Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/discs/pipeline/abacus/p_line/BusLetter/ReadMe

Text File | 1991-12-30 | 11.3 KB | 216 lines

%OP%VS4.11 (04-Dec-91), Gerald Lewis Fitton, R4000 5065 0380 9644
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%OP%PDPipeLine
%OP%WC828,2070,184,1620,0,0,0,0
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%C%A Business Letter
%C%by Gerald L Fitton
Keywords:
Letter Open Punctuation Fully Blocked Fitton

I have been asked on many occasions "What is the 'correct' format for a
business letter?"  Well, undoubtedly there are many and I think it
would be incorrect to say that there is only one correct format.
However, some formats are better and more usual than others; the one I
shall describe is fairly common and almost universally accepted as
having 'good' style.

An example letter is the file [Letters] in this directory.  Load it and
have a look at it.  First I describe the 'style' in which this letter
is written and then I follow that with a tutorial guiding you through
its creation.

Style
[Letter] is written in the style called "Fully Blocked with Open
Punctuation".  The first thing that you may notice is that every
paragraph starts at the left edge without an indent.  That is what is
meant by "Fully Blocked" (sometimes abbreviated to "Blocked").  Perhaps
more subtly, the senders address (Abacus Training etc) is also blocked
left but against the left most edge of the 'C' column.  The address of
the intended recipient is also "Blocked" against the left margin.  Even
more subtly you will see that "Our Reference" and "Your Reference" are
aligned by the word "Reference" and that the references are "Blocked"
against the left edge of the 'B' column.

The second thing you will notice is the absence of punctuation in or
after the references, the date, the names, the addresses, in the
salutation "Dear Sirs" and the complimentary close "Yours faithfully".
With "Open Punctuation" the full stop is omitted from all abbreviated
words such as "am" for (ante meridiem - afternoon), in (inches), Km
(kilometres).  Note that there is never an "s" in the abbreviated form
of units such as inches; perhaps our European colleagues are ahead of
us but they never use punctuation in metric abbreviations even when
full punctuation is used.  Qualifications etc are written without full
stops but with a comma and space between groups of letters.  An example
of open punctuation is BSc, BA, ARCS, CPhys, MBIM, MIIM, MRI.  Numbered
items in the text have no full stop after the numbers so we might have:

 1 Catch rabbit
 2 Prepare rabbit
 3 Prepare cooking equipment
 4 etc

The order in which the items appear - ie the references, the date, the
addressee, the salutation, subject heading ("PipeDream 4"), subject
matter (sometimes called "Body text"), complimentary close, company
name, name of signatory, designation and enclosure - are all standard.
The spacing between the various items is also standard.  In particular,
there are four spaces between the company name and the name of the
signatory though some signatories may ask for extra space because of
the scale to which they sign their signature.

The Template
Click on the close icon to remove the file [Letter] from the screen.
Double click on [Template] which is in this directory.  Both [Template]
and [Addr] (short for addresses) will be loaded and you will see the
adressee, Colton Software, in cell A17.  If the caret is not already
positioned in cell A17 then click select to place it there.  Tap <F11>,
Delete to end of slot, to delete "Colton Software" and type in Norwich
Computer Services.  If all goes well then the new address (in Norwich)
and the name Mr Paul Beverley will appear in the letter at the
appropriate places.  What you might not have noticed is that the blank
letter has the current date.

So that you can see what is happening, move the caret into cell A18 and
you will see the lookup() formula which 'pulls in' the first line of
the address using the addressee as the key.  Similar formula appear
wherever a variable name has been pulled in from the [Addr] file
database.  The slot holding the current date contains @@D@@.

If you were sending a letter to Paul Beverley you would not want to
keep all the lookup() formula in the file you save, even if you did
then you certainly would not want the date to change to the new
'current' date.  You can prevent this happening by using the 'SnapShot'
command to freeze the address and date before saving the letter in its
frozen form.  I believe that the easiest way of taking a snapshot of
the whole template in PipeDream 4 is to click the mouse select (left)
button in the mark block box (this is the icon just below the
PipeDream 4 logo and on the same level as the column headings).  This
action will mark the whole document.  Follow this with the command
sequence <Ctrl BSS> (Block SnapShot - hold down <Ctrl> and then tap the
keys <B>,<S>, <S> in succession, finally release <Ctrl>).  You can
clear the marked block by clicking select once again on the mark block
box.  If you now position the caret in a slot such as A18 which
contained a lookup() function you will find that the formula no longer
exists but its value appears instead.  Convince yourself that the date
is no longer the function @@D@@ but that it has taken a permanent value.

If you have PipeDream 4 (but not if you have only the Demo Disc) then
you could save [Template] as a template file within your
!PipeDream.Template directory using <Ctrl FI>, but, if you do this then
you will need to save your [Addr] file there also.  It is probably
better to revert to the PipeDream 3 method of saving both [Template]
and [Addr] on a floppy disc and using that floppy for the disc copies
of your 'SnapShotted' letters.

Creating [Template]
Of course, you could be lazy and use the one on this disc but you might
like to work through the process of its creation with me.  I suggest
that you hold [Template] on screen and create your own with a different
name, say [Template02], comparing the two as you go.

Position the mouse over the PipeDream 4 icon (on the icon bar) and tap
the mouse menu (middle) button.  Run the pointer through the New
document option and then click on the up or down arrow until the option
Text appears.  Click select on the OK box and a PipeDream window called
Untitled (with a number after it) will appear on screen.  Make sure
that you have clicked select in the Untitled PipeDream window and not
this one and then change its file name using the command <Ctrl FC> to,
say, [Template02].  The Text template brings up a document with nine
columns with headings A to I.  The Template file has only four columns
(A to D).  You will need to delete some.

Move the caret to the last column (I) with the command sequence
<Ctrl Tab> (hold down <Ctrl> and then tap <Tab> finally releasing
<Ctrl>).  Now delete column I with <Ctrl EDC>.  Column I will be
deleted and the caret will move to column H.  Now tap <F5> (Repeat
command) to delete columns H, G, F and E in turn.  The caret will now
be in column D.  By the way, if you delete too many columns you can add
one back with <Ctrl EAC> (Edit Add Column).

The widths of columns A, B, C and D are 15, 6, 34 and 17 repectively.
In Pipedream 3 you would use commands such as <Ctrl W> and <Ctrl H> but
with PipeDream 4 you can use the mouse.  This is but one example of the
improved GUI (Graphic User Interface) of PipeDream 4.  Place the
pointer over the vertical line between the letter A and B at the top of
the columns.  The pointer shape will change to two closely spaced
vertical bars bracketing the boundary between column A and column B.
Drag (press and hold down the mouse select button) the boundary line to
the right.  As you do so, look at the mark block box and you will see
the width of the column displayed as a number.  Drag the column
boundary until the number displayed is 15 and then release the mouse
select button.  Repeat this process with the three other boundaries
until the widths are those quoted at the beginning of this paragraph.
You can also drag the wrap widths (the downward pointing vertical
arrow) in a similar way rather than with <Ctrl H> but I won't describe
this at the moment.

Fill in slots D1 to D8, A10, A11, A15, and A23 to A44 as the file
[Template].  All those slots are pure text.  In slot A13 type in @@D@@.
When you move the caret into another slot the date will appear in A13.

The [Addr] file
I could lead you through creating this file, it is based on the
template file Records, but I suggest that (for the easy completion of
this tutorial) you use mine from this directory.

The lookup() function
Type the key field, Colton Software Ltd, (note that there are no
inverted commas) into slot A17 of your [Template02] file.  You will
need my [Addr] file on screen at the same time as [Template02] to enter
the lookup() function using the GUI!  Move the pointer into the slot
[Template]A18 and click select.  Move the pointer to the formula line
(to the right of the cross and tick boxes) and click select.  The cross
and tick boxes will change from grey to red and green and the caret
will appear in the formula line.  Place the pointer over the formula
button (the f in the same line) and click the mouse menu (or select)
button.  Run the pointer through Lookup and from the submenu click on
the word lookup (I mean the lookup which is in lower case).  In the
formula window you will find that you have a "pro forma" for the
function lookup(,,) with the caret between the opening bracket, (, and
the first comma.  We want lookup(A17,[Addr]B1B6,[Addr]C1C6) to appear
here but, rather than type it in we can use the GUI.  Place the pointer
over the words Colton Software Ltd in slot A17 and click select once.
The slot reference A17 appears in the formula line.  Click between the
commas of the lookup() function to move the caret to the correct
position to accept the [Addr]B1B6 range.  Now drag from [Addr]B1 to
[Addr]B6 (in version 4.01 I find that I must not release the mouse
button until the first cell reference, B1 has been entered into the
function - the hourglass stops - or the second part of the range, B6,
is not entered) and the correct range will appear in the function.
Repeat this technique to enter the final range [Addr]C1C6 and then,
finally, click on the tick box.

You will find that (unlike a similar process done in PipeDream 3) that
when the result of lookup() is text is aligned against the right margin
of the slot.  In PipeDream 3 it was left aligned.  You can left align
the result with <Ctrl LAL>, Layout Align Left.

You can abort at any time by clicking on the cross box.  By the way, in
PipeDream 3, editing the "expression" as it was called (but now called
a "formula") used the same keys as editing a PipeDream 3 slot.  For
example to delete a character forward from the "cursor" (now a "caret")
the combination <Shift Delete> was used.  Editing formulae (but not
text in slots) in PipeDream 4 uses the <Copy> key for deleting forward
and <Ctrl U> for delete the whole line; the function key <F11> does not
delete to the end of the formula line.  You could cut and paste in
PipeDream 3 but Paste does not work when editing formulae in
Pipedream 4.

Of course it would be possible to use the replicate commands to fill
cells [Template02]A19 to A21 and C15 but you may find it more useful at
this stage to practice the GUI method.

I believe that, when you have become familiar with the improved GUI,
you will find PipeDream 4 easier to use than PipeDream 3.