modify general system parameters and hardware
configuration information in the Setup window. This window is accessed
by choosing the option " Setup..." from the File menu. It displays the
current disk drive, the current working directory, the current printer
and the current printer port. In addition, it lets Surefire know how to
display information on your video device as well as the current settings
of other document related parameters.
After making the modifications desired, you can choose OK to have
the settings be used for the current session only. If SAVE is chosen,
the settings are used for the current session and subsequent sessions.
Current Drive and Directory
Any files you read or save will be put in the directory where
Surefire was installed. You can change to another directory by changing
the values for the current drive and directory in the Setup window.
Specifying the drive and directory tells Surefire where to look for
documents, text and data files when you do a Get, and where to put
documents and files when you do a Save. To specify a drive, type in a
letter (usually A,B,C,D or E) in the field to the right of the label
"Drive:". You need not type in the colon ':' or slash '\'. To change
the current directory, enter the full path of the desired directory in
the field to the right of the label "Directory:". While a complete
description of drives and directories is not necessary to use Surefire,
you may wish to refer to your DOS reference manual for more information.
Surefire User's Guide Page 15
Current Printer and Printer Port
Specifying the printer type is done with the multiple choice button
to the right of the text "Printer is". If you press the Zoom key (ALT+Z)
when the cursor is on this button, Surefire will display the names of
all available printer definitions. Specifying a printer here indicates
to Surefire how to send information to the printer when you choose PRINT
or SEARCH & PRINT in the Print window.
The printer port refers to how and where your printer is physically
connected to your computer. You will find a multiple choice button to
the right of the text "on Port" that is used to indicate the printer
port to Surefire. If you press the Zoom key (ALT+Z) when the cursor is
on this button, Surefire will display the names of available ports.
Please read "Chapter 23: More About Printing" in this manual, for
a discussion about setting up printers.
Using Your Display
Depending on whether you have a monochrome or color monitor or the
type of grey scale supported by your laptop or display monitor, you may
choose the representation for how Surefire will appear on your display
device. The possible display types are described as follows:
Display Types Indication
Default Automatically set for monochrome or color
depending on your equipment.
Color Indicates that the monitor is color.
Grey Use for grey scale or color emulation.
Inv Grey Similar to Grey but reversed for LCD
displays.
B & W Forces monochrome attributes on
non-monochrome monitor.
Note: If an incorrect display type is shown or you wish to change your
display type, you must save the change, exit from Surefire and run
Surefire again from the DOS prompt.
If you have a computer that does color emulation on black and white
monitors, you may want to try a few options to see what is most
pleasing. This may be of particular interest if you are using a laptop
or portable computer. If you have an LCD display, and the default
display setting doesn't produce enough contrast, you should try the "Inv
Grey" setting.
Another option is to set your computer to emulate a monochrome
monitor instead of color. Sometimes this can be done by using the "B &
W" display option. Try it. If underlines are not displayed, you may need
to set your computer hardware to monochrome emulation mode. This may not
be available on some computers. Consult your computer manual for how to
change its display modes.
Surefire User's Guide Page 16
Document Related Parameters
Any of the document related parameters shown in the table below can
be changed for the current Surefire session or set for all subsequent
sessions. To change any parameter but Tab Size, position the cursor over
the appropriate Yes or No and press (Spacebar).
Tab Size
The Tab Size indicates where to put equally spaced tab stops. When
you are editing a document and you press the (Tab) key, blank characters
are inserted on the page from the current cursor position up to the next
tab stop. You enter the number of characters to be between tab stops in
the field to the right of the label "Tab Size:".
Word Wrap
Word Wrap is a mode that can be either on or off. When on, words
that you type on a page of your document are automatically moved to the
next line if there is not enough room on the current line. The value
that you set here will be reflected in the Word Wrap menu item on the
Page menu. Read "Chapter 4: Typing Text" for a complete discussion of
Word Wrap.
Auto Calc
Auto Calc is a mode that can be either on or off. When on, Surefire
will always calculate new field values whenever any field value changes.
The value you set here will be reflected in the Auto Calc menu item on
the Field menu. Read "Chapter 15: Using Field Commands" for a complete
discussion of Auto Calc.
Hints
The response that you enter, in the field to the right of the label
"Hints:" tells Surefire whether you want the Hint Line at the bottom of
your screen to be displayed or not. The Hint Line shows the more
important keystrokes that are available at any time during your Surefire
session. This information changes depending upon whether there is an
open Surefire window or menu. You may also decide to display or
undisplay the Hint Line by pressing (Shift+F10). Below is an example of
the hint line displayed when there are no open Surefire windows or
menus.
Auto Backup
Auto Backup may be on or off. If on, Surefire will save a copy of
your document before you save any changes. You may restore the previous
version of your document from the copy if you wish. See "Chapter 25:
Surefire System Topics" for a complete discussion of Backup and Recovery
procedures.
Surefire User's Guide Page 17
The Surefire Demo/Tutorial
The quickest way to become familiar with Surefire is to see it and
feel it. You can do this with minimal effort by running the Surefire
demo/tutorial. You can view the demo/tutorial completely by just using
the (Spacebar) key. In some places, you can use the same keys as in
Surefire itself. The demo/tutorial will really get you excited about
what you can do. You run the demo/tutorial by typing SFDEMO at the DOS
prompt.
The example documents described in the demo are available with the
registered version of Surefire. These documents will help you build your
own Smart Document applications. They include a basic lease manager, a
contact manager and a company organization system. The on-line help
specific to these example applications will provide a template for
developing your own application help.
Surefire User's Guide Page 18
Chapter 3 - GETTING AROUND
In the spirit of making an easy-to-use program, we created Surefire
with a custom window interface. Since Surefire doesn't require the
memorization of hundreds of cryptic commands or overload you with too
much information at once, you'll soon discover that Surefire's window
system is a refreshing departure from other DOS applications. Surefire
groups all of the same types of functions together in specialized
windows.
If you have seen other window systems before such as the Apple
Macintosh or Microsoft Windows for the IBM PC, then you are already
familiar with the basic concepts behind a window system. However,
because Piaf designed a custom interface for Surefire, the interface has
some unique features not seen anywhere else. Therefore, whether or not
you've used window-based programs before, we recommend that you look
over this chapter to familiarize yourself with Surefire's approach.
The Document
The document is carefully designed to provide you with a flexible
environment perfectly suited for handling every aspect of document
generation. For example, the word processing features found in the
document are best used for manipulating text and dealing with formatting
concerns, while the data management features give you complete control
of how you want your data presented.
The Page Display
If you choose to start a new document, the screen shows you a
representation of a standard 8 1/2 by 11 blank sheet of paper. This is
the first page. The grey area represents the margin, and the blank
space represents the writing area. Text is added to the page by typing,
and it appears to the left of the cursor. If you make a mistake, using
the backspace key will erase characters to the left of the cursor. To
change the position of the cursor on the page, you use the arrow keys on
your keyboard. On some PC, AT and XT keyboards you'll see separate
arrow keys, while on others, you'll find them on the numerical keypad.
Menus
While a screen looks like a complete display, a menu or window
looks like an independent display-within-a-display. Whenever you choose
a command in a menu or window, you are telling Surefire exactly what you
want it to do for you at the time. Menus give you a list of choices
called menu items.
The Menu Bar
Menus are accessed from the menu bar. Because it is always
visible, the menu bar provides you access to all menus at all times.
This line also provides you with essential status information about what
you are currently doing in Surefire.
Surefire User's Guide Page 19
The Menu bar consists of seven menus (or pull-down windows): File,
Page, Operate, Edit, Field, Data and Graphic. In this chapter, we will
be using the File and Page menus in our examples. These and the other
menus will be detailed fully in subsequent chapters.
Choosing a Menu Item
Follow these steps to choose a menu item:
1. Press (F10).
The Menu bar is accessed by pressing function key (F10). This
places the cursor on the word File.
2. Move the Cursor.
Pressing the (right arrow) key will place the cursor at Page, and
a (left arrow) from Page will return the cursor to File.
3. Open the File menu.
Pressing the (down arrow) key at File will display the File menu.
4. Open the other menus.
Use the (left or right arrow) keys to cycle through all 7 menus.
5. Cycle through the menu items.
The (down arrow) will cycle through available choices and the (up
arrow) will cycle in the reverse direction.
6. Select one of the menu items.
When the cursor is over the desired choice, press (Enter) and some
kind of action will be performed. For example, choose Get... in
the File menu.
7. Close the window.
When you choose Get..., a window appears asking for the name of the
file that you want Surefire to load. Close the window by typing
(Esc) for now. This will return the cursor to the document.
If you chose "Get..." in the File menu, you were presented with a
window that requested more information. For "Get..." and several other
menu items, a window will appear when the choice is selected. However,
in most instances, Surefire will simply perform an action in response to
a menu item selection. For example, the choice "Add Page" on the Page
menu appends a page to the current page of the document without bringing
up a window. You can tell the difference between the two kinds of items
if you see three dots "..." following the item. The dots indicate that
choosing an item will open a window.
Accelerated Menu Selection
In addition to choosing menus from the Menu Bar, you can choose
menus directly from the keyboard by pressing the (ALT) key with the
appropriate highlighted or red-colored letter of the menu. For example,
to quickly bring up the File menu, you type (ALT + F).
Surefire User's Guide Page 20
Once you've opened a menu, you can also quickly choose an item. In
our File menu example, you have two options for choosing the menu item
'New'; you could either move the cursor to the item and hit (Enter), or
you could type the item's highlighted letter (N).
Inactive Menu Items
When a menu item is unavailable because it is inappropriate to the
type of work you are doing at the time, it will not have a highlighted
or red-colored letter, and cannot be selected.
Shortcuts
For the menu items which are frequently used, it may be bothersome
to bring up a menu each time you want to access the choice. Therefore,
shortcut keybindings are available for the commonly-used menu items.
Shortcuts are special keystrokes which give you direct access to the
desired menu item. If a menu item has a shortcut, the keystroke will be
indicated on the menu to the right of the menu item.
Windows
As you saw in the Setup window in the previous chapter, some
windows ask you to supply additional information. Other kinds of
Surefire windows provide you with information or alert you to a possible
problem. These are called message windows. Whenever a message window
appears, its function is to request some kind of input that Surefire
needs before proceeding, and thus, you must respond to it before you can
do anything else in the program.
When you look at a window, you will notice three kinds of items:
informative text, areas for typing, and buttons. The typing area is
called a data entry field. The words not associated with a data entry
field are usually buttons and they come in two varieties: "action" and
"multiple choice".
Window Fields
In Surefire, fields are areas found in windows and documents with
some sort of assigned function. On color monitors, window fields are
blue and document fields are green. On a monochrome monitor, all fields
are underlined. When you move the cursor into a field, the area changes
to a black background with white letters. Windows have four varieties
of fields: data entry, action button, multiple choice button and
logical choice button. You can easily determine which kind of window
item you are looking at by using the following guidelines:
Data Entry Fields: In windows, you type in data entry fields. You
can easily identify them because they always follow
informative text, and usually a colon.
Surefire User's Guide Page 21
Action Buttons: Action buttons always preform an operation when
you "press" them. They are displayed as uppercase words and,
like all other window fields are blue or underlined. You
always use these buttons when closing a window.
Multiple Choice Buttons: All multiple choice buttons are
capitalized lowercase words. They are used for setting
options. All multiple choice buttons can be zoomed. Whenever
you zoom a multiple choice button, you are presented with a
list of choices for that button. Press (ALT+Z) to "zoom" a
multiple choice button or (Spacebar) to cycle through values.
Logical Choice Buttons: Logical choice buttons look like multiple
choice buttons as they are also capitalized lowercase words.
Unlike multiple choice buttons, logical choice buttons answer
a Yes/No question, and are easily identified by the question
mark in the informative text preceding them. Press (Spacebar)
to change the value of a logical choice button.
Moving Between Fields
The simplest way to change the position of the cursor inside a
window is to use the (Home) and (End) keys. (End) will move the cursor
to the next item of interest in the same way your eye moves across the
page when you are reading. That is from left-to-right and top-to-bottom.
In contrast, the (Home) key moves in the opposite direction.
Changing Logical and Multiple Choice Buttons
To change a logical choice button from Yes to No or from No to Yes,
you use the (Spacebar). Multiple choice buttons let you choose from a
list of items. To operate a multiple choice button, you can either use
(Spacebar) to scroll through all of the choices (as you did with the
logical choice button); or you can "zoom" the button by pressing
(ALT+Z). Whenever you use the zoom option, Surefire will display all of
your choices for the button in a "pop-list".
Choosing Action Buttons
In contrast to the multiple choice buttons which are always
displayed as lowercase words, all action buttons are uppercase and are
used to perform an action when you "press" them.
Action buttons are always used whenever you close a window. Most
of the Surefire windows have an action button labeled OK and a button
labeled CANCEL. The OK button is used to tell Surefire that you either
want to go ahead with an operation or that the new settings shown in the
window are correct. The CANCEL button tells Surefire to ignore all of
the changes you've made in the window. For example, in the Get File
window, OK tells Surefire to read the file whose name is given in the
window, and CANCEL tells Surefire to forget about reading a file. To
access these buttons you use the (Home) an (End) keys. You can use
the shortcuts: (Ctrl + Enter) for OK and (Esc) for CANCEL to bypass
having to use the corresponding action buttons.
Surefire User's Guide Page 22
Getting Help
Surefire has several forms of help. Help displays descriptions of
procedures and commands so that you can complete your tasks without
having to turn away from the screen. Some help information is always
visible such as the information in the Status Line. If desired, you can
display Hints (see below) for suggestions on which keys to press, and
Context Help for more information on common commands and procedures.
The Status Line
The Status line is placed to the right of the Menu Bar on the top
line of the screen. The Status line provides you with word processing
and database information; the current document name; the current page,
line; and column. It also lets you know what Surefire is doing from
time to time with an operation indicator.
The operation indicator is found on the right side of the status
line and appears highlighted. It notifies you that an operation is
taking a long time and tells you when it is finished. The meanings of
some indicators are shown below:
Indicator Meaning
GETTING A document file is being loaded into Surefire.
SAVING The changes in a document file are being saved.
LOOKING A word is being looked for in the document.
REPLACING A substitution of occurrences of a word by another
word in the document is being processed.
Hints
Surefire uses Keybindings to help you perform operations and make
choices easily and efficiently. Recall that when you wanted to use a
menu, you typed (F10) to access the Menu Bar. Likewise, when you wanted
to close a window, you typed (Esc) to return the cursor to the document
page.
So that you don't have to keep a mental record of all of the
keybindings used in Surefire, we offer a help line at the bottom of the
screen to show you a context-specific display of keybindings. Only the
most common keybindings that are relevant for the current task are
displayed. For example, the hint line for a window shows you that the
(Home) and (End) keys are used to move around; the (Esc) key will cancel
the window; and the keys: (Ctrl + Enter) will verify the window
information. If you were to type (Esc) and return to the document, you
would see only the keybindings and their contextual meaning appropriate
to Surefire's word processing and data management features.
After some experience with using Surefire, you may not need to see
the keybindings all the time. The line showing the keybindings can be
hidden by typing (Shift+F10). You can redisplay the line by typing
(Shift+F10) again.
Surefire User's Guide Page 23
Context Help
When you need help with using a menu or window, you can receive it
by displaying the menu or window and then pressing function key (F1).
The (F1) key displays a Help window that briefly explains what can be
done in that menu or window. Often, there is more help information than
can be displayed in one screen. To show another help screen, use the
arrow keys or the (Page Up) and (Page Down) keys. When you are
finished, press (Esc) to close the Help window.
When there are no open menus or windows, pressing (F1) provides you
with the most general information about Surefire.
Document Help
Document help may be provided for specific Surefire documents.
After you have created a document using Surefire, you may want to use
the document as a complete application in itself and will want others in
your business to use it. To provide your associates with help specific
to your document, you can create your own help information. This help
information, if provided, is obtained by pressing function key (F2).
See the section "Specifying Document Help" in "Chapter 24: More About
Surefire Documents", for information on providing document help for your
documents.
Surefire User's Guide Page 24
Chapter 4 - Typing Text
This chapter will guide you through the first steps of word
processing - getting your words on the screen and saving them in a file.
Those of you who have used other word processors before and are
acquainted with common word processing features such as word wrap,
typeover and insert modes, this chapter can be used as an overview.
Just browse through the step-by-steps to see how Surefire's approach
compares with what you've used in the past. Once you've become familiar
with the key concepts in this chapter, you'll have an adequate
background for doing the more complicated editing and formatting
operations described in later chapters.
Word Processors -vs- Typewriters
For those of you new to word processing, keep in mind that you
don't have to learn anything new about typing in order to use Surefire.
Although many typists think that keystroking feels more natural on an
electric typewriter than on a computer keyboard, the fingering for each
is almost exactly the same. This is because the keyboard for the IBM PC
and their "clones" or "compatibles" was designed from the popular IBM
Selectric.
The extra keys on the main part of the IBM PC keyboard (Esc, Ctrl
and Alt) are called "control keys". The name is slightly misleading
because these keys don't control anything. Instead, they are used in
conjunction with other keys to send commands or perform special
functions. For example, pressing both the control key and the backspace
key at the same time will erase a word, while pressing the backspace key
alone will erase a single character. Therefore, the control keys make
it possible for other keys to have more than one function.
Another difference between the computer keyboard and a typewriter
is the extra keys on the right and left sides of the main typing area.
On most keyboards, on the right side has a numeric key pad. Often, the
number keys double as cursor-control keys as well. If you have this
kind of keyboard, a key called "Num Lock" will switch you between using
the key pad for entering numbers and using it for cursor control. You
will know which "mode" your keyboard is in if you see a light above the
key pad. On most, when the light is on, the number keys are active, and
when the light is off, the arrow keys are active. If your keyboard is
of this variety, Surefire will operate more efficiently if you use these
keys for cursor movement only, and use the main keyboard for entering
numbers. Some of the more upscale keyboards keep the cursor-control
keys separate from the numeric key pad, so you don't have to use the
same keys for both.
The function keys are found either to the left side or above the
main set of keys. They are usually marked "F1", "F2", "F3". . .
Keyboards with the function keys along the left edge usually have 10
function keys, while keyboards with the keys across the top have 12.
Each key has a different meaning depending on whether you press the key
alone or in combination with either the (ALT) or (Shift) control keys.
Surefire User's Guide Page 25
For help on learning which keys to press when, look at the Hints
displayed at the bottom of the screen for suggestions. You view Hints by
pressing (Shift+F10). Pressing (Shift+F10) again will hide the Hints.
Creating a New Document
When you start Surefire for the first time, the screen displays a
representation of the upper portion of a blank 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of
paper. The cursor is the blinking horizontal line, and starts out in the
upper left-hand corner of a new document. The grey area is the margin,
and the blank space is the typing area.
As you type on the keyboard, text is inserted to the left of the
cursor as the cursor moves from left to right. If you make a mistake,
the (Backspace) key will erase one character at a time to the left of
the cursor. You can press (Enter) to move to the start of the next line.
Saving Your Document
When you're done typing, bring up the Save window from the File
menu to save your text. Saving your file will store what you typed on
a permanent medium such as a floppy or hard disk. Since you are saving
the document for the first time, you will need to give it a name. In
the "Name:" data entry field, type in any name up to eight characters.
When you are done typing the name, press (Ctrl + Enter) to close the
window. This will return the cursor to where you last were in your
document.
Your document's name is displayed on the status line and the text
you typed remains on the screen after you save it so that you can
continue working on it. It is a good idea to save your typing on disk
about every 15 minutes or so. This ensures that your work will not be
lost if the power goes out or you leave your computer unattended.
Cursor Movement
If Surefire forced you to start every page in the upper left-hand
corner, and required you to erase all mistakes by backspacing, it
wouldn't be a very useful program. Luckily, this isn't the case, as
you can start typing anywhere on the page by moving the position of the
cursor to the desired location. In addition, there are many other times
when you'll want to move the cursor--when inserting, deleting,
relocating text, and reformatting paragraphs--to name a few.
In Surefire the cursor keys (arrow keys, Home, End, Page up and
Page down) change your typing position, while the Spacebar, Tab, Enter
and Backspace keys actually modify the text when pressed. For example,
typing (Spacebar) will give you a blank character, while pressing (Right
arrow) will move the cursor over one position on the screen without
changing the text in any way. Pressing (Backspace) will erase a
character, while pressing (Left arrow) will move the cursor over one
space. Likewise, typing (Enter) will put the cursor at the beginning of
the next line, but pressing (Down arrow) will move the cursor down one
line while keeping the left-right orientation of the cursor the same.
Surefire User's Guide Page 26
In this chapter we are concentrating on the basics of typing a
simple document, so our discussion is limited to only what you need to
know for making small changes while entering text. When you start doing
major revisions in the next chapter, you'll encounter a complete
presentation of the cursor keys in action.
Entering Text
One difference between entering text into a word processor and
typing on a typewriter is that a word processor makes pressing (Enter)
at the end of every line optional. The choice is based on whether you
are typing while using automatic Word Wrap.
Surefire's Word Wrap determines what happens when you reach the end
of the line while typing text. When Word Wrap is off, you will find
that Surefire operates like a typewriter because it will not let you
type characters beyond the right margin. To continue typing, you can
either press the (Enter) key or reposition the cursor using the arrow
keys. In contrast, if you reach the end of the line when Word Wrap is
on, you will be able to continue typing since the cursor automatically
moves to the beginning of the next line. When in Insert mode, the word
you are currently typing will also automatically jump down to the
beginning of the next line along with the cursor. This means that if
there is not enough room on the end of the line for a complete word to
fit, Surefire will automatically move the last whole word you type to
the beginning of the next line without you having to press (Enter).
When entering text using Typeover mode while Word Wrap is on, only
the cursor moves to the next line. For example, if you are entering a
table where the last column is aligned flush right, you can start
entering the next row without pressing (Enter). This is done by typing
text or pressing the (Tab) key until the cursor automatically moves to
the first character of the next line.
As you can see, Word Wrap is a convenient feature. You no longer
need to press the (Enter) key in anticipation that the word you are
about to type will not fit on the line. With Word Wrap, your typing
speed and concentration are greatly improved as you don't have to be
constantly watching the screen to see where to type (Enter).
Although Word Wrap makes typing paragraphs much easier, there are
still many tasks for which Word Wrap is not suitable. Tables,
letterheads, diagrams, charts, and forms are some examples of documents
best done without Word Wrap. This is why Surefire gives you both modes.
Surefire User's Guide Page 27
"Wrapped" and "Unwrapped" Paragraphs
Whether you want to use Word Wrap while typing text or not, each
paragraph you enter will be either "wrapped" or "unwrapped". In a
"wrapped" paragraph, all the words are arranged to completely fill up
each line. A line that is "unwrapped" has extra space on the right that
could be "filled-in" with words "wrapped up" from the lines below it.
In addition, entering or editing text in Insert mode with Word Wrap on
automatically results in "wrapped" paragraphs.
Sometimes you may want to "wrap" together "unwrapped" text. To
force an "unwrapped" paragraph to become "wrapped", move the cursor to
the end of the first line of the paragraph, press (ALT+W) until a 'W' is
displayed in the status line to turn Wrap on, and then press (Delete).
In Surefire, a paragraph is separated from the next paragraph by a
blank line or a line that is indented at least one character from the
left margin. An indented line also indicates the start of another
paragraph. When you force an "unwrapped" paragraph to "wrap", the
paragraph is reformatted up to the start of the next paragraph.
Typeover and Insert modes
Surefire gives you two modes for editing text, Typeover and Insert.
As a general rule of thumb, Typeover mode is better suited for replacing
text that is already there with something else. Insert mode is more
appropriate for adding text to a line while retaining the text that is
already on the line.
Using Typeover Mode
Whenever you type text in Typeover mode, all old characters vanish
as you type new ones on top of them. Therefore, you can type directly
on top of text, without having to worry about removing the characters
underneath. This makes editing some documents such as forms and tables
easy and convenient.
There are times when you will want to type on top of a larger
section of "wrapped" text. The best way is to remove the unwanted
section of text and then insert the new text in Insert mode with Word
Wrap on. You will learn how to edit text this way in "Chapter 5:
Revising a Document".
Using Insert Mode
Correcting missing letters, spaces, words, or punctuation marks is
simple in Insert mode: you merely position the cursor one character to
the right of where you need to add text, and type the new text. As you
type, the letters to the right are moved further to the right, to make
room for the text you insert. Because of this, Insert mode is more
suitable for "wrapped" text, but it will also work for "unwrapped" text
if the amount of text is small. What happens at the end of the line
depends on whether you are inserting while using Word Wrap mode or not.
Surefire User's Guide Page 28
Word Wrap together with Insert mode allows for quick paragraph
entry, while Typeover mode is best for typing forms, charts and tables.
Keep in mind, that you can have both "wrapped" and "unwrapped" text in
the same document, as in the example of a report with a "unwrapped"
chart inserted between "wrapped" paragraphs. Depending on the kind of
task you are doing in Surefire, you may want to stick to one mode, or
use a combination.
Deleting Characters
It often happens that while typing a phrase, you think of a better
phrase to use instead. Perhaps the first phrase is a little wordy or
confusing, seems inappropriate at the time, or doesn't express your
point directly enough. For times like these when you are deleting small
amounts of text, you can use the (Backspace) and (Delete) keys or
typeover text in Typeover mode. When you want to remove larger areas,
you will need to use the other methods discussed in "Chapter 7:
Clipboard Editing".
Whenever you want to remove text to the left of the cursor, use the
(Backspace) key.
Whenever you want to remove text at the cursor, use (Delete).
Keep in mind that deleting text gives you different results
depending on whether you are working with Word Wrap or not. In Word
Wrap mode, the words from the next line will move up to fill in the gap
left by the deleted text. Otherwise, they will not. In addition,
because Insert and Typeover modes only control how text is added to a
document, (Backspace) and (Delete), work the same way whether you are in
Insert or Typeover editing modes.
Exiting Surefire
To exit Surefire, press (ALT+X). When you exit you may see the
following message:
"Changes made to the current document not saved, Go ahead anyway?"
If you see the above message, it is a reminder that you've changed
your document since you last saved it, and those changes will be lost
unless you deliberately save them. To save your changes before
quitting, use (Esc) to close the message window, bring up the Save
window by pressing (ALT+F) (S). When you see the Save window appear,
press (Ctrl+Enter) to close the window and save the file. If you want
your changes saved in a different file to keep them separate from the
previous version, type a new filename in the "Name:" text entry field
before closing the Save window.
Surefire User's Guide Page 29
Chapter 5 - REVISING A DOCUMENT
Now that you can use Surefire to type, insert and delete small
amounts of text, you are ready to take advantage of Surefire's more
sophisticated editing functions.
If you examine the path you follow when you edit a document, you
will discover that there's a well-defined process. The steps are
remarkably simple, but often look complex when you are doing them,
simply because you are in the middle of doing detailed work. This
chapter will lead you through the basic steps of revising a document.
Revising a document is how you'll spend many of your word
processing hours. When effectively used, you'll find the editing
techniques discussed in this chapter will liberate you from much of the
drudgery of rewriting and free you to focus your mind--not on all of the
technical details of grinding out words--but on the crucial, exacting
process of effective communication.
Opening a Document
The first step of revising a document is opening the version you
wish to edit. But before you can do this, you'll must locate the file.
If the document is in a different directory than your current directory,
you'll first use the Setup window to change the current directory.
1. Press (ALT+F) (E) to bring display the Setup window. Press (End)
to move it to the "Directory:" entry field. Together, the "Drive:"
and "Directory:" fields show your current "path". A path is the
directions Surefire uses for locating document files. Initially,
Surefire is looking in its home directory. Type the name of the
appropriate directory here and press (Ctrl+Enter) to close the
window and accept the new path.
2. Press (ALT+F) (G) to display the Get window. To display a list
of all of the files in the current directory, press (ALT+Z). Use
the arrow keys to scroll the list until the cursor is positioned on
the right document. Press (Enter) and then (Ctrl+Enter) to close
the "Get" window and load the document into Surefire.
You should develop some kind of organizational system to manage all
of your files. For example, you may want to group all of your letters
in one subdirectory, sales documents in another, and proposals in a
third. It doesn't really matter what system you use as long as you can
quickly locate the file you need. For more information on organizing
files, see "Chapter 24: More About Surefire Documents" found later in
the manual.
Surefire User's Guide Page 30
Printing a Document
Now that you've opened your document, you're ready to see what it
looks like on paper. However, before you can print, you'll need to make
sure that your printer is ready, and Surefire knows the kind of printer
you have and what port it is connected to.
Preparation
Before you print your first document in Surefire, you'll need to
take these preliminary steps. Unless you change printers or have an
unusual print job, you'll never need to do these steps again.
1. Check your hardware. Make sure that your printer is properly
connected to your PC, has paper loaded, is plugged in, and is
turned on. For additional information on printer setup, see
"Chapter 2: Getting Started" and "Chapter 23: More About Printing".
2. Press (ALT+F) (E) to display the Setup window.
3. Move the cursor to the "Printer is" multiple choice button by
pressing the (End) key twice.
4. Check the printer name. If your printer is different than the
one displayed, continue to step 5. If your printer is the same
continue to step 6.
5. Choose a printer. Zoom the button to see a list of supported
printers by pressing (ALT+Z). Use the (up and down arrow) keys to
move the cursor in the list. When the cursor lands on the name of
your printer, press (Enter). If you don't see the name of your
printer listed, choose the name of a printer that is compatible
with your printer. You may need to refer to "Chapter 23: More
About Printing" to choose the appropriate printer.
6. Choose a port. When you connected the printer to your PC, you
did so via a printer cable. The printer port is the place on the
back of the PC that is connected to the cable. Printer ports come
in two varieties: parallel and serial. The type you use depends
on whether you have a parallel or serial printer. For printing to
work correctly, your printer and PC port must match, as a parallel
printer will only work when plugged into a PC parallel port and a
serial printer will only work with the associated PC serial port.
If your printer can operate in either serial or parallel mode, you
must tell your printer in some fashion which kind of port it is on
the other end of the cable. Read your printer manual for this.
If you know what port your printer is connected to, and it isn't
the one displayed, bring up the list of possibilities by pressing
(ALT+Z). Choose one of the ports in the list by using the (up and
down arrow) keys to change the position of the cursor in the list.
Press (Enter) to make your selection. If you don't know what port
your printer is connected to, read the information in "Chapter 2:
Getting Started" about hardware connections before continuing.
Surefire User's Guide Page 31
7. Save the Setup configuration. Move the cursor to the "SAVE"
action button by pressing (End). Press (Enter). This will close
the Setup window and save your printer selections. Unless you
change printers or ports, you will not have to prepare Surefire for
printing again before printing.
Printing
Whenever you print, there are some considerations that you should
keep in mind. What paper size you are using? What size characters do
you want to print? How much space do you want for the margins? How
long do you want to wait for it to print? How many copies? Which page
do you want to start with?
To make this easier, you should experiment with the default printer
settings and formatting. If you don't like how the printout looks, you
can adjust the settings to suit your own preferences. For information
on customizing Surefire's formatting and printing settings, read
"Chapter 9: Page Layout".
Follow these basic steps to print a document:
1. Press (ALT+F) (P) to display the Print window.
2. Start printing. Normally the cursor is found on the "PRINT"
action button when the window first comes up. Press (Enter) to
begin printing. If the cursor is found somewhere else, press (End)
or (Home) until the cursor is over "PRINT".
3. Notice the Print Message. If you are prepared to print, you
should see the Print Message. It indicates that Surefire is
sending information to the printer.
4. Notice that Surefire changes pages while printing. As the
document prints, Surefire displays the page that is currently being
sent to the printer. When all of the pages have been sent, the
message disappears, and you see the last page of the document.
5. Not Printing? If you see the Print Message, but nothing happens
even after waiting awhile, check the following: Your printer is not
configured correctly, you have selected the wrong printer or port
in the Setup window, or the cable is not connected correctly.
Scrolling
Whenever you revise a document, you usually start by scribbling
corrections and comments in the margins of the paper copy. After you've
decided which redundant sentence to omit, what word is too formal, and
what paragraph is to be moved, the next step is usually scrolling
through the text on the screen to locate the sections that need
modification.
Surefire User's Guide Page 32
To make locating text easier, you might find it helpful to mark the
sections on the printed copy with a highlight marker so you can quickly
glance at them while scrolling. Furthermore, if you are going to spend
a lot of hours word processing, we recommend you use some kind of stand
to hold your printed copy upright next to your computer screen. This
saves time and prevents neck strain because you don't have to take your
eyes off of the screen to look down. Attach a spring clip or clothes
pin to the top of a clear plastic recipe book stand for a cheap and very
effective copy holder.
But what if your printer is like the Diablo 630 and takes four
minutes to print a page, and you don't have time to wait that long after
each revision? People with slower printers find it faster to review and
revise their document at the same time in Surefire--scrolling and
editing as they go. However, keep in mind that for many people,
proofreading on the screen isn't as effective as proofreading a paper
copy. When you can only view a third of the page at a time, it is easy
to get a distorted perspective of your document because it is difficult
to imagine what it reads like as a whole. In addition, for most people
computer screens are harder to read and looking at them for hours at a
time is a strain on their eyes. Therefore, if you want a refreshing
vacation from looking at pixels, work with printed copies--but only if
you have time to wait for the printer.
Scrolling by Lines, Screens and Pages
In the last chapter, you learned to move the cursor up and down the
page one line at a time--an appropriate amount for entering text into a
document. However, when you start editing a document, learning how to
move around in much larger units is essential. In this section you will
learn to move quickly from one part of the document to another so that
you can easily locate the sections you want to edit.
Think of your document as one long piece of electronic paper that
stretches from one end to the other--something like the paper tape in an
adding machine. Because your monitor will only display 25 lines, you
can only view about a third of a page at a time. When you scroll, you
view a different "screen", either above or below the last one viewed.
As you advance (or back up) in the document by viewing sequential pieces
of text, the "electronic paper" will seem to wind or unwind across your
display.
You can scroll by three amounts: lines, screens and pages. The
size you use depends on how far what you want to see is from where you
are, and how fast you want to get there. If you advance (scrolling
forward) by lines by pressing the (down arrow) key, "new" lines will
constantly be appearing on the bottom of the screen, and "old" ones will
be disappearing off of the top. Likewise, scrolling backwards with the
(up arrow) key reverses the movement, displaying "new" lines on the top,
and moving the rest down to compensate.
When you scroll by screens and pages, you move more quickly from
one part of the document to another. Once you are familiar with the
document, you can recognize where you are by reading snippets as they
Surefire User's Guide Page 33
move past. You need to stop only when you feel you are close to the
place you're looking for. Then you can scroll at a slower pace, and in
smaller chunks.
Scrolling to the next "screen" (23 or 24 lines of the electronic
paper) is done by pressing (Page Down). Pressing (Page Up) will display
the previous "screen". Whenever you press (Ctrl+Page Down), you display
the first "screen" or first part of the next page. Likewise, (Ctrl+Page
Up) displays the first "screen" on the previous page.
In addition to using (up arrow), (Page Up) and (Ctrl+Page Up) to
scroll backward, and (down arrow), (Page Down) and (Ctrl+Page Down) to
scroll forward, you can also scroll to the beginning or end of the
document by pressing (Ctrl+Home) or (Ctrl+End) respectively.
Two Faces of Editing
For those occasions when you are revising a document, you will find
the "scroll and change" style of editing to be the most efficient way to
get the job done. Likewise, whenever you are reorganizing, you will
find "cut and paste" editing a real time saver.
Since the focus of this chapter is using the "scroll and change"
method of revising text, we are going to leave the exciting world of
"cut and paste" to another chapter--"Chapter 7: Clipboard Editing". If
at this point in time, you are more interested in learning about "cut
and paste" editing, feel free to skip ahead, as you do not need to read
the rest of this chapter before you can learn to do clipboard editing.
"Scroll and Change" Editing
Whenever you scroll through a document--reading and revising as you
go--you make changes by adding or removing text. If you read the last
chapter, "Chapter 4: Typing Text", then you already know the basics of
moving the cursor around the screen and inserting, backspacing or
deleting. However, if Surefire limited you to doing only what was
discussed in that chapter, revising documents would be painfully slow.
Luckily, there are several key commands that really speed things up, and
these are discussed below.
Moving the Cursor on the Screen
Once you've located the screen you want to view, and you spot a
sentence you want to change, you'll need to move the cursor into
position before you can make any changes. As discussed in the last
chapter, "Chapter 4: Typing Text", you move the cursor into position by
pressing the cursor keys.
For a summary of all of Surefire's cursor movement commands, survey
the table on the next page:
Surefire User's Guide Page 34
To Move Press
Left one character Left arrow
Right one character Right arrow
Up one line Up arrow
Down one line Down arrow
Left one word Ctrl + Left
Right one word Ctrl + Right
Start of text on the line Home
End of text on the line End
Left margin Ctrl + (L)
Right margin Ctrl + (R)
Scroll backwards one screen Page Up
Scroll forwards one screen Page Down
Scroll backwards one page Ctrl + Page Up
Scroll backwards on page Ctrl + Page Down
Go to beginning of document Ctrl + Home
Go to the end of document Ctrl + End
Changing Text
Once you've located the text that you want to change, and have
moved the cursor into position, the next step is to remove the old and
replace it with the new. Of course, in the cases where you are only
adding text--tacking on a sentence at the end of a paragraph, adding an
omitted word or phrase, adding a blank line to break a long paragraph
into two paragraphs--you will not need to remove text. Simply, type the
addition, inserting it in front of the cursor.
Keep in mind that the methods Surefire affords for adding and
removing text, vary depending on whether you are editing using Insert or
Typeover mode and whether Word Wrap is on or off.
Removing Text
In the last chapter, you saw that the (Backspace) and (Delete) keys
are used to remove text one character at a time.
Surefire also offers several methods for removing text in addition
to (Backspace) and (Delete). To delete the word under the cursor, you
press (Ctrl+Backspace); to remove all the text on the line the cursor is
currently on, you press (Ctrl+D); and to delete all the characters from
the cursor to the end of the line, you press (Ctrl+E).
As you might expect, when text is removed while Insert mode is on,
the space that is left is "closed up". Therefore, whenever you delete
words or characters you will notice that any text to the right of the
cursor moves over to fill the gap. If Word Wrap is also on, words from
the lines below may also "wrap up", preserving "wrapped" paragraph
formatting. Likewise, when a line is deleted, all lines below it are
moved up to fill in. This happens in any mode.
Surefire User's Guide Page 35
Adding Text
As discussed in the last chapter, the methods you choose to use for
adding text may depend on whether text on the page is "wrapped" or not.
When inserting text using Insert mode, you simply position the cursor
one character to the right of where you want to insert text, and start
typing. Surefire will automatically make room for each character as you
type and rearrange the text to accommodate the addition while there is
still room on the line. When Word Wrap is on, Surefire will also move
words down to subsequent lines if necessary.
You can add text in Typeover mode by either typing over blank areas
or by replacing text that is already there. Keep in mind that Surefire
never does any "automatic adjustments" for you in Typeover mode.
Adding and Deleting Lines
In addition to removing text, the (Delete) key can also be used to
remove blank lines and join lines and paragraphs together. To remove
blank lines you move the cursor to the beginning of the line, and press
(Delete). To join two lines, you must be in Word Wrap mode. You move
the cursor to the end of the first line and then press (Delete). The
text on the next line will "wrap up".
While (Delete) can be used to join two lines together, (Enter) can
be used to break lines apart. Here, you simply position the cursor
where you want the line to break and press (Enter). All of the text to
the right of where you pressed (Enter) will be moved to the beginning of
the next line. Use the same technique to "open" a line by positioning
it on the first character of the line before pressing (Enter).
You can insert a blank line between the current line and the one
above the cursor by pressing (Ctrl+O). This is a convenient way to put
a blank line between two lines of text, and unlike opening a line with
(Enter) it works in any mode.
Good Editing Practices
You will repeat the basic revision process you've encountered in
this chapter many times to polish an important document. Once again,
reading through the hard-copy version of the document after each
revision is essential. It's just too easy to miss things on the screen
that absolutely yell at you from the printed page.
In the next chapter, you will learn faster techniques for moving
around in the document than scrolling screen-by-screen. Specifically,
you will learn how to use the "Goto", "Find" and "Search and Replaces"
commands.
Surefire User's Guide Page 36
Chapter 6 - LOCATING TEXT
There are two ways to locate text in a document. One you now know
well--the laborious method of going to the beginning of the document and
scrolling down page-by-page until you find the right spot. An easier
alternative is using a combination of Surefire's "Goto", "Find" and
"Find and Replace" operations to quickly move around in a document.
This chapter is designed to help you learn how to utilize these
operations to move through the document and edit text in the fastest and
most efficient ways. In the first few sections we will explain how to
use each feature. Later, we will illustrate ways to use the operations
to create "Bookmarks", and correct spelling mistakes and punctuation
errors.
Finding Text
Sometimes you know that a paragraph or sentence needs to be
changed, but you don't know exactly where in the document it is. If you
can remember some unique words that are found only in that sentence or
paragraph, you can quickly locate it with Surefire's Find operations.
Find searches from the cursor to the end of the document. Therefore, to
search the whole document, you will need to start at the beginning.
Find is good for locating all of the times you discuss a point,
refer to a person, mention a date, time or price. To use Find, follow
these steps:
1. Press (Ctrl+Home) to go to the beginning of the document.
2. Press (ALT+T) or select "Find..." from the Page menu.
3. Type your text. The Find window will appear with the cursor
already in the "Search for:" data entry field so you don't have to
move it into position before typing.
4. Choose NEXT. This will start Surefire searching for all
occurrences of your text.
After you have found the word, Surefire stores it away, and you can
"replay" the search with either (Ctrl+P) to look backwards, or (Ctrl+N)
to look forwards. This makes Find fast and efficient. When there are no
more matches of your text in the document, a message will be displayed.
Finding Capitalized and Whole Words
If your word is 'product', by default Surefire will find both
"product" and "products". Unless you specify that you want Surefire to
search for "whole" words, it will find any occurrence of the target text
whether or not it is embedded in longer words.
To find only those occurrences that are distinct words, you "press"
the "Part Word/Full Word" button in the Find window. To "press" the
button, use the (Home) key to move the cursor to "Part Word". Press
Surefire User's Guide Page 37
(Spacebar). This will change "Part Word" to "Full Word". Now choose
NEXT or PREVIOUS to do your search.
In addition to limiting Find to looking for whole words, you can
ask it to find occurrences of text with the specified arrangement of
uppercase or lowercase letters. For example, in our "announce"
document, "Boxes" is used differently than "boxes". In this document,
"Boxes" is always part of the company name, while "boxes" are what the
company sells. You can tell Surefire to be more discriminating by first
entering the correct case in the "Search for:" text entry field, and
then "pressing" the "Any Case/Exact Case" button in the same way you did
the "Part Word/Full Word" button.
Using Goto
While "Find" helps you quickly locate words and phrases, with Goto,
you can move the cursor to any page in the document or to the beginning
or end. Depending on where you want to go, this can be faster than Find.
For example, the paragraph that you want to change may be near the
bottom of the document. Instead of searching for all instances of a
phrase, it can be faster to go directly to the bottom of the document
and then scroll backward to the place you need to edit.
To use Goto, you start by bringing up the Goto window by either
choosing "Goto" on the Page menu or pressing (Alt+P) (G). When the
window appears on the screen, tell Surefire where you want to go. If
you want to jump to a page, type in the number in the "Page Number:"
text entry field, and then press (Ctrl+Enter). If you want to jump to
the beginning or end of the document, press (End) until the cursor lands
on the "BEGINNING" or "END" action buttons. Press (Enter).
If you chose to jump to a page or the beginning of the document,
then the cursor will appear in the upper left-hand corner of the typing
area, whereas if you chose to jump to the end, the cursor will appear in
the lower left-hand corner of the last page in the document.
If you want to bypass bringing up the Goto window when jumping to
the beginning or end of the document, you can press either (Ctrl+Home)
or (Ctrl+End).
Using Replace
While Find locates text for you, Replace gives you the ability to
track down a target word or phrase, and substitute something else for it
or even delete it by replacing it with nothing at all. You access the
Replace window from the Page menu or use the shortcut, (ALT+R). After
Surefire is done locating all of the occurrences of text it is looking
for, and has either replaced them or skipped over them, it will tell you
how many replacements it made and inform you that the replacement
operation is completed.
Surefire User's Guide Page 38
Like Find, Replace locates a specified group of characters that you
enter in the "Search For:" field. When specifying what to search for,
you can also direct Replace to find only the text that matches the
combination of upper and lowercase text you typed, or find whole or
partial words. However, instead of parking the cursor at the beginning
of the located text, Replace lets you substitute it with whatever you
entered in the "Replace With:" text entry field in the Replace window.
In addition, you can choose to either verify each replacement or have
Replace make the substitution throughout the entire document.
Replace differs from Find in that it can only search forward (there
is no equivalent to "PREVIOUS"). If you want to locate all occurrences
of the text, you must start at the beginning of the document.
One of the biggest advantages of Surefire's Replace operation is
that you can have it verify changes before it makes them by choosing
"ASK & REPLACE". After you close the Replace window, Surefire will
locate the first occurrence of your text and select it on the screen.
In addition, the "Ask & Replace" window will appear. On the left-hand
side it shows you what it found and what you specified as the
replacement. Press (End) to move the cursor to the "REPLACE" action
button Press (Enter). This will make the substitution on the screen.
"ASK & REPLACE" is necessary when searching for and replacing words
that could be imbedded in other words. There are times when it is
disadvantageous to search for whole words because you may want to
replace some imbedded occurrences and not others. For example, suppose
you were substituting all occurrences of "cash" with "dollars", and for
some reason didn't want to set the Replace window "Part Word/Full Word"
logical choice button to "Full Word". When looking for partial words,
Surefire would also find "cash" in "cashier".
If instead of using "ASK & REPLACE", you chose to use "REPLACE
ALL", Surefire would have found each instance of "cash" and substituted
in "dollars" for it. Therefore, "cashier" would become "dollarsier".
To prevent problems like these, Surefire lets you choose to replace a
word or skip over it in the "Ask & Replace" window.
Now that you understand the general uses of Replace, Goto and Find,
you're ready to see how they are used in specific situations. The
remaining half of this chapter concentrates on practical uses of these
operations such as creating Bookmarks, correcting spelling errors, and
changing punctuation errors.
Locating Text Using Bookmarks
When revising documents, you'll often find yourself going on
several editing tangents. For example, while you're editing a section
on marketing strategies, you may start thinking about customer
preferences. If customer preferences are discussed in another section,
this often means jumping to that section, typing in your thoughts before
you forget them, and then jumping back again to marketing strategies.
Surefire User's Guide Page 39
Like paper bookmarks, creating "Bookmarks" in Surefire allows you
to move quickly to another place in the document without loosing your
place. Incidentally, using Bookmarks is not a technique unique to
Surefire. It is often found as a built-in feature offered by many
high-priced, dedicated, word processors. But, when you use the basic
Find operation, you can get the same results in an integrated program
like Surefire.
To create a bookmark, all you need to do is to type a unique string
of characters (such as "**") on a blank line near the text you are
currently editing. Then, search either backwards or forwards for a word
or short phrase you know is found near some other place you want to
locate. When the Find operation locates the target spot, simply type
the same characters as you used for the other Bookmark on a blank line
nearby. Now you can zip back and forth between the two Bookmarks by
searching forwards or backwards for the unique string. When you're done
using the Bookmark, "search and destroy" it using Replace.
The mechanics of using Bookmarks are easy and intuitive. To search
for your Bookmark in Surefire, simply press (ALT+T) to bring up the Find
window. In the "Search for:" text entry field type your bookmark
string. Then press (End) either once or twice to position the cursor on
"NEXT" or "PREVIOUS" depending on whether you want to search to the end
of the document or back to the beginning. As you learned earlier in
this chapter, the next time you want to search for the Bookmark, you can
do so without bringing up the Find window. You simply press either
(Ctrl+N) to find the next Bookmark, or (Ctrl+P) to find the previous
one.
When you want to remove Bookmarks so that they're not printed in a
final draft, you eliminate them by using Replace. To do this, bring up
the Replace window by pressing (ALT+R). In the "Search for:" text entry
field, type the unique string identifying the Bookmark. Then, press
(End) to move to the REPLACE ALL action button (the "Replace With:"
field will be left blank). Press (Enter) to close the window, and
Surefire will remove the Bookmarks.
If you find using Bookmarks to be well suited to the way you think,
you may want to develop a Bookmarking system. To move among several
locations in the text, you can develop a numbering system for the
Bookmarks. For example, if you find "**" exceptionally appealing, you
base a system on it such as "**1", **2, **3, or "**", "***", "****".
For really complex documents, you may want to use a variety of
unique strings for Bookmarks--such as "**", "XX", "%%", and "##"--to
designate different Bookmarks for different chores. For example, in a
report, "**" could mark all of the places where you discuss marketing
strategies, while "XX" could identify places where you examine consumer
preferences. If a system like this is appropriate for the document
you're writing, be sure to include a list at the beginning of the
document so that you won't forget what each Bookmark stands for.
Surefire User's Guide Page 40
Correcting Spelling Errors Using Replace
Luckily, once you've spotted spelling errors, either on the screen
or on a hard copy, you can easily correct them in Surefire. For
example, let's suppose you have misspelled a name. You'd have Surefire
automatically search for every occasion you typed "Mr. Gresham" instead
of "Mr. Gershom", and make the substitution. Therefore, there's no need
to bother with locating and correcting spelling errors on-screen. Once
you've discovered a misspelled word, Surefire will locate and correct
all occurrences for you.
Remember that Replace locates and corrects all occurrences between
the cursor and the end of the document. So to correct the entire
document, first move the cursor to the beginning of the document by
pressing (Ctrl+Home).
To correct your misspellings, bring up the Replace window from the
Page menu; type the misspelled word in the "Search for:" text entry
field; and then type the correctly spelled word in the "Replace with:"
text entry field. Use (Home) and (End) to move between the text entry
fields. When both words are entered, press (End) to move to the "REPLACE
ALL" action button and then press (Enter). Surefire will then make the
substitutions.
One method of preventing misspellings of important names and places
is to keep Replace in mind while you are entering text into a document.
For example, let's imagine that you're writing a proposal to expand the
Albuquerque Municipal Water System and Sewage Treatment Facility.
Instead of typing "Albuquerque" 26 times, you could just type a unique
sequence of characters such as "AAAA" each time you want to use the
name. After the text is entered, use Replace to substitute all AAAA's
with "Albuquerque". This way, you only type the name accurately once.
In addition to using Replace for correcting spelling errors, it is
useful for finding and changing many things that are hard to find (or
don't want to find) by eye by manually scrolling through a document.
Examples are dollar amounts, dates, times, extra spaces, missing spaces,
voice (they, we, I, you), pet words, etc.
Surefire User's Guide Page 41
Chapter 7 - CLIPBOARD EDITING
The Clipboard
In Surefire, as in most modern word processors, the Clipboard is
simply a way to think of a place in memory that stores selected pieces
of your document. Like a real clipboard, its function is to hold things
until they are used elsewhere. Like many things which are just places
in memory, you can't see the Clipboard, although you can see the objects
it stores. For example, if you Cut a piece of text to the Clipboard,
the text is removed from its former place in the document and is stored
in the Clipboard memory exactly as it was displayed on the screen.
Whenever you Cut or Copy something to the Clipboard, you will see this
piece highlighted on the screen and displayed as an object.
Once a piece of text becomes a Clipboard object, you can place it
anywhere inside the margins of the document. To do this, you simply
"paste" it. Unlike other software programs where you can store only one
object on the Clipboard at a time, Surefire allows you to store any
number. This way, if you add a new object, the old one is still around.
This prevents you from loosing the last thing you Cut, and allows you to
Cut or Copy multiple objects from the same page where they wait for
relocation until you're ready to use them on another page or into
another document. This aspect of Surefire's word processor makes it
behave more like a desk-top publishing program than a simple word
processor.
In the following sections, we will describe in detail the mechanics
of using each Clipboard operation--Block Select, Line Select, Cut, Copy,
Paste, and Paste & Keep. We will discuss Delete since it shares the
same techniques with Clipboard editing operations, even though it
doesn't use the Clipboard.
Clipboard Commands
In Surefire, the mechanics of "cut-and-paste" editing are easy and
intuitive: you first select the piece of text you want to relocate, and
then choose either Cut or Copy from the Editing menu (ALT+E). Both Cut
and Copy replicate the text you selected into a space in the computer's
memory called the Clipboard. The replica is called a Clipboard object.
Cut differs from Copy in that Cut removes the selected text from the
document when the clipboard replica is made, while Copy leaves the
selected text where it is. Delete acts like Cut but it doesn't make a
replica on the Clipboard. Instead the text vanishes from the document,
and can be recovered by using Undelete as discussed in Chapter 5.
After you have Cut an object to the Clipboard, you can "paste" it
back into the document once you've located where in the document you
want to put it. To do this, you execute Paste, and Surefire takes the
replica off of the clipboard and puts it back into the document in the
new location. Paste & Keep acts just like Paste except that the
Clipboard object remains on the Clipboard after pasting.
Surefire User's Guide Page 42
Selecting Text
Before you can Cut or Copy a piece of text, you'll have to specify
to Surefire which piece of text to Cut or Copy. You do this by
selecting it. Surefire has two methods of selecting text: Block Select
and Line Select.
Block Select -vs- Line Select
You decide whether to use Block Select or Line Select by looking at
the nature of the text you are selecting. The general guideline is to
use Block Select for tables, charts and forms and Line Select for
sentences and paragraphs. In addition, the method you choose also
depends on what you want to happen when the text is pasted at a later
time. When you paste Block selected text, it overwrites what is
underneath it; whereas, when you paste Line selected text, it is
inserted into the existing text.
Just as its name implies, Block Select selects a rectangular area.
always starting in the upper left-hand corner of the area you want to
select, and always including the character under the cursor. Block
select is ideal for manipulating forms and tables. For example, if you
wanted to interchange two columns of a table, you would choose to use
Block select. The largest block you can select is a page.
In contrast, Line Select gives you the ability to select all the
text between two specified points. Therefore, you can select any text
in the document including several words, a phrase, sentences,
paragraphs, or even several pages.
Selecting a Region With Block Select
Move the cursor to the upper left corner of the block to be
selected. Choose Block Select from the Edit menu or press (ALT+B) to
mark the starting point for the selection. When the beginning of a
selection is marked in this fashion, it will become highlighted.
Using the (down and right arrow) keys, move the cursor to the bottom
right corner of the area you want selected. As you do this, you will see
the screen highlight all the text in a rectangle between the starting
point of the block and the present location of the cursor. When you have
the desired rectangle highlighted, you have selected the block.
When you select a block, Surefire expects you to do something with
it. You can cut, copy or delete it. Each of these operations are
available on the Edit menu. Cut (ALT+F1) removes the Block from its
present location and puts a replica on a Clipboard. If you chose to use
Copy (ALT+F2), it also puts a replica on the Clipboard, but keeps the
selected area where it is in the document. Delete (ALT+E) (D)
obliterates the Block from the document without making a replica.
Surefire User's Guide Page 43
Cut (ALT+F1) is the best choice to move text from one area in the
document to another. Once the Block has been Cut, you will see it
displayed as a Clipboard object on the screen. The cursor will be
inside the object, and you will be able to move the object around the
screen using the arrow keys. To return the cursor to the document, press
(F6). This "hides" the Block selected Clipboard object. You will see
how to Paste a block later in this chapter.
Cutting Block selected text will always leave white space behind
just as if you typed in rows of Spacebar characters in Typeover mode.
In contrast, cutting Line selected text results in having the text below
the cut "wrap up" to fill in the hole.
Selecting Sentences With Line Select
To make a line selection, always start in the upper left-hand
corner of the area you want to select. The selection includes the
character under the cursor. Press (ALT+L) or choose Line Select from
the Edit menu to mark this character as the starting point for the
selection.
By pressing the (down arrow), (Ctrl + right arrow) and (left arrow)
keys, move the cursor to the period at the end of a sentence. As you do
this, you will see the screen highlight all the text between the
starting point of the selection and the present location of the cursor.
When you are at the period, you have selected the sentence. Keep in
mind that with Line select, once you have moved the cursor one line
below the starting point, you can move the cursor either right or left.
As with Block select, once you've selected a piece of text,
Surefire expects a Cut, Copy or Delete command to follow. So, don't
choose Delete. Instead, use Cut or Copy and a Clipboard object will
appear on the screen. The cursor will be inside the object, and you
will be able to move the object around the screen using the arrow keys.
Return the cursor to the document by pressing (F6).
Note: When using Line select to select short line paragraphs
(e.g. lists), you must turn Wrap off to preserve the formatting of the
lists. See "Chapter 9: Page Layout" for more information on paragraphs.
Return to Normal Operations
In addition to having a chance to compare how selecting text using
Line select differs from selecting rectangular regions with Block
select, you also learned how to view and hide objects on the screen.
Surefire requires you to hide objects before you can do normal
operations in the document such as typing and scrolling. To do this,
press (F6). To view the Clipboard object again, press (F6) again.
Surefire User's Guide Page 44
Canceling a Selection
Sometimes you may change your mind and want to cancel your
selection. Just as with canceling other Surefire operations, you
simply press (Esc). In addition, we recommend that you choose to view
the "Hints" at the bottom of the screen for help with remembering what
keys to press while doing Clipboard editing, as many of the operations
are not available from a menu. To view the "Hints", press (Shift+F10).
Viewing Clipboard Objects
As you saw in the previous section, selected text and rectangular
regions become Clipboard objects when you Cut or Copy them. An easy way
to understand exactly what happens when objects are Cut or Copied to
Surefire's imaginary Clipboard is to think about a real clipboard. Lets
suppose that our real clipboard holds all of the pages of our document.
On top of the pages, let's pretend that we've overlaid a clear plastic
sheet--perhaps something made for an overhead projector.
Now, imagine that you stuck several yellow notes from a "Post-it"
pad all over the plastic sheet. These particular yellow notes have
clippings of text on them. Remember that the "Post-it" notes are
obviously not part of the document text. You can see this clearly
because the notes obstruct from view the text underneath them and are a
different color. In addition, they can easily be moved around by
"sticking" and "unsticking" them, while the document text remains fixed
to the page.
Now in our real-world clipboard situation, what do you do if you
want see a different page underneath the clear plastic sheet? You
simply remove the plastic sheet and shuffle the other document pages
until you see the page you want. Only after the page you want is in
view, can you replace the clear plastic sheet to see the notes again.
To do this, you simply put the plastic sheet back on top of the pile.
As you've probably gathered, the behavior of the Surefire Clipboard
is almost exactly the same as our real one. The only difference between
them is that Surefire's Clipboard is only the clear plastic sheet and
notes. In Surefire, the document memory is kept separate from the
Clipboard memory, although they both can be displayed simultaneously on
the screen. Remember that Surefire's word processor uses three distinct
memory spaces: the on-screen copy of the file (document), a delete
buffer (for undeleting deleted text) and the Clipboard. Each of these
are independent of each other, and the only time they interact is when
you deliberately ask them to do so by using some kind of interactive
command. As you continue to use Surefire, this distinction will become
more and more obvious.
When your Clipboard Objects are hidden, you can press (Shift+F6) to
all of the objects at the same time. You may press (Shift+Tab) to move
the cursor from one object to the other. Move the object with the
cursor around on the screen by pressing the arrow keys. Press
(Shift+Tab) again to move the cursor to another object. Notice that the
object with the cursor may appear brighter than the others.
Surefire User's Guide Page 45
To hide one object while viewing the others, press (Tab). This
will cause the cursor to move between each of the other objects and
gradually cause all but one of the objects to disappear. To view and
return the cursor to the first object, keep pressing (Tab).
When you press (F6) to return the cursor to the document, all of
the Clipboard objects will be hidden once more.
Copying Text
Perhaps the most frequently used Clipboard operation is Copy.
Whenever you copy a piece of text to another location in Surefire, you
put a replica of a piece of text on the Clipboard while leaving the
original where it is in the document. When you locate the new place you
want the copied object to go, you either use Paste or Paste & Keep.
The most commonly copied text items are long phrases or names that
are often repeated. For example, if you are writing a proposal to
expand a sewage disposal plant, instead of typing "Albuquerque Municipal
Water System and Sewage Treatment Facility" 26 times, just type it once,
copy it to the Clipboard, and paste it 25 times! Therefore, if you find
yourself repeating any line of text more than a couple of times, rather
than retype, just select the text using Line select and Copy it. When
you find the right spot to insert it, Paste it.
In addition, since you can Copy a piece of text, you can compare
how the block or line reads in its new location compared to the old
location. Exercise some caution with this, however. If you copy and
relocate a larger block of text, it appears in the document in both
places. If the original block isn't removed later, it will still be in
both places, and when reading over the manuscript you may not notice the
repeated section if the instances are far enough apart. However, if the
person reading your document is skimming through it quickly, he may say
to himself, "Didn't he just say that?". Therefore, after you compare,
make sure that you delete one of the copies so that you don't
inadvertently repeat the same thing twice or more, in exactly the same
way in different parts of your document.
Moving Text
While copying text is the most common Clipboard operation, moving
text is the safest. Because there is always one copy of a paragraph in
the document, you avoid the "reproducing rabbit" syndrome sometimes
found in documents where copying is excessive. With move, you can
always return your text to its original position if you don't like the
new lineup. So choose to move text if you're trying out material in a
different order. If it's gone from the first location, you can always
get it back by moving it again. And it won't embarrass you like rabbit
fever can.
The major function associated with moving is "parking". When you
are writing paragraphs you often remember something that you haven't
discussed, or need to discuss in another place. Instead of loosing your
train of thought, you simply designate a place to "park" your tangents.
Surefire User's Guide Page 46
It is also a good idea to "park" text that "just doesn't fit" in the
sections you are currently writing. If the misfit text is important and
needs to be addressed, you'll find a more appropriate place for it
later. Instead of deleting it, just "park" it.
Setting the last page of the document aside for stray text is a
common approach to "parking". This way you can have a safe place to
store text without affecting anything else in the document--like page
numbering. And the page is saved along with the rest of your document.
You can name this page "Asides" or "Afterthoughts" with a Bookmark to
make it easy to locate with "Find". This will help if your document
keeps growing, and you don't want to keep track of the new page numbers.
When you combine "parking text" with the "Book marking" technique
discussed in the last chapter, you can easily move between the Asides
and the paragraph you are currently working on.
After you find a place for the "parked" text in the document, you
can easily locate it and zip it out of its "parked" location and move it
anywhere in the document using Cut or Copy and Paste.
If you will be parking a lot of text, add a New Page, with a page
stop before it, at the end of your document. To do this, go to the end
of the document and choose "Add Page" from the Page menu. Move the
cursor upward to the line below the bottom margin of the previous page
that shows you where the page ends. Press (Spacebar). You will see a
"STOP" displayed. A page stop (or hard page break) prevents text which
is added on previous pages, from being wrapped onto this one.
Press (F6) to bring a previously Cut or Copied Clipboard object
into view. Position the object in between the margins by pressing the
arrow keys. Paste the object by pressing (ALT+F3). The text has been
successfully "parked".
You move text by simply Cutting it to the Clipboard and then
Pasting it from the Clipboard in the desired location. Unlike, Copy,
the selected text in the document is not retained, but is removed in the
same fashion as if it were deleted. Keep in mind that with Cut (as with
Delete), the results of the Cut operation are different depending on
whether you used Block select or Line select to select the text.
Pasting Text
Before pasting a Clipboard object, move the cursor to the location
where the text will be inserted. The Paste operation will place the
object in the document differently depending on how it was selected.
Therefore if you are editing "wrapped" text, and used Block select, the
results of pasting the Clipboard object will be the same as if you typed
the text using Typeover mode. When you paste the Block, it retains its
same shape.
If you've selected text using Block select, it is important that
there is enough blank space for the Clipboard object before you paste,
or the operation will obliterate existing text (and Undelete will not
Surefire User's Guide Page 47
undo this kind of deletion). There are times when this is what you want
to do, but as a rule, you probably will want to make sure that there
is enough room first. Also, if the object is not contained between the
margins, you will see a message when you try to paste. Block selected
objects must be completely contained in the typing area.
As long as you don't position the object in a margin and there is
no conflict with any fields (see "Chapter 11: Introduction to Fields"),
there will always be room for Line Selected text, memory allowing. If a
piece of "wrapped" text was selected using Line select, it will be
incorporated into the existing text when pasted as if you entered it
using Insert mode. If you are in Word Wrap mode, the text is "wrapped
into" the document. If Word Wrap is not on, text is inserted line by
line and is not wrapped together.
Choose "Paste" from the Edit menu or press (ALT+F3) to Paste a
Clipboard object. After you Paste the object, the previously displayed
one will be displayed because it is now "on top of the pile". To hide
it and return the cursor to the document, press (F6).
Paste & Keep
In contrast to Paste, Paste & Keep will retain a copy of the
Clipboard object even after it is pasted, and functions as the
"rubber-stamp" approach to "cut-and-paste" editing. If you keep using
a long phrase like , "Albuquerque Municipal Water Storage and Sewage
Treatment Facility", just use Paste & Keep instead of Paste to retain a
copy of the object on the Clipboard after every insert.
Choose "Paste & Keep" from the Edit menu or press (ALT+F4) to Paste
& Keep a Clipboard object. Notice that there are now two copies of the
text displayed on the screen. One is now part of the document and one
is a Clipboard object. To return the cursor to the document, press (F6)
to hide the Clipboard object.
Sizing Clipboard Objects
Whenever you Cut or Copy selected text to the Clipboard, the
viewable portion of the object is set to be the first 12 lines of larger
objects. This gives you a context to know what the object contains
without having the object occupy too much of the screen. There are
times when you will resize the object to view other than 12 lines.
For example, let's suppose that you had several Clipboard objects
each the size of a paragraph. In this case, you are using the Clipboard
as a means to help you create a mock "outline" so that you can
experiment with different sequences of these paragraphs and determine
the order that is the most effective. When creating your "outline" it
would be preferable to reduce the size of the object to just the one or
two sentences. Then you can rearrange the objects on the screen,
determine the best order, and then paste them one-by-one into the
document starting with the one you have decided will be first. Using the
Clipboard in this manner turns out to be a very efficient way to
reorganize the content of letters, reports and proposals.
Surefire User's Guide Page 48
Another time you'll want to resize your object is when you have
more text in an object than what is displayed. For times like these,
you can always make the object larger. Keep in mind that when you
resize a Clipboard object, what is stored in the object remains the
same--only the viewable portion is changed.
Once the Clipboard object is visible, follow these steps:
1. Press (Shift+F3).
This tells Surefire that you want to resize the object. The cursor
will move to the lower right-hand corner of the object.
2. Press (up arrow).
The object will keep shrinking until it is one-line tall.
3. Press (down arrow).
The object will expand to its original size.
4. Press (right arrow).
Nothing happens. This is because the object is already as wide as
its original size.
5. Press (left arrow).
The object shrinks in width. Now press (right arrow) to expand the
object.
6. Return the cursor to its normal Clipboard object behavior.
Press (Shift+F1) to return the cursor to the upper left-hand
portion of the object. The object can be moved around on the
screen again.
7. Press (F6) to return the cursor to the document.
Often more information will be Cut or Copied to the Clipboard than
what is initially viewed in the object. Cases like whole pages are good
examples. In these cases, you may not want to resize the object, but
instead may want to scroll it and view its contents in smaller
portions. You do this by pressing (Shift+F2). This will put the cursor
in the middle of the object, indicating that you want to scroll. Now
you can use the cursor keys to view all of the information in the
object. To be able to move the object again, press (Shift+F1).
Removing Text
In Surefire there are many ways to remove text. Some you have
already seen in the last chapter--"search and destroy" with "Find and
Replace", pressing either the delete or backspace keys, delete to end of
line or delete the whole line. You can also remove text by changing
your keyboard from Insert to Typeover mode and watching all previous
characters vanish as you type over them. In addition, you can select
text, Cut it to the Clipboard and then not put it anywhere. The last
alternative is the topic of this section--you can select text and then
delete it outright.
Surefire User's Guide Page 49
Although potentially dangerous, select and delete is a useful
function. It is best used for times you have writing experiments that
don't work, redundant sentences and rambling prose. It helps you keep
things concise and clean up a cluttered manuscript.
In Surefire, deleting text is simple: just select text using Block
select or Line select and choose Delete from the Edit menu. Keep in
mind that with Delete (as with Cut), the selection method you use gives
you different results when you remove text. Deleting Block selected
text will leave white space behind just as if you typed in lines of
spacebar characters in Typeover mode. In contrast, deleting Line
selected text results in having the text below the deletion "wrap up" to
fill in the hole.
Recovering Text
With all of these convenient ways to eliminate text from you
document, it's important to know all the ways you can get it back if you
delete too much or you simply change your mind. As you know, being able
to delete a block can be a potentially disastrous capability. You can
accidentally or thoughtlessly press the wrong keys. Or you could change
your mind after deleting a lot of text, what do you do then?
If the delete was the last one you did then you're alright. Simply
press Undelete (F5). This will recall the piece from the "delete
buffer" and return it to your document in the same place it was before.
But if you delete the important text awhile ago, and have since deleted
other things, then you can't resort to Undelete. If the lost text was
part of your original document, you're still alright. You could just
reopen your original version. But, if you made a lot of beneficial
changes since disaster struck, you will be loosing those as well as
recovering the deleted text. This could mean you'd be sacrificing a lot
more than you'd gain.
Another alternative is to save the on-screen document to a
different file so that your beneficial changes are preserved. Now reopen
the original document and recover the lost piece. Once you have the
original document on your screen, select the piece, copy it to the
Clipboard and hide the Clipboard by pressing (F6). Recall the version
you were working on (and have since saved as a different file). Show
the Clipboard again by pressing (F6) and paste the lost material.
Surefire User's Guide Page 50
Chapter 8 - ADDING EMPHASIS
All documents have a purpose. Business documents are written to
inform, influence, persuade or convince the reader to do something or
think something. You might write a letter to persuade a person to buy
your product or support your organization. Or you might write a report
to inform your investors that you are increasing your market share.
Whatever the purpose, documents that are effective in accomplishing
these goals are always clearly written and easy to understand.
The easiest way to use Surefire to improve the effectiveness of a
document is to take advantage of its graphical capabilities. By using
its graphical features you can add emphasis to text and organize your
thoughts to make your point more clear and convincing. You can support
your conclusions with tables and graphs that effectively illustrate your
data. When used effectively, these elements help to guide your readers
through your printed thoughts, making it easier for them to agree with
your position, give you the job or buy your product.
This chapter explains how to use Surefire's graphical features.
Specifically you are going to learn how to emphasize text, use special
characters, indent paragraphs, draw boxes and lines, and construct
tables and graphs.
Character Attributes
There are two methods Surefire offers for adding emphasis to text:
drawing boxes around paragraphs to make them stand out, or having the
characters themselves stand out by either capitalizing them or giving
them attributes.
Attributes are the distinctive elements added to selected
characters to make them look different than the rest. In Surefire, you
can make text bold, underlined or both.
Make words bold when you want to emphasize them inside a paragraph.
These are words that you don't want the reader to miss. Defined terms
are good candidates for boldfacing. Underlined words are also commonly
found inside paragraphs. In contrast to bold words, these words are
"loud" and are used to remove any doubt from the reader's mind that this
is important. A good example is: "this does not mean that we are going
to support the project."
Making a word both underlined and bold is usually too loud for
words inside a paragraph but is excellent for emphasizing headlines and
subheadings. In order to make the best use of emphasis in headings and
subheadings, you should develop a consistent system for assigning
attributes to them. Both headlines and subheadings should be clear and
readable. If your document lends itself to subheadings, use them to
your advantage.
Surefire User's Guide Page 51
Giving a Character Attribute to Text
To give a character attribute, select the text first using either
Block or Line Selection. When the desired text is highlighted, you can
apply Bold, Underline or both Bold and Underline attributes to your
text. Bring up the Graphic menu by pressing (ALT+G). Move the cursor to
one of the attribute types such as "Bold & Underline" and press (Enter).
If you have a monochrome monitor, notice that the text is displayed
as it would be printed. On a color monitor, notice that the text
becomes blue while the background becomes green. If you had chosen
"Underline", on a color monitor, notice that the background of the text
is green.
If you change your mind about making text bold or underlined, you
can return it to its natural state by first selecting it and then
choosing "Normal" from the Graphic menu.
Special Characters
For the times when you are using foreign words, mathematical
symbols, fun symbols or special graphical elements such as characters to
join lines and boxes, you will be using special characters. These
characters are available from the Special Characters window from the
Graphic menu. They are grouped by type and you choose them by
positioning the cursor over one of them and pressing (Enter). Once a
character has been chosen, you can access it without bringing up the
menu by pressing (Ctrl+S). This inserts the previously selected special
character into your text in the same manner as if you just selected it
from the window. The Special Character window is shown below.
Surefire is intended to be used for English documents and foreign
characters are available when you need to add a foreign word to an
English document.
Indenting Lines and Paragraphs
Another way to set off text visually on the page is by indenting
it. It makes it interesting and gives the reader an idea about the
relative importance of the text he is reading.
The first lines of paragraphs are the most commonly indented text.
To do this, you simply type (Tab) before entering text for a paragraph.
If you have already entered the text for a paragraph and find later that
you want to indent the first line, move the cursor to the beginning of
the line and insert a (Tab). With Word Wrap on, the rest of the
paragraph will adapt to the adjustment by reflowing. Otherwise, it will
shift if there is enough space on the line to accommodate the inserted
characters.
If you find that you want to indent a whole paragraph, simply add
tabs to the beginnings of all of the lines. If you have already entered
the text, you can also indent the paragraph. In this case, it is
Surefire User's Guide Page 52
important to start at the top of the paragraph and then work your way
down the left-hand margin, indenting all of the lines one-by-one.
Otherwise, the paragraph may not flow correctly.
The standard or default size for a tab is five characters. If you
wanted to change this to a different size, you'd need to change the tab
size in the Setup window. To do this, bring up the Setup window from
the File menu by pressing (ALT+F), (E). The Setup window will appear.
Use the (End) key to move the cursor to the "Tab Size:" text entry field
and type in the new value. When you are done, press (Ctrl+Enter) to
close the window and change the tab size of the tabs you will type in
the future. Keep in mind that this will not change previously typed tab
sizes. If you want the new tab size to become the default, then instead
of pressing (Ctrl+Enter), move the cursor to the "SAVE" action button
and press (Enter) to close the window and change the tab size.
Drawing Boxes and Lines
Drawing Boxes and Lines to emphasize text is easy to do in
Surefire. Horizontal lines are drawn from left-to-right. You simply
position the cursor at where you want the line to start on the left,
choose a style of line in the Graphic menu and then move the cursor to
the right until the line is the desired length. Now, press (Enter).
When you draw a vertical line, you do the same except in this case, you
move the cursor from top to bottom and press (Enter).
When you draw a box, you also draw it from left-to-right and
top-to-bottom. You start in the upper left-hand corner of the box,
choose a line style, move the cursor to the lower right-hand corner and
press (Enter). Notice that the mechanics of this is very similar to
Block selecting text.
Keep in mind that lines and boxes, always replace whatever was
underneath them. Therefore, if you are using a line or a box, it is
important to allow one character blank space for the lines to be drawn.
In addition to using lines and boxes to set paragraphs off in
documents, you can do many kinds of business graphics: charts, graphs
and diagrams.
Surefire User's Guide Page 53
Constructing Tables
A table is two or more columns of text and numbers and is used for
referencing information quickly. Whenever you want to arrange two or
more columns of information side-by-side, you use a table.
For example, you may want to set up columns of data that list your
monthly sales so you can determine your commission at the end of the
quarter and report it to your employer. These figures will be easy to
read and manipulate if you present them in a table. In addition, your
tables are more readable if you use the techniques you learned in the
last section to add lines and boxes to them.
Tables are best entered and edited using Typeover mode. Word Wrap
should be off so that is doesn't create a lot of formatting problems.
The easiest way to enter a table is to use the (Tab) key to align
the columns. For example, you could have a 20 character first column
for names, a 10 character second column for salaries, and a 5 character
third column for hiring dates. Since each of these column widths line
up with the default tab stops (5 spaces per tab), then it is a simple
matter to hit one or two tabs after each entry to position the cursor at
the next column.
To line up your columns nicely, choose your columns so that they
are all multiples of some number (5 in the above example). Then, set
your tab size to that number. To change the tab size, you simply enter
the new size in the "Tab size:" text entry field in the Setup window.
Now you can use tabs to align your columns. Use the column indicator on
the status line to figure out exact cursor positions, as shown below.
Remember that changing the tab width only affects the width of the
tabs that you are going to type in the future. Therefore, if you have
already entered a table earlier in the document using a different tab
size, it will be unaffected by your change.
After you have entered your text into the table, and are satisfied
with the widths of the columns, you can add lines and boxes to make the
tables easier and more interesting to read. See "Drawing Boxes and
Lines" for more information.
Surefire User's Guide Page 54
Chapter 9 - PAGE LAYOUT
In business, presentation matters. Present something well, and its
merits become more visible than its flaws. Present something badly, and
its weaknesses show up more clearly than its strengths. In writing, the
word for presentation is "layout". It simply means the physical design
and appearance of your document.
There are no strict laws governing the layouts for pieces of
writing, although there are many standards. The documents you are
likely to write in Surefire fall into many different categories: sales
reports, business letters, notices to employees, reports of meetings,
product announcements and so forth. Each of these categories has been
around for a long time and has its own requirements for content and
layout. For example, when reading a memo describing a change in policy,
most people expect to see how the new policy will affect their jobs.
Whereas, when reading a report of a meeting, most people expect to hear
who said what and how the final vote went. And, with this expected
content comes an expected layout.
Therefore, when you start designing the layout for your documents,
look at other documents from the same category. When you uncover the
most effective layout for the piece you're writing and it is the most
appropriate for the reader you have in mind--simply duplicate the
layout. Of course, you may want to make some minor changes to suit your
own unique purpose and audience. Go right ahead. When you've finished,
if your own piece of writing looks well presented to you, it will also
look well presented to your audience.
In this chapter you will learn some of the many methods Surefire
affords for customizing the layout to suit the needs of your document.
Specifically, you will learn how to use Surefire's formatting commands
to control how your document is printed; and then how to take advantage
of the Clipboard to design a more sophisticated layout using desk-top
publishing techniques.
There's always something that you can do to make your manuscript
visually more appealing and effective than you thought of when you were
concentrating on getting the ideas straight, rather than how they'd look
when printed. We hope that you will be able to use the information in
this chapter to produce pages that are attractive and delight the eye.
Pages that are inviting and easy to read.
Formatting Choices
Whenever you set formatting options, you tell Surefire how you want
the printed page to look. Surefire gives you many formatting options to
choose from so that you have the most readable setting for your printer
and the most effective layout for your document.
When choosing formatting options, you select the size of paper you
want to use, and how wide the margins should be. You specify where you
want the printer to start printing, and what size characters to use.
Surefire User's Guide Page 55
You also tell Surefire whether or not you want text printed in the
margins such as page numbers, titles and dates. You can also add pages
or remove them and adjust your text accordingly.
Because all of the formatting alternatives add up to a manuscript's
total appearance, it's vital that a change made to one aspect of
formatting of the document will add and not interfere with the
effectiveness of another aspect. For example, if you had wide margins,
and tiny text, you could fit a lot of information on the page, but it
would be difficult to read without eye-strain. Therefore, the two main
concerns when choosing a format for your document is that it is
consistent and appropriate to the content.
The final thing to think about when choosing a format is whether or
not your printer can print your ideas. Many of the formatting choices
you'll be making will depend on the limitations of your printer.
Obviously, you can print a more finished-looking documents with a laser
printer or a letter-quality printer than you can with a 9-pin dot
matrix. For the lower-resolution printers your goal might be just
making your document readable, while on the higher-resolution printers
you might be changing the appearance of a document meant for
publication.
Changing Character Spacing
As you know, text consists of the characters that you enter into
Surefire. Characters include letters, symbols, numbers and spaces.
Standard characters are available by typing on the keyboard, and special
characters are selected from the Special Character window (see "Chapter
8: Adding Emphasis"). In addition, you can alter the horizontal spacing
of the characters in the Format window. And as you saw in the last
chapter, you can change their attributes (bold or underlined) in the
Graphic menu.
Although you can have isolated areas of boldface or underlined
text, when you change the size of characters in Surefire, you do so for
the whole document. Therefore, all of the characters in a document will
be the same height and distance apart. The term for character spacing
is called font and it is represented by pitch.
Pitch is the horizontal spacing of the characters on a line and is
expressed in "characters-per-inch". Since Surefire only uses fixed
fonts (as opposed to proportional fonts), the pitch of a font determines
how close together characters are on the line, but not how far apart the
lines are in the vertical direction. Therefore, on some printers, the
characters themselves will shrink when they are printed closer together;
but for many printers, as you fit more characters on the line, the
characters will stay the same height and will be printed smashed
together as opposed to reduced in size. The printers that have variable
character height are daisy-wheel, letter quality dot matrix and laser
printers.
Surefire User's Guide Page 56
The number of fonts Surefire lets you choose from varies from
printer to printer. For some printers, Surefire lets you choose between
elite (12-pitch), pica (10-pitch) and small print (16.66-pitch). You
will notice how selecting a different font will change the readability
of your text and makes more or less text fit on the page. You should
have Surefire set to Insert mode with Word Wrap on.
To set a different font, bring up the Format window by pressing
(ALT+P) (O). Move the cursor to the "Print Font:" multiple choice
button. Use the (End) key until the cursor lands on the default font you
have selected for your printer. Press (ALT+Z) to view the list of fonts
you have available for your printer. A font is a typestyle, and
depending on your printer it can be represented in "pitch",
"characters-per-inch", or some name unique to your printer. To view all
of the fonts in the list, move the cursor by pressing the (up arrow) and
(down arrow) keys.
Select one of the fonts in the list by pressing (Enter). Close the
Format window by pressing (Ctrl+Enter). Because the new font is either
wider or narrower than the one you had before, Surefire will "rewrap"
the "wrapped" pages to adjust for the new font. Notice how the amount
of text that fits on the page changes for pages where the text is in
paragraphs. If the font is very small, all the text may fit on fewer
pages and extra pages will be removed.
Now, you can print with the new font. If you have a daisy-wheel
printer, put in the pinwheel corresponding to the font selected. This
is usually very simple, and your printer manual has instructions. Bring
up the Print window by pressing (Alt+F) (P). Press (Ctrl+Enter) to
choose PRINT. If you need more information on using the Print window,
or your document doesn't print, see "Chapter 23: More About Printing".
You may notice that choosing a smaller font (larger pitch) will
make more characters fit on a line. Recall that the smaller font was
displayed with exactly the same number of characters per line that will
be printed. In addition, the margins are kept the same width for
printing. The margins appear larger on the screen because more
characters are needed to occupy the same space. For example, if the
left margin was 1" and you are using a pica (10-pitch) font, you will
see the margin represented as 10 characters. In contrast, choosing a
larger font (smaller pitch) will result in fewer characters fitting on
a line, and the margins will shrink accordingly. Keep in mind that this
is done because Surefire does not display the change in the size and
spacing between characters on the screen (characters are fixed width).
Therefore, the margins are displayed as growing or shrinking to
accommodate more or less characters fitting on a line.
Remember that the margins will not be wider or narrower when
printed, but are only displayed that way on the screen to display the
new font. The number of characters occupying the page width, length and
margins is always the same as it is printed.
Surefire User's Guide Page 57
In addition, you will get different results depending on whether
you have Word Wrap on or not. Suppose you select a larger font (smaller
pitch) than the one you used to type the document and Word Wrap is off.
When you reformat with the new font, and your document has some text
that no longer fits on a line, Surefire will automatically add another
line just below the original line to put the extra text. This will
result in very interesting-looking tables and paragraphs!
You can return the document to the default font using the Format
window. Move the cursor to the "RESET" action button and press (Enter).
This will reset the Format window to the default settings. Close the
window by pressing (Ctrl+Enter) and watch the text "rewrap".
Changing Printers
Many people use two printers: one for proofreading and one for
final copies. For example, the final copy of a document may be printed
on a letter-quality or laser printer, but all of the rough drafts where
printed on a 9-pin dot matrix printer.
Usually switching between printers is not a problem--all you have
to do is select another printer in the Setup window. However, when the
printer you are switching to supports different fonts than the first
printer you used, you will have to choose a font that is supported by
the second printer before it will print. To illustrate, let's say that
you previously printed a document on a HP Laserjet using an small print
font (16.66 cpi). Later, you revise the document and want to print out
the new copy on a EPSONLQ.
After switching printers in the Setup window, you'd soon discover
that in this case, the document will not print on the EPSONLQ. This is
because a 16.66 cpi font is not supported by the EPSONLQ. To be able to
print on the EPSONLQ, you will need to change the font setting to one
the EPSONLQ will print and reformat the document by selecting a font in
the Format window. Incidentally, if the EPSONLQ did support the 16.66
cpi font, Surefire would have automatically choose that font for you
when you changed printers.
To continue the story, let's suppose that now you want to see what
the document looks like when you use the smaller font supported by the
HP. You can reformat the document by typing in "16.66" in the "Not
Supported:" text entry field while the EPSONLQ is still the selected
printer. When you are ready to print on the HP, you can simply change
printers in the Setup window and 16.66 will again become a supported
font.
Surefire User's Guide Page 58
Rewrapping Paragraphs
When you changed fonts, you will notice that only the paragraphs
were "rewrapped" when you reformatted the document. This is because
only the groups of text Surefire considers to be paragraphs will be
"rewrapped" in Word Wrap mode. Therefore, when you have a "mixed"
document which has tables, charts and diagrams and "wrapped" paragraphs,
only the paragraphs will be "rewrapped" when you reformat.
In contrast, if you reformat with Word Wrap off to a smaller font,
space will be added between the right-hand margin and the end of the
text for each line, so your lines will not reach the margin anymore.
Reformatting with a larger font will cause extra lines to be added to
accommodate the new text.
What is a Paragraph?
To predict whether or not a group of lines will be "rewrapped" when
you reformat with Word Wrap on, you will need to decide whether or not
the consecutive lines are a paragraph. In Surefire, two conditions must
be met before a group of lines is considered to be a paragraph:
1. The lines are separated from the text above them by either one
or more blank lines, or the first line of the group is indented.
2. All lines after the first line must start at the first character
position (next to the left-hand margin).
Whenever you have a group of lines with one or more blank
characters between the text and the left-hand margin, or more than 18
characters between the end of the text and the right-hand margin, you do
not have a paragraph.
If you have tables and charts in your document, you will want to
indent them at least one character from the left-hand margin to protect
them from being wrapped.
As you saw in earlier chapters, you can join lines by moving the
cursor to the end of the first line and pressing Delete (Del). If the
next line is not indented, and Word Wrap is on, you can "force wrap" the
group of lines into a wrapped paragraph. Here, the second line will
"wrap up" to join the first and all remaining lines will "wrap" until
Surefire encounters either a blank or indented line.
Changing Margins
Like changing the font, changing margins can improve the look of
your document if used with care.
There are a number of reasons why you may decide to change the
margins of your document. In the editing or rewriting sections, text
may have been added or deleted. The difference in length may cause you
to want the appearance on paper to change. Your draft may be on plain
paper, and you want your finished copy on letterhead.
Surefire User's Guide Page 59
You may have a letter where all the text fits on the first page
except for the signature and you want to get the signature to "wrap
up". Or, you could have a table that is split between the first and
second pages of a 2-page document, and you want to put the whole table
on the next page.
The "safest" margins to change are the top and bottom. When you
change the left and right margins with Word Wrap on, Surefire
automatically rearranges the text to fit. Once again, only paragraphs
will rewrap to fit between the margins. Therefore, if you have a
document with indented text or wide tables and charts, these items may
get "clipped" when the margins are made wider (space between the margins
gets smaller).
To change margins, simply bring up the Format window by pressing
(Alt+P) (O). Press (End) or (Home) to move the cursor to the margin
setting area. Type in the new dimensions in the "Margins" data entry
fields: "Left:", "Right:", "Top:", and "Bottom:". Press (Ctrl+Enter) to
close the window and accept the new margins.
If you don't like the results and you want to return to the default
settings, simply open the Format window again by pressing (Alt+P) (O)
and the press (End) to move the cursor to the "RESET" action button.
Press (Enter).
Keep in mind that like changing fonts, changing margins will affect
all of the pages in the document. If you don't want the new margins for
all of the pages, you will need to find a different solution if you want
to change margins to correct a formatting problem such as inserting
spaces to find homes for "orphans" and "widows", breaking a long table
into two tables or rearranging text via the Clipboard (see "Chapter 7:
Clipboard Editing").
Page Breaks
As you know, when entering text, new pages are automatically added
as you need them. Likewise, as you remove text, pages are automatically
removed as the text in your document contracts. In addition, text
entered with Word Wrap on, automatically flows across the page breaks.
However, there are times when you'll want more control over what
ends up on each page than just letting Surefire automatically handle it.
There are times when you want to begin a section on a new page, and you
want all the text from that point on to be independent from the text
before. Or, you may want to add a graph to the end of the document and
want to make sure that no text wraps onto it. In addition, you may want
to "lock down" tables embedded in "wrapped" text to prevent them from
shifting too far as lines are added and deleted above them. In these
cases, you can have more control over page boundaries by using "stop".
For example, you may have some "wrapped" text, and then a table
followed by more "wrapped" text. As the "wrapped" text before the table
grows and shrinks, the table will shift position. To prevent it from
being shifted to the extent that half of it is on the bottom of one page
Surefire User's Guide Page 60
and the rest on the top of another, you simply enter spaces before it,
by pressing (Ctrl+O) to move the whole table to the next page.
After the table has been moved to the next page, you may want it to
remain independent from being shifted whenever the text on the page
before it changes. To do this, you put a "stop" between the two pages
to keep them separate. The effect of this will be to "split" the
document in half, as Surefire will insert new pages before the "stop" if
the text on the page before grows beyond the page's length. Therefore,
it is a good idea to put "stops" before tables if you know that the text
on the previous page is likely to get smaller or bigger.
To make a "stop" (or "hard" page break), move to the page break (a
differently-colored area where the two pages join) and press (Spacebar).
You will see "STOP" displayed, indicating that text will not flow
between these two pages.
If at a later time you change your mind about the "stop", you can
remove it by placing the cursor on the page break and pressing
(Spacebar). The text from the page after the break can now "reflow"
back across the "soft" page break, joining with the text on the previous
page. Now if there is enough room on the previous page for your table,
you may bring it back to the previous page either by using Line Select
or Block Select and Delete from the Edit menu, or by pressing (Ctrl+D)
enough times to delete the spaces added earlier. As you do this, the
table will "flow" from the top of the page to the bottom of the previous
page, filling in the gap you just created.
Adding and Deleting Pages
As you can see, adding "stops" to your document results in breaking
your document up into independent sections. If you are entering text
into a document, and are ready to start a new section, you can force
Surefire to manually add a page after the current one instead of using
the above technique of adding enough lines to fill up the page to make
Surefire automatically add one for you.
To add a page after the current one, simply press (ALT+P) to bring
up the Page menu, move the cursor to "Add Page", and press (Enter). The
cursor will now start at the beginning of the new page. If you want the
page to be independent of previous pages, simply move the cursor up to
the place where the two pages join and press (Spacebar) until you see
"STOP" displayed.
If at a later time, you decide that some pages are unnecessary--a
redundant section is just a repeat of earlier arguments, a graph is too
confusing and subtracts from your point or a page is mostly blank and
its contents can be incorporated into other text--you can remove them by
choosing "Delete Page" from the Page menu. This will remove the page,
but not the "stop" unless the page is the last one in the document.
Surefire User's Guide Page 61
Headers and Footers
Imagine typing at the top of every page, "Financial Statement of
the Albuquerque Sewage and Waste Water Treatment Facility". After
several pages, this could become quite tedious. But by adding a single
header at the top of the first page, you can have Surefire do it for
you.
Headers and Footers are text that appears in the top and bottom
margins and are printed on every page of the document. There are many
uses for headers and footers such as titles, company names, report
footnotes, dates and page numbers. You can even add lines across the
top and bottom to accent the text on the page.
To place text in the top margin, you simply choose "Header" from
the Page menu, move the cursor into position and type. When you are
done typing, press (Esc) to return the cursor to the main typing area of
the document. Footers are made in the same way except that you choose
"Footer" from the Page menu.
Automatic Page Numbering
Many people, when first trying out word processing, do something
very understandable but totally useless. Something in fact that causes
them problems: they type in page numbers wherever a page breaks, just
the way they would on a typewriter.
That's fine as long as the page breaks stay the same. But the
minute you add or delete text, change margins, or enforce a page break
where there was none before, all the page numbers have to be laboriously
relocate, one at a time.
Luckily, you can have Surefire number the pages automatically for
you in a header or footer. Only the first page needs to be specified--
then all the rest of that document is numbered sequentially, no matter
how much it shrinks or bulges in the editing process.
To insert a page number, you press (ALT+P) to display the Page menu
and choose either "Header" or "Footer"--depending on whether you want
the number to appear at the top or bottom of the page. Once the cursor
is in the desired margin, you simply move it to the desired location and
type #. When you return the cursor to the regular typing area by
pressing (Esc), you will see a "1" displayed where you put the number
sign.
Page and Paper Sizes
In Surefire, page size and paper size are not necessarily the same.
Page size is the size of the pages aligned end-to-end on Surefire's
"electronic paper" (see "Chapter 5: Revising a Document"). This may or
may not correspond to the size of paper you are using in your printer.
There are many times when you'll want to have a page larger or
smaller than the size of the paper loaded into your printer. For
Surefire User's Guide Page 62
example, you might be printing one side of a series of half-page thank
you notes that are going to be folded in half. Or you might be printing
mailing labels, name tags or envelopes. In addition, you may be
printing one wide page on two sheets of paper called tiles.
To select a new page size, you first bring up the Format window by
pressing (ALT+P) (O). Now, move the cursor to the "Page Size" multiple
choice button in the Format window and press (ALT+Z) to bring up a list
of choices. Choose one from the list by pressing (Enter).
As you saw in the list, you can either print "tall" or "wide" pages
if your printer supports it. In addition, you can print an oversized
(13-7/8 by 11") document in two sections of 8 1/2 by 11" paper (tiles)
when the page size is larger than the paper size. If you want to try
this, notice that if you have a header or footer on the page in
Surefire, it will be printed on both tiles. In addition, you can select
a custom page size by choosing "Specific Setting" and entering the
dimensions in a special window.
The "Specific Setting" is good for setting the page size to
correspond to custom pages such as invoices and order forms. In
addition, you can use it to create a continuous column of text in a
document as you will see later in this chapter.
You may have also noticed that you can set the page size to
"screen". This is useful for making data entry forms and is explained
later in this manual. Likewise, printing mailing labels and envelopes
is also found in a later chapter.
Generally, printers can not print to the edge of the paper. For
example, the HP laser-jet printer uses 1/4 inch of the left and right
edges of the paper to grab and move the paper through the printer. You
can tell what part of the page is "printable" in Surefire by pressing
(ALT+P) (O). Doing this will display the Format window. At the top,
you will see "Print Region:".
The "Print Region:" gives the area of the page that will be printed
and corresponds to what you see on the screen. For example, although
the dimensions of the paper you have loaded in the printer may be 8 1/2
by 11 inches, the actual width of the document page as displayed on the
screen is only 80 characters or 8 inches. If you place text in a header
or foot flush left or right, it will be printed on the paper 1/4 of an
inch to the left or right of the edge of the paper. Keep in mind, that
the print region is independent of the type of paper you have in the
printer. As long as the paper is the size of the page you specified in
the Format window, everything you can type on the screen will be
printed.
Surefire User's Guide Page 63
Printing Your Document
Now that you have the layout you want on the screen, see how it
looks on paper. Keep in mind that you may still need to make some final
adjustments such as allowing room for the letterhead; putting in the
right pinwheel for the font you've selected; and figuring out how many
copies you want; etc.
When all of the considerations are addressed, and you're ready to
print, bring up the Print window by pressing (Alt+F) (P) if it is not
already displayed. Once again, you move around in the window by
pressing (Home) and (End). See "Chapter 23 - More About Printing" for
a complete discussion of the options in the Print window.
Surefire User's Guide Page 64
Chapter 10 - The Calculator
The pop-up calculator is handy and easy to use. In fact, it offers
you a way to do even more powerful calculations than you can do with
your pocket calculator. It can be used simply to sum a group of numbers
or obtain a more complex result such as the payment amount for a loan.
The result can even be pasted right into your document.
To bring up the calculator window, Calculator is selected from the
Operate Menu, or the short cut (Alt+H) is typed. The calculator has one
line into which you can type. This "entry line" is at the middle of the
calculator. The simplest use is to type in numbers in the entry line.
You may also use the operators (+, -, *, /) to add, subtract, multiply
and divide. Whenever (Enter) is typed, the current value or expression
that you have typed is evaluated. The result is added to the value
already shown in the result area. The "result area" is located at the
upper left corner of the window.
When you first display the Calculator, the result area will be
cleared. As you use the Calculator during your Surefire session, the
result area will contain the value that was there when the Calculator
was last visible. Press (Esc) to close the Calculator and return to your
document.
To start a new calculation we should first clear the previous
result. This is done by selecting the CLEAR button. Use the (End) or
(down arrow) key to position on CLEAR and press (Enter). Notice that the
result area is cleared. The entry line will be cleared when you begin
to type a new expression. You can also clear the entry line expression
by pressing (Ctrl + K) when the cursor is on the entry line.
You can use parentheses () to group parts of an "expression".
Mathematical Expressions
Mathematical expressions are formulas that use numbers, numeric
operators and numeric functions. Surefire supports the following numeric
operators:
Two number operators One number operators
+ Addition - Negation
- Subtraction
* Multiplication
/ Division
The operators in the first column are used with two numbers. For
example, you can multiply two numbers like "3 * 2". The following is
also valid: "3 * 2 + 4". This will multiply 3 with 2 and add 4 to the
result, which is 10.
What if you wrote "4 + 3 * 2"? Well, the result is still 10 since
4 + 6 is 10. This is because division and multiplication have a higher
precedence than addition and subtraction. Precedence means that numbers
Surefire User's Guide Page 65
with "*" (multiplication) or "/" (division) between them are calculated
first, even if they appear to the right of other values. You can tell
Surefire to override the precedence rules by enclosing parts of an
expression in parentheses ().
Suppose you really wanted to add 3 with 4 and then multiply by 2.
This can be done by associating the expression "4 + 3". To do this,
parentheses are put around this part of the expression. The expression
is now: "(4 + 3) * 2" and the new result is 14, since 7 multiplied by 2
is 14. Any number of matched left and right parentheses can be used in
expressions.
The negation operator is nothing more than a minus sign (-) before
a number or expression. It is used to specify a negative number such as
"-10" or "-(30*2 - 10)" which evaluates to "-50". Once you have a
negative value, you can use it in an expression. For example, if you
wanted to multiply -10 by 4 you could enter either: "-10 * 4" or "4 *
-10". This expression would give the result of -40.
Using Functions
Mathematical expressions can also contain functions. Functions
allow you to perform more sophisticated operations on values than you
can with numeric operators alone. For example, you can use a function
to calculate the present value of your mortgage loan or sine of some
angle. Functions in the Surefire Calculator work with numeric values.
All functions in Surefire start with the special character "@". If a
function uses arguments, these arguments are specified within
parentheses and each is separated by a comma. The function @SQRT(n) uses
one argument while the function @PV(pmt, int, term) requires three
arguments.
Two other numeric functions available in the calculator are @ABS(n)
and @SIN(n). These functions are used to determine the absolute value
and sine of a number respectively. They are used by substituting "n"
with the number you want to evaluate. There are many functions that can
be used in the calculator.
To see what functions are available for use in the calculator, type
(Alt+Z) when the cursor is positioned in the calculator's entry line.
This will display a pop-list of all available functions with
placeholders for their arguments. You may scroll through this list
using the (down arrow) and (up arrow) keys to find the one you want.
When the desired function is highlighted, you can choose it. Press
(Enter), and that function will be put into the entry line starting
where the cursor is when you typed (ALT+Z). You can then replace the
arguments with the right numbers or other smaller expressions. When the
expression is complete, press (Enter) once more to have the result of
the expression added to the value in the result area.
Surefire User's Guide Page 66
All functions that are available in Surefire and in the calculator
are summarized in "Appendix A: Surefire Function Reference" located near
the end of this manual. You may use any of the General Mathematical
Functions, Trigonometric Functions, Logarithmic Functions and Financial
Functions described on pages A-1 to A-3 within the calculator.
All the expressions and functions available for the calculator can
also be used as field commands. Field commands can do many more complex
things like manipulate text and dates, perform database operations and
even link databases together. After you gain an understanding of fields
in Surefire, you may read "Chapter 14: Introducing Field Commands" for
complete information.
Calculator Errors
If the Calculator cannot evaluate what was typed in the entry line,
the word ERROR is displayed in the upper right corner of the window. The
previous result is not disturbed. This error message will go away when
the next good expression is evaluated or the result area is cleared. To
clear a calculator error, press (down arrow) to move the cursor to the
CLEAR button. Press (Enter). ERROR will disappear. You can now return to
the entry line to type a valid expression.
Pasting a Result
The resulting value of a calculation can be put directly into your
document by choosing the PASTE button. For the time being let's assume
that your document does not have any fields. Since you are therefore
working in Text edit mode, the value in the result area will be put onto
the document page at the location where the cursor was when you opened
the Calculator window. The value is inserted or overtyped depending on
the current Insert or Typeover status. If Word Wrap is on, normal
wrapping will occur.
For information on pasting a result when there are fields in a
document, read the appropriate section of "Chapter 13: Working With
Fields".
Surefire User's Guide Page 67
Chapter 11 - Introduction to Fields
A field is an area in the document that can contain a value or
formula. It can hold the monthly payment of a property lease or the
totaled expenses for a recent trip. It can act as a placeholder in a
form letter or a way to enter information into a database. A field can
contain today's date, your friend's name or enable you to view another
document. Fields are the key to making Smart Documents. These documents
can act like fill-in-the-blank forms or control complete applications.
You are already somewhat familiar with fields because you have used
them in Surefire system windows. Except for multiple choice buttons, the
fields that you can create are the same. For example, if you look at the
Get File window, you will see three fields: one data entry field or text
field, and two action buttons or button fields.
There are five types of fields that you can create and use in a
document. They are text, numeric, date, logical and button fields.
In the next two chapters you will learn about each of the different
field types; numeric, text, date, logical and button and their
attributes. These attributes determine how field values are displayed
and stored. In the chapter "Working with Fields", you will learn how to
move fields around, modify the attributes of existing fields and work
with fields and their values.
Fields and Forms
We introduce fields by showing how you can use them to make
documents that look like forms. Most of you are already familiar with
pre-printed paper forms. On these forms, most of the words are already
on the page. You need to just fill in the blanks with additional
information to complete a form. Examples of common forms are lease
agreements, order forms, expense reports and standard contractual
agreements.
With Surefire, you design and lay out a form by first using
Surefire's word processing capabilities to enter text and graphics on
the document page. Then you combine this with the fields that you place
anywhere within your document. These fields will hold the data that is
important to you and the task that your document will help you solve.
Editing and Using Documents
The basic concepts for editing documents with fields are the same
as for editing documents without fields. Inserting and wrapping text,
cut & paste, and saving and getting documents are among the operations
that are essentially the same. And you can use the (End) and (Home)
keys to conveniently move around your document via fields just as you do
in Surefire system windows. The only new concept is how to create and
modify the fields' formatting capabilities.
Surefire User's Guide Page 68
The concepts of editing and using a document are very important in
Surefire. Very simply, editing a document allows you to change the
format or layout of a document with fields, while using a document
allows you to enter, display, store, calculate and otherwise manipulate
the values in fields.
Later in the manual, we will discuss how to edit the actual values
that these fields may hold. These values may be manipulated by commands
and may be stored in a database. And, you can use commands to cause
actions to happen, such as displaying other documents, searching a
database, etc. This is just like the action buttons in system windows.
To start, you will learn how to create fields and use them in simple
ways.
Moving Around a Document via Fields
When there are fields present in a document, you can move around in
two different ways. The cursor can be "tied to fields" or the cursor
can be "free". This is true whether you are "editing" the document
(i.e. Document edit mode) or "using" the fields of the document (i.e.
Use mode). You switch between these two ways of moving around by
pressing the free cursor key, (F3).
When the cursor is free, an "F" can be seen on the status line.
Otherwise, the cursor is tied to the fields.
There always is a field called the "current field". This is the
field that is highlighted. A field becomes highlighted, and thus, the
current field when the cursor is moved onto it.
Cursor Tied To Fields
When the cursor is tied to the fields, basic movement is identical
to the way you move around among fields in the Surefire windows. The
arrow keys will move you to the next field up, down, left and right as
long as they are lined up. (Home) and (End) will move you to the
previous or next field in the same direction as you would read text.
This is generally from left to right and top to bottom. (Ctrl + Home)
and (Ctrl + End) will bring you to the first or last field on a line.
The above keys work only within a single page except for (Home)
and (End). Pressing these keys will continue to bring you to the next
or previous field even if it exists on some other page of your document.
In addition, (Ctrl + Page Up) and (Ctrl + Page Down) will bring you to
the first field of the previous or next page. This is similar to using
these keys when the cursor is free. These keys are listed in the table
on the following page.
Surefire User's Guide Page 69
Free Cursor
When the cursor is free, you may move around a document with fields
in exactly the same way as you move around a document with only text.
The cursor is free to be positioned anywhere. What you can do once you
position the cursor is different depending upon whether you are editing
the document or using the document to enter values into fields. The
sections Editing Fields and Entering Information into Fields in the
chapter "Working with Fields" will point out these differences. The keys
that you may use to move the cursor are listed in the table below.
To Move Press
Left one field Home
Right one field End
Up one field Page Up
Down one field Page Down
To the start of the line in a text field Ctrl + Home
To the end of the line in a text field Ctrl + End
To the previous page Ctrl + Page Up
To the next page Ctrl + Page Down
Key Usage - Cursor Tied to Fields
To Move Press
To the beginning of the line Home
To the end of the line End
To the previous screen Page Up
To the next screen Page Down
To the beginning of the document Ctrl + Home
To the end of the document Ctrl + End
To the previous page Ctrl + Page Up
To the next page Ctrl + Page Down
Key Usage - Free Cursor
Creating Fields
Fields are created by using the Field Create window. Before opening
the Field Create window, position the cursor in the document to where
the upper left corner of the field will be put. Then, open the Field
Create window by choosing "Create" on the Field menu or pressing
(ALT+C).
The first multiple choice button allows you to flip through all the
types of fields that can be created, displaying all the field attribute
options for each. You may press (Spacebar) repetitively to show the
available field types or you may press (ALT+Z) to show a pop-list with
these types. After the desired field type is found, you may specify the
individual field attributes by moving to the various attribute settings
in the window. These initial values may easily be changed after the
field is created.
Surefire User's Guide Page 70
The field is then created by selecting OK. If the field being
created is a date, logical or button field, it will have a pre-defined
size. This type of field is immediately inserted into the page or
overwritten onto the page depending on whether Insert or Typeover mode
is on. The size of date and logical fields are determined by the format
that you have chosen. The size of a button field is determined by the
label that you have given it.
Note: Surefire will not allow you to create a new field on top of
an existing field.
Sizing Text and Numeric Fields
Text and numeric fields are sized when they are created after the
Create Window is closed. When you choose OK for these fields, the cursor
is placed at the starting position that you have indicated for the
field. At this time, using the (right and down arrow) keys allows you
to specify the exact size of the field on the page. When the sizing is
finished, press (Enter). If you wish to cancel the field create
operation, you can press the (Esc) key. If you bump up against another
field, Surefire will not allow you to continue in that direction. Just
use the (left and up arrows) to make the field smaller. You can move
the field or change its size later.
The sizing operation will be affected by the current insert mode.
If Insert is on, every time the field is sized to the right, the text
and fields to its right are moved over. If Wrap is on, wrapping is also
done. A text or numeric field may be a multiple line field. Multiple
line fields cannot be created when Insert is on. You must switch to
Typeover mode before you open the Create Window to create a multiple
line field. When a field is created in Typeover mode, any text under
the field will be overwritten.
Field IDs
You do not need to worry about naming or labeling each field that
you create. If you want, you may type descriptive text near a field so
that you know what the field is used for. Surefire assigns an ID to a
field when it is created. This ID is a name that Surefire uses to
distinguish one field from another. Within a document, no two fields
will have the same ID. IDs are discussed in greater detail in the
chapters Using Field Commands and Spreadsheets.
Surefire User's Guide Page 71
Chapter 12 - Field Types and Attributes
A field restricts the type of information that is put into it.
Generally, the type of information that can be put into a field
corresponds to the type of field it is. A field can be numeric, text,
date, logical or button. Numeric, text and date fields allow only
numbers, text and dates in them. Logical fields allow only yes or no
(or true or false) as their information.
Button fields are somewhat different in that they do not allow any
information to be entered into them. Think of a button that you would
press on your VCR or stereo. This button may turn on the device or
cause a tape to be rewound. A button field in Surefire has a similar
purpose. They provide a means for doing specific actions when they are
"pressed". These actions are specified as field commands which are
discussed in detail in later chapters.
The precise way in which fields handle information is determined by
their field attributes. There are two types of field attributes: format
attributes and data attributes. Field attributes are set by using the
Create Field or Modify Field windows. These windows are opened by
choosing "Create... Alt+C" or "Modify.. Alt+M" from the Field menu and
are described in this and the following chapters. You must be in
Document Edit mode to give or change field attributes
Format Attributes
The exact way in which a field accepts and displays information is
determined by the specification of its format attributes. For example,
format attributes for the numeric field include whether numbers are to
be displayed with $'s and commas for currency and where the decimal
point is to be placed. All the format attributes of all fields are
described later in this chapter.
Many format attributes such as text and numeric justification,
currency symbol placement, etc., take effect after entry of a value into
a text field. Entry occurs when you move the cursor out of the field or
press (Enter).
Data Attributes
The data attributes describe whether the information stored within
a field is stored in a database or not. These data attributes are fully
described later in this manual in the chapter entitled "Introduction to
Databases".
Surefire User's Guide Page 72
Text Fields
Text fields provide the most general way of entering information.
Any text that you can normally put in a document can be put in a text
field in the exact same way. There are three main differences. One
difference is that the boundaries for the text are the field limits
rather than the margins on the page. Another difference is in the
flexibility of formatting the text after entry. The last difference is
that text field values can be stored in a database and used in
formulas. The following sections describe the format attributes
available for text fields.
Justified Text Formats
Text justification can occur after entry of a value into a text
field. The text can be left justified, right justified or centered
within the field. This is done by setting the first format multiple
choice button to Left Justify, Right Justify or Center.
Unjustified Text Formats
There are two other format options on this multiple choice button.
They are Don't Justify and Wrap Text. Nothing happens on entry when
either of these attributes is set. When Don't Justify is set, the text
stays wherever you type it within the field. When Wrap Text is set, word
wrap occurs whenever the text needs to, just like within a page.
Changing this attribute to Wrap Text after there is already some text in
the field does not remove white space or break words for you. Rather, it
changes the way the field organizes the text during subsequent editing
in the field.
Single vs Multiple Lines
Text Fields can have one or more lines in them. All format
attributes except wrap apply to single line text fields. Wrap and Don't
Justify behave identically for single line fields.
For multiple line text fields, justification occurs on a line by
line basis. For example, if Center is specified, every line will be
centered when it is entered. If Wrap is set, text is formatted
according to the same wrap rules discussed for general word processing
except it occurs within the boundaries of the field.
Numeric Fields
Numeric fields provide the means to enter various types of numbers.
These can be decimal or integer numbers, percentages or dollars, etc.
When entering information into a numeric field, only numbers and a few
specific characters such as the minus sign ("-") and the decimal point
(".") are allowed. All other characters are ignored.
Surefire User's Guide Page 73
Numeric Appearance
The first format multiple choice button in the Create or Modify
Field window allows you to choose the general appearance of the number
that will be displayed in your field. These choices are summarized as
follows:
Appearance Description
Decimal This is a number containing a single decimal
point somewhere within it.
Comma This is the same as Decimal except commas are
inserted automatically at every third place.
Percent This is a number that always displays the
percent sign ("%") and always divides the
contained number by 100. This is very
convenient when the field is referenced by a
formula. Field Commands and formulas are
described later in this manual.
Currency Currency will always display a dollar sign '$'
at the left of the number. It will also
provide commas at every third digit.
Negative Representation
The second format multiple choice button provides two ways in which
a negative value can be displayed. The normal way is with a minus sign
'-'. This is specified by choosing "-Negative". The other way puts the
number inside a set a parentheses. This is generally desirable when
working with accounting information. This is specified by choosing
"(Negative)".
Numeric Justification
The third multiple choice button allows you to set the
justification for the field. Numbers can be left or right justified. As
with text fields, the justification occurs after you enter a value in
the field.
Other Numeric Format Settings
In addition to the three multiple choice buttons, there are three
other items that you may specify for numeric fields. The first is
labeled "Decimal Place:". The number entered here indicates how many
places to the right of the decimal point should be maintained in the
field. Surefire will use this setting to display the value.
The second item is labeled "Integer?". Here one can choose Y for
Yes or N for No. Yes indicates that the number is to be rounded
automatically to the nearest whole number before being displayed.
Internally, however, the number is remembered to be the exact value
Surefire User's Guide Page 74
entered. If the number of decimal places is set to one or greater and
you typed in a number with a fractional part (i.e some digits to the
right of the decimal point), after you finished entering it, the
fractional part would not be displayed.
The third item is labeled "Pad". You use this attribute to say
whether the number is displayed with leading zeros or blanks to fill up
the width of the field. If you choose "Blank if Zero", the field will
display the number zero as a blank or empty field. This setting is
useful if you have a form with many 0 values and you want to improve
readability.
Single vs Multiple Cells
Numeric fields can contain more than one "cell". Each cell can
contain one number. Multiple cell numeric fields have more than one
cell stacked vertically. All cells for any one numeric field are always
the same size and have the same format attributes. A multiple cell
numeric field is created by using Typeover mode and the (down arrow) key
to show that the field occupies more than one line. Multiple cell
numeric fields are useful for designing smart documents that look like
spreadsheets.
Date Fields
Date fields provide ways to enter and display dates. Date fields
always assure that the dates contained within them are valid dates.
That is, only 12 months can be represented and the appropriate valid
days for a month can be represented. In addition, you can only specify
February 29th for leap years.
Date Styles
There are three styles of date format. The format is specified by
using the format multiple choice button on the Create or Modify Fields
windows. The three formats are as follows:
Date Style Description
mm/dd/yy This format allows you to enter the month, day and
year by the 2 digit number that represents it.
Example: 5/4/32
dd-mmm-yy This format specifies the day first as a two digit
number, then the month as the three letter
abbreviation and finally the last two digits of the
year.
Example: 13-sep-67
Month dd, yyyy This format completely spells out the name of the
month followed by the day and then the year.
Example: November 23, 1945
Surefire User's Guide Page 75
With the first two formats you will be able to enter dates within
the current century Generally, these dates will be between Jan 1, 1900
and Dec 31, 1999. The last format allows entry and display of dates that
are from January 1, 0001 through December 31, 9999.
Default to Today
The "Default to Today?" option is specified by toggling this
logical choice button to Y for yes or N for no. You toggle by pressing
the (Spacebar) until you see the desired value. If this value is set to
Yes, the field will contain today's date, in the style you specified,
when the document is read in. This is convenient for forms and letters
that need to be dated with the current date. You would not have to look
at your calendar each time and fill it in. If necessary, however, you
could change it.
Even if this option is not set for a field, you can easily enter
today's date. With the cursor positioned in the date field, type a
letter 't' or 'T'. You will see today's date displayed in this field in
the appropriate format. This is a shortcut for entering today's date in
a date field.
Logical Fields
Logical Fields provide a way of limiting the information to either
a yes/no or true/false answer. A logical field is like a simple
multiple choice button with two choices. The style of the choices can
be specified. There are four logical styles. These are selected by
choosing the appropriate style with the format multiple choice button.
The available styles are "Y/N", "Yes/No", "YES/NO" and "True/False".
Button Fields
As mentioned earlier, nothing can be directly entered into a button
field. A button field can be "pushed" by pressing the (Enter) key when
the cursor is on the button. This can cause an action to occur. A field
command describes the action that will take place when the button is
pushed. An example of such a command is one that displays another
document when the button is pushed. Without a command, pushing a button
will do nothing. Field commands are described later in this manual.
There is only one attribute to specify for buttons. This is a
label. The label is any text that will represent the button in the
document. You type the label that you desire next to the word Label: in
the Field Create Window. Then choose OK or press (Ctrl+Enter) to create
the button.
Surefire User's Guide Page 76
Fixed vs Auto Sized Fields
Text, Numeric and Date fields can be set to be Fixed Size or Auto
Sized. When a field is set to Fixed Size, it always takes up the same
amount of space on the page no matter what the content of the field is.
If Auto Sizing is set however, the document will automatically
adjust based on the width of the value in the field. For a text field
with multiple lines, empty blank lines at the bottom of the field will
also be removed causing the document to contract further. This automatic
adjustment is done when you change to Text mode. If no changes are made
in Text mode, returning to Use the document will cause Auto Sized fields
to expand back to their maximum length. The notions of Using a document
versus editing a document as text or as a document are covered in the
following chapter.
Auto Sizing can be used to personalize letters with people's names,
for example. The name is put in an auto sized field so that when the
document is printed, the spacing will be adjusted appropriately to
produce a letter that looks like it was typed on a typewriter. Auto
sizing will occur automatically during a Search & Print operation. This
operation is often referred to as "Mail-Merge". See Chapter 20: "Forms
and Form Letters" for a complete description of this process.
With regard to date fields, auto sizing only affects date fields
formatted where the month name is fully spelled out.
Surefire User's Guide Page 77
Chapter 13 - Working With Fields
In the previous two chapters you were introduced to the concept of
fields and how to create them. In this chapter you will learn how to
change a field's formatting characteristics and how to move fields
around in a document.
Editing Fields
At some point, you may want to revise a document that has fields.
You can edit just the fields or the fields and the text of the document
at the same time. Editing fields in a document means changing the way
they look, changing their size, moving them around or removing them
altogether. You will not be changing their values. Any values that are
in the fields will be preserved. To edit a document that is a
combination of text and fields you must switch to document edit mode. To
do this, you choose "Document" from the Operate menu or press (ALT+F9).
When you look at a document while in Document Edit mode, the fields
are shown filled with letters that indicate their type: n for numeric,
c for text, L for logical, d, m and y for date and B for button. This
provides additional feedback that you are going to be editing the layout
of the document and not field values. You can edit both the textual
portions of the document and the fields together.
As you switch between using and editing the document, some fields,
such as a numeric field with a Currency attribute carry more information
than the fact that it is a number. For example, $nnnnn.nn means that the
field is a currency value ($) with 2 decimal places (.nn).
Fields can be edited only when the Operate mode is Document edit.
When there are no fields in the document, the Operate mode is Text edit
since only text can be edited. The Operate mode becomes Document edit
automatically after you create the first field in a document. You can
also explicitly choose "Document" from the Operate menu at any time when
there are fields in the document.
If you type text when the cursor is not on a field, the text will
be put on the page just as if you were doing only word processing. All
the word processing rules apply. Conversely, when you type while the
cursor is on a field, nothing will happen.
Surefire User's Guide Page 78
Single and Multiple Line Fields
Fields that occupy a single line are treated like words. Inserting
text, wrap and all the word processing operations move the field just as
if it were a word. This lets you enter text easily without having to
worry about positioning in-line fields. For example, in a lease or
contract, many fields are found in paragraphs with normal text on either
side. Changing the wording of the paragraph should move the field
automatically.
Multiple line fields, or fields that occupy more than one line are
handled a little differently. You can insert text around these fields
as long as there is enough white space to accommodate the new
characters. Multiple lined fields are moved up and down as lines are
inserted and deleted above and below them. You cannot move these fields
left or right in this manner. This must be done by using Cut and Paste.
See the section Moving and Copying fields later in this chapter for a
complete discussion of this process.
Note: There is one other limitation to placing multiple line
fields. That is, multiple line fields cannot be broken up between pages.
As a result, if you force a multiple line field across a page boundary,
by inserting or deleting lines, all lines that the field crosses will be
pushed up or down across the page boundary together.
Modifying Field Attributes
You can change the attributes of a field by putting the cursor on
the field that you wish to modify and choosing "Modify... Alt+M" on the
Field menu. This will display the Modify Field window. You will note
that this window is the same as the Create Field window except that you
can not change the field type. All of the currently set field attributes
for the field you have selected are displayed and any of them can be
changed. The changes take effect when you choose OK. You can change your
mind, as usual, by choosing CANCEL.
Resizing Fields
Text and Numeric fields can be resized interactively. You do this
by placing the cursor on the field that you wish to resize. Then, by
using the arrow keys to move the cursor, you can redefine the extents
or size of the field. When you choose "Size" on the Field menu or press
(ALT+V), the cursor is placed on the lower right corner of the field.
You adjust the size by using the arrow keys in the same way as you did
when you created the field. You can always cancel a resize operation by
pressing the (Esc) key. As usual, press (Enter) to accept the new size.
The resizing operation obeys Insert and Wrap modes accordingly.
This means that when you make a single line field longer or shorter, the
text or other fields following this field on the page, will be moved
over and wrapped down or up just as if you were inserting characters.
When you resize multiple line fields, you must first make sure that
Typeover is set. And, if you are enlarging the field, you should see
Surefire User's Guide Page 79
that there are no other fields to the right or below that will be
covered by the larger field. It is a good idea to first insert extra
lines below a multiple line field that you wish to make larger.
Note: You may not delete a field by sizing it smaller than 1
character. Read the section below for information on how to delete
fields that are no longer needed or desired.
Deleting Fields
Fields can be deleted along with text that has been Line or Block
selected. You do this by choosing "Delete" on the Edit menu. The
currently selected field or current field can be deleted directly by
choosing "Delete" on the Edit menu. Notice that the Delete choice does
not have a shortcut. This is a precaution. If you delete a page, by
choosing "Delete Page" from the Page menu, all the fields as well as the
text on that page will be deleted.
Because Surefire does not want you to lose important data, you will
be warned if you try to delete a database field. In addition, you will
not be able to delete a field by deleting the current line or end of
line with (Ctrl+D) or (Ctrl+E) respectively.
If you delete all of the fields in a document, Surefire will
automatically return you to Text edit mode. You will note that the "Use
Alt+F7" and "Document Alt+F9" choices on the Operate menu are disabled.
When you again add fields to the document, these choices will become
available once more.
Editing a Document with Fields as Text
The choice "Text Alt+F8" on the Operate menu allows you to edit
the document as if it were nothing but text. This means that the values
currently displayed in the fields, become simply text on the document's
pages. Once changes are made to a document during Text edit, the
placement and characteristics of the fields are no longer maintained.
You can no longer edit the document as a document or use the document to
manipulate field values unless you Get the saved version of the
document.
Editing a document as text is useful to make annotations or add
specific wording or emphasis for one-time usage. You can then print the
document or save it as a Report without altering the general make-up of
your original document. See "Chapter 22: Generating Reports" for
information on how to save documents as reports.
Moving and Copying Fields
You can move and copy (duplicate) fields that are interspersed with
text by using Cut & Paste just as you would with text alone. The only
difference is that the selection of the mixed text and fields must fully
contain the fields. In other words, you cannot try to select part of a
field. If you do, a message will let you know that the operation cannot
be done.
Surefire User's Guide Page 80
Fields that are cut or copied will be put in a clipboard object
along with any text that was also selected. The contents of the
clipboard object can be pasted elsewhere in the document or even into
another document.
If you are in document edit and choose Cut or Copy from the Edit
menu without doing a selection first, the current field will be cut or
copied. You use the Cut operation to move fields and the Copy operation
to copy them.
When fields are cut, the fields contained in the cut will still
retain their unique identifiers, all attributes and associated field
commands. Later, when you paste the clipboard object, the fields in the
new location will be exactly as they were before. This means that the
fields were moved with everything else intact. If, however, you use a
paste & keep operation instead, the initial paste will work as a move
but any secondary paste operations will cause new similar fields to be
created with new IDs. These new fields will not retain any field
commands that were associated with the original field.
When fields are copied, the fields in the clipboard object will
retain their format attributes but not their unique identifiers, values
or field commands. A Paste or Paste & Keep operation will cause new
fields to be created with new IDs. If any of the original fields had a
data attribute set to Stored, the new duplicate fields would have their
data attributes set back to be Not Stored.
When you Paste or Paste & Keep fields between documents, the fields
will retain their format attributes but not their unique identifiers,
data attributes or their associated commands. This is because the
command references and data storage specifications can no longer be
valid in the other document.
Entering Information into Fields
When documents are not being edited, they can be Used. This allows
you to use the document so that only the information within fields (its
values) can be changed or manipulated. Fields provide a way to enter
information in an easy and rapid manner. As discussed in the previous
chapter, the way in which you enter information into fields depends on
the type of field and the field's specified formatting attributes.
You could use a document as a pre-made form, as a spreadsheet to
perform calculations or as a way to enter or view information in a
database. Using a document is what really distinguishes a Smart Document
from an ordinary document.
During Use mode, even though you can put the cursor anywhere in
the document, you can only enter information into a field. Attempting
to type anywhere else will result in nothing happening. The cursor must
first be positioned on a field. You can use a free cursor or a cursor
that is tied to fields to position your cursor.
Surefire User's Guide Page 81
If the current field or cell contains a field command, a '#' will
be displayed at the far right of the status line. This let's you know
quickly that the current field or cell has a command. Any value you
enter in the cell will most likely be overwritten when that field
command is executed. Just bypass the field and move on to another one.
Entering Dates
In order that you do not have to type every character of a date,
you follow simple rules for entering values in date fields of each of
the three date formats. In addition, today's date can always be
specified by simply typing the letter 't' or 'T' when the cursor is in
a date field. Date fields always assure that the dates contained within
them are valid dates. That is, only 12 months can be represented and
the appropriate valid days for a month can be represented. Of course,
you can only specify February 29th for leap years.
When you enter values into a date field, use the (left and right
arrow) keys to move between the month, day and year parts of the date.
With the first two formats you will be able to enter dates that are in
the current century, that is between Jan 1, 1900 and Dec 31, 1999. The
last format allows entry and display of dates that are from January 1,
0001 through December 31, 9999.
The rules for each of the formats are as follows:
Date Style Description
mm/dd/yy This format allows you to enter the month, day and
year by the 2 digit number that represents it.
Type the month number when the cursor is over the
mm part, the day number when the cursor is over dd
and the last two digits of the year when the cursor
is over yy.
dd-mmm-yy This format specifies the day first as a two digit
number, then the month as the three letter abbrev
and finally the last two digits of the year. The
day and year are entered by typing the appropriate
number when the cursor is over the dd or yy part.
The month is specified by typing in the first
character of the month name. If the cursor is in
the month part of the field and you type the letter
's', the month will become 'sep' If you type the
letter 'j' you will get 'jan'; to get 'jun' type
'j' again; type 'j' one more time to get 'jul'.
Surefire User's Guide Page 82
Month dd, yyyy This format completely spells out the name of the
month followed by the day and then the year. You
type in a two digit day and then you can type in a
four digit year.
The month is specified by typing in the first
character of the month name. The remaining
characters are filled in automatically. If the
cursor is at the start of the field and you type
the letter 'n', the month will become 'November'.
If you type the letter 'A' you will get 'April'; to
get 'August', type 'A' one more time.
Pop-Lists
Any single line text field can have a pop-list associated with it.
This pop-list contains pre-set values for the text field and can be
used, created or edited at any time while you are using the document.
Pop-lists are useful for storing pre-set text strings that are used
often for a particular text field. You will avoid unnecessary
keystrokes, you won't make as many spelling mistakes, and you will be
certain of using only one version among similar values. For example, a
pop-list for a field with people's titles might include: President,
Secretary, Administrator, His Royal Highness, etc.
If the current field is a text field with a pop-list, a 'P' will be
displayed in the upper right corner of your screen. This lets you know
that there are available selections before you start typing a value.
Creating a Pop-list
To create a pop-list, position the cursor on the text field and
press (Ctrl+Z). A window is opened in the center of the screen. You may
add or change as many items as you wish using the same editing commands
you are already familiar with. Just type each value that you want on a
line of its own and press (Enter) to move down to the next line. Up to
30 items can be put in a pop-list. When you are finished, press (Esc).
You can then define or change pop-lists for any other single line text
fields in your document. The pop-lists you create are immediately
available but you must save the document if you want the pop-lists to be
retained for subsequent sessions.
Using a Pop-list
To use a pop-list, you zoom it like any other zoomable item in
Surefire. With the cursor positioned on the text field, press (Alt+Z)
to display the pop-list. Then, you can move around with the (up and down
arrow) keys or (Page Up) and (Page Down), until the item that you wish
is highlighted. Choose this item with the (Enter) key. When you choose
an item, that text will be copied into the current text field and the
pop-list will be closed. You can leave the pop-list without selecting
anything by using the (Esc) key.
Surefire User's Guide Page 83
Clearing Field Values
You can clear the values in individual fields or all fields in the
document at one time. An individual field is cleared by pressing (Ctrl
+ K) when that field is the current field. You can clear all fields in
the document by choosing "Clear Fields " from the Field menu or pressing
(ALT+Y).
Locating Specific Field Values
Because of Surefire's unique design there is no special mechanism
for finding specific field values in your document. When you are using
the document, you can select "Find... " from the Page menu or press
(ALT+T) to open the Find window. This is exactly how you use Find
without fields. You can type in a pattern and choose NEXT or PREVIOUS to
search forward or backward in the document for that value.
Surefire will locate matching patterns anywhere in the document ,
whether or not it occurs in a field. You can use this feature to search
for and change incorrect field values by skipping matches that do not
occur in a field.
Printing a Document with Fields
There are three ways that you might want to print a document with
fields. Each of these results follow naturally from the way you are
looking at your document on the screen.
1) You can have your form look the way it does on the screen when
you fill it out, with underlines defining each field. If you wanted to
print out a "blank" form to be filled in by pencil, you can clear all
fields by choosing "Clear Fields" on the Field menu before you print.
2) You can see the definition of your form with text surrounding
field placeholders.
3) You can see the field values, auto-sized as needed, without
underlines. Notice on the first line that the excess space between
"Alice Fay Jones" and "of" has been removed. This happened because
autosizing was set for the text field containing "Alice Fay Jones".
To print your document the first way, make sure you are in Use
mode before printing. To achieve the second type of output, print while
you are in Document edit mode and finally the third result will occur
while you are viewing your document in Text edit mode. In all three
cases, you print the same way as you would for documents without fields.
You choose Print from the File menu, change any options in the Print
window and choose OK.
Surefire User's Guide Page 84
Copying and Pasting Values Among Fields
While using the document, you can Cut or Copy field values and
Paste these values into other fields in the same or a different
document. For example, you may have a large block of text in a field
that you want echoed in another field. You really don't want to retype
the text word for word. To copy the value, move the cursor to the field
and press (ALT+F2) to put the value in a clipboard object. Then, move
the cursor to the field that will get the value and press (ALT+F3) to
paste the value.
You may also Cut the original value if you no longer want it in the
original field. And, of course you may Paste & Keep the clipboard object
if you want the value copied to more than one field.
Note: When you paste text into a multiple line text field the text
will be pasted into all lines of the field starting at the first line no
matter which line of the field the cursor is on.
Copying and Pasting Values To the Calculator
If the current field is a numeric field, you can place the value of
the current cell in that field directly into the entry line of the
Calculator. To do this just type (Ctrl + Enter) when the Calculator is
visible. The same value that was displayed in the numeric cell is
inserted into the entry line of the Calculator just as if it were typed.
Likewise, the resulting value of a calculation can be put directly
into your document by choosing the PASTE button. The value will be
pasted differently depending on whether you are currently using or
editing the document. Choosing PASTE closes the Calculator window.
If you are using the document and the current document field is a
numeric field, choosing PASTE will put the current value from the
result area of the Calculator into the current cell of the numeric
field.
If, however, you are currently working in Document edit or Text
edit mode, the result is put onto the page at the location where the
cursor was when you opened the Calculator. The value is inserted or
overtyped depending on the current Typeover status. If you are editing
the document, you will not be able to paste a value on top of a field.
If Word Wrap is on, normal wrapping will occur.
Surefire User's Guide Page 85
Chapter 14 - Introducing Field Commands
As you've seen in the previous chapters, fields by themselves are
very useful in constructing and entering data in forms such as time
cards, property leases, orders and other standard contracts. But
you need to enter a value in each field or cell. With field commands,
some field entries could be automatically determined from information
you already entered in other parts of the document. You could even
access an often used form letter or search for a specific type of
information by the push of a button. With field commands you can create
the most intelligent Smart documents that can even become entire
applications.
What is a Field Command?
A field command consists of one or more lines of text connected to
a field or cell. This text tells Surefire specifically what to do.
Generally, this is an action or calculation which occurs when the
command is executed. Most of the time, commands are executed after
information has changed in one or more fields.
The lines of text that make up a field command contain expressions
and functions that are appropriate for the type of field that contains
the command. You have already seen expressions and functions in the
Calculator. While in the Calculator you can only have mathematical
expressions and functions, field commands are much more varied.
For a numeric field, a mathematical expression is the simplest form
of field command. For example, "2 + 2" can be defined as a command in
a numeric field. When the command is executed, the result "4" is
displayed in that field. This is very similar to the operation of
expressions in the Calculator. In fact, any numeric expression or
function that can be used by the Calculator, can also be a numeric field
command.
For other types of fields, there are additional functions and
operators that allow you to manipulate the data values or information
contained in those fields. For instance, a date field function allows
you to calculate a date that is 15 days from today; a text field
operator allows two text strings to be combined together to produce a
third. Operators available for each field type will be described in the
next chapter.
In this chapter you will learn the basics of using field commands.
Surefire User's Guide Page 86
What Can Be Done with Field Commands?
Your document can accomplish much more with field commands than
simple addition. Extensive capabilities involving numbers and
mathematical functions are available. In addition to numbers, one can
also manipulate dates and text. Determining a date so many days before
or after today is an example of a date expression. The result of a date
expression is displayed in a date field in the format that you have
chose for that field. As for text, you can use field commands to
substitute a portion of one string of text with another, change case,
combine strings to form a new string and various other text
manipulations.
Commands can also be used to control what happens. This is done
using conditions and control functions. An example of a simple condition
is to display "Balance Overdue" if today is after the due date for Joe
Smith's monthly loan payment. Conditions are often used with logical
fields. Control functions can cause something to happen when a button
is "pushed", or when a specific value is entered into some field. This
might be the display of another document, searching a data base or even
running a DOS command or another application. Control functions are
generally used with button fields.
A complete description of field commands and examples of how they
can be used, can be found in Appendix A.
Field IDs
A field ID is automatically assigned by Surefire when a field is
created and is guaranteed to be unique for the document. This ID is used
in commands to reference or represent each individual cell in a
document. Single line fields have only one cell whereas a multiple line
field has one cell per line. Since only text and numeric fields can be
multi-lined, only text and numeric fields can have more than one cell.
IDs consist of one or two capital letters optionally followed by
one or two digits. The letters describe a field uniquely while the
numbers identify the line or cell within the field.
Examples of IDs:
L B3
AA1 Q11
Specifying Commands
You specify field commands using the Command Edit window which is
displayed by selecting "Commands " on the Field menu or by pressing
(ALT+F10). This window is actually a pane that appears at the top of you
screen so that your document is not obscured. Among other things, this
window allows you to enter the actual command, view commands that
already exist in fields, and copy similar existing commands to other
fields. You can also give a field a more memorable name if desired.
Surefire User's Guide Page 87
In the Command Edit window there is a label called "ID:". To the
right of this label is the field ID of the current field cell. This is
the unique identifier assigned by Surefire when the field was created or
enlarged. The command contained by the current cell is shown next to the
label "Cmd:". You can edit field commands on the two lines labeled as
"Edit:". This is called the edit area.
Entering Field Commands
You can enter a field command by typing the command into the edit
area. Once the command is in the edit area, you put it in the current
field or cell (whose ID is shown) by using a paste or paste & keep
operation. These are the same paste operations that you learned in
word-processing. Paste will put the command into the cell and clear the
edit area while paste & keep will put the command into the cell but will
not clear the edit area. Generally, paste & keep is used to put the same
or similar commands into other fields. You will learn more sophisticated
methods for entering and manipulating commands in the next chapter.
Except for numeric fields, there can only be one field command per
field. Each cell of a multiple line numeric field, however, may have its
own field command.
Executing Field Commands
When a command is executed, it does what it was specified to do. If
it is to add two numbers, then the numbers are added and the result is
displayed in the numeric field containing that command. If, however, the
command had a function to go to another page, execution would mean that
Surefire would scroll the document to the specified page. Execution of
a command can also mean putting the value of one cell or the result of
some function into another cell in the document.
There are various ways in which a command can be executed. The
best way depends on the type of command and the size of the document.
Commands can be executed individually or, all commands on a page or the
entire document can be executed at the same time. Each of the methods
of command execution will be discussed in the next chapter.
If a command was specified incorrectly, Surefire will not know what
you want it to do so it will fill the field with E's to indicate an
error. The E's go away if the field is cleared or the command is
corrected and re-executed.
Specifying Functions
Functions allow you to perform more sophisticated operations on
field values than you can with operators alone. All functions in
Surefire start with the special character "@". If a function uses
arguments, these arguments are specified within parentheses and each is
separated by a comma. Arguments supply the data or information needed by
the function to do its job. The function @SQRT(n) requires one argument
while the function @SUBSTR(text, start, len) requires three.
Surefire User's Guide Page 88
To see which functions are available for building your commands you
can display a pop-list of functions while the cursor is in the edit area
of the Command Edit window. This is similar to the way you can list
functions in the Calculator except here the functions are not just
numeric functions. Type (ALT+Z) to display a pop-list of all available
functions with placeholders for their arguments. You may scroll through
this list to find the one you want. Typing (Enter) will cause the
highlighted function to be put into the edit area starting where the
cursor was when you typed (ALT+Z). You can then replace the dummy
arguments with the right values or field IDs and continue.
All functions available in Surefire are described in "Appendix A:
Surefire Function Reference".
Surefire User's Guide Page 89
Chapter 15 - Using Field Commands
We introduced you to field commands in the previous chapter. In
this chapter you will learn and practice more sophisticated concepts
involving commands. These include viewing and editing existing commands,
and formulating specific types of commands to do different tasks. Below
is a list of topics that are covered.
Viewing and Editing Commands
IDs and References
Tracing References
Assignment Statements
Multiple Statements
Field Operations
Control Operations
More About Command Execution
Viewing and Editing Commands
You may view and edit field commands using the Command Edit window.
As you saw in the previous chapter, this window is displayed by
selecting "Commands.. " on the Field menu or by pressing (ALT+F10).
Among other things, this window allows you to enter the actual command,
view commands that already exist in fields, and copy similar existing
commands to other fields. You can also give a field a more memorable
name if desired.
As you may recall, if a '#' is displayed at the far right of the
status line, the current field or cell contains a command. This lets you
know if a command exists without the Command Edit window being open.
This is often very handy.
IDs and Names
Any cell in your document can optionally be named. When you give a
cell a name, this name can be used instead of its pre-assigned ID.
Giving a name improves the readability of expressions and database
queries. For example, if A1 represented number of hours worked and B2
represented the hourly pay rate, the expression "A1 * B2" may now read
as "hours * rate" after you name the cells A1 and B2.
Note: A multiple line text field may have only one name for the
entire field.
You specify a field name by typing it in next to the label "Name:"
in the Command Edit window. Surefire ensures that names are also unique
within a single document. Names must begin with 3 lower case letters
optionally followed by letters, numbers or an underscore (_).
Examples of Names
salary
phoneline1
lease_date
Surefire User's Guide Page 90
Viewing Field Commands
Through the Command Edit window you can view every cell's command.
To do this you move to the document while the Command Edit window is
open. Once here, you may move around the document as usual, using the
cursor movement keys. While the cursor is in the document, moving from
cell to cell will cause the field ID and field command information in
the Command Edit window to reflect the current cell. You may move the
cursor to the document and back to the Command Edit window by pressing
(Shift + Tab).
Editing Field Commands
In the Command Edit window, the command contained by the current
cell is shown next to the label "Cmd:". You can edit field commands in
the edit area which is to right of the two lines labeled "Edit:".
To edit a command that is already in a cell, you use the Cut and
Copy operations that you became familiar with in the Word Processing
chapters. When the cursor is in the edit area, Cut (ALT+F1) will remove
the command from the current cell and place it in the edit area. Copy
(ALT+F2) will put a copy of the command into the edit area.
Once the command is in the edit area, you may change it by using
any of the text editing operations with which you are already familiar.
Afterwards, you can put the command back in the cell by using a Paste or
Paste & Keep operation. Paste (ALT+F3) will put the command into the
cell and clear the edit area while Paste & Keep (ALT+F4) will put the
command into the cell but will not clear the edit area. You can use
Paste & Keep to put the same or similar commands into other fields.
More than two lines are available for commands, however. If more
room is needed, you can scroll the edit area. Up to ten lines can be
used for field commands. When there is more text in the edit area than
you can see, an arrow on the edit area's right side indicates the
direction in which there is more text. You can use the arrow keys to
access up to a full ten lines for more complex command statements.
Say a cell has a rather complex command that actually takes four
lines. Initially, the first line is next to the Cmd: label. The
right-pointing arrow at the far right of this line indicates that there
is more to the command than you can see. If you copy the command from
the cell to the edit area and press (down arrow) to scroll down one
line, the edit area will display lines 2 and 3 of the command. The up
and down arrows at the far right of the edit area indicate that there is
more of the command both before and after the two lines that can be seen
in the edit area. You can use the (up and down arrow) keys to scroll the
text in the edit area and access all of the command.
Surefire User's Guide Page 91
The command in the edit area of the Command Edit window can also be
edited when the cursor is in the document. When the Command Edit window
is open and the cursor has been moved to the document by pressing
(Shift+Tab), you can move through the document without altering either
the document or field values.
The characters that you type at the keyboard will be put directly
into the command edit area. As you move around in the document, you can
"point" to cells that you want in your expression in order to obtain
their IDs. That is, you can enter the ID of a cell by pressing
(Ctrl+Enter) when the cursor is on that cell. This is especially useful
for building expressions based on fields in the document whose IDs you
do not know.
Pasting Values From the Calculator
If you display the Calculator while the Command Edit window is
opened, you may enter the result of your calculation directly into the
edit area. Just use the Calculator as described in Chapter 10. When the
result you desire is in the result area of the Calculator, choose PASTE.
The value will be entered into the edit area of the Command Edit window
at the current cursor location.
IDs and References
As you recall, a field ID is automatically assigned by Surefire
when a field is created and is guaranteed to be unique for the document.
This ID is used in commands to reference or represent each individual
cell in a document. IDs consist of one or two capital letters
optionally followed by one or two digits. The letters describe a field
uniquely while the numbers identify the line or cell within the field.
A simple use of referencing is to take the value in one cell and
display it in another cell. If the fields L and M are the same data
types, the value in L can be displayed in M by defining "L" as the
command for M. When the field command in cell M is executed, whatever
value is currently contained in L will be displayed in M.
A field ID can also be used to reference an entire field whether it
is a multiple or single line field. This is done by using only the
letter prefix of the ID. Since date, and logical fields can only be
single line or have one cell, the letter prefix, with or without the
digit '1', can be used interchangeably. The digit part is usually
dropped. For example, if a date field is C, then either C or C1 can
reference the field. The same holds for single line text and numeric
fields.
There are different rules for referencing numeric versus text
multiple line fields depending on what you want to happen. In some
cases you can use the complete field ID and in others you use the letter
prefix only. These differences are described later in the sections on
numeric and text fields.
Surefire User's Guide Page 92
Ranges
A range is a way of specifying a group of fields or cells. You
specify a range by typing the ID's of two fields or cells with a colon
(:) between them. These two cells define a rectangle in which all cells
that are completely contained within the rectangle make up the range of
cells. The first cell is the upper left corner and the second cell is
the lower right corner of this rectangle. If multi-lined fields are used
to define a range, you must specify the individual cells that bound the
rectangle.
Ranges can be used to copy commands or assign values to more than
one field at a time or as a short-hand way to indicate a numeric sum.
Range Example 1
Say you have two 3-cell numeric fields called A and B that are side
by side.
A1 B1
A2 B2
A3 B3
The range A1:B3 contains all 6 cells. Because A and B are
multi-lined fields, A:B is not a valid range.
Range Example 2
Say you have four single cell fields: Q, R, S, and T positioned
like this:
Q S
R T
Q:T represents the range of the four fields.
Note: All the cells of a range must be on the same page. That is,
ranges cannot span pages.
Numeric Fields
You use the complete field ID to reference a specific cell of a
numeric field. This is done by specifying the cell number as part of the
ID. For example, if we have a 3-cell numeric field called A, each cell
is referred to as A1, A2 and A3. When used in a command, each of these
references correspond to the value contained in each cell of field A.
Sum of Numbers
For numeric fields you may use only the letter prefix of a field
ID by itself to imply a sum of all the cells in that field. This is
convenient way to do the very common operation of summing groups of
numbers.
Surefire User's Guide Page 93
Shorthand Summation 1
If field D contained the cells D1, D2, D3, D4, and we put just D as
a field command for field B, B would display the sum of the numbers
in D, or "D1 + D2 + D3 + D4".
You can also use a reference to a range of numeric cells to
indicate a sum.
Shorthand Summation 2
If there are two 3-cell numeric fields, A and B, side by side, the
sum "A1 + A2 + B1 + B2" can be expressed as the range "A1:B2". The
command A1:B2 can be put into field C to display the sum.
Note: Text fields and date fields within a range are ignored,
however the range must be specified by two numeric (or logical) cells.
Logical fields with a True value will have the numeric value 1. Logical
fields with a False value will have the numeric value 0.
Text Fields
When you use only the letter prefix of a text field, you will be
using or setting the value of the entire field. You may reference an
individual line of the field if you are interested in the text in that
particular line. For text fields the number part of the ID corresponds
to a line. number. This is useful when you want to assign a string value
to a specific line of the field. Or, you may want the text of a given
line only to be used in a command.
Note: If the string does not fit in the particular line of the
field, it will be truncated. Truncation means that the part that does
not fit will be lost.
The following example shows how text fields can be referenced.
Text field M has 3 lines: M1, M2 and M3. M is 12 characters wide:
M1 "first line "
M2 "second line "
M3 "third line "
The command M2 = "this is a happy day" sets M2 to "this is a ha".
The command C = M3 would set the value of the single line field C
to the text in M3 or the third line of field M. That is, C would
get the text "third line".
If C were 36 characters wide, the command C = M would set C to
"first line second line third line" or the text from all lines of M
strung out end to end.
But if C were an 18 character 2 line field, the command C = M would
put all three lines of M into the 2 lines of C.
Surefire User's Guide Page 94
Tracing References
Sometimes you may have a rather complex expression in your field
command with references to various fields. It then becomes difficult to
know which field in the document corresponds to each reference in this
command. Surefire alleviates this problem by allowing you to highlight
the cell in the document that corresponds to a reference. This is called
tracing. Tracing will work for references by field ID and references by
field names.
To trace a command you can use (Ctrl + N), (Ctrl + P) and (Ctrl +
T) while the cursor is in the edit area of the Command Edit window.
Pressing (Ctrl + N) will cause Surefire to scan the command string, find
the next reference to a cell in your document, then scroll the document
and highlight the corresponding cell. By looking at the context of the
cell in the document and how that cell is used in a command, you have
better control of your field commands. (Ctrl + P) will scan the command
backward instead, looking for the previous reference. And, (Ctrl + T)
will locate the reference that is at the cursor.
To Highlight Press
The next reference Ctrl + N
The previous reference Ctrl + P
The current reference Ctrl + T
Assignment Statements
Normally, the result of a command in a field or cell is displayed
in the field or cell that contains the command. Sometimes you may want
to put the result elsewhere. This is done by assignment. The following
table lists the types of assignments that may be used in field commands.
Assignment Form Meaning
cell = n Numeric Assignment - Put n in field.
field = date Date Assignment - Put date in date field.
field = string Text Assignment - Put string in text field.
cell = string Text Assignment - Put string in specific line
of text field.
range = n Numeric Range Assignment - Put n in all
numeric cells in range.
range = date Date Range Assignment - Put date in all date
fields in range.
range = string Text Range Assignment - Put string in all text
fields in range.
Implicit Assignment
You use implicit assignment (no '='), to put an expression or
function result into the cell containing the field command. When you
have a field command without an assignment, the result of the command
will be entered into the same field or cell that contains that command.
Surefire User's Guide Page 95
Explicit Assignment To a Field
You use explicit assignment (with an '=') to put the result of an
expression somewhere explicitly. Assignment is done by specifying the
ID or name of the cell or field into which you want a result put,
followed by "=", which is then followed by the command expression. For
example, "A = B*10" will multiply the value of B by 10 and put the
result in A.
Assignment To a Range of Cells
Assignments can also be made to a range of cells. This is done by
using the range operator ":" to describe the range, followed by an equal
sign '=', which is then followed by the command expression. For example,
if you want all cells in the range A1:D3 to be cleared to zero when
button X is pushed, the command in X would be "A1:D3 = 0".
Multiple Statements
Occasionally you may want to put more than one expression or
statement in a command line. All of these statements will be evaluated
before evaluating the command in another cell. To have multiple
statements, separate each statement with a semicolon ';'. There must be
no semicolon after the last statement.
If a field command with multiple statements uses implicit
assignment more than once, the result of the last such command will be
displayed in the cell.
Operating with Numbers
Mathematical expressions result in numbers which are usually
displayed as values in one or more numeric fields. They can also be used
in some cases as arguments to functions for other data types. As
discussed earlier in the Calculator chapter, mathematical expressions
are generally created from numbers, numeric operators and functions.
Surefire supports the following numeric operators:
Two number operators One number operators
+ Addition - Negation
- Subtraction
* Multiplication
/ Division
Numeric field commands include simple expressions like 54 * 10 and
expressions that contain field references, like (A - 45)/B * 100. In the
second expression, A and B represent the numbers that are contained in
other numeric fields with IDs of A and B respectively. Numeric commands
can also contain functions. For example, @PI * A * A calculates the
area of a circle where the radius is the value in the field called 'A'.
@PI is a function.
Surefire User's Guide Page 96
There are general mathematical functions including one to obtain
the absolute value of a number and one that determines a number's square
root. There are trigonometric functions like @SIN and @COS and
logarithmic functions. There are also financial analysis and
statistical functions. All numeric functions are also available in the
Calculator. They are all completely described in "Appendix A: Surefire
Function Reference".
Operating with Text
While numeric expressions result in a number, textual expressions
result in a string of text. This implies that a textual expression can
be a field command for a text field. The simplest text expression
involves concatenation. Concatenation is as simple as adding two
numbers together but instead it combines two text strings into one by
putting one after the other. The operator "&" is used for
concatenation.
Example Joining Strings
The two strings "foot" and "ball" can be concatenated with the
command "foot" & "ball". When executed, the single string
"football" will be the result displayed in the text field.
Any string can be specified in a command by being in quotation
marks. This is called a string constant. Let's look at another example
of operating on text that will combine concatenation with field values
and string constants. Suppose you wanted to construct a sentence like
"Big girls " where some information was already set and some
could be filled in.
Another Example Joining Strings
Let's set things up so that you can specify the third word of the
sentence in a separate field. We will enter the missing word in
text field A. Text field B will display the resulting sentence. To
do this, you put this command into B: "Big girls " & A & "."
The resulting string is the concatenation of 3 strings; one from
another text field, A, and two from within the command itself.
Notice that the period '.' which ends the sentence is a string.
Surefire provides many text functions to manipulate text values.
The result of a text function or at least one argument is a text string
or reference to a text field. For example, the function @SUBSTR() finds
a string within a string (or substring), of a given text field or text
constant. If field R has the value "mission", the command @SUBSTR(R, 0,
4) would result in the string "miss".
Surefire User's Guide Page 97
Some text functions yield numeric results which can be used in
mathematical expressions. For example, the function @LENGTH(string)
returns the number of characters in a string. This number can then be
divided into 80 to see how many times the string would fit on a line of
a page. Likewise, if a text function required a number as an argument,
this argument can be any mathematical expression. All text functions are
described in "Appendix A: Surefire Function Reference".
Conditions and Logical Expressions
You use a condition to do some action or assign some value "IF"
something is either true or false. For example, in calculating your
taxes, you would want the amount owed to always be zero if you had a
loss. Alternatively if you made a profit then you would make sure that
the amount owed was some number greater than zero.
Logical expressions are used to determine the value of a condition
or a value to be displayed in a logical field. They always yield the
result of True or False. If the value is displayed in a logical field,
it will be in one of the 4 formats that you had chosen for that field.
The table below shows what will be displayed in a field.
Format Display if True Display if False
Y/N Y N
On/Off On Off
YES/NO YES NO
True/False True False
Any mathematical expression can be a logical expression. This is
because the value zero is always defined to be the same as False and all
other numbers are defined to be True.
After you know how to enter field commands, you can verify this
with the following exercise. Create a numeric field A and a logical
field B. Put the command "A" in the field B. When you type 0 in field
A, you will see the word "False" or "No", etc. displayed in B. Any
other number will produce the opposite result.
A logical value can also be explicitly defined by using the
functions @TRUE and @FALSE. These are in fact equivalent to using the
numbers 1 for True and 0 for False, but are much more readable.
Logical Operators
Logical values can result from logical expressions which are
constructed by using logical operators and possibly logical functions.
Surefire supports the following operators:
Operator Meaning
= Equal To
< Less Than
< = Less Than or Equal To
Surefire User's Guide Page 98
Operator Meaning (cont)
> Greater Than
> = Greater Than or Equal To
<> Not Equal To
Note: These operators require a number or mathematical expression
on either side of the operator in order to be evaluated.
Examples of Logical Expressions
age < 50
balance < = 0
emplnum = 468
Complex Logical Expressions
You can make even more complex logical expressions by using the
logical operators #AND# and #OR# to combine logical expressions
together. You can also use an additional operator #NOT#. This takes
the logical expression right after it, evaluating it as if it were just
the opposite. True expressions are looked at as False and vice-versa.
Examples of Complex Logical Expressions
salary < 15000 #AND# dept <> 15
age > 60 #OR# weight > 200
Logical Condition Function
A logical condition function does something different based on
whether the given logical expression is True or False. To do this there
is a special function:
@IF(condx, true, false)
The condition condx is a logical expression. If condx evaluates to
True, then the function specified as the argument true is executed,
otherwise the condition must be false, so the function specified as the
argument false is executed instead.
Logical Condition Function Example
Make sure a negative tax is never calculated. Assume we have a
simple tax rate of 10% and the following command:
@IF( A1 > 0,A1 *.10,0 )
Surefire will take the value in cell A1, the income, and see
whether it is greater than 0. If it is, it is multiplied by .10 to
give 10 percent of it. Otherwise, the result is set to the third
argument, zero.
Note: Multiple statements are not supported within @IF functions.
Surefire User's Guide Page 99
Control Operations
Control operations are field commands that cause some action to
take place. These actions include moving to a particular page or field
of your document, and displaying a different document altogether.
Control functions are functions that perform an immediate action.
Because the result is an action, these functions are generally used with
button fields or in commands with the Execute on Enter prefix "[".
You can even use button fields and their commands to do such things as
pass a field value between documents.
There are various types of control functions. There are functions
to run a DOS command from a Surefire document, to define help contexts
for your own Surefire applications and to display Surefire document
screens one after the other as an automatic presentation. All control
functions are fully described in "Appendix A: Surefire Function
Reference". The following sections discuss topics that are important
when using control functions.
Errors in Control Functions
Control functions generally return a logical value. If this is a
True value, the function was executed as expected. If a False was
returned, there was some sort of problem. A False returned from an
@GODOC, @RETURN, or the database control function @JOIN will stop
execution of the remaining statements for that command string, if there
are any. For all other control functions, Surefire will display
"COMMAND ERROR" in the status line but will attempt to continue
processing the remaining statements of the command.
Document Levels
Some control functions cause Surefire to display a different
document than the one currently displayed. These functions are @GODOC,
@RETURN, and the database command function @JOIN. Each time @GODOC or
@JOIN is successfully executed, Surefire displays a document. This
document is considered to be at a new document level.
You return to the document at the previous level by executing
@RETURN or by indicating an implicit return by pressing (Esc). The
@RETURN function also has an optional argument that allows you to return
by more than one level. This will skip the display of intervening
documents.
Surefire maintains the hierarchy of document levels until you exit
Surefire or explicitly read a document by choosing Get or New from the
File menu.
Changing Directories
The same control functions that affect document levels may also
cause Surefire to change directories. You can specify that a document
named in an @GODOC or @JOIN command is in a different directory by
specifying "name" as a relative path name. When the @GODOC or @JOIN are
Surefire User's Guide Page 100
successfully executed, Surefire will change directories prior to looking
for and reading the document.
Once the document is displayed, all references to other documents
are expected to be in the new directory just as if you had used the
Setup window to change the directory. One difference between changing
directories this way and using Setup is that you will eventually return
to a document in the original directory. You will return to the
previous directory when you return from the first document that you
displayed in this other directory.
More About Command Execution
There are various ways in which a command can be executed. The
best way depends on the type of command to be executed and the size of
the document. Sometimes you may desire to have an individual command
executed by pressing a button or after entering a value. Another
application may require you to occasionally recalculate all the commands
within the document. For large spreadsheets, you want to recalculate
only the commands on the page on which you are working. You may also
choose to have Surefire execute commands in a vertical or horizontal
order. The following sections discuss the four methods of execution,
horizontal versus vertical ordering, and what happens if Surefire cannot
execute a command.
Automatic Command Execution
When commands are executed automatically, all commands within the
document are executed whenever the value of any field is changed. It is
necessary to execute all of them since other commands may depend on the
value that was just entered. When the document is small or the
information within fields is changed infrequently, this is a very
satisfactory way to assure all calculations are current.
This feature can be turned on or off by choosing "Auto Calc" on the
Field menu. In addition, you may select an option in the Setup window
to have auto calc be set by default whenever you use a Surefire
document. An "X" on the menu indicates that auto calculate is on.
Note: When Auto Calc is not on, and values have been changed in
the document, a 'C' is displayed at the far right of the status line.
This indicates that a recalculation needs to be performed.
Explicit Execution by Page or Document
When Auto Calc is off, you need a way to tell Surefire to go ahead
and do the calculations. You can specify that either all commands on a
single page, or that all commands in the document, are to be executed.
All commands contained in fields on the currently displayed page
can be recalculated by pressing (F9). Since you normally work on one
page at a time, this is convenient and requires comparatively little
processing overhead. You can also force the calculation of all
Surefire User's Guide Page 101
non-immediate commands within the document by choosing "Calc All" on
the Field menu or by pressing (Shift + F9). Immediate commands are those
that are in button fields or those set to Execute on Enter (see below).
Non-immediate commands are all others.
Execution by Buttons
Button fields have their own rules about when their commands are
executed. When you push a button, be it a doorbell or a button within
a Surefire document, you expect the action performed to be immediate. In
the case of the doorbell, a sound is made. In the case of a Surefire
button, the command is executed when you press (Enter).
Execute on Enter
Sometimes you may want to have a command executed just after
information is entered into the field or cell containing the command.
This is similar to the way buttons behave. To do this, you prefix the
command by a special character '[' (left bracket). When a [ is the
first character of the command, Surefire knows to execute the command
when you change the data in the field. This command will not be executed
at any other time.
To tell Surefire that you are changing a field value, you first
type or select the new value. You then enter the value by pressing
(Enter) or by moving the cursor off of the field. For example, putting
the command [ @GOPAGE(5) in a numeric, date, text or logical field will
display page 5 of your document when you enter a value in the field.
Order of Execution
When you execute commands by page or document, the order in which
the fields are traversed and the commands executed may affect the
results of some calculations. If you understand this order, you could
prevent getting improper results. Usually commands are executed is the
same order that you read text on a page. That is, from left to right and
down or horizontally. This is a natural way to look at information in
many Surefire documents.
Sometimes, especially in spreadsheet-like applications, you want to
think of things in columns arranged from left to right. If this is the
case, it might be more appropriate to have Surefire execute commands on
a column by column basis or vertically. You will learn how to specify
this distinction in the following chapter entitled "Spreadsheets".
Command Errors
If you specify a command incorrectly, Surefire will not know what
you want it to do so it will fill the field containing the command with
E's to indicate an error. In addition, the status indicator "COMMAND
ERROR" will be displayed for a few moments in the upper right corner of
your screen. The E's will go away if you clear the field (press Ctrl+K)
or correct and re-execute the offending command.
Surefire User's Guide Page 102
Chapter 16 - Spreadsheets
In Surefire, it is not necessary to lay out your fields to look
like the rows and columns of a conventional spread sheet. As you have
seen, you can have fields anywhere within a document page, embedded in
text paragraphs or not. Sometimes, however, you may want to use fields
that are arranged in rows and columns. This is especially useful in
accounting applications such as expense reports, budgets and cash flow
statements.
In this chapter, you will see how to create fields that present a
tabular view of information normally called spreadsheets. Of course,
the "what-if" analysis is naturally supported by Surefire's field
commands and methods of command execution.
Creating a Spreadsheet
To create a spreadsheet in Surefire you first create the number of
multiple line numeric fields that you desire. Each multiline field
represents a column and each line of field cells represents a row. For
example if you want to create a 10x10 spreadsheet, you would create 10
multiline numeric fields that are side by side. Each of these fields
should have 10 cells. If you desire, you can label the columns A, B, C,
.... J, and the rows 1, 2, 3, .... 10 by editing the document. Once you
have a spreadsheet document like this, you can save it and use copies
for various purposes. You can put commands into any or all of the cells
in your document to do your analysis.
Using a Spreadsheet
Once you have a document with fields that are laid out as a
spreadsheet, you use it the same way that you use any document in
Surefire. You give the cells of the spreadsheet any desired field
commands, enter field values as needed, and press (F9) to execute the
commands and compute your results.
Absolute and Relative References
A command can be copied from one cell to another by using Cut &
Paste as described in the previous chapter. Normally these commands are
copied exactly as they are. But often you find, especially in
spreadsheet-like applications, that you need the exact same formula in
many cells with only the references changed by some regular means.
Surefire and many spreadsheet programs handle this by using the concepts
of absolute and relative references.
Unlike other spreadsheet programs, Surefire's default is to use
absolute referencing. This is because, in most instances, Surefire
fields are laid out in a non-tabular way, making absolute referencing
more natural.
The best way to understand the difference between Absolute and
Relative references is to describe the location of someone's house in
two ways. If you say that George is at "123 Main Street", you are giving
Surefire User's Guide Page 103
the absolute location of his house. No matter where you are, the
location you are talking about is the actual location of his house. On
the other hand, if you say he is "3 blocks north of here", you are
describing where he lives relative to where you are now. Keeping this in
mind will help you in the following discussions.
In Surefire, the terms Absolute and Relative only have meaning when
a command is put in a field. Absolute means that the reference remains
exactly the same no matter where a field command is copied. Say you have
fields A, B, C and D and cell A1 has the command B1 + C1. If you copy
this command to D using absolute referencing, the command in D will be
exactly the same or B1 + C1.
When references in a field command are made relative, copying the
command will adjust the references in a prescribed way. This adjustment
is done based on the relative position of the cell containing the
original command to any cells referenced relatively in that command.
Let's say you have four multi-celled fields, A, B, C, and D horizontally
on the screen, each separated from the other by the same distance.
If C1 has the command A2 + B2, and you copy this command to D1 with
relative referencing, the resulting command in D1 will be B2 + C2. This
is because A2 and B2 are at the same relative position from C1 as B2 and
C2 are from D1.
Loading Commands with Relative References
If you copy fields in Document edit mode, the field commands for
the new fields will be cleared while those of the original fields remain
unchanged. To copy the field commands you must use the Command Edit
window. When you copy commands, you have control over how the commands
are copied. You can copy commands relatively provided that the
destination field cells already exist.
A relative copy is set up as follows: You position to the cell
that has the desired command and open the Command Edit window. Then,
copy the command from that cell into the edit area. Now, set the
"Absolute/Relative" multiple choice button to Relative. Notice that the
ID of this cell appears to the right of the button. This tells Surefire
that all subsequent pastings of this command into other cells will be
done relative to the cell from which you copied the command. As you copy
this command into other cells, all the references of the command will be
adjusted accordingly. This will continue until you either toggle the
button back to Absolute, Paste the command in a cell or change the
command in the edit area.
If you want to make a relative copy of a command into more than one
cell, use Paste & Keep instead of Paste. The references will be adjusted
for each cell until one of the above conditions happen.
Note: If there is a relative reference that can not be adjusted to
an actual cell in your document with respect to the destination field or
cell, the absolute cell reference will be copied to that field or cell.
Surefire User's Guide Page 104
Vertical and Horizontal Relative References
Let's think about the analogy of where George lives one more time.
Suppose we say George is "3 blocks north on Main Street". Main Street
could be east or west of us but that doesn't matter because we have
described its absolute location. However, "3 blocks north" is still
relative to where we are. We gave a relative vertical (eg.
north/south) direction and an absolute horizontal direction (eg. Main
Street is either east or west). You can do the same with Surefire
fields.
Now suppose you want some references to be relative and some to be
absolute. This may be desirable when you copy formulas that contain
some "constant" values that should not change no matter where the
formulas are copied. For example, suppose we added a field E to our
spreadsheet. The value in E needs to be added to each of the commands in
all the other cells. When you copy A2 + B2 + E relatively from cell C1
to cell D1 you want to end up with B2 + C2 + E.
Alternatively, suppose you want a reference to be relative only in
one direction. A reference that is relative vertically and absolute
horizontally results in the copy being adjusted to a cell that is
vertical to the cell with the copied command. This vertical distance is
the distance of the original cell to its original vertical reference.
Likewise, a reference that is relative horizontally and absolute
vertically results in the copy being adjusted to a cell that is
horizontal to the cell with the copied command. This horizontal
distance is the distance of the original cell to its original horizontal
reference.
To limit how Surefire does a relative copy, you use dollar signs
($) in the part of the reference that you want to keep absolute. The
following table shows the four possibilities of referencing for the cell
A1. Other cells such as BQ12, A5, etc. change in a similar way:
Cell Reference Meaning
A1 Relative both vertically and horizontally
$A1 Relative vertically only
A$1 Relative horizontally only
$A$1 Absolute
Note: The use of dollar signs ($) only applies when you are doing a
relative command copy That is when the button in the command window is
set to Relative. If the button is set to Absolute these specifications
are ignored and an absolute copy is done in all cases.
Note: Changing the reference type will not occur with named references
but only with Surefire's unique field ID's.
Surefire User's Guide Page 105
Absolute/Relative Toggle Key
You can enter the dollar signs by typing them at the appropriate
locations in the cell reference as shown above. There is, however, a
more convenient way to change reference types from within the command
edit area of the Command Edit window. With the cursor over the reference
to change, press (F4) successively to go through all four combinations
of references. This is known as the absolute/relative toggle key.
You can use the Absolute/Relative toggle key to make a reference
relative in the vertical direction only. This means that the letter
part of the reference will stay the same but the number part will
change.
Enlarging A Spreadsheet
Since Surefire fields are not constrained to a fixed row and column
grid, you need an easy way to enlarge your spread sheet. Using a
combination of techniques that are available for manipulating fields,
you can easily enlarge your spreadsheet by switching to Document Edit
mode and enlarging each of the multi-lined fields. At the same time you
may create additional fields for your spreadsheet.
Using a Range of Fields
When you want to load a command with relative references into many
cells, putting it into each cell one by one would be a tedious task.
You can accomplish this very quickly by first selecting a range of
fields and then doing a Paste operation on the command.
Selecting a Range of Fields
Range selections are initiated by choosing the "Field Select
Alt+J" menu item on the Edit menu while you are in Use mode and the
Command Edit window is displayed. (Conversely, the Block selection you
did to enlarge the spreadsheet was done during Document edit. ).
If the cursor is free, all cells that are completely contained
within the bounds of the start position and the current cursor position
become selected. The selection occurs as the cursor is moved down and
to the right with the arrow keys. The range shrinks when the cursor is
then moved up or to the left.
If the cursor is not free, a rectangle of fields are selected
corresponding to the left corner of the cell in which the selection was
started and the right corner of the current cell. The selection occurs
as the cursor is moved down and to the right with the arrow keys or with
a combination of (End) and (down arrow). The range shrinks when the
cursor is then moved up or to the left.
In either case, as with any selection in Surefire, if you move the
cursor to the left or above the initial cursor position, the field
selection operation is canceled. You can also cancel the operation
directly by pressing (Esc).
Surefire User's Guide Page 106
Copy Commands Using Range Selection
To copy commands using range selection you first must set the
original command. Move to cell one cell of your spreadsheet and press
(ALT+F10) to open the Command Edit window. Enter the command to be
copied in the edit area and press (ALT+F4) to Paste & Keep it.
Now, Press (Home) to move to the Absolute/Relative button and press
(Spacebar) to make the command Relative. Define the range by pressing
(Shift+Tab) to go back to the document. Move the cursor to the upper
left-most cell to receive the adjusted command. Choose "Field Select"
from the Edit menu or press (ALT+J) to start Field selection. Move the
cursor to the lower right-most cell. These cells will be the destination
of the pasted commands.
Press (ALT+F4) to paste and keep the commands. If you now look at
the commands in the cells you will see that each has a similar command
with the references adjusted according to their position.
Horizontal vs Vertical Execution Order
The order of execution determines whether field commands will be
calculated in a row by row (i.e. horizontal) or column by column (i.e.
vertical) order. This order may affect the resulting values in your
fields because some expressions may depend on field values already being
known. If these particular fields are above, below, to the left or right
of the field containing the command then the execution order may affect
your results. The default order in Surefire is horizontal but it is up
to you to determine the best order for your needs.
You can change the order of execution on a page by page basis. To
do this, you use a multiple choice button located in the Command Edit
window. This button displays the current execution order as either Vert
or Horiz corresponding to a vertical and horizontal order respectively.
You toggle this button to set the execution order for the current page.
It does not matter what the current field is when this button is set.
All fields on the same page will have the same execution order.
Surefire User's Guide Page 107
Chapter 17 - Introduction to Databases
Any Surefire document that has fields has data associated with
those fields. Data is simply the values contained in Surefire fields. In
the simplest sense, the current values of fields are saved automatically
with a document when you save the document. So one set of data, the
displayed field values, is always associated with a document. This set
of data is known as a data record or simply a record. Sometimes you may
want to work with more than one set of data. Being able to do just that
is the basic idea of a database.
You generally keep sets of similar information about something in
a database. In many ways a database is like a file cabinet. It may
contain folders of information about each of your clients, recipes,
employees, patients, suppliers, etc. For each employee, you may keep
personal information including their name, address and social security
number. For each recipe, you might keep a title and list of major
ingredients. And for your rental property, you will want to easily
access information about all tenants and leases.
To define a database in Surefire, you indicate those fields of your
document which are to contain more than one value. That's all there is
to it! Surefire will automatically create your database! You can now
add, change or delete records at any time. After records have been
added, you can selectively look at specific records.
In this and the following two chapters you will learn how to
manipulate data records and how to find the ones in which you may be
interested. In addition, you will learn how to calculate information and
generate statistics based on your stored data. You will also learn how
to enlarge fields that are too small, add additional fields, and remove
fields that you no longer need. Later, in the chapter "Generating
Reports", we will expand on these concepts so that you learn how to look
at and print multiple data records at one time with a Surefire document.
Storing Data
Naturally, the first thing that you will want to do is to create a
database and start adding information. In Surefire, the creation of a
database is as simple as creating a field and adding your first data
record. You will see a natural progression from storing a single data
record directly in a document to storing many data records in a
database.
Specifying a Database Field
The values of all Surefire fields, except buttons, may be stored in
a database. To indicate that a field's data is to be stored in a
database, you must set or modify the data attribute for that field using
the Create Field or Modify Field windows. To do this you must be in
Document Edit mode. If the field already exists, select Modify from the
Field Menu or press (ALT+M). Otherwise, for a new field press (ALT+C).
Press (End) enough times to move the cursor down to the multiple choice
button just below the heading Data. It should indicate "Not Stored".
Surefire User's Guide Page 108
Press (ALT+Z) to display the button's pop-list and highlight
"Stored". Press (Enter) and then (Ctrl + Enter) to set the change.
You need to set the choice to Stored for each field that you wish
to store. Since button fields do not contain data, they cannot be
Stored. When all fields are properly set, you can proceed to add data to
your database. When you add your first record in the manner described in
the next section, Surefire will create your database automatically. You
may add other fields to your database at a later time.
Note: Each cell of a Stored multiple cell numeric field is stored
separately in the database.
Database Limits
The visible size of your field generally determines the maximum
amount or value of Stored data that field may contain. However, while
non-stored text fields may have up to 4096 characters, a Stored text
field may have no more than 254 characters. Likewise, the maximum size
of a Stored numeric field is 16 characters wide.
Various field formats may remove available characters from the
visible field. For example, the value that a numeric field can contain
is limited by the formatting specified for that field (eg. Currency
format, number of decimal places, etc.). No matter which format you have
chosen to display logical fields, they can have only 2 possible values:
'T' or 'F'.
While Stored dates may range from year 1 thru year 9999, a century
other than 1900 may only be entered in long date format. Even in long
date format, if you use indexed or sorted searches to retrieve records,
dates before Jan 1, 1900 or after Dec 31, 1999 will not be correctly
ordered. The current century (ie. 1900) is assumed for the other date
formats.
Note: You may designate up to 128 stored fields in a document.
Adding a Data Record
You can add your first record to a database once you have given a
name to your document. This means you must first save a new document (to
give it a name). Existing documents already have names. Surefire uses
this name to create a separate place to keep the data records associated
with the document. You can then enter values into fields and store
these values. You can add records as long as you have enough disk space.
Remember that some fields have field commands in them to calculate
their values. Field commands are automatically executed before a record
is added to the database so that any stored fields with calculated
values will have their correct values stored. In order not to waste time
typing a value in a "calculated" field, you can usually skip fields when
an '#' appears at the far right of the status line.
Surefire User's Guide Page 109
To add a record, you must be Using your document. Now, enter values
into the fields you want stored in the database. Choose "Add Record"
from the Data Menu or press (ALT+A). You have now added a record into
a newly created database.
Clearing All Fields
You can clear the values of all the fields in your document to
start afresh by choosing "Clear Fields" from the Field menu or pressing
(ALT+Y). This will not affect data records stored in the database. If
much of the information is the same from record to record, do not use
this option and simply enter new values in only those fields that should
have different values.
Simple Data Search
Now that there are records in the database, you will want to look
at them. There are two simple ways that your data records may be
retrieved. You can view each of the records in the same order that you
added them to the database. Or, you can enter a value in one field and
tell Surefire to display all the records that have that same value. In
the next chapter, you'll learn more complex ways to retrieve your data.
Before you start a search, you should Get the document that you
used to add your records, if it is not already displayed. Since the
document fields will be used to display the values stored in the
database, you should also be Using the document (i.e. in Use mode).
Viewing All Records
The simplest way to look at your data is to retrieve your records
in the order that they were added to the database. This is done by
pressing (F8) (i.e. Next Record). The first record that was added will
be displayed in your document. You can continue to press (F8) to view
each successive record until you hear a beep. As each record is
displayed, Surefire will also calculate the values of fields that are
Not Stored.
You may reverse the direction of the retrieval by pressing (F7)
(i.e. Previous Record). When you again see the first record, another
(F7) sounds a beep to indicate that you can't go any farther.
Note: If you add a record while viewing database records, that
record will be appended to the end of the database and will become the
currently displayed record.
Database Status Information
As each record is retrieved from the database, Surefire gives you
important status information. When you press (F8), the status line
showing the current document name and the current cursor position will
change to show that a record is being displayed.
Surefire User's Guide Page 110
The "1" means that you are looking at the first record and the "?"
means that Surefire doesn't know at this point how many records you will
eventually see. As each successive record is displayed, the "1" becomes
2, 3, etc. When all the records have been displayed, the "?" will be
replaced to show how many records have been displayed. When you are
finished looking at these records, the normal status information (i.e.
document page, line and column) can be redisplayed if you press (F3).
Getting Specific Records
You have just seen how to retrieve all the data records, one by
one, from the database. You may, however, want to look at certain
records only. This is especially true when your database becomes large.
To do this, you can start a search based on a specific document field.
For example, you may be interested in all persons named "Smith", or all
children aged 10, or all recipes that call for chicken, or all invoices
with payment due dates of 01/15/90, etc. You qualify or weed out these
records by giving the conditions that the desired records must match.
Once you have set your search conditions, you can start a search.
You specify the simplest kind of condition by entering a particular
value in any single stored field. You then choose "Search" from the
Data menu to start the search based on this condition. The status
indicators "INDEXING" or "SEARCHING" may appear at the right side of the
status line until the search is finished. If you see the status
indicator "NOTHING FOUND", there are no records in the database which
match your conditions.
Text field conditions are even more powerful. Typing only a few
characters in the field will match records where the field begins with
those characters. If the field is blank, Surefire will find all records
sorted alphabetically by that field. And, to make things even easier,
case is not important in database searches.
When you start a database search, Surefire will process all
records, display the first one that matches, and display the total
number of matching records instead of a '?'. You will learn more complex
techniques for qualifying data records in the next chapter.
Updating a Data Record
Once you retrieve records from the database in one of the manners
described above, you can change their values. You first display a record
that needs to be corrected. After you make all desired changes, choose
"Update Record(s)" from the Data menu or press (ALT+U). The status
indicator "RECORD UPDATED" will appear briefly at the right of the
status line. Your changes will be reflected the next time that record is
displayed. Repeat this procedure for any records that need new values.
If you change values in stored fields and try to leave Surefire or
Get another document, Surefire will warn you with a message window to
update or add the currently displayed data record. Choose YES if you
don't care about saving the field values. Choose NO if you want a chance
to add or update the record before moving on.
Surefire User's Guide Page 111
Deleting a Data Record
Normally the records you can see are active records. You can delete
a record or make it inactive if you want Surefire to ignore it when the
database is searched. You do this in a similar manner to the way you
update a record. The record you wish to delete must be currently
displayed in the document. You then choose "Delete Record(s)" from the
Data menu or press (ALT + F5). That record will now be marked as
inactive and will not appear the next time that records are displayed as
a result of a search. The status indicator "RECORD DELETED" will appear
briefly at the right of the status line.
If you were currently looking at successive records (i.e. pressing
F8, F8...), the next qualifying record will be displayed after you
delete a record. If you delete the last record from your search, all
fields in the document will be cleared. Likewise, if you were looking at
records in reverse order (i.e. pressing F7, F7...), the previous
qualifying record will be displayed. In this case, if you delete the
first record from your search, all document fields will be cleared.
Note: In Surefire, a deleted record is actually not deleted but is
marked inactive. This means that while these deleted records are not
normally displayed, you may at some point access them and restore them
to active status. You must perform a restructure operation to remove
deleted records permanently. You will learn how to recall records and
restructure a database later in this manual.
Surefire User's Guide Page 112
Chapter 18 - Searching a Database
You have already seen how to access all records one at a time from
the database. You also know how to limit the set of records based on
matching a single field value. Because some situations require more
complex data filtering, Surefire allows you to specify more complex
conditions to qualify which records are retrieved.
Say you want to find all of your contacts in a certain city.
Perhaps you would also like these records to be displayed alphabetically
by the last name of each contact. You describe this as a query. A query
is a set of conditions that restrict the data records that are retrieved
from the database and give a specified ordering of their display. A
query is used to search the database. The records resulting from the
search make up a record set. You can look at or print the records in a
record set as well as update or delete them as a group. Working with a
record set as a group will be explained in "Chapter 21: Advanced
Database Topics".
In this chapter you will learn how to specify queries and save them
for later use. You will also see how to display records that were
previously "deleted".
Specifying a Query
To specify a query, first make sure you have your document in Use
mode. You then position the cursor on the field whose value you think
would most limit the initial search. This is sometimes called the key
field or the primary key.
Now suppose you have about 200 contacts, most of whom live in one
of five cities. The city field might be a good choice as the key field
since only about 20% of your contacts are likely to live in a given
city. Of course, any field that is stored in the database can be used as
a key field. In fact, you may use different keys at different times
depending on the type of record you are looking for.
Once you have chosen a key field and have positioned the cursor to
it, choose "Build Query..." from the Data menu or press (ALT + Q). This
will open the Query window. The Query window appears as a pane at the
top of your screen, like the Command Edit window, and does not obscure
the document.
When you specify a query in the Query window, a 'Q' will appear in
the status line to the left of the document name. This 'Q' means that
you are specifying a new query. Therefore the current record set that
you are viewing using (F7) and (F8) do not correspond to the new query.
After you do a search based on this query (eg. by pressing ALT+S),
the 'Q' will be replaced by an 'S'. This indicates that the database was
searched according to the current query in the Query window and that the
current record set now corresponds to the query.
Surefire User's Guide Page 113
Query Lines
Once you display the Query window, information about your field is
on the first line of the window. So that we can refer to it more easily,
let's call this a query line. Each query line represents a single
condition. A query can have up to 20 query lines. As with any window in
Surefire, you use the (Home), (End) and (left and right arrows) to move
between query lines and query line items. You will now learn about each
item from left to right.
Sort Order Multiple Choice Button
The sort order multiple choice button can have values 1, 2 or
blank, to indicate how the retrieved records will be sorted. Sorting is
the order that Surefire will use to display the records as they are
found in the database.
Initially when there is only one query line, this value is 1. That
means, if no other conditions are added, the data will be sorted on the
field associated with this query line.
For example, if we chose the city field of a "contacts" document
and the query said to search for all contacts, the records would be
displayed in alphabetical order by city. That means you would see the
records for people in Boston before those for Dallas which would be
before those for Denver, etc.
If you add another query line, you can give it a sort order of 2.
This would mean that retrieved data records are first sorted by the
field with the sort order 1 and then sorted by the field with a sort
order of 2. This is called a nested sort. You may specify up to two
levels of nesting by setting this button to the values 1 and 2 on two
different query lines. If the choice for this button were blank, there
would be no sort order for the associated field and the records would be
displayed just as they are found in the database. We'll show you how to
add query lines later.
Note: There must always be one query line with a value of 1 for
this button.
For example, say this second query line corresponds to the field
'name' of our hypothetical "contacts" document. The records would now be
sorted first by the city and then by the name field for each city. That
means you would see all the records for Boston with names ordered from
A to Z, then those for Dallas, then those for Denver, etc.
Sort Direction Multiple Choice Button
Generally, sorted records are retrieved in an ascending order.
That means that alphabetic information is ordered from A - Z, numeric
information is ordered from 0 - 9, and dates are ordered from earliest
to latest. Ascending order is indicated by an up arrow on the sort
direction multiple choice button.
Surefire User's Guide Page 114
You may, however, choose to display your data records in descending
order. To do this, set the value of this button to a down arrow by
pressing (Spacebar) when the cursor is on the up arrow. You may also
press (ALT+Z) to zoom a pop-list with two choices as shown below. A
descending sort would sort as Z - A, 9 - 0, latest to earliest, etc.,
depending on the field type. If you were to display all contact records,
by city, in descending order, you would first see records for Portland,
then New York, Los Angeles, ... and lastly for Boston.
Field Name and Type
The next two items of the query line are the ID or name of the
field and the field's type. This is information only and cannot be
changed. These items provide a way to read your query more easily. They
are especially useful if you have conditions based on fields that are
not visible on the screen.
Condition Multiple Choice Button
This multiple choice button indicates more specifically the way a
data record will be tested against a value. The values of this button
depend on the type of field associated with the query line. Also,
depending on the field type, you can cycle through single and range
conditions. Single conditions accept one value while range conditions
accept two values.
Single Conditions
When the condition multiple choice button is set to accept a single
value, one data entry field is provided just to the right of the button.
This field is the same type as the field associated with the query line.
For example, if the condition is for a date, this would be a date field.
If this is a numeric condition, this field accepts a numeric value, and
so on. As with all multiple choice buttons in windows, you can press
(Spacebar) to see each possible value or press (ALT + Z) to see a
pop-list of all values. With single condition query lines you can limit
the search of your data in many ways according to a specific value that
you enter.
The tables here and on the next page list the single conditions for
all data types:
text field conditions numeric field conditions
Is Exactly Equal to
Begins With GT (greater than)
Contains GT or Eq (greater than or equal to)
All LT (less than)
Is Not LT or Eq (less than or equal to)
Does Not Begin With All
Does Not Contain Not Equal to
Surefire User's Guide Page 115
date field conditions logical field conditions
On
After
On or After
Before
On or Before Only Y
All Only N
Not On All
The 'All' Condition
Text, numeric and date fields may have the special condition 'All'.
The 'All' condition does not have an associated data entry field. It
indicates, however, that it doesn't matter what the value of the field
is in the data record. You choose 'All' when you want to display data
records that are sorted on a field but have no particular value for this
field.
For example, you may want to view all of your contact records
sorted by date of the last letter that you sent. If you had 'All' and
an ascending sort on the date sent, Surefire would first display the
person who you've been out of contact with the longest. Alternatively,
if you had 'All' and a descending sort on the date sent, you would first
see the person to whom you most recently sent a letter. 'All' is used in
a similar fashion with both text and numeric fields.
Range Conditions
Range conditions are available for numeric and date fields. They
indicate that the records you are interested in have values that fall
into some range. There are two data entry fields associated with a range
condition that allow you to give the top and bottom of the range. For
example you may want to find all of your clients between the ages of 35
and 50. Or, you may want to send a follow-up letter to everyone with
whom you spoke between May and July. As with single conditions, these
fields are the same data type as the associated field of your document.
Range conditions for numeric and date fields are listed below:
Numeric Field Range Conditions
Both GT condition1 and LT condition2
Both GT or Eq condition1 and LT or Eq condition2
Both GT or Eq condition1 and LT condition2
Both GT condition1 and LT or Eq condition2
Date Field Range Conditions
Both After date1 and Before date2
Both On or After date1 and On or Before date2
Both On or After date1 and Before date2
Both After date1 and On or Before date2
Surefire User's Guide Page 116
Adding a Query Line
When you first display the Query window, it contains a single query
line corresponding to the document field on which you selected "Build
Query". The initial condition echoes the value that was in the field at
the time. The condition multiple choice is set to indicate equivalence,
that is, "Is Exactly", "Equal to", or "On" depending on the type of the
field. The sort order is 1 and the sort direction is ascending as
indicated by the up arrow. You may change these button values prior to
doing a search.
Once the Query window is open, you may add other conditions. The
more query lines there are, the more restrictive the search will be and
the fewer records that will be displayed. You add query lines by
temporarily moving the cursor back to the document and selecting
additional fields for the conditions. Once there are query lines for
these fields, the various multiple choice buttons and values in the
Query window may be changed as desired.
The procedure for adding query lines is similar to that for adding
cell references to the edit area of the Command Edit window. After the
Query window is open, you move to the document by pressing (Shift + Tab)
and then move around using the usual keys for movement by fields, (End)
and (Home). You move to any text, numeric, date or logical field.
Then, press (Ctrl + Enter) to make a new query line for that field. You
may select other fields this way, or return directly to the Query window
by pressing (Shift+Tab) again.
You move around the Query window with multiple query lines by using
the (End), (Home) and the (up and down arrows). You will notice that as
you move from one query line to another, the corresponding document
field will be highlighted. If needed, Surefire will automatically scroll
the document so that you can see this field.
Note: You may define up to 20 query lines (i.e. conditions) for a
query.
AND'ed Conditions
For every different field selected, the conditions will be AND'ed
to each other. That is, the data records will be retrieved if they
match all of the conditions in the query. For example, you may want to
display all clients who are in Dallas AND whose name begins with "Gr".
OR'ed Conditions
If you create two query lines for the same field, the resulting
conditions will be OR'ed together. That means that a record must match
either the value in the first such query line OR the value in another
query line for that field. Say you want to change your query to get all
persons who either live in Dallas OR Los Angeles and whose name begins
with 'Gr'.
Surefire User's Guide Page 117
Deleting a Query Line
By continuing to add conditions, a query can become quite complex
and restrictive. At some point, you may decide that a condition is no
longer needed. To remove a condition, simply place the cursor anywhere
on that query line and press (Ctrl+D). You may delete any query line
with the following exception:
You may not delete a query line with the sort order 1 if there are
no OR'ed conditions for that query line and there is no query line with
a sort order of 2.
If you delete a query line with sort order 1, and there is an OR'ed
query line for the same field, that OR'ed query line will become the
primary key. If there is no OR'ed query line but there is a query line
with a sort order of 2, that query line will be the primary key.
Closing the Query Window
When you have added all the conditions that you want in the Query
window, you can close it by pressing (Esc). This gives back the full
screen to the document but will not erase the contents of the Query
window. You will still know that there is a query defined by the 'Q' or
'S' in the status line to the left of the document name. An 'S' will
replace the 'Q' when the current record set was obtained using the
currently specified query.
When you start a search, the query defined in the Query window will
be used even if the Query window is not visible. Once you have defined
a query in the Query window and you have not cleared it, choosing "Build
Query... " from the Data menu will display the Query window with the
most recently defined conditions.
Clearing the Current Query
To start a totally new query, you must first clear the current
query. You do this by selecting "Clear Query " from the Data menu or
pressing (ALT+K). You have already done this a few times in your
practices. The 'Q' (or 'S' if a search is in progress) will disappear
from the status line. The next time you open the Query window, the
window will contain a single query line which corresponds to the current
field of the document. This will be just like the first time you opened
the Query window.
Setting Search Options
Surefire uses some default parameter settings that limit how a
search is done and how data is displayed in the document. To change
these settings, select "Set Search Options..." from the Data menu. A
window will appear that allows you to change these parameters as
described below. Any changes that you make will effect subsequent
searches.
Surefire User's Guide Page 118
Setting the Record Type
Normally only active (i.e. not deleted) qualifying records are
retrieved during a search. If you want the search to include deleted
records also, or to be limited to only deleted records, you must change
the multiple choice button to the right of the text "Record Type for
Search". This button can have the values: "Active", "Deleted", and "
All". Select the option that you desire, then choose OK.
The next time you search the database, the new setting will be
effective. If you had chosen "Deleted" or "All", you may see a 'D' at
the far right of the status line as you display each record with (F8).
This indicates that the currently displayed record was deleted at some
prior time. You may later recall a deleted record. Recalling deleted
records is discussed in "Chapter 21: Advanced Database Topics".
The "Do Report Formatting?" option is fully described in "Chapter
22: Generating Reports".
Named Queries
After taking pains to construct a complex query that has many
conditions, you may want to save those conditions to use again at
another time. These could be queries that are run often such as:
1. Show me all my accounts that are past due.
2. Find the top earning salesman of the month.
3. Show all contacts sorted by zip code.
Once a query has been built in the Query window, you may save it
for later use. This named query will always be associated with the
current document until you decide to delete it. Once saved, you can
edit, copy, run or delete the query. To do any of these operations,
select "Edit Queries..." from the Data menu. You will see the Edit Query
window. This window contains one multiple choice button and one data
entry field. You may view the possible values for this button by
pressing (ALT+Z) to zoom the button choices.
Saving a Query
A named query which will be associated with a document must first
be given its name. Just as with a new document, you give the query a
name when you choose to save it. To save a query, set the button value
to "Save Current Query" and enter a name in the data entry field. You
can use a name of up to 10 characters to help you remember what the
query does. For example, PASTDUACCT, TOPSELLER and MAINCONTAC might work
for the sample conditions above. You then choose OK. The save will not
affect the Query window. Since Surefire remembers the query information
until you delete the query, you can access this query whenever needed.
If you want to see the names of queries already defined for the
current document, press the Zoom key (ALT + Z) when the cursor is in the
data entry field.
Surefire User's Guide Page 119
Note: During save, be careful not to choose a name from the
pop-list, since Surefire will now overwrite the query that was
associated with that name.
Getting a Query
Once you save a query, you may bring it back to review it, copy it,
or to change it. First, you need to get the query. You can get any
query that was previously saved for the current document. If the Query
window is visible, this named query will replace the window contents
with its saved conditions. If the Query window is not visible, it will
be displayed with the query lines of the named query that you just got.
When the named query is displayed in the Query window, you can make
changes to it. These changes will not become part of the named query
unless you re-save the query. When you do a search, the conditions of
the named query, along with your changes, will be used to restrict the
search. The name of the query is displayed at the top of the window.
Note: Any unnamed query that was in the Query window before you
did a Get Query, will be lost.
Sometimes you may want to have a second query that is very similar
to one you already have saved. You can quickly create this second query.
First get the similar query. Now, make your desired changes and use the
"Save Current Query" option to provide a different name.
Running a Query
If you want to use a named query to limit your data search, without
opening or changing the contents of the Query window, you may run the
query. To do this choose the Run Query option from the Edit Query
window. Then, enter the name in the data entry field or use the pop-list
to choose a name and choose OK. A search will be started immediately
based on the conditions of the named query.
Delete a Query
Because there are a limited number of named queries per document,
you may at some point want to delete queries that you no longer need. To
do this, choose the Delete Query option from the Edit Query window.
Then, type or choose the name of the query that you want deleted and
choose OK. Surefire will ask you if you really want to go ahead with the
delete operation. If you decide to proceed, that query will no longer be
available.
Surefire User's Guide Page 120
Chapter 19 - Sharing Data Among Documents
Once you start using a database, you may find it useful to access
the same data in another way through a different document. Suppose you
need to send a thank-you letter to many of the clients in your contacts
database. The letter would have fields for name, address, city, state
and salutation. Wouldn't it be nice to share the same data that you
already have in your contacts database instead of having to type this
information all over again for each letter? Or suppose you simply
wanted to list your contacts and their phone numbers, like in a phone
book. Wouldn't it be nice to again use the same data from the contacts
database?
In Surefire, you can construct Smart documents for the thank-you
letter and phone book to project information from the contacts document.
This means you can access data from the contacts document, with a
totally different context, from a completely separate document. The
fields from these new documents would be linked to some of the fields of
the contacts document. This linkage is achieved by projecting fields
from one document to another. With projection, you can link any two
documents together as long as one of the documents defines a database.
The result is that the second document has a different view of the
database than the original one.
The notion of projection is the key to sharing data among Surefire
documents. It will allow you to perform mail-merge operations and
generate succinct reports from a database. In this chapter you will
learn how to project fields from one document to another and thus enable
this sharing to take place.
Base Documents vs Projected Documents
A document that defines a database is called a base document. Our
"contacts" document is a base document. A document that projects
information from a base document is called a projected document. The
thank-you letter and contact list are examples of projected documents.
You can use a projected document when you want to see only a portion of
a data record whose fields are defined in a base document or when you
want to see all the information in a different way.
You can look at the exact same data records in your thank-you
letter as you do in "contacts". In fact, you can do all the same
searching operations through the letter as you would in "contacts".
As you can see, projection is a very powerful and convenient idea.
Projected documents are often used to support Mail Merge applications
(see "Chapter 20: Forms and Form Letters") and to produce formatted
reports (see "Chapter 22: Report Generation").
Surefire User's Guide Page 121
Projected Fields
Earlier in this manual we introduced the concept of a field's data
attribute. In the simplest sense the data attribute determines whether
a field is stored in a database or not. When you first created fields in
the property lease, this attribute was set to Not Stored. Later you
changed some of these fields to be Stored so that you could add a record
and create a database. Well, a projected field is also stored, however
its value is stored in a different document from the document that
contains the field. When a field is projected it has the data attribute
"Projected".
Let's now take a closer look at the letter document. While most of
the fields are projected from the contacts document, the date field is
not. In fact, this date is set to default to today's date. Documents
that contain projected fields may also have other fields that are not
projected. It is often very useful to have fields that contain the
result of an operation based on the projected fields. Multiplying
current sales figures by a growth rate to forecast next year's sales is
only one example.
Note: Any number of documents may share data from one base
document. However, a document can not have both stored fields and
projected fields at the same time. That means that once a document has
one field that is Projected, it may have no fields that are Stored.
Conversely, once a document has a Stored field, it may have no fields
that are Projected. Surefire will warn you with a message window if you
try to make an invalid projection.
Now let's move on and explore two ways in which you can project
fields. You will be surprised how easy it is to do.
Projecting Fields Using the Clipboard
You can easily project a field interactively by following a
procedure that is very similar to the combined operations of Copy and
Paste. First you edit the document that defines the fields you want
projected. Then you use Block or Line Selection to select the portion of
your document that contains the fields you want projected. Now, instead
of choosing Copy or Cut, you choose "Project" from the Data menu. The
fields and surrounding text are copied to the Clipboard. You then Get
the destination document (or create a new document) and Paste the
clipboard object. That's all there is to it. Even without saving the
document, you can immediately use it and access the database!
As with copying fields between documents, the only information that
comes along with projected fields are the fields' types and format
attributes. Commands in the original fields will not be preserved in the
projected fields. Surefire will automatically assign new field IDs. If
you want to give these fields appropriate user names, you may do so via
the Command Edit window (see "Chapter 15: Using Field Commands"). Now
let's look at another way to specify projected fields.
Surefire User's Guide Page 122
Projection as a Field Attribute
You have seen that a field can be either stored in a database or
projected from a database defined by some other document. A field's
data attribute determines whether a field is stored in some database or
not at all. You can use the Field Create and Field Modify windows to set
the value of a field's data attribute.
There may be times when you want to project fields by setting the
field's data attribute directly. If you set the value of the data
attribute multiple choice button to Projected in either of the above
windows, you will see two additional fields. These fields allow you to
enter the name of another document and the name of some field in that
document. Once you enter the name of a base document in the "Document:"
field, you can move to the "Field:" field and press (ALT+Z) to see a
pop-list of valid fields. If the field is already projected, the window
will indicate the correct base document and field.
Note: If you project a field using this approach, and the projected
field is smaller than the original field, your data may be truncated
when viewed through the projected document. On the other hand, if the
new field is larger, the excess space is appropriately padded. Any
truncation that occurs will not affect the actual data stored in the
database.
Using Projected Fields vs Original Fields
You may resize projected fields at any time. When they are made
smaller, truncation will occur when you view the data. When they are
enlarged, they will be padded appropriately. It is important to note,
however, that adding data to a database through a projected field which
is bigger than the corresponding field in the base document will result
in the database truncating the value to the size of the field in the
base document.
While you may add records to a database using projected documents,
these records will generally be missing some information. Say you added
contact information to the contacts database using the letter. Because
the letter only has fields for name, address and salutation, the other
information such as phone number and age will be missing for this
contact. You can fill it in at a later time by updating the appropriate
database record using the contacts document itself.
Searching in a Projected Document
Generally, you build queries using projected documents following
the same steps that you use for base documents. However, there are two
important differences that you need to be aware of:
1. If you build your query from fields that are projected from
another document, the field name or ID that will appear on a query
line is the name or ID of the field in the base document.
Surefire User's Guide Page 123
2. Very often, your projected document will not have all the
fields that exist in the base document. However, you may want to do
your query based on some of the fields that are not in the current
document. For example, suppose you have a letter with projected
fields for name, address and salutation. You now would like to send
this letter to all contacts over the age of 30. But age does not
appear in the letter, so how do you target your clients with this
condition?
To do this, you open the Query window by choosing a projected field
to give the initial query line. Then, you press (Ctrl+Z). This will
display a pop-list of all database fields in the base document,
including those that are not projected in the current document. If
you choose one of these fields, a query line will be created for
that field. This field may have no corresponding field in the
current document. Or, this may be a field on a different page which
is not currently visible.
You may now change the new query line to the condition that you
want. If you make this field the primary key, you may remove the
query line of the field with which you initially opened the Query
window. To do this, move the cursor to the line and press (Ctrl+D).
In the next chapter you will use what you have learned about
projections to do the very common tasks of generating form letters and
mailing labels.
Printing Your Data
Sometimes you will use a Surefire document to review information on
your screen. Often, you may want to print some of this information. Up
until now you have seen how to view only one record at a time. The
following sections discuss two ways of printing your one-at-a-time data
records. The first method allows you to decide very specifically which
of your qualified records to print. The second method allows you to
print all of your qualifying records without any intervention.
In "Chapter 22: Generating Reports", you will see how to view and
print information from more than one record at a time.
Printing the Current Record
No matter how you search for your data, you can always print the
document for the currently displayed record. In fact, you can review
each record and print only those that you wish. Suppose you just did a
search in your contacts database for everyone who lives in New York.
You can now go through these records using (F8) and (F7). As you do, you
selectively print the ones that you expect to contact while you are in
New York on business.
Surefire User's Guide Page 124
Sometimes it may be handy to write a note about a specific contact
right on the contact record. You do this by switching to Text edit
mode, editing the text, and then printing that record. You can then
switch back to using the document to view other records. Before you can
use the document again two message windows will be displayed. Just
choose YES on both of them.
Printing All Qualifying Records
Often, you may want to print all the records resulting from a query
without reviewing each record as it is retrieved. This may occur if you
are running a mail-merge operation where the result will be many letters
or mailing labels, each one being composed from a different database
record. To tell Surefire that you want this to occur, you must first
build a query or Get a named query. You then use a special feature of
the Print window to start a Search & Print operation.
Surefire will qualify matching records according to the query
conditions, retrieve each record into your document and print that
instance of the document. Adjustments will be made for autosized fields
as well. Since this feature is most often used during form letter
generation, a full discussion will be deferred to the next chapter -
"Forms and Form Letters".
Surefire User's Guide Page 125
Chapter 20 - Forms and Form Letters
Suppose you have a letter that introduces your new product and you
would like to send it to all your clients in a particular region of the
country. However, you want to send more personal letters to your best
customers. Before the integration of word-processing and database
features this was a tedious task. You had to sit at a typewriter with
the index cards for these clients in hand, and to type each copy of the
letter with the appropriate names and addresses each time. Then, you had
to type the names and addresses again on the envelopes.
Other tedious and repetitious tasks include invoices, contracts,
leases, sales agreements, order forms and reports that are done
periodically. This includes all the standard pre-printed forms, which
require you to "fill in the blanks", that you can buy at your local
stationery store. All of these everyday examples require you to enter
specific information into portions of a document.
Many software packages available today offer some way to merge data
into your word processed documents while they are being printed.
However, you need to learn new concepts that are specific to these merge
operations. And most require the use of cryptic codes and special files
that have to be set up just right to work. This is usually referred to
as mail-merge or merge printing.
In Surefire, there is no separate mechanism for specifying data
files, no cryptic merge commands and no new concepts to learn. Combining
text, data and calculations within a document, in a natural-to-use way,
is the basic idea behind Surefire. So, setting up to generate form
letters, mail labels, envelopes and pre-printed forms is no different
than composing a Smart document for a specific purpose.
This chapter shows the various ways Surefire can produce form
letters, mail labels, envelopes and pre-printed forms by using some of
the basic concepts already discussed in this User's Guide.
What You Need to Know
To conveniently produce forms or letters you need to create a Smart
document for your specific task. After you have the right Smart
document, generating the forms or letters on you printer is a simple
matter. The first thing you do is to specify a query using the Query
window. Then, using the Print window you select Search & Print. Surefire
will retrieve each record according to your query, put it in the
document, do autosizing where specified and print. You will enjoy seeing
each form or letter composed on the screen and be able to stop the
process if you need to.
There are three flavors of Smart documents that may apply. The
creation and use of these Smart documents have already been described
completely in previous chapters. We will discuss them here as they
relate specifically to forms and form letters. We will first look at the
differences between them and for what purposes each of them is best
suited.
Surefire User's Guide Page 126
Documents with Fields and No Database
This type of document allows you to quickly find and enter data
into the specific places you need to fill in. This is done through the
simple use of fields. These fields may also be used to allow your input
to be only a date or a number. In addition, fields can be set to
automatically size according to the text that surrounds it. You can also
perform calculations automatically as you make entries.
To produce multiple documents of this type you fill in the blanks
and print. Then you clear the fields, fill in the blanks again and print
again. Your typing is reduced to the minimum and each version comes out
perfect on the printer.
This method is very useful but it assumes you will never expect to
re-use the information you've typed in. Once you've printed the document
and cleared the fields, the paper version is the only version you have.
In some cases, this may be exactly what you want.
If you want to keep the data along the way, just set up your
document to have stored fields. This is the second flavor below.
Documents with Stored Fields
A document with stored fields is a document with a database. It can
be set up just like the one described above, but the data can be saved
while its being entered. All you need to do is to make sure you are
using stored fields.
Now it becomes easy to do a lot of exciting and powerful things.
You can first type in all the information at once and then print it all.
You have all the data already entered, so later you can change the form
or letter and print the whole set again. Or, you can print only a
portion of the set.
Not only that, unlike other systems that do merge printing, you
only need to work with one document. The same document that you print
from is the same document you enter data into and the same document you
can change when needed. There are no separate files that have to be
merged.
Since your Smart document now has a database, you can access it to
find a specific person's address, use it for reference and even extend
the information you are collecting. You now have all the power of a
database. And, you can interact with your data directly through the form
letter or form you've created.
Surefire User's Guide Page 127
Documents with Projected Fields
A document with projected fields allows you to access information
from the database of another document. With this, you can do two things.
First, you can access data through a subset of all the fields that were
defined in the original document. Secondly, it gives you a way to keep
multiple letters or forms, ready to go, all accessing the same database.
Product announcements, follow-up letters and order forms can all share
the same database, eliminating the redundant entry and duplication of
information. And don't forget, you can create buttons for immediate
access to your documents to build your own integrated application.
Projected documents are very easy to create. The easiest way is to
use the Clipboard to copy the portions of your original document along
with the appropriate fields. Paste the copied portion to a new document,
edit the new document to be the way you want, save it, then start using
it. When you've done this once, you will realize there can be no easier
way.
Now we will take you through a few practices to show you just how
it is done. You will see specific examples for form letters, mailing
labels and envelopes. You will also see how to set things up for a
pre-printed form.
Mailing Labels
Mailing labels, form letters and envelopes are all very similar in
that they are primarily made up of the names and addresses of people
whom you contact. With one "contacts" database you can easily generate
mailing labels and the other stationery from the same data.
Keep in mind, however, that if all you want to do is make labels,
the process is very simple. If you just have a few to do, set your page
format for mailing labels and type in the text for as many labels as you
need. When you're finished, just print the document. As an alternative
method, just create a label document with stored fields and enter the
names and addresses directly. Since this becomes a database, you can
use "Search & Print" to generate the labels that you want.
You can easily create mailing labels for your contacts database by
doing the following:
1. Edit your contacts document.
2. Project the fields.
Use Block Select from the Edit menu to select the name, company and
address fields. Choose Project from the Data menu. Press (F6) to
hide the clipboard object. Now Block select the city, state and
zipcode fields. This time take some of the text with it. You will
be able to delete it later. Choose Project again from the Data
menu. Press (F6) to hide the second clipboard object.
3. Choose New from the File menu to clear the document for a new
mailing label document.
Surefire User's Guide Page 128
4. Paste the projected clipboard objects.
View both clipboard objects by pressing (Shift + F6). Use the
(Shift + Tab) key to select the first clipboard object. Move the
object with the name, company and address to the upper left corner
of the page and paste it by pressing (ALT+F3). Paste the remaining
object below it. Now remove any unwanted text such as "state:",
"zip", etc, by using the (Delete) key. Type in a comma ',' between
the city and the state.
5. Change the format for mailing labels.
Choose "Format..." from the Page menu to open the Format window.
Press (ALT+Z) to zoom the page sizes and choose "mailing labels".
Make sure the margins are all set to zero. Choose OK to set this
new format. The page size is actually a bit wider than 3 1/2 inches
to accommodate the autosizing of certain fields.
Notice that the bottom and right parts of the screen are shown with
the same shading as a page break. This is because a mailing label
is a very small page; not even as big as the screen.
6. Save the document with a name such as "labels".
Printing Mailing Labels
You will now see how to print mailing labels for all of your
contacts ordered alphabetically by state. Before you start printing,
make sure that you have loaded your printer with the appropriate stock
for the type of document you are printing. For mailing labels, use the
single column 3-1/2 by 1 inch labels. Now follow this procedure:
1. Do a trial print.
Get the your "labels" document and view any record by typing (F8).
Choose Print from the Print window to just print the current
record. Make sure that the printed text lines up well with the
label. If not, make the appropriate adjustments to your printer so
that it starts printing at the upper left corner of your labels.
2. Build a query.
Move the cursor to the state field before displaying the Query
window. Choose "Build Query..." from the Data menu or press (ALT+Q)
to display the Query window. Set the condition to find all contacts
sorted alphabetically by state and press (Esc) to close the window.
Query window.
3. Start the Search & Print.
Press (ALT+F) P to display the Print window. Choose SEARCH & PRINT.
Each copy of the mailing label will be briefly displayed on your
screen before it is printed.
Surefire User's Guide Page 129
Envelopes
Envelopes are very similar to mailing labels. You can project the
fields in exactly the same manner. The only difference is that you
format the document to have an envelope page. Do this with the Format
window. If the size you are using is in the "Page Sizes" pop-list, just
select it. If it isn't, you can specify the size explicitly by choosing
"Specific Setting". This allows you to type in the width and length of
your envelope. After setting the page size to match that of your
envelope, paste the projected fields so that they are lined up on the
page as you would like to see them on the envelope.
If you already have a mailing label document, you may create an
envelope document even more easily. Just Get the label document and
re-format the document with a page size of the proper envelope. Then,
move the fields to their appropriate places and Save the document with
a different name. The fields are automatically projected from the same
database.
If you wish, you may type in your return address in the upper left
corner. The return address will then also be printed on each envelope.
Now save your document. Use (F8) to get any record. Print just one
envelope to see how things line up. Make adjustments if needed.
Form Letters
Form letters are similar to mailing labels and envelopes except
that the address information is put on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch page with
margins. There is also a lot more text. And, of course, letters can have
more than one page in the document. Use the same procedures already
described for mailing labels to project fields. You may first type the
text of your letter and then bring in the fields or you can start by
projecting your fields.
Date fields are a very handy feature in form letters. You can
create a date field to always hold today's date. To do this, create the
date field, where you want it, using the Create Field window. Make sure
the "Default to Today" attribute is set. Now, whenever you use the
document, today's date will automatically be set in the field.
Form letters may also have fields embedded directly within the text
of your paragraphs. Suppose you are keeping the age of your clients in
your contacts database. Suppose further that you sell insurance and you
want to inform clients who are over the age of 65 that a special policy
is available. You would like your letter to read something like:
"Being ?? years old entitles you to a very special policy..."
The "??" can be substituted with the correct age just as easily as
the address information. Just project the age field, but first make sure
you select it with "Line Select" from the Edit menu. Now you may insert
it, just like a word into your letter. By the way, don't forget that
this field will behave just like a word. It will wrap and move as you
edit the document. You can access the database with the document.
Surefire User's Guide Page 130
Now you can print your letters based on age and have the age appear
where it should in the sentence. Just open the Query window when the
cursor is on the age field. Make sure the condition is set to search for
contacts over age 65. (i.e. age GT 65 ). Finally, choose Search &
Print from the Print window.
Pre-Printed Forms
In Surefire, you can make your own forms. You can set up an invoice
or sales quote form the way you want, for example. You type in the text,
draw the desired boxes and lines and create or project needed fields.
Sometimes, it is more desirable or convenient to use pre-printed
forms. These forms already have all the "standard" text and lines
printed on them. Your job is to fill it out. As you might expect, you
can set up documents in Surefire to print on these forms too. There are
two things to consider when setting up for pre-printed forms. One is
that the fields need to be accurately positioned so they will line up
properly when printed. The other is that the Smart document containing
these fields should not have any other text in it.
For pre-printed forms, it is best to use two Smart documents. One
will have all the needed fields lined up conveniently to be used as an
outline on the screen. Informative text will show what type of data is
expected in each field. These fields will be stored in a database. The
other form document will have a page size that is exactly that of the
paper form. You would project the fields from your outline document and
position them exactly where they need to be for printing. Use the form
document to do the printing on the paper form and use the outline
document for data entry.
You can position the fields on the form by knowing your font size
and making some simple measurements. Since there are always 6 lines per
inch, you can measure the height of the form in inches and multiply by
6. This will give you the number of lines on the form. By finding where
the first blank area is, you will have the line on which to start your
field.
Now determine the pitch for your font. Look at the "Print Font"
multiple choice button of the Format window to see how many characters
per inch your font will print. Get the distance from the left edge of
the form to where there is a blank space for typing. Multiply this
distance by the characters per inch (pitch) of your font. This will give
you the column at which to place a field. Do this for each space on the
form and take note of the column numbers. Now you have enough
information to place your fields correctly.
After the fields are lined up in your form document, fill them out
completely. Fill text fields with x's, numeric fields with 1's, etc.
Then do a trial printing on a real form. Adjust your fields as needed.
If all the fields are off by the same distance, you may just need to
move the whole group of fields over a bit on the page. If not, you may
need to move some of the fields individually or you may need to adjust
the form in the printer to start at a place where things are lined up.
Surefire User's Guide Page 131
Chapter 21 - Advanced Database Topics
In this chapter you will learn about the more advanced features of
Surefire databases. These features will allow you to be more efficient
as your databases get larger.
Changing the Database Structure
In Surefire, you define and create a database by indicating that
certain document fields are to be stored and by then adding your first
record. You may still add, remove and change the sizes of these fields
in any way you wish. However, altering fields may require a new database
structure. Sometimes this new structure will affect the data already
stored in your database. Creating this new structure is called
restructuring. Let's illustrate with an example.
Suppose the name field for our "contacts" document can only hold 15
characters. Up till now this has been sufficient, but you just met a
woman named Sharon Swenson-Tannenbaum and you realize that the name
field needs to be bigger. Don't worry. You can change the size of your
field and let Surefire take care of the rest. First, you need to edit
your document to enlarge this field. (See Chapter 14: Working With
Fields). You do this in the same way as if the field were not stored.
But this time, when you try to use your document again, Surefire
displays a message window saying that a database restructure operation
is necessary.
A database restructure is an automatic operation that changes the
database definition and adjusts all existing records to account for the
field changes. Surefire will recommend a database restructure whenever
you add, delete, resize or change the name of one or more stored
fields.
You may remember that the records that you delete are actually just
marked as inactive. This gives you a chance to reconsider whether you
actually want them permanently removed from the database. After a while,
it may become inefficient to search a database with many extra records.
You may remove these records from the database permanently through a
restructure operation. Choosing "Restructure" when you have not changed
any stored fields, will simply remove these unwanted records.
A change in a Stored field's name requires a change to the database
definition and thus a restructure. If you want to change the name of a
Stored field, you must do so while editing the document. Just switch to
Document edit mode and then open the Command Edit window to change the
field names. You may change all field names as desired before choosing
the restructure operation.
You tell Surefire to begin restructuring the database by choosing
"Restructure" from the Data menu while in Document edit mode.
Surefire User's Guide Page 132
Surefire will preserve your existing data wherever possible.
However, sometimes a restructure may cause data loss or affect other
documents. So, before beginning the restructure operation, Surefire
will give you a chance to reconsider in any of the following cases:
If you Continuing may
Make a stored field smaller. Cause truncation or loss of
data.
Delete a stored field Cause data loss.
Delete or shrink a stored field Affect projected documents. In
when other documents project data addition to the above
from this document. consequences, you may have
projected documents with fields
projected from fields that no
longer exist. You must remove
these fields.
Note: When you change a stored field, Surefire does not perform
a restructure automatically. This is because you may be modifying
several fields during the same period, and it may take some time. The
restructuring will take more or less time depending on the current size
of the database.
Note: You will not be able to use the document again until you
either restructure your database or exit from Surefire without saving
your changes.
Using Calculated Fields
A calculated field is a field whose value depends on one or more
other fields in the document. The value of this field is set when a
field command is executed. Each time you display records from the
database, all field commands are re-executed. This allows the fields
whose values are based on stored fields to be calculated correctly for
the current record. Usually, you would not store these fields in a
database since Surefire can calculate their values as needed.
In the "lease" document that we use in practices, there are some
calculated fields whose values are based on stored fields. Two of these
are the lease deposit and balance. They are both calculated to be half
the lease amount. Only the lease amount is stored. Each time that you
display a record of the lease, the deposit and balance change to show
the correct amount for that particular lease.
Sometimes you may have a document that does a lot of calculations
and you notice that it takes a long time to display each record. Now,
Surefire could display your data more quickly if you stored your
calculated fields. This is because the commands used to generate the
values would not be re-executed for each displayed record.
Surefire User's Guide Page 133
There is another reason why you may want to store a calculated
field; you can search on the value of a calculated field only if it is
stored. For example, if you wanted to look for all the tenants who paid
a deposit of more than 400 dollars you would need to store the deposit
field in the database.
If you find yourself wanting to query the database about a
calculated field, you can change the field's data attribute to Stored,
restructure the document and you have it.
Using Hidden Fields
You can use a hidden field to store temporary results from
calculations or to support a look-up table. A hidden field can also be
used when you want to calculate and display a value based on a database
field, yet you don't want to see the database field itself. Hidden
fields are not really hidden at all. They just reside at a place in your
document that is not normally displayed or printed.
Suppose your database has a field containing a "method of payment"
code. These are two letter codes corresponding to how an order will be
paid:
Code Meaning
CK Check
MC Master Card
VS VISA
AM American Express
CS Cash
Now, you would like the full text description to be displayed.
Here's how. For each possible code, you put the appropriate text
string in a hidden field on another page of your document. When a data
record is displayed, a field command is executed that tests the
particular database field containing the code and finds the appropriate
text in the look-up table.
Here's another example of using hidden fields. Suppose you have a
projected document where you want to display data calculated from
certain database fields but you do not want the original fields to
appear. Since all field references in the calculated field must be known
(i.e. exist somewhere in the document), you will need to use hidden
fields.
It is generally convenient to put hidden fields on the last page of
the document, separate from everything else. You can label them and make
notes next to them as you wish. And, when you print, if you do not want
this page printed, it is easy to say so in the Print window.
Surefire User's Guide Page 134
Using Database Searching Functions
There are a number of functions in Surefire that specifically
relate to database operations. Some functions allow statistical
calculations on field values that span more than one database record.
These include finding the sum, average, maximum and minimum values for
a set of records. These functions are only meaningful when you display
a list of records as a report. They are therefore discussed in "Chapter
22: Generating Reports".
Other functions used with data records control searching a
database. These are typically used in field commands for button fields.
These functions are used extensively for building applications with
Surefire's Smart documents. The table below summarizes these functions.
Use Function To
@QUERY Run a named query.
@JOIN Run a named query in another document.
@CNDX Define conditions to be used in @QUERY or @JOIN.
@UPDATE Update the currently displayed record with all field
values.
@SEARCH Search the database based on the value in the current
field.
On the following pages we show how to use the @JOIN and @CNDX
functions to join a base document with a document projected from the
same database. At the end of this chapter, you will learn how these
functions may be used to join two databases together. These functions
are fully described in the section "Database Searching Functions" of
"Appendix A: Surefire Function Reference".
The use of @CNDX and @JOIN together is especially powerful. Because
of this we will explain through an illustration and a step by step how
they work. The documents "contacts" and "letters" are linked together
through the use of these commands. This command is in the Letter button
of "contacts":
@CNDX("letter", "curname", A, ,"name");
@JOIN("letter", "curname")
In the "letter" document is the query "curname" with a query line
looking for "the Text field 'name' Is Exactly blank". The blank data
entry field for the condition will eventually be filled in by the result
of the @CNDX function or what is in field A, the contact's actual name.
Let's discuss how everything works together. When you press the
button Letter, you will see a letter with address information for the
current contact. To do this, the button has a command with both an @CNDX
function and an @JOIN function. The @CNDX function sets a value for a
specific condition of a named query. (You can use one @CNDX function for
each condition or query line of a query). The @JOIN function tells
Surefire to display the specified document and search the database using
a named query.
Surefire User's Guide Page 135
It's not always necessary to set values for conditions of a query,
but we want to in this case. That's because we want to display the
letter showing only the address information for the currently displayed
contact. The @CNDX here has these arguments: ("letter", "curname", A, ,
"name"). The first two arguments tell Surefire to set a value for a
condition in the named query curname in the document letter. Notice the
quote marks ("); they are required.
The third argument, A, represents field A in the "contacts"
document. This field holds the contact's name. Because this field was
given the name "name", we could have used name instead of A in the
function. When the command is executed, Surefire will remember the
value of the contact name field. It will then use this value for one of
the conditions of the named query 'curname'.
The fourth argument is missing from this function as shown by the
two commas. This argument would be used if we were setting the values of
a range condition. It can have the value for the upper end of the range.
In our example we have the single condition Is Exactly, so this argument
is not needed.
The fifth argument tells Surefire the specific line of the query
whose condition you want to set. In this case, "name" relates to name
which is displayed at the left of the query line in curname. The quotes
(") here are also required. Notice in the query that we left the data
entry field to the right of the condition button blank. This is because
we want Surefire to substitute a value from the @CNDX function before
the query is actually used. If the query curname were executed without
setting a condition value, the search would look for contact names that
are exactly all blank and would probably find no matching records.
Finally, the @JOIN command says simply to display the document
letter and run the query curname. So now Surefire knows that you really
want to display the letter for the contact whose name is in the name
field. The practice on the next page gives you the steps to display the
letter for the currently displayed contact at the press of a button.
Recalling a Deleted Record
The data records that you delete when you choose "Delete Record(s)"
from the Data menu are actually not removed from the database but are
made inactive. You may recall a previously deleted record, that is,
restore it to an active status, if it is the currently displayed record.
But, since deleted records are not usually displayed, you must first
indicate that you wish to view these deleted records.
You do this by changing the setting of the "Record Type for Search"
button in the Search Options window to All or Deleted. This window is
accessed from the Data menu and is described in the chapter "Searching
a Database". Then, you can define a query and start your search. The
records that interest you will be displayed.
Surefire User's Guide Page 136
When the record you want to recall is visible, choose "Recall
Record(s) " from the Data menu or press (F5). The status indicator
"RECORD RECALLED" will be briefly displayed at the right side of the
status line.
Note: All inactive records are finally removed from the database
when the database is restructured. Until then, you may recall them
whenever you wish.
Manipulating Record Sets
Up until now we have been talking about how to work on one data
record at a time. Suppose you had a number of salespersons who were
responsible for different territories. The salesperson and territory
might be fields of your contacts database. If you want to reassign all
of the clients in one specific territory to another salesperson, you
certainly wouldn't want to change and update each individual record in
that territory. Surefire provides a way to update, delete and recall all
records in a record set. That means you can update, delete and recall
all the records that satisfy specific conditions at one time.
Updating A Record Set
Sometimes you may want to have the value of a single field updated
to reflect some new information for all records that satisfy certain
conditions. This is often called group update or mass update. For
example, you might have just sent a letter to all of your contacts in a
certain zip code. You will want to change the date of the last letter
sent, in all of these records, to today.
To do this, you must first build your query or Get a named query.
Then, instead of performing a search, you move to the document field
that you want changed and enter the new value that you want all the
qualifying records to have. Choose "Update Record(s)" on the Data menu.
Before the update takes place, the message "All qualifying records
will be updated" is displayed. Choose YES if you want the update to
occur or NO otherwise. After all records have been updated, the status
indicator "RECORD(S) UPDATED" will be displayed briefly at the right of
the status line.
When the update is finished, all records will have the new value.
You can repeatedly use the same procedure to update other fields of the
same qualifying records.
Deleting A Record Set
When you delete a record, you display it first to make sure that it
is the correct one. At times, you may want to delete a group of records
that satisfy some specific condition at one time without reviewing each
one. This is sometimes called group delete or mass delete. For example,
you may want to remove all contacts where the last correspondence was
sent more than two years ago. Or if you've just stopped eating red meat,
you may want to remove your recipes that include beef.
Surefire User's Guide Page 137
To delete these records, you can follow a procedure similar to that
used for a group update. In this case, you build or Get a query but you
do not specify a new field value. Then you choose "Delete Record(s)"
from the Data menu or press (ALT+F5).
Before the deletions are done, the message, "All qualifying records
will be deleted", is displayed. Choose YES if you want the deletes to
occur or NO otherwise. After all records have been deleted, the status
indicator "RECORD(S) DELETED" will be displayed briefly at the right of
the status line.
If you continue after the warning message, all qualifying records
will be deleted or made inactive. You may, of course, recover them by
restoring them to active status through a recall operation. You may
practice this using a query of your choice and then recall the deleted
records by following the procedure in the next section.
Note: You must change the "Record Type for Search" option in the
Search Options window to All or Active before deleting a record set.
Recalling A Record Set
Especially if you have second thoughts about records that you
deleted as a group, you may sometimes want to recall a group of records
at one time without reviewing each one. To do so, you follow a procedure
which is similar to deleting a record set. The only difference is that
you choose "Recall Records" from the Data menu or press (F5), instead.
All qualifying records will be recalled.
Before the recall takes place, a warning message is displayed.
Choose YES if you want the recall to occur or NO otherwise. After all
the records have been recalled, the status indicator "RECORD(S)
RECALLED" will be displayed briefly at the right of the status line.
Note: You must change the "Record Type for Search" option in the
Search Options window to All or Deleted before recalling a record set.
Importing and Exporting Data
You have seen how to use the database features of Surefire's Smart
Documents to keep your information in one handy place. Sometimes,
however, you may need to use data from other database systems. Or, you
may purchase data such as mailing lists in a format that you would like
Surefire to read.
In the following sections you will learn how to use the import and
export facilities of Surefire to bring in data from other programs and
output data from Surefire to other programs. You will see that by
exporting and importing data, you can easily create new Surefire
databases and even merge many databases into one larger database.
Surefire User's Guide Page 138
Importing Data
If you have data from another program that you wish to incorporate
into a Surefire database, it must be in the form of an ASCII data file.
You need to follow the procedures for the application from which you are
getting the data. Most popular applications will be able to output data
to a file in this ASCII (text) data format. Once you have the data from
the other program in the correct format, you can import that data into
Surefire through a document. If there is already a database associated
with the document, the imported records will be appended to the
database. If there is no associated database, one will be created. To
import the data you use the Get File window by setting the file type
button to "Data File".
There are some simple formatting rules that must be followed to be
sure that both the ASCII data file and your document conform correctly.
These rules are described below:
Format for the ASCII Data File
1) Each text value in the ASCII file must be surrounded by quotes
("). Number values may or may not have quotes.
2) All values must be delimited by a comma (,).
3) Each record or set of data values must be terminated by a
(CR-LF) character.
4) If no filename extension is given to the ASCII file, the
default extension, .DTA, will be assumed.
Rules for Setting Up Surefire Documents for Import
1) If there are n fields to be imported into the database, the
first n Stored or Projected fields of the document must
correspond in order and type to the fields in the ASCII import
file.
The ordering of the fields in the document is the same as the
way you move from field to field using the (End) key. That is,
from left to right and then down through the document.
Corresponding in type means that number values in the ASCII
file go with numeric fields in the document, text values go
with text fields, etc.
2) Any additional Stored/Projected fields in the document will
set their associated database fields, in all records, to their
currently displayed values in the document. If there are
calculated fields which are Stored, the calculated values for
these fields will be stored in the data records. That is, the
calculations will be performed just before the imported data
is added as a record. Database fields without corresponding
document fields will have their values cleared in all imported
records.
Surefire User's Guide Page 139
3) There must be at least as many Stored or Projected fields in
the destination Surefire document as the number of values you
want imported from each record in the ASCII data file.
4) The ASCII data file may have field values that you do not want
to import. If this is the case, you must create a Non-Stored
field of the appropriate type in the proper place in your
document. This dummy field will act as a placeholder to accept
the value. Use a dummy field also if there are empty values at
the same place in all records of the ASCII file. Empty values
are indicated by two adjacent commas (,,).
5) If a Surefire document field is smaller than the value for
that field from any imported record, that value will be
truncated.
Say you want to import data from a file that we have set up as an
ASCII data file from another database. This database has the following
fields defined; person's name, age, phone number and marital status. The
first field is a text string, the second is a number and the third and
fourth are also text strings. To import the data from this database into
a Surefire document, you need to get the data written like this:
"name",age,"phone number", "marital status" (CR-LF)
or
"name","age","phone number","marital status" (CR-LF)
Notice that the age field may or may not have double quotes (").
This is because it is a simple integer number. Notice also that each
line in the example text file is terminated by a carriage return and
linefeed character shown here as (CR-LF).
Now let's say that you want to import this data (which is in a file
called IMPORT.DTA) into the "contacts" document. This document contains
fields for name, address, phone, age, notes, etc. You may notice that
the order of the fields in this document doesn't match the order of
values in the data file. Also, there is no field in "contacts"
corresponding to marital status. What you need to do is create a
projected document with projected fields for name, age and phone number
in this order. This document will have a dummy field for marital status.
Note: You could add a marital status field to your "contacts"
document and restructure your database. Then you could also project the
marital status field and also import the marital status data.
As you import data, each successive record read from the ASCII file
will be added to the Surefire database that corresponds to the document.
Any fields in the document that follow these four fields will be
unchanged by the import. If there are any Stored or Projected fields in
the document that do not correspond to values in the ASCII file, their
values that are displayed in the document at the time of the import will
be used to set default values for those fields of the new data records.
If there are no such fields, the values of these parts of the data
records will remain clear and can be filled in later.
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Exporting Data
If you have data in a Surefire database that you wish to
incorporate into another program, you may do so by writing the data out
into an ASCII data file. This is known as exporting the data. In
Surefire you can export data using the same format already described for
importing data. This format is understood by most popular programs. You
may use any query to limit which data records are exported from a
database. You may use projected documents to limit which fields of data
records are exported, and to rearrange the order in which their values
will be written to the ASCII data file.
To export the data, use the Save File window, setting the file type
button to "Data File". Then follow the rules described below.
Rules for Exporting Surefire Data
1) No export will occur unless the associated Surefire database
exists and there is at least one record that satisfies the
search conditions. An appropriate query must be specified
before the data export is initiated.
2) The values of all fields of the current document, excluding
buttons, will be exported.
3) The order of the fields put into the ASCII data file will be
the order in which they appear in the Surefire document.
4) The output of the export operation will be in the ASCII data
file format described on page 21-17.
To export data from a Surefire database, follow these simple steps:
1) Get the document from which you want to export data.
2) Build a query to limit the records to be exported.
3) Open the Save File window and set the File Type multiple choice
button to "Data File". Type in the name of the file you want to
contain the exported data. Surefire will give this file the
extension .DTA. Press OK to start the database search and export
operation. You will hear a beep when the export has finished.
Merging and Extracting Surefire Databases
There are times when you may want to create a new database from one
that already exists. This new database may have fewer records or fewer
fields. With a smaller portion of the data, all your database operations
will perform more efficiently. Also, you can analyze this data while
someone else is using the original database. You would use this smaller
database periodically, perhaps, to do your monthly reports. Each month,
you would extract the most recent data from the "master" customer
database.
Surefire User's Guide Page 141
At other times you may want to have a database that is a
conglomerate of many other databases with the same format. For example,
say each salesperson has a database of sales activities that are in his
territory. You may want to "merge" these independent databases into a
single one for analysis. You can analyze the effectiveness of all your
sales activities to help produce your sales forecasts.
Since the file format required for importing data and the one
needed for exporting data are the same, you may use consecutive export
and import operations to extract and merge data from Surefire databases.
The databases may be merged together simply by importing one or more
extracted ASCII data files into the same document.
Joining Two Databases
Earlier in this chapter you were introduced to the database
searching functions. You saw how to use @JOIN and @CNDX to join two
documents together that share the same database. With Surefire it is not
necessary that a database be shared for one document to link with
another. The only thing that is required is that the two databases
share at least one piece of data. As long as the fields with this data
are the same type and size, a join is possible.
For example, if your "contacts" database has a field for company
name. you might have an "account history" database that also has a field
for company name. Let's call the account history document, "accthist".
If records are entered in both databases for the same company, a button
in the "contacts" document can be used to bring up the account history
information about the current company. You would use the @CNDX function
to set the query condition based on the company name in the "contacts"
document. You then use @JOIN to go to and execute a named query in the
"accthist" document based on this same company name.
Voila, you are well on your way to creating Smart Document
applications!
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Chapter 22 - Generating Reports
Up until now you have seen how to get one record of data into your
document at a time. Often, you want to see many records or data fields
in relation to one another at the same time. You may want to see just
the names and phone numbers of all your contacts. Or, you may be
interested in seeing statistical data based on your records. This can be
something like the average salaries of personnel in each department of
your company, or the number of clients in each city of a region, etc.
A report is the result of using a document to retrieve more than
one data record at a time. You can use a report to see many records in
relation to one another or to produce a summary of database information
ready for printing. You might want to list all of your contacts and
their phone numbers or your company personnel and their departments.
Suppose you use a document to enter information about the personnel
in your company. This document might have fields for name, title, phone,
mail stop and department laid out one above.
Because of the difference in layout and amount of information, the
document you use for a report generally has projected fields. You create
this document by projecting fields the way you would for forms and form
letters except you place the fields and text differently, generally left
to right across the page. You then give the fields report attributes.
Instead of having each data field on a separate line or imbedded in
paragraphs, you generally will have the fields across the page with
column names across the top of each page. Surefire's general page layout
capabilities allow a report to be printed on an 8-1/2 by 11 page with
standard margins and a header on each page.
There is no reason why you could not use a document laid out in
report format to add and review records one-at-a-time as we discussed in
the previous chapters. However, you can see that the first document is
more convenient for data entry. Now you will learn how to set up the
second type of document layout for data reporting.
Formatting a Report
A field's format attributes determine the way data in the field
looks. Its data attribute determines whether or not a field is stored in
a database. A field may have one other type of attribute. The report
attributes of a field determine how the values of many database records
are to appear in your document. You assign report attributes to fields
in order to tell Surefire that a document will be used to retrieve more
than one data record at a time. You specify these additional attributes
in the Format Report window. You may display this window by choosing
"Format Report..." from the Data menu while you are in Document edit
mode. This window contains various options that determine how multiple
data records will expand into your document to produce a report.
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An entire document can be a report or you can imbed your report
directly within the body of another document. Suppose you want the
milestones that represent the progress on a specific task to be
generated right into the middle of a progress report. Or suppose you
have supporting statistics that you want to appear as an addendum to a
summary letter. By placing the fields with report attributes at the
proper places in your document, you can accomplish this.
You don't even need to worry about having lots of empty pages in
your document since Surefire will add pages as needed to accommodate all
the records. This gives you a lot of flexibility. The following sections
describe each of the formatting options available in the Format Report
window.
Specifying Repeated Fields
You indicate how the data of each retrieved data record will be
displayed one after another by giving these fields a repeat setting.
Surefire still uses fields to display the values of stored data records,
but just before each successive qualifying record is displayed, the
repeated fields "move" to a new location. With a repeat setting, you
specify where this new location is. Now Surefire can display the next
set of data. To generate a report, you must have at least one field that
has a repeat setting. Generally, you would set your repeated fields
before using any of the other report attributes.
You can repeat both stored and non-stored fields. The non-stored
fields are usually fields with values calculated from database fields
but they may actually have constant values or trim. Once you know the
fields that you want to repeat, you switch to Document edit mode so
that you can set the report attributes for them. You select the fields
by using Field selection before you open the Format Report window.
If there are no report attributes for the first selected field, you
will see a response window that looks like this:
You may respond by choosing YES or NO. If you choose NO, you
return directly to the document without setting any report attributes.
If you choose YES, the Format Report window will be displayed.
The second action button at the top of the Format Report window is
SET OFFSET. Choosing this button will temporarily close the window and
allow you to position the cursor in the document. The cursor will
initially be at the left character of the left most field that you had
selected. You move the cursor downwards to define the vertical report
spacing by pressing (down arrow). Each screen position that you move
tells Surefire how much space to leave between successive records. Once
the cursor is where you want it, press (Enter). If you would rather not
finish the layout at this time, press (Esc) to cancel. In either case,
the Format Report window will reappear.
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When the Format Report window is redisplayed, a new multiple choice
button will appear saying Fill Down. In addition, the number of blank
lines to leave between the data from each record is indicated by the
text "Skipping 1 Lines". Choosing OK at this point sets the report
attributes. All fields that are repeated will have the same repeat
setting and thus will have the same spacing between data records. Each
data record may take up more than one line of the report.
The next search in this document would bring back all qualifying
records, display each one on a line, filling records to the bottom of
every page, and create pages as needed until all records were retrieved.
The "Fill Down" button has another possible value of "Repeat field
n times". If you wanted only a limited number of records to be displayed
per page, press (Spacebar) to change Fill Down to Repeat field. Then
enter the number of times in the data entry field.
Using Trim
Trim is constant text and graphics that adds emphasis to your
report. You can have trim fields that have a repeat attribute to appear
near each data record. Or, you can use trim to label report columns or
to appear at the top or bottom of every report page. Trim might consist
of lines, tic marks, text, etc. And, you can always use the Header and
Footer regions of the document for report titles, etc.
To use trim, you must first create text fields in your report
document to hold the trim. Then, using the document, you put the desired
text or graphics into the fields. Once this is done, you can specify the
trim fields to be repeated along with the other data fields. Use the
same method described above for data fields to show Surefire how these
trim fields are laid out.
For example, if you want to have lines or tic marks drawn after
every record, simply create a text field below the repeated fields, use
line drawing to draw a line in the text field, and set the repeat for
this field along with the stored fields.
Clearing the Repeat Specification
Once you have associated a repeat attribute with your fields, you
may wish to remove it from some or all of the fields. To do this you
must first select the fields that already have a specified repeat
setting. Then you display the Format Report window and choose the button
CLEAR REPEAT. When you press OK, the repeat attribute for these fields
will be cleared. Once you save the document, these fields will no longer
be repeated when the report is generated.
Displaying at the Top or Bottom of Pages
The normal Header and Footer regions of Surefire documents are
always repeated in the top and bottom margin for every page of your
document. As a report is generated, you may want different header and
footer information displayed at the top or bottom of each report page.
Surefire User's Guide Page 145
This could either be calculated field values or trim data such as column
headings. You use a report attribute to have a field displayed at the
top or bottom of report pages. This attribute is also set via the Format
Report window. Unlike the page Header and Footer, this information is
displayed within the margins and only on those pages of the document
into which the report is generated.
At the left of the text "Display value at top of page", is a
logical field. Choose "Y" to indicate that your selected fields will
have their values displayed at the top of every page. The exact position
will be the same position that the original field is from the top of its
page. For example, if one of the fields were at column 50 and 2 lines
from the top margin, then its value would always be displayed at column
50 and 2 lines from the margin on every page. Any repeated fields would
begin below this field on each page.
The next setting: "Display value at bottom of every page" is just
the opposite. Use this to put field values at the bottom of every page.
Displaying at the End of a Report
To display text or the value of a field at the end of a report,
just make sure that it is located below any repeated fields. Do not give
the field any report attributes. As the report is generated, the text
and fields will move toward the end of the document. The fields will be
evaluated after all data records have been retrieved.
Displaying When a Sort Field Changes
You may want to display the values of certain fields when a sort
field changes. Recall that a sort field is a data field associated with
a query line which has a sort order of 1, 2, or 3. The on change
attribute is used to mark off groups of data displayed in your report
and is especially useful for fields containing @D database functions.
The groups of data are determined by the sort field that you
choose. For example, if you sort by name, then you will have a new group
for each name. Likewise, if you sort by date, then there will be a new
group whenever the date changes. When the cursor is over the on change
attribute, you may press (ALT+Z) to zoom a pop-list of possible database
fields. You will see the name of each field and its type. You may choose
any of these fields. If this particular database field is not used as a
sort field when you do a query, the on change attribute will be ignored
and the field will not be displayed when the report is generated.
As Surefire generates your report, each time that the value of the
chosen sort field changes, the field with the on change attribute will
be displayed, between the record with the old value and the first record
with the new value.
Note: When you start a search without using the Query window, you
can specify this attribute for the field where you start the search.
Also, fields with this attribute must be located below all repeated
fields.
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Turning off Report Formatting
Sometimes you may want to use a document that has report attributes
to retrieve records one at a time. If this is the case, you may
temporarily turn off report formatting by using an option in the Search
Options window. To set this option, follow these steps:
1. Display the Search Options window.
Press (ALT+D) to open the Data menu. Choose Search Options... to
open the Search Options window.
2. Turn off report formatting.
Answer 'N' to the question "Do Report Formatting?". Choose OK to
set the change. Choosing OK will tell Surefire that you want the
current document to behave as a document without report formatting.
3. Display your records.
If you press (F8) you will see data records displayed as if there
weren't any report attributes. The next time you read the document
into Surefire, the report formatting will be turned back on.
Generating a Report
Once a document has report attributes, you generate the report
simply by choosing "Search" from the Data menu or pressing (ALT+S) to
start a search. You can have a query in the Query window or base the
search directly on a field. The records that satisfy the query
conditions will make up the report.
As long as there is enough room in memory to handle the expanded
document, you can view the results of your report as soon as all records
are retrieved. Since Surefire generates a report directly into a
document, it is recommended that you save your document once you have
defined all report attributes and before you begin generating the
report.
Note: Even before the report is generated you cannot use (F8) and
(F7) to sequentially view records when report attributes are specified
(and used) for any field.
After all records have been retrieved and the report has been
generated, your cursor will be repositioned at the place where you
started the search. This will typically be at the beginning of the
document. You may press the (PageUp) and (PageDown) keys to view your
report on the screen.
You may stop the report while it is being generated by pressing an
'S' at any time. After it is stopped, you may view, edit, and print just
as if the report generation had gone to completion. Sometimes you may
set up a query intended to generate a long printed report. Before
printing it, you may generate a few pages, then stop it and look at it
to make sure it is really what you want. Then, after you are sure, do
the Search & Print to generate the full report directly onto paper.
Surefire User's Guide Page 147
Note: If the number of retrieved records is very large, there
may not be sufficient memory to view the entire report. You will be able
to see as much of the report as possible. If memory is exhausted, a
message window will be displayed. You must use Search & Print to print
the entire report.
After a report is generated, all fields with report attributes are
temporarily deleted from the document by Surefire. This happens because
the purpose of these fields is solely to indicate to Surefire how to
present the information in the report. Once the report is generated,
these fields would just get in the way.
The other fields that do not have report attributes remain intact
for your use. If you had generated the report in the middle of some
larger document, these other fields may still be used to search the
database or perform calculations before you print the report. Button
fields are very handy to have around. You can use buttons to re-generate
the report based on specific named queries. In fact, buttons in report
documents can be an essential part of a Smart document application.
Resetting a Report
Generally you want to re-get your document each time after you run
a report. This is because the generation of a report automatically edits
your document by inserting lines and moving text and fields. You can
then further edit your report manually if you wish. But, when you want
to generate your report another time, usually with a slightly different
query, you must start with the original document.
When you get a document using the Get File window, Surefire does
not remember information about the query or search you have just
performed. By choosing "Reset" from the File menu instead, you can tell
Surefire to get the document again but leave the current query
information intact.
The is handy especially when you are testing the look of a report
generated from a complex query. You can keep making minor changes to the
query each time, and generate the report again and again until you are
satisfied. This certainly overcomes the inconvenience of getting the
report document and redefining a query each time you generate a report.
Printing a Report
There are two ways that a report may be printed. You can print a
report after having a chance to view and annotate it on the screen. Or,
you can tell Surefire to directly print the report as it is generated.
Both ways assume that you have already defined the appropriate report
attributes as described earlier in this chapter.
Surefire User's Guide Page 148
Printing After Display
Quite often you may want to generate a report, but then add text to
explain specific results, organize the text a little differently, or
delete portions of it that are really not of interest. In Surefire, all
you need to do is be in Text edit mode after the report is generated.
You can manipulate the result all you want using Surefire's word
processing capabilities. Then, when you are ready, you can print the
document.
To print the report once it is viewed on screen, and you are in
Text edit mode, choose "Print..." from the File menu to open the Print
window. Then choose PRINT. This is exactly the way that any other
document is printed. If there are any button fields in your document,
the button labels will be removed in Text edit mode and will not be
printed.
Printing the Report Directly
You can generate a report in such a way that it is printed at the
same time. This is especially useful if your report is larger than
memory allows. Before you do, be sure the report will be what you want,
since printing often takes a long time. First, generate a few pages
without printing and then stop it by typing an 'S'. When everything
looks good, you're ready to go.
To print the report directly while it is being generated, you first
build your query in the Query window if you haven't already done so, or
get a named query. Then choose "Print..." from the File menu. Choose
SEARCH & PRINT. Surefire will qualify matching records according to the
query conditions, generate the report and print the entire document. Of
course, you have the option of stopping the print operation at any time.
Saving a Report
The generation of a report automatically edits your document by
inserting lines and moving text and fields. It also deletes those fields
that have report attributes. Once a report is generated, the document
can not directly be used to generate another report. Only the original
document can be used again and again to generate different reports.
Therefore, when you are ready to save your report, Surefire insists that
you save only the textual form of your document as a Report or as a
Text File. Neither of these will retain field information.
Saving as a Report will preserve the margins and special characters
of a document. This is the option you will normally use. Saving as a
Text File or General WP will save only the text of your report in ASCII
format. This may be just what you want if you are going to send the
report over a modem to someone who has a different word processor, for
example.
You use the Save File window from the File menu and enter the name
by which you want your finished report to be saved. Set the file type
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multiple choice button to Report to specifically save the report without
overwriting the original document. Then, give the report a name that is
different than the name of the original document.
Using Statistical Database Functions
You can use the functions shown below in field commands to perform
statistical calculations on field values that span more than one
database record:
Use function To
@DSUM Find the sum of values for a field.
@DAVG Find the average of values for a field.
@DCOUNT Find the number of records retrieved so far
(for a group).
@DMIN Find the minimum value of a field.
@DMAX Find the maximum value of a field.
@DTOTAL Find the total number of records for the
current query.
These functions are often used in combination with fields that have
an on change attribute to display statistical information based on
groups of your report data. For example, you may want the total number
of recipes that use apples, the average salary of employees in each
department of a company, or the oldest and youngest people in your
database. These functions are described in "Appendix A: Surefire
Function Reference".
Generating Reports at the Push of a Button
With a button field and the @RESET function, you can perform the
same operation as choosing "Reset" from the File menu. This operation
allows you to re-get the current document after a report has been
generated in such a way that current query information is not cleared.
This way you can generate a report, reset the document, and then just
change a query condition before regenerating the report. However, by
itself, it may not be worth having a button field in your report just to
support a menu shortcut.
A real handy extension to this idea is to have one or more buttons
set up at the top of your report to generate varieties of the same
report. This can be done by using field commands with the @QUERY()
function. The @QUERY() function will do a reset operation automatically
if a report was generated. It will then start a database search based on
the named query specified by its argument. For example, in our
"conrept" document, you can have one button generate a report for the
tri-state area of N.Y., N.J., and Connecticut. Another button can
generate the report for the entire U.S., alphabetically by state. And so
on.
Surefire User's Guide Page 150
Chapter 23 - More About Printing
When you have finished editing a document, or you have just
generated a report, you usually want to print it so that you can have a
paper copy. Paper copies are needed for mailing and may also be part of
your record keeping procedures.
By now you are quite familiar with printing a document in Surefire.
The features of the Print window were introduced quickly in the word
processing chapters. This chapter reviews some information you already
know, as well as printing options not thoroughly discussed earlier. In
addition, this chapter explains available fonts and printer drivers and
how to configure Surefire with a particular printer.
The Print Window
You use the Print window to print Surefire documents and reports.
The settings allow you to select which pages of your document to print,
how to number those pages and whether your printer is set up for manual
sheet feeding. The following sections describe each of these settings
and the two action buttons that may be used to print your documents and
reports.
Pages to Print
You can specify which pages of a document are to be printed. You do
this by changing values in two entry fields of the Print window to the
right of the label "Print from Page:". The default is "1 To: END" which
means print the entire document.
If you change these values, only certain pages of a document will
be printed. The number in the first field must have a lower value than
the number in the second field. For example, "2 to 7" says print the
second through the seventh pages of the current document. Page selection
is useful, if you want to revise part of a document or to substitute a
corrected page into a printed document.
Page Numbering
You may also select the starting page number for the first page
that is printed. This will be the number printed in the header or footer
for the first page if you have enabled page numbering. Read "Chapter 9:
Page Layout" for details about page numbering in headers and footers.
For example, say the current document has 10 pages which are
numbered 1 through 10. But this document really represents chapter 2 of
a longer project, and the last page of chapter 1 is 14. You still want
to print this entire document, but the starting page number should be
15. To set this, change the value in the field to the right of "Start
Numbering:". The default value is "1". So, you would type "15" in
place of the "1".
Surefire User's Guide Page 151
If you choose PRINT now, the 10 pages of the document will be
printed with the page numbers 15, 16, ... 24. As in our example, this
feature is useful for printing chaptered text where each document
represents a chapter but the page numbers must be continuous as if there
were really a single larger document.
Number of Copies
You can select the number of copies of the current document that
you want printed at one time. This means that after one copy of your
document is sent to the printer, Surefire will send additional copies
without you having to choose PRINT more than once. You will not be able
to resume other operations in Surefire until all copies have been sent.
To set the number of copies, change the value in the field
following the label "How Many Copies:". The default is 1.
Note: Do not confuse this with instances of a document that are
formed during a merge. If you set this to be greater than 1 you will
have more than one copy of each instance of a document. See the
explanation of SEARCH & PRINT below.
Pause Before Printing
Some printers do not have automatic sheet feeders. If yours does
not, you still may want to print onto a single sheet of paper, with a
company letterhead, for example. You can tell Surefire that this is your
intention if you say "Yes" to the Print window question "Pause before
each page?". You must do this prior to choosing OK in the Print window.
This will cause printing to automatically stop before each page is
printed so that you can load a sheet of paper.
If you are going to be using paper that is not on a continuous feed
(i.e. tractor feed), you should also read the section later in this
chapter entitled "Tractor Feed vs Sheet Feed". This section covers
additional considerations for setting number of lines per page, margin
adjustments, etc.
PRINT and SEARCH & PRINT
These action buttons will start a print operation of the currently
displayed document. PRINT allows you to print the current document with
any data that is currently displayed in fields of the document. PRINT
will be your selection unless you are merging data or generating a
report. Normally, the cursor is positioned on this button when the Print
window is displayed.
SEARCH & PRINT will merge data from a database according to the
currently defined query into the fields of your document. This will
usually result in the printing of multiple instances of your document
with different sets of data. You may read "Chapter 19: Forms and Form
Letters" and "Chapter 22: Generating Reports" for specific instructions
on using this feature.
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Printing the Current Document
If a report, text file or document is not currently displayed in
Surefire, you must first read it into Surefire to be printed. If you are
not familiar with the steps for reading a document, read the section
"Opening a Document" in Chapter 5. You use the Print window, setting
options as appropriate and choose PRINT to print your document to the
current printer. You may also use the print file shortcut (ALT+F6) to
print the currently displayed document without opening the Print window
and without changing any default print window options.
PRINT will print your document, just as you see it. This varies
depending on whether you are using the document (use mode), editing the
document (Document edit mode) or editing text (Text edit mode). The
difference is solely based on how the fields are represented. In use
mode, the fields contain their current values and all the fields are
printed with underlines. No autosizing of fields will take place. In
Text edit mode, all field values are in textual form and any autosizing
will have been done. The fields will not be underlined. And finally, in
Document edit mode, all fields are underlined and filled with a
character indicating their type. No autosizing will take place and no
values will be printed.
SEARCH & PRINT will always switch to Text edit mode just before
printing is done. Therefore, field values are autosized and printed
without underlines.
Stopping and Starting the Printer
When printing begins, a window is displayed with the following
message: "Printing in Progress - Type S to stop". This window will go
away after the document is printed. If printing cannot be started, a
message will say so. If this happens, you need to be sure that the
printer is turned on and is hooked up properly.
If you type "S", the information being sent to the printer is
temporarily suspended. The printer may continue for a while to complete
what was already sent to it. The following message is then displayed:
"You have stopped printing. Abort?" At this time you can prevent
anything more from being sent to the printer by choosing YES. If your
printer keeps printing, you can stop it by resetting it or turning it
off. Choosing NO will allow printing to continue from exactly where it
stopped.
Printers and Printer Drivers
Surefire comes with several printer drivers. Before you print any
Surefire document, you must select the appropriate driver for your
printer. As long as you do not switch printers, you do not need to
select your driver after you initially install and setup Surefire. An
option on the Setup window may be used to select your printer. You can
display the Setup window from the File menu.
Surefire User's Guide Page 153
Here is a table of the available drivers and the printers with
which they work. The available fonts with the character widths in cpi
(characters per inch) are also shown. The fonts corresponding to the
current printer driver are seen in the Format window. This window is
accessed from the Page menu.
Driver Printers Fonts/cpi
PLAIN (dumb) default/10
ANSII ANSII Standard Pica/10, Elite/12
DIABLO Diablo 630 Pica/10, Elite/12,
Condensed/12, Brother HR Series
RICOH408 Ricoh LP4080R Courier/10, Prestige Elite/12,
Letter Gothic/15
IBMPRO IBM Proprinter Series Pica/10, NLQ/10, Elite/12,
NLQ/12, Condensed/17.1
IBMGRAPH IBM Graphics Printer Pica/10, NLQ/10,
AT&T 473/478 Elite/12, NLQ/12,
Okidata 92/192, 93/193 Condensed/17.1
EPSONRX Epson RX Series Pica/10, Pica Dbl+Emp/10,
Epson MX Series Elite, Elite Dbl+Emp/12,
Compressed/17.16
EPSONFX Epson FX Series Pica/10, NLQ/10,
Epson LX Series Condensed/17, Wide/5
EPSONLQ Epson LQ Series Pica/10, Elite/12,
Epson SQ2500 Condensed/17, Cond. Elite/20
HPLASER HP LaserJet Family 10 Pitch/10, 12 Pitch/12,
Apricot Laser 16.66 Pitch/16.66
Epson GQ3500
Kyocera F-1010 Laser
Nec Silentwriter Series
Okidata Laserline 6
Olivetti PG 208 M2
Quadram QuadLaser 1
Tandy LP-1000
Tegra Genisis
Wang LDP 8
Even if your printer is not shown in the table, your printer will
likely still work with one of the above drivers. You need to know if
your printer emulates another printer as many do. For example, it is
very common for daisy wheel printers to emulate Diablo printers, dot
matrix printers to emulate Epson printers, and laser printers to emulate
HP LaserJet printers.
Surefire User's Guide Page 154
If your printer does emulate another printer, then you should set
the printer to use the emulation and select the printer driver in
Surefire that corresponds to the emulated printer. If necessary, read
your printer manual on supported emulation modes and how to set them.
All the printer drivers listed in the table support underline and
bold attributes. The only exception is PLAIN. The PLAIN driver supports
the least intelligent printers. It neither supports attributes nor
multiple fonts. If your printer does not support the IBM extended
character set, you will not be able to print lines or special
characters. Some printers particularly laser printers, will need to have
this character set loaded. Consult you printer manual for more
information on supported attributes and character sets.
What Actually Gets Printed
Printers with tractor feed allow you to print the full length of
the page. That is, all 66 lines on an 8-1/2 by 11 sheet can have text.
In this case, formatting your page with Surefire is very
straight-forward. Use the Format window to set the page size to 8-1/2 by
11 inch pages as was explained already in "Chapter 9: Page Layout". You
can specify your margins and font without worrying about any other
considerations.
Sometimes, you may want to feed 8-1/2 by 11 inch sheets of paper
into you printer individually or with an automatic sheet feeder. This is
often done to print letters on a company letterhead or to use other
paper that may not be available for tractor feed. The problem is, most
printers can't print the full 66 lines on a sheet-fed page. This is
because the paper must be fed past the print head and held in place by
the rollers in order to start printing. This is very similar to a
typewriter. As a result, somewhat fewer than 66 lines are really
available.
To compensate for the inability of a printer to printer all 66
lines of a page, the format of your document must be adjusted. You can
do this by following these steps:
Step 1: How may lines?
Determine how many lines can be printed on a sheet. Most often this
information can be found in your printer manual. It may tell you how
much space is skipped at the top and bottom of the page. Subtracting
these amounts from 11 inches will give you the printable length of the
page.
Sometimes it may not be clear from the printer manual, or you don't
have the manual. You can determine exactly how many lines can be
printed, and exactly how much space is left at the top and bottom as
follows:
1. Open a new document.
Choose New from the File menu to start a new document.
Surefire User's Guide Page 155
2. Set the page length.
Choose Format... from the Page window to display the Format window.
Set the page length in the Format window to 8-1/2 by 11 and set the
top and bottom margins to 0.
3. Number the lines
Number the lines of your page from 1 to 66.
4. Print a test page.
Choose PRINT from the Print window to print a test page, using
sheet feeding on your printer.
The number of lines printed on the page will be what your printer
can physically print. Dividing this number by 6 will give you the length
of the print region in inches. You can measure the amount of space
skipped at the top and bottom with a ruler. Now you know everything you
need to know to format your document so that it comes out as you expect.
Write down the size of the actual print region, and the space skipped at
the top and bottom of the page for future reference.
Step 2: Set the page length.
In the Format window, set the page length to correspond to the
number of lines that can be physically printed on a page. To do this,
choose "Specific Setting:" for the value of the page size multiple
choice button in the Format window. You will notice that two additional
entry fields are now visible just to the right. Move the cursor to the
"Length:" field and type in the length you determined in Step 1 above.
Step 3: Adjust the margins.
Using the data entry fields in the Format window, adjust the top
and/or bottom margins smaller to account for the extra space that is on
a page. To do this, first subtract the amount you measured at the top of
the page from the current top margin. Then, subtract the amount of space
from the bottom of the page from the current bottom margin.
Step 4: Reformat the document.
Now choose OK in the Format window to reformat your document. You
will immediately notice that the document may now take up more pages
than before since less text can fit on each page. You can now review
your document. Each page will correspond to the page as it will be
printed, except a little extra space will be at the top and bottom of
the page. Save your document to retain the new formatting if you desire.
Step 5: Print the document.
Now you can load your first sheet of paper, align it horizontally
and print. If you are feeding paper manually, just load the next page
after the previous one is ejected, making sure your printer is on-line.
See your printer manual for more information about how your particular
printer behaves.
Surefire User's Guide Page 156
Chapter 24 - More About Surefire Documents
As you know, the basic entity of Surefire is the document.
Documents may contain text, text and fields, and may be associated with
a database. Fields of a document may contain field commands that make
documents smarter and quite powerful. Documents may be used for data
entry and reporting and may even evolve into complete applications by
"linking" Smart Documents together.
Depending upon their complexity, documents actually consist of one
or more DOS files which are managed by Surefire as a group. As you
edit, use and maintain a document, Surefire assures that all associated
files are changed accordingly. This chapter will serve as a place to
review much of what you have learned about documents. You will also
learn more about how other associated files are managed by Surefire.
The Modes of Editing and Using Documents
If your document contains only text, you may only edit this text.
That is, you may only perform normal word processing operations such as
text insertion, deletion, find, replace, etc. In Surefire this is known
as Text edit mode. There are also times when you have a document with
fields but you want to edit the document along with the field values as
text. To do this, you choose "Text" on the Operate menu. The Operate
menu always shows the current mode of editing or use by preceding that
choice with an 'X'. When you are only editing the text of a document,
the Operate menu looks like the picture at the left.
In the chapter "Introduction to Fields", you learned about using
fields in a document. Documents which contain fields may be edited as
text in Text edit, mode or as a document in Document edit mode. In the
latter case, Surefire maintains information about the placement of
fields. When Surefire is in Document edit mode, you can manipulate
fields as well as perform all the normal word processing operations that
are available in Text edit mode.
A document with fields may Used. This concept of using a document
was covered in greater detail throughout this manual. Using a document
is what really distinguishes a Smart document from an ordinary document.
When you use a document, you enter, view and manipulate the values in
fields instead of the layout or text of the document. While using a
document, you may only change field values. The Operate menu reflects
this mode as well.
Getting Documents
When you get a document, Surefire will display the first page of
the document with the margins that were set the last time you displayed
it. Surefire will also read in files that define fields or data
associated with the document.
Surefire User's Guide Page 157
You may get a document by specifying the name of the document along
with the Surefire command at the DOS prompt:
> SUREFIRE MYDOC
You may also type the name of the document in the Get File window
(from the File menu). This window shows the current directory. This is
the directory where Surefire will look for a document. This is the DOS
directory that was set during Surefire installation or most recently
specified in the Setup window. If a document has more than one
associated file, all these files must be in the current directory.
The Get File window has a multiple choice button that allows you to
get a document, get a text file, or to import a data file. Just to the
right of the label "Name:", is the field you use to enter the name of
your document or file. If the multiple choice is set to Document, no
file extension (such as .DOC) is needed and formatting and margin
information will be preserved. See "Chapter 25: Surefire System Topics"
for a complete description of all Surefire file extensions.
The multiple choice button on the Get File window also has choices
for Text File and Data File. The Text File choice allows you to read in
a file created by another word processor or text editor. The Data choice
allows data from another program to be imported into the current
document's database. The import process is described in "Chapter 19:
Advanced Database Topics".
If the multiple choice button is set to Text File, Surefire will
search for the named file and assume it is an ASCII file with no special
formatting information. If the name has no period '.' or other
extension, Surefire assumes the extension ".TXT". For this type of file,
the margins will be set to the current margins at the time of the Get.
By pressing the Zoom key (ALT+Z) when the cursor is on the file
name entry field, a pop-list of all documents, text or data files will
appear. Text files with the extension ".TXT" will be shown when the
chosen file type is Text File. Likewise, ASCII data files with the
extension ".DTA" will be shown when the file type is Data File.
Otherwise, documents will be listed. As with all pop-lists in Surefire,
you may press the (down arrow) key to move the cursor to the document or
file that you want and press (Enter) to choose it. If you do not wish
to make a choice, you simply press (Esc).
The pop-list showing documents has additional important information
about each particular document. The date and time that the document was
last saved is always displayed. But, there is additional information
for documents containing fields and databases. The 'Y' in the first
column indicates that the document has fields. A 'Y' in the second
column tells you that the document is a base document that defines a
database. A 'P' in the second column indicates that the document has
fields projected from another database. The number of documents that
project data from a base document are shown in the third column.
Surefire User's Guide Page 158
Saving Documents
In the Save File window there are 5 possible file types from which
you may choose. They are Document, Report, Text File, General WP and
Data. Whatever file type you choose, Surefire will save that file or
document in the current directory.
If you choose Document, Surefire will save the current document and
any files associated with it. It will remember graphic attributes and
header, footer and margin information as well. If Text File or General
WP is your choice, only a textual version of the document will be saved
as ASCII text. No graphic attributes (see "Chapter 8: Adding Emphasis")
or formatting information such as margins will be saved. Special
characters will be saved but may not be kept intact by other programs.
In a Text File, each line of the Surefire document will be
terminated with a newline character (CR-LF). This format is recognized
by various text editors as well as DOS commands such as type.
General WP is similar to Text File, however, there will not be a
newline character after each line. Surefire will terminate every
paragraph with a single newline character so that a paragraph will
become a very long line. This format is recognized by many word
processors and will ensure that words in a paragraph are properly
wrapped when imported. In addition, Surefire will replace leading spaces
on each line by (Tab) characters. This will be based on the current tab
size you have set in the Setup window.
You may choose to save a document as a Report when you want to keep
the graphic attributes and formatting information but not any associated
field information. Surefire will look to see if there are already
documents with the same name that have fields or a database. If so, you
must choose a different name. Saving a document this way is useful when
you wish to annotate a document after you view data records, without
losing the correspondence between the document and its fields.
Use Data File when you want to export data from a Surefire database
to another program. See "Chapter 21: Advanced Database Topics" for a
thorough description of importing and exporting data.
Copying Documents
You can use the Get File and Save File window to copy files or
documents. Just Get the desired file or document and Save it directly
with a different name. If you are copying a document with fields, your
copy will have the same format and fields as the original. The fields
of the copy will have the same attributes, names, sizes, layout and
field commands as in the original document.
If the original document is a base document defining a database,
your copy will not include a copy of the database data. Its fields,
however, will be defined so that you can add or import data to create a
new database. This database will have the same structure as the database
Surefire User's Guide Page 159
of the original document. Since the format of the copy is the same, it
is a simple matter to copy the data from the original document's
database to the new database. All that you need to do is to export some
or all of the data from the original and import that data into the copy.
See "Chapter 21: Advanced Database Topics" for complete information on
importing and exporting data.
Renaming Documents
If you want to rename a Surefire document, use the Rename File
window. The Rename File window has two data entry fields. Type the
current name of the file or document in the first field next to the
label "Old Name:". You may press (ALT+Z) to show the pop-list of files
in the Current Directory. Enter the desired new name in the second field
next to the label "New Name:".
The rename within Surefire works differently than a DOS rename
command (ren). If the file type is Document, Surefire will rename all
associated files that define fields or a database, as well as the
document itself. In addition, Surefire will not allow you to rename a
file to a name that is already used.
A message window will be displayed if you try to rename a base
document that has associated projected documents. At the time of the
warning, you may choose to CANCEL the rename. If you continue with the
rename in this case, you will need to modify each of the projected
documents to reference the new name. (Use the Field Modify window from
the Field menu to do this).
Deleting Documents
If you want to delete a Surefire document, use the Delete File
window. The Delete File window has a data entry field where you can type
the name of the file or document that you wish to delete. You may press
(ALT+Z) to show the pop-list of files in the current directory.
Note: The Delete operation within Surefire works differently than
a DOS delete command (del). If the file type is Document, Surefire will
delete all associated files such as those that define fields or a
database, as well as the document itself. No matter what the file type
is, a message window will be displayed to make sure that you really want
to continue with the delete operation.
A special message window will be displayed if you try to delete a
base document that has associated projected documents. At the time of
the warning, you may choose to CANCEL the delete. If you continue with
the delete in this case, you will need to modify each of the projected
documents to remove all references to fields projected from the deleted
document. You can either delete all of the projected fields or use the
Field Modify window to remove all references to the deleted document.
Surefire User's Guide Page 160
Creating New Documents
Surefire is immediately ready for the creation of a document if you
start it from the DOS prompt without any document name. You will see the
representation of a standard 8-1/2 by 11 inch page with margins.
> SUREFIRE
If Surefire is already running, choose "New" from the File menu to
clear the current document from the screen but keep the current page
formatting and margins. Before this occurs, you will be warned to save
the current document, if you haven't already done so.
In either case, you are now ready to edit the new, as-yet-unnamed,
document. That is, you may immediately enter text, graphics, do text
operations, create fields, etc. Later, you can save the new document and
give it a name. The chapters on word processing (4 through 9) walk you
through all of the steps of creating and editing your document.
Protecting Documents
Surefire protects your documents and data in a variety of ways. The
lack of highlighting for inactive menu items keeps you from selecting
inappropriate actions. When menu items are inactive, they cannot be
selected. For example, the "Use Document" choice on the Operate menu is
not available when there are no fields. Notice that the 'U' is not
highlighted.
Whenever possible, Surefire warns you through message windows of
operations that may affect the integrity of a document. Surefire will
warn you of any side effects before it continues with the action.
Throughout this manual are many instances of the actual message windows
that are displayed in these cases.
Note: You are also encouraged to routinely make backups of your
documents to prevent loss in case of hardware failure or inadvertent
editing operations. See the next chapter for information regarding
backup procedures.
Specifying Document Help
If you are going to be creating smart document applications, you
might be interested in having document help available for your
application. Document help is context help that can be specified for
your own documents. You have already seen how Surefire system help is
always available by pressing (F1). The help is different depending on
the part of Surefire being displayed at the time. In a similar way, a
context in your document changes when topics or areas of your document
or application change. You specify the appropriate changes in context
within your Smart Document application with the @HELP function.
Surefire User's Guide Page 161
Once specified, document help may be displayed by using the
function key (F2). You use Surefire itself to write the text that will
be displayed in the help window. Each context of your help is on a
separate page of this help document. Generally, you use the @HELP
function in the field command for a button or immediate execution field
to specify each context change. As your user moves throughout your
document switching between pages or other documents, the help context
can change.
There is one help file per document application. This means that
when you initially run Surefire with a document specified at the DOS
command prompt, or you explicitly read a document using the Get File
window, Surefire will set the current document's help file to the one
associated with this document, if there is one. The association comes
from the help file having the same name as the document. For example,
if your document were named "accounts", the associated help file would
be "accounts.hlp".
Note: As long as you display other documents by pressing buttons
that execute @GODOC or @JOIN functions, or you return to a previous
document by pressing (Esc), this help file and any previous help
contexts will be preserved. If you exit from Surefire, or explicitly
read a document using the Get File window or you choose New from the
File menu, Surefire will forget any help context information associated
with the previous document. Surefire will change the help file to be the
one associated with this new document, if any.
Help File Format
A help file is merely a Surefire document with a specific name and
format. A template for help files is provided and is called
"document.hlp". This file is located in the Surefire installation
directory. All help documents must follow the formatting rules shown
below.
Rules for Surefire Help Files
1) The file name must be the same name as the document but with a
".hlp" extension.
2) There must be exactly 66 lines per page.
3) There must be exactly 70 characters within the margins.
4) There may be no header or footer.
5) Both left and right margins should be .5 inches.
6) The font must be 10 cpi.
7) All pages must have STOP's.
The first page of the help file will never appear in the Help
window. This page is used for notes describing the particular help
file. Usually, it is used to summarize the meaning of each context used
in this help file. You write the text for the help window in the help
file on the page corresponding to the context with which it is to be
associated. The context is a number that you specify by using the @HELP
function.
Surefire User's Guide Page 162
You may not care about a context if you simply want to specify some
overall information about a document. You can essentially ignore using
a context by writing whatever text you want on page 2 of the help file.
Whenever (F2) is pressed, the contents of this page will be shown in the
Help window.
Specifying a Document Help Context
The document help context is specified by using the function
"@HELP(context)" where "context" is the number of the page in the
document help file to be displayed in the Document Help window when (F2)
is pressed. For normal contexts, the context number must be 2 or
greater and is always initially set to 2.
For example, if your document were "accounts" and one area was
payroll and another was ledger, you can have the help text for payroll
be at page 3 of the help file (@HELP(3)) and the help text for ledger be
at page 4 of the help file (@HELP(4)). The help file is "accounts.hlp"
It is often the case that @HELP is used in conjunction with the
@GODOC function since displaying another document is a natural change in
context. When the @HELP function specifies a new context after the
@GODOC in the same field command, it changes the context for the next
document. The previous context will be restored to what it was set to
just before the @GODOC, when you return back to that document by
pressing (Esc).
Use @HELP(1) when you want to say that a part of your document
application will use a new help file. The name of this file is
constructed from the name of the current document. Use this method for
breaking up the help file of large Smart Document applications or
applications that may be run either independently or as part of another
application.
Surefire User's Guide Page 163
Chapter 25 - Surefire System Topics
Well, you have reached the end of the Surefire User's Guide. The
other chapters of this guide have covered all that you need to know in
your day to day usage of Surefire. This chapter covers information that
you will probably not refer to very often. These topics include the
backing up and recovery of your files, more about how Surefire files
appear to DOS and some limits you may encounter in using Surefire.
Backing Up Your Files
There are two aspects to backing up files in Surefire. One protects
you from accidently deleting or saving files when you really didn't want
to. The other protects you from unexpected hardware or system errors
resulting in catastrophic effects to some or all of your files. You
should use the appropriate method at the proper times to protect your
investment in time when using your computer.
Manual Backups
You should always make backup copies of your important Surefire
documents and their associated files in case of a catastrophic machine
failure. Time and time again these types of failures happen when you
have been using your computer intensely for days at a time. You are
heavily involved in your work and backing up your files just takes too
much time. Don't fall into this trap!
Make sure all of the files in your working directory are copied or
backed up to a floppy disk or tape unit periodically. Every once in a
while say to yourself "If my computer failed totally and I lost all my
data how much time will it take to do every thing over again?" If you
can't afford this scenario, do a backup! You can backup your files by
using the DOS command cd to get to your working directory and then using
copy or backup. Refer to your DOS manual for more information about
these commands.
Automatic File Backup and Recovery
If you have chosen the auto backup option from the Setup window,
documents modified during a Surefire session will be backed up, in the
current directory, automatically. See the section "System Setup" in
"Chapter 2: Getting Started" for details on setting this option.
Whenever you save a document, Surefire will set aside the previous
version of that document if one exists. Surefire makes copies of each
of the files associated with the document. With Auto Backup, if you
somehow save a document incorrectly, for example, by using the name of
an existing document and thus un-intentionally overwriting a document,
you can recover the "lost" document. This will also be handy if you
inadvertently delete a document.
Note: Whether or not you use this option, Surefire will always
backup a database when a base document is deleted and during a database
restructuring operation.
Surefire User's Guide Page 164
Having files backed-up in this way means that you can recover the
previous version of your document. This previous version will have an
exclamation '!' character followed by the usual 2 characters of the file
extension. If you don't want the changes that you just saved to disk by
saving your document via the Save File window you can exit Surefire and
restore your original document. From DOS, you use the copy command to
restore the changed document to its previous version. You also use the
del command to remove all of the index files. Surefire will
automatically create new ones when needed.
To recover a backed up document, such as CLIENT, enter the
following DOS commands at the DOS prompt:
>COPY CLIENT.!OC CLIENT.DOC
>COPY CLIENT.!LD CLIENT.FLD
>COPY CLIENT.!BF CLIENT.DBF
>DEL CLIENT.ND*
Note: If you are short of disk space you may not have enough room
for the auto backed up copies. You can turn auto backup off and then
delete some of your backup files to free up disk space. If you do, we
recommend that you first do a manual backup (see the previous section).
Surefire Files
Surefire documents are really composed of a group of files that
contain the various information needed to present the text, fields and
data of the documents. Other files support the available printers, data
import and export operations, on-line help and database indexing for
quick data access. You may see various files when you look at the DOS
directories where you use Surefire. The following table lists the types
of files you may see and what their three character DOS extensions are.
The asterisk (*) shows that the file name can be anything.
File Type File Name or Extension
Document file (text portion) *.DOC
Field file *.FLD
Database file *.DBF
Index file *.NDn
ASCII text file *.TXT
Export/Import data file *.DTA
Printer definitions *.PD
Help files *.HLP
Surefire Program SUREFIRE.EXE
Configuration File SUREFIRE.CFG
Surefire User's Guide Page 165
Document File Format - WordStar Compatible
The file structure used for all document files, which are files
with the extension ".doc" are compatible with WordStar 5 and earlier
versions. What this means is that Surefire .doc files can be read
directly into WordStar without any conversion. Likewise,WordStar
documents can be read directly into Surefire as a Document. Any
attributes or formatting that can be specified in WordStar that are not
available in Surefire will be ignored by Surefire.
Surefire's specifications for formatting and attributes are very
straight-forward. WordStar was chosen because many other word processors
and editors can convert to and from WordStar format, and thus to and
from Surefire. Using this format, the simple formatting and attributes
supported by Surefire won't be lost when transferred to other systems.
Database File Format - DBase III Compatible
The file structure for all database files, ".dbf" and ".nd?", are
Dbase III compatible. This means that these files can be directly
accessed by Dbase III or any other software that works with Dbase III
files, including Dbase IV.
Surefire can also access Dbase files created by these other
programs, provided that document fields are defined to be consistent
with the database definitions. To use these .dbf files directly, the
document fields must be the same type, size and with cell names
specified to correspond to those in the database definition. Databases
defined by Dbase III must have field names with at least three
characters. All characters of these field names must be alphabetic. We
recommend that any index files from Dbase III are not used, since
Surefire will automatically create them as needed.
Locking Documents
Sometimes you may have a set of Smart documents that you and
perhaps others will use on a regular basis to do your work. It is often
desirable to set up these documents so that they cannot be altered. You
can lock documents by using the DOS command attrib to set the document
files (eg. files with the extension .DOC) to be read-only. This will
prevent Surefire from saving any files associated with the document.
See your DOS manual for more information about the attrib command.
Surefire User's Guide Page 166
System Constraints
We all wish that there were no limits in the machines or programs
that we use. We recognize, however, that nothing can work efficiently
if everything was done to the furthest extent. For this reason we will
discuss some of the limits that you may encounter while using Surefire.
The tables below summarize Surefire System limits.
There is room for approximately 15 to 20 standard 8-1/2 by 11 inch
pages in 640K RAM. When documents approach this limit, we recommend that
your document is broken down into more than one document. This can be
done by deleting the second portion of the document and saving the
document with a different name such as "mydoc2". Then get the original
document, delete the first portion and save this document with a
descriptive name such as "mydoc1". You can then delete the original
document so as not to be confused.
You will be warned with a message window if you are about to run
out of memory. Since memory is generally left fragmented, it is best to
save your document, exit Surefire and then re-run Surefire.
Word Processor Limits
Maximum page width: 260 characters
Maximum page length: 96 lines
Minimum page width: 10 characters
Minimum page length: 3 lines
Minimum space between left and right margins: 10 characters
Minimum space between top and bottom margins: 3 lines
Maximum number of pages per document: 250 but normally limited by
memory (varies by page size)
Maximum number of clipboard objects: 20
Field Limits
Maximum number of fields per document: 500
Total number of non-stored fields in a document: limited only by
memory
Maximum size of a text field (non-stored): size of the page
Maximum size of a text field (stored): 254 characters
Maximum width of numeric field: 16 characters (without '%','$',',')
Maximum number of cells in multiline numeric field: limited by page
length (96)
Maximum number of items in a text field pop-list: 30
Database Limits
Database file size is limited only by the size of your disk
Total number of stored or projected fields per document: 128
Maximum number of records is 1 billion (limited by disk)
Maximum record size: 4,000 bytes
Maximum size of a stored text field is 254 characters
Maximum number of named queries: 20 per document
While Dbase III file compatible, Surefire does not use memo fields
Surefire User's Guide Page 167
Appendix A - Surefire Function Reference
Field commands can be simple or complex. They can manipulate
various types of information including numbers, dates and text. They can
also control database access and link documents together. This chapter
describes all of the functions that are available in Surefire that you
may use in field commands. The various aspects of field commands are
described in "Chapter 14: Introducing Field Commands" and in "Chapter
15: Using Field Commands".
General Mathematical Functions
These functions do the most general mathematical manipulations. Any
of these functions can be used in the Calculator.
Absolute Value
@ABS(n) - Return the absolute value of n.
Example: @ABS(-15) returns 15
Integer Value
@INT(n) - Truncate the decimal part of n and return the integer
value.
Example: @INT(11.55) returns 11.
Remainder
@MOD(dividend, divisor) - Return the integer that represents the
amount left over when the dividend is divided by divisor.
Example: @MOD(27, 5) returns 2.
Rounding
@ROUND(n, place) - Round n to the nearest value with the number of
decimal places defined by place.
Example: @ROUND(77.456, 2) returns 77.46.
Square Root
@SQRT(n) - Return the square root of n.
Example: @SQRT(64) returns 8.
Surefire User's Guide Page 168
Trigonometric Functions
These are the basic trigonometric functions. Any of these functions
can be used in the Calculator.
Pi
@PI - Return the value of Pi.
Pi is specified as 3.141592653589794.
Sine
@SIN(n) - Return the sine of n, where n is an angle in radians.
Cosine
@COS(n) - Return the cosine of n, where n is an angle in radians.
Tangent
@TAN(n) - Return the tangent of n, where n is an angle in radians.
Logarithmic Functions
These are the logarithmic functions. Any of these functions can be
used in the Calculator.
Logarithm
@LOG(n) - Return the logarithm (base 10) of the positive number n.
Example: @LOG(300) returns 2.4771212547.
Power of e
@EXP(n) - Return the value of "e" raised to the power of n.
Example: @EXP(6) returns 403.42879349.
Natural Logarithm
@LN(n) Return the natural logarithm (base "e") of n.
Example: @LN(100) returns 4.605170186.
Surefire User's Guide Page 169
Financial Functions
The following are available functions to do financial calculations.
Any of these functions can be used in the Calculator.
Future Value
@FV(pmt, int, term) - Return the future value of an investment
given the payment, pmt, the periodic interest rate, int, and the
term of the loan, term.
Payment Amounts
@PMT(prin, int, term) - Return the payment of a loan given the
principle, prin, the periodic interest rate, int, and the term of
the loan, term.
Present Value
@PV(pmt, int, term) - Return the present value of an investment
given the payment, pmt, the periodic interest rate, int, and the
term of the loan, term.
Compound Growth Rate
@RATE(fv, pv, term) - Return the compound growth rate given the
future value, fv, the present value, pv, and the term of the loan,
term.
Statistical Functions
Statistical functions are a class of numeric functions that operate
on a group of numbers. Generally, the group of numbers is specified as
one or more cell ranges or field references separated by commas. For
example, the group (A1:B2, C) is made of all the cells in the range of
A1 through B2 and the field C. This group of cells can not span pages.
For the examples given with these functions, let's use the fields
and cells shown below:
Average
@AVG(references) - Return the average of all the numbers found in
the cells specified by references.
Example: @AVG(A1:B2) returns 15
Count
@COUNT(references) - Return the count of all cells specified by
references.
Examples: @COUNT(A) returns 2.
@COUNT(A1:B2, C) returns 5.
Surefire User's Guide Page 170
Maximum
@MAX(references) - Return the maximum of all the numbers found in
the cells specified by references.
Examples: @MAX(A1:B2) returns 30.
@MAX(A1:B2, D) returns 62.
Minimum
@MIN(references) - Return the minimum of all the numbers found in
the cells specified by references.
Examples: @MIN(A1:B2) returns 5.
@MIN(C, D) returns 20.
Sum
@SUM(references) - Return the sum of all the numbers found in the
cells specified by references.
Examples: @SUM(A1:B2) returns 60.
@SUM(A, C, D) returns 107.
The next two functions operate on a single range of cells or a
single field reference. In addition, their results will be affected by
the current execution order for the page on which the cells are found.
A vertical order will give a different result than a horizontal order.
See "Chapter 16: Spreadsheets" for information on how to set the
execution order.
Standard Deviation
@STD(cell1:cell2) or @STD(field) - Return the standard deviation of
all the numbers contained in cell1:cell2 or in all cells of field.
Example: @STD(A1:B2) returns 9.
Variance
@VAR(cell1:cell2) or @VAR(field) - Return the variance of all
numbers contained in cell1:cell2 or in all cells of field.
Example: @VAR(A1:B2) returns 88.
Date Functions
A date function either produces a date as a result or requires a
date value or a reference to a date field in at least one argument. When
a date value results from a function, it may be displayed in a date
field in one of three formats. The following are the date functions
available in Surefire. The arguments date, date1 and date2 in these
functions represent date field references or date values resulting from
any of the functions that return dates, such as @TODAY, @SUBDAYS, etc.
Surefire User's Guide Page 171
Add Days to a Date
@ADDDAYS(date,days) - Returns the date that is days number of days
after date.
Example: Date field testdate has the value 5/7/90;
@ADDDAYS(testdate, 15) returns 5/22/90.
Date is After?
@AFTER(date1,date2) - Return the logical value TRUE if date1 is
after date2, otherwise return FALSE.
Example: Date field testdate1 has value 3/21/85; testdate2 has
4/20/85.
@AFTER( testdate1, testdate2 ) returns FALSE.
Date is Before?
@BEFORE(date1,date2) - Return the logical value TRUE if date1 is
earlier than date2, otherwise return FALSE
Example: Date field testdate1 has value 3/21/85; testdate2 has
4/20/85.
@BEFORE( testdate1, testdate2 ) returns TRUE.
Specify a Date
@DATE(month,day,year) - Returns a date corresponding to the integer
numbers representing month, day and year. Year must be either 2 or
4 digits.
Example: @DATE(8, 6, 54) returns 8/6/54
(or August 6, 1954 or aug-06-54).
Day of Month
@DAY(date) - Returns an integer number corresponding to the day
specified in date.
Example: Date field testdate1 has value 5/12/34;
@DAY(testdate1) returns 12.
Find Days between Dates
@DIFDATE(date1,date2) - Return an integer that is the number of
days between date1 and date2.
Example: Date field testdate1 has value January 5, 1987; Date
field testdate2 has value December 19, 1986.
@DIFDATE(testdate1, testdate2) returns 17 (days).
Surefire User's Guide Page 172
Month of Year
@MONTH(date) - Returns an integer number corresponding to the month
specified in date.
Example: Date field testdate1 has value 3/21/85;
@MONTH(testdate1) returns 3 (month is March)
Dates are Same?
@SAME(date1, date2) - Return the logical value TRUE if date1 and
date2 are the same, otherwise return FALSE.
Example: Date field testdate1 has value 3/21/85; testdate2
has 10/14/78.
@SAME(testdate1, testdate2) returns FALSE.
Subtract Days from a Date
@SUBDAYS(date, days) - Returns the date that is days number of days
before date.
Example: Date field testdate has value 13-mar-55.
@SUBDAYS(testdate, 5) returns 08-mar-55
(or March 8, 1955 or 8/8/55).
Today's Date
@TODAY - Return today's date as a date.
Example: Today is New Year's Day 1995.
@TODAY returns 1/1/95
(or 1-jan-95 or January 1, 1995).
Year
@YEAR(date) - Return an integer number corresponding to the year
specified in date.
Example: Date field testdate has value 3/21/85;
@YEAR( testdate ) returns 1985.
Text of a Date
@DATESTR(date) - Return a text string that represents date. This
string can be assigned to a text field or written on a page of the
document.
Example: Date field testdate has value March 9, 1977;
@DATESTR(testdate) returns "March 9, 1977"
Surefire User's Guide Page 173
Text of a Month
@MONTHSTR(m) - Convert a number m to the string of the
corresponding month. A number greater than 12 will produce the
month based on modulo 12. This string can be assigned to a text
field or written on a page of the document.
Examples: @MONTHSTR(6) returns "June".
@MONTHSTR(15) returns "March".
Text of a Day
@DAYSTR(date) - Return the day of the week as a string based on the
given date. This string can be assigned to a text field or written
on a page of the document.
Example: Date field testdate has value August 10, 1990.
@DAYSTR( testdate ) returns "Friday".
Text Functions
A text function is defined as a function in which the result or at
least one of its arguments requires a text string or reference to a text
field. In fact, there are some text strings that yield numeric results.
These numeric results can be used in mathematical expressions. Also, if
a text function requires a number as an argument, this argument can be
any numeric function or mathematical expression.
The arguments text or str may be quoted strings or references to
text fields. The argument start may be a number of 0 or greater where
0 means the first character of the string.
Find a String
@FIND(str, text, start) - Find string str within text beginning at
position start. Return the integer number corresponding to the
position in text of where the string was found. If the string is
not found, -1 is returned.
Example: @FIND("most", "foremost", 0) returns 4.
Obtain a String
@SUBSTR(text, start, len) - Return a text string within text
beginning at the position start whose length is len.
Example: @SUBSTR("activity", 2, 3) returns "tiv".
Surefire User's Guide Page 174
Replace a String
@REPLACE(text, start, len, str) - Return the text string after
replacing the number of characters len beginning at position start
in text with another string str.
Example: @REPLACE( "generate", 0,3, "coop") returns
"cooperate".
Obtain Length of String
@LENGTH(text) - Return the number of characters in the text string
text.
Example: Text field text1 has the value "ghost".
@LENGTH(text1) returns 5.
Remove Trailing Blanks
@TRIM(text) - Remove any blank spaces at the end of text.
Example: @TRIM("people in the news ") returns "people
in the news".
Compare Two Strings
@EXACT(text1, text2) - Return the logical value TRUE if text1 and
text2 are the same, otherwise return FALSE.
Example: @EXACT("mice", "mouse") returns FALSE.
Force String to Upper Case
@UPPER(text) - Return a text string after changing all the
characters of text to upper case.
Example: @UPPER("house") returns "HOUSE".
Force String to Lower Case
@LOWER(text) - Return a text string after changing all the
characters of text to lower case.
Example: @LOWER("MixeD") returns "mixed".
Convert a Number to a String
@NUMSTR(n) - Return a text string that represents the number n. Use
this function to convert numeric field values to text field values.
Example: @NUMSTR(15) returns "15".
Surefire User's Guide Page 175
Put String to a Page
@PUTSTR(page, text, col, line) - Put the text string text on page
page beginning at column col, and line line.
Example: Text field teststring has the value "This is a Test".
@PUTSTR( 5, teststring, 30, 20) will put the string "This
is a Test" at line 20 and column 30 of page 5 of the
current document.
Text Buffer Functions
These functions manipulate text in text buffers. Text buffers are
similar to clipboard objects except they are only manipulated by the
following functions. They are useful in carrying information between
documents. In all of these functions, the number specified by buffer may
be between 1 and 25. All of these functions return TRUE if the operation
was successful. Otherwise, they return FALSE.
Copy Text to Buffer
@COPY(page, col1, line1, col2, line2, buffer) - Do a Block
selection and Copy the text on the page page from the rectangle
whose upper left corner is at col1, line1 and whose lower right
corner is at col2, line2 to the buffer buffer.
Example: @COPY(1, 10, 1, 20, 2, 5) will copy the rectangle
from columns 10 through 20 on lines 1 and 2 of page
1 to buffer 5. This is a block of text 11
characters wide and 2 lines high.
Paste Buffer onto Page
@PASTE(page, col, line, buffer, copyattr) - Paste the text from the
buffer buffer that was copied via @COPY or @FCOPY on the page page
starting at col, line. If copyattr is @TRUE, write the attributes
that were also copied to the buffer. Otherwise, the text is written
using whatever attributes are already there at that place on the
page. The contents of buffer are retained until other information
is copied into that buffer.
Example: @PASTE(2, 30, 10, 5, @FALSE) will paste the
contents of buffer 5 at column 30 line 10 of page 2
without changing the attributes at that location.
Copy Text from Field to Buffer
@FCOPY(field, buffer) or @FCOPY(, buffer) - Same as @COPY except
the rectangle is that of field. If field is not specified, the
buffer buffer is cleared.
Example: The numeric field digits displays the value $376.30.
@FCOPY(digits, 10) puts "$376.30" into buffer 10.
Surefire User's Guide Page 176
Paste Buffer into Field
@FPASTE(field, buffer, copyattr) - Same as @PASTE except the
location of the Paste is the upper left corner of field. The value
of field is also set.
Example: Birthdate is a long format date field. Buffer 16 contains
"03/09/80".
@FPASTE(birthdate, 16, @FALSE) will display "March 9,
1980" in birthdate.
Time Functions
While Surefire does not have a field type specifically for time, it
is often useful to have values based on time. These functions return
text strings based on the current time which can then be assigned to
text fields or displayed on a document page.
Current Time
@TIME - Return a string corresponding to current time in the form
hh:mm:ss.
Example: It is now 5:30 AM. @TIME returns "5:30:00".
Time Stamp
@NOW - Return a string corresponding to the current date and time
in the form yymmddhhmmss. This is often useful to generate a unique
account number.
Example: It is now 12:52 on May 9, 1990.
@NOW returns "900509125200"
Control Functions
Control functions perform some immediate action. Because the result
is an action, these functions are used with button fields or with the
Execute on Enter prefix "[".
Control functions generally return a logical value. If this is a
TRUE value, the function was executed as expected. If a FALSE was
returned, there was some sort of problem. A FALSE returned from an
@GODOC, @RETURN, or the database control function @JOIN will stop
execution of the remaining commands for that button or immediate command
string ([) if there are any. Otherwise, Surefire will display "COMMAND
ERROR" in the status line but will attempt to continue processing the
remainder of the command.
The control functions available in Surefire are on the following
pages.
Surefire User's Guide Page 177
Go To a Page
@GOPAGE(page) - Scroll the document and put the cursor in the first
field on the page whose number is page. If there are no fields on
that page, put the cursor at the top of the page. Return TRUE if
successful, and FALSE if the page does not exist.
Example: @GOPAGE(5) will display page 5 of the current
document.
Go To a Field
@GOFIELD(field) - Put the cursor in the specified field. If the
field does not exist return FALSE, otherwise return TRUE.
Example: @GOFIELD(account) puts the cursor on the field named
account.
Go To a Document
@GODOC(name) - Get the document whose name is specified by name.
Return FALSE if the document is not found, otherwise return TRUE.
You may specify a document in a different directory by giving a
relative pathname. If you do this, the current directory will be
changed before Surefire looks for and reads the document. The name
of the document must be in quotes (").
Examples: Currently looking at document news. The directory is
topdir.
1) @GODOC("people") will display the first page of the
document people.
2) @GODOC("newdir\finance") will switch to the directory
newdir and then display the document finance.
Advanced Use: If you have already accessed this document during
this session, Surefire remembers the most recent
database query executed for the document. Use the
prefix (!) to avoid re-execution of the query when
this document is displayed.
Return to Previous Document
@RETURN - Read the document that executed the @GODOC function that
got the current document. Return TRUE if successful, otherwise
return FALSE. If @GODOC or @JOIN caused a change in directory, the
previous directory will be restored as the current directory.
Examples:
1) @RETURN from example 1 above redisplays the document news.
2) @RETURN from example 2 above will switch to directory
topdir and redisplay the document news.
Surefire User's Guide Page 178
Return to Document at Level
@RETURN(levels) - Read the document at the specified number of
levels above the current document. Return TRUE if successful,
otherwise return FALSE. If @GODOC or @JOIN caused a change in
directory, the previous current directory will be restored. If
levels is 1, this function is the same as the function @RETURN
without arguments.
Example: Do @GODOC from document A to document B. Then do
@GODOC from document B to document C.
@RETURN(2) from document C will go back 2 levels and
redisplay document A.
Run a DOS Command
@RUN(command) - Run the DOS command or program that is specified in
the text string command. Command may also be a text field
reference. After the command is executed, you will be asked to
press a key to return to Surefire.
Example: @RUN("myprogram") will run the executable program named
myprogram.
Note: You can only run a program that fits in memory along with
Surefire.
Reset the Document
@RESET or @RESET(report) - Re-get the current document but don't
give any warnings and don't clear the current query information. If
report is @TRUE, pre-specified report formatting is enabled while
@FALSE disables any report generation.
This first version of the function is used to return the fields to
a document with report formatting so that you can Search & Print the
report or generate a different report by changing the query. The second
version allows you to easily switch report attributes on and off in a
document that is part of a bigger application. See "Chapter 22:
Generating Reports" for more information on reports.
Set Help Context
@HELP(context) - Set the context to context which is the page
number of the document help file. This page is displayed in the
Document Help window when (F2) is pressed. See "Chapter 24: More
About Surefire Documents" for complete information on using
document help.
Surefire User's Guide Page 179
Present a Document
@PRESENT(msecs) - Show each page of the current document for a
duration of msecs. After the last page is displayed the cycle
begins again from page 1. Use this to present a "slide show" of the
pages in your document. Usually, the document will have pages that
are the size of the screen. If you want to pause the presentation
on a specific screen, press (Spacebar). The automatic presentation
will continue when you press (Spacebar) again. The presentation
will last until you press (Esc). Then, you will be able to move
through the document normally with the cursor movement and paging
keys.
Example: Have a document with 5 screen size pages.
@PRESENT(500) will display page 1 for 1/2 a second, then
page 2 for 1/2 a second, page3, page4, up through page 5
and then repeat at page 1.
You can use the @PRESENT function to do screen animation. Just set
up your document as a series of screen pages that change in a certain
way. Then use @PRESENT with a small value for msecs.
Database Statistical Functions
All of the following functions, except @DSUBCOUNT, are equivalent
to the non-database statistical functions. The difference is that they
operate on the values of the specified field for all the records
retrieved by the current query.
Note: These functions may only be used if a document has report
attributes specified.
For the examples with the following functions, the database records
retrieved have these fields and values:
Group Age
A 50
B 60
C 35
A 12
C 46
B 21
Surefire User's Guide Page 180
@DAVG(field) - Average value of field over retrieved records.
Example: @DAVG(age) returns 37.33
@DMAX(field) - Maximum value of field over retrieved records.
Example: @DMAX(age) returns 60.
@DMIN(field) - Minimum value of field over retrieved records.
Example: @DMIN(age) returns 12.
@DSUM(field) - Sum of values of field over retrieved records.
Example: @DSUM(age) returns 224.
@DCOUNT - Total number of records found for the current query.
Example: We're sorting these records by group. After displaying
all the records, @DCOUNT returns 6.
@DSUBCOUNT - Count of records retrieved so far.
Example: We're sorting these records by group. After displaying
the records for group A, @DSUBCOUNT would return 2.
Database Searching Functions
The following group of functions are used for controlling data base
searching and updating. Like control functions, these functions are used
in button fields and in field commands that are set for immediate
execution (i.e. Execute on Enter).
Set Query Conditions
@CNDX("docname","query", docfield1, docfield2, " qfield") - for the
specified query defined in the specified document docname, set the first
condition value of the query line whose field is qfield to the value in
docfield1. Set the second condition (if any) to the value in docfield2.
Both docfield1 and docfield2 may refer to fields in the current
document. They may also be quoted text strings or numeric constants. In
specifying docfield1 and docfield2 you can mix a numeric constant with
numeric field reference or a text string with a text field reference.
Docfield2 may be left out.
@CNDX - without arguments, this function clears all query
conditions set at the current document level.
See the section "Using Database Searching Functions" in "Chapter
21: Advanced Database Topics" for a complete description of the use of
this function.
Surefire User's Guide Page 181
Execute a Query
@QUERY("query") - The query with the specified name previously
defined for the current document is executed. Use any conditions
specified with @CNDX for this query.
Example: @QUERY("cities") will start a search in the current
document using the named query "cities".
Join a Document
@JOIN("document", "query") Go to the specified document and execute
the query with the specified name. Use any conditions specified with
@CNDX for this query.
Example: @JOIN("trails", "colorado") will display the document
trails and execute the named query colorado.
Start a Search
@SEARCH - Initiate a search based on the value of the current field
in the current document. This is useful after the @GODOC, @FPASTE,
@GOFIELD command combination. This function is equivalent to pressing
(ALT+S) while the cursor is on a field.
Update Record
@UPDATE - Update the current database record with the values
currently in the fields. This function is equivalent to pressing (ALT+U)
after a database search has been done.
Surefire User's Guide Page 182
Logical Value Functions
A logical value can also be explicitly defined by using the
functions @TRUE and @FALSE. These are in fact equivalent to using the
numbers 1 for True and 0 for False, but are much more readable.
@TRUE - equivalent to the value 1.
@FALSE - equivalent to the value 0.
Logical Condition Function
A logical condition does something different based on whether the
given logical expression is true or false. In other words you may want
to take some action or do a calculation only if something else is True
or False. To do this there is a special function:
@IF(condx, true, false)
The @IF function uses a logical expression for its first argument,
condx. If the condition condx evaluates to TRUE, then the command
specified as the argument true is executed. Otherwise the condition must
be FALSE, so the command specified as the argument false is executed.
Example: Let's say you have cells A1 that contains your income and
B1 will have the tax you owe. And you have a simple tax rate of
10%. To make sure a negative tax is never calculated, use the
following field command in cell B1.
@IF( A1 >= 0, A1 * .10, 0 ).
This will take the value in cell A1 and see whether it is greater
than 0. If it is, the value is multiplied by .10, (or 10 percent).
Otherwise the result is set to the third argument, zero.
If cell A1 has the value $400, B1 will have the value $40.
If cell A1 has the value ($500), that is a loss of $500, B1 will
have the value $0.
Using the @IF function, you can test logical field values that
correspond to a person's Yes/No responses to questions. From this you
determine which page or document of a "script" application is
appropriate to that person's answer. Once there, after an @GOPAGE or
@GODOC, the user can answer more questions, look at the result of a
database search or look at a chart of information, for example.
