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MANUAL
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1991-04-21
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Instruction Manual For
Loading/Indexing and Searching
RACONTEX SEARCH SYSTEM
Instruction Manual For
Loading/Indexing and Searching
Copyright (c) Edward Guy CDP 1987,8,9,90,1
A product of:
GUY SOFTWARE
1752 Duchess Avenue
West Vancouver
British Columbia
Canada V7V 1P9 April 16, 1991
CONTENTS
DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
RACONTEX FEATURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
LOADING/INDEXING INSTRUCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Quick Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
For the more technical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
File Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Stopwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Delimiters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Merging Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Copy Prevention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
For the REALLY technical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Program Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
SEARCH SYSTEM INSTRUCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Simple Searches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Display Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Word Proximity Searches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Printer and File Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Please note that the SEARCH SYSTEM INSTRUCTIONS can stand alone and do not
require an understanding of the LOADING/INDEXING INSTRUCTIONS.
Racontex Manual Page 1
DISCLAIMER: The supplier has no liability to the licensee or any other person
or entity for any damage or loss, including special, incidental or
consequential damages caused by this product directly or indirectly. The
software is supplied "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed
or implied. Warranties of merchantability or of fitness for any purpose are
specifically disclaimed.
Racontex Manual Page 2
RACONTEX FEATURES.
Many business uses. In addition to the obvious uses for statutes,
legal transcripts, etc Racontex is valuable for
use with collective agreements, policy manuals,
office handbooks, library catalogues -- in fact
anywhere that someone has to "look something
up" and there is a personal computer available.
Easy "Intuitive" Search. Can be started with a one line command (or from
a batch file or menu), and prompts the user
throughout. Context-sensitive HELP screens
available at the press of a key.
Contextual Search Tool. Does not lose the context of pages found, can
"page up" and "page down" from each occurrence
of the search criteria, (even if those pages do
not contain the search criteria) and return to
it instantly by pressing one key. Moves to
next or previous incidence of search criteria
by forward arrow or backward arrow keys.
Makes full use of display. Supports 50 lines of on screen text with a VGA
adapter, 36 lines of text on screen with an EGA
or Hercules display as an alternative to
regular 25 line text mode. 36 line display will
fit a full page of court reporters' transcript
on the screen at once.
Proximity Search. Supports searches of word alternatives and
combinations of alternatives within a given
number of words of each other, or on the same
page as each other.
File Output. Supports file export of search occurrence pages
either as ASCII, ASCII with search keys marked
or Wordperfect with search keys in bold.
Alternatively can copy to printer.
Variable Stopword List. Licensees of the loading (indexing) program may
specify their own list of stopwords (words not
to be included in searches, such as "and" and
"the") - this is a tremendous disk space saver.
Racontex Manual Page 3
Variable Delimiter List. Licensees of the loading (indexing) program may
specify their own list of delimiters. e.g.
They may determine whether a hyphenated word is
one word or two for search purposes.
Self Optimising for Speed. Detects memory available and loads either all
or part of the file into memory for sub-second
response. Pages large files into memory for
display (takes a fraction of a second from a
hard drive).
Powerful File Compression. Compresses text file to such a degree that,
depending on the stop word list, all files
(text, index and dictionary) fit in only
slightly more space than the original ASCII
text file.
Copyright Protection. Licensees of the loading program can market
"Self Searching" disk copies of their documents
and thus compete with on-line text data base
systems for statute search etc. The search
program title screen will carry the copyright
title of the licensee as well as the program
author. Both are protected against "zapping"
with a disk modifying utility.
"Publisher Pack" available. A "Publisher's Package" is available which
permits a publisher to include the publisher's
client's names in the protected area of the
title screen, as well as the publisher's name.
Useful for subscription publishers of statutes
etc. Includes install procedure requiring on
screen assent by client to subscription terms.
Optional copy prevention. The resulting self searching documents may be
loaded onto computers other than the original
(subject to the appropriate licence) and then
made "non-portable" to prevent unauthorised
copying. Useful for significant databases in
companies with high staff turnover.
Racontex Manual Page 4
Easy to Add to Files. Additional sections can be added easily to a
document in the system. Ideal for daily
transcript of an ongoing hearing. The whole
record of a hearing can be built up on the hard
drive of a laptop, and passages accessed in
less than a second.
Mouse interface. If Racontex detects a mouse, it may be used for
navigation around the system.
Racontex Manual Page 5
LOADING/INDEXING INSTRUCTIONS
The Racontex search program operates on a text database produced by
processing the document to be searched through a "Loading" process which
performs indexing and text compression. The loading/indexing process has
many options to allow for flexibility in use, but you do not need to study
them to get started.
Quick Start.
Set up a subdirectory on your hard disk for your Racontex files, and copy all
of the files from the distribution disk into it. If you wish to use it there
is an INSTALL procedure on the disk which will do that for you, just put the
disk in drive A and type in A:INSTALL and press ENTER. It will set up a
subdirectory C:\RACONTEX on your hard drive and copy the files into it.
(Please note that while the Racontex search program will work adequately on a
"floppy only" machine, the loading process is severely limited if a hard
drive is not available. However the loading process may be performed on a
hard drive computer and the loaded files used on a machine without one.)
To prepare a document for use with the Racontex search program, simply type
in the command "LOAD", and when the computer prompts you for it type in the
name of the text file you want to load. The load process creates a series of
files all beginning with OUTFILE, which you may rename if you wish. To
search those files type in RACONTEX OUTFILE and follow the prompts (or read
the separate instructions on the use of the search program). If you want to
use the search program on another computer (and assuming your licence permits
it), place a formatted floppy disk in your A drive, type in
COPY C:\RACONTEX\RACONTEX.* A:/V
and press enter, then type in
COPY C:\RACONTEX\OUTFILE.* A:/V
and press enter. You may then run the search program from the floppy disk on
another machine.
PLEASE NOTE: Because many applications require frequent additions to a text
data base (e.g. daily transcript of an ongoing legal proceeding) the LOAD
command checks to see if a suite of files named OUTFILE exists and if it
does, adds the new text to the end. If you do not want that simply rename or
delete the OUTFILE files. The load command will remind you of this.
Racontex Manual Page 6
For the more technical:
The foregoing provides sufficient instructions for most applications, however
a fair amount of customisation is possible.
File Names.
A document in Racontex form consists of a suite of files, all with the same
name but with different extensions (.NDX .TXT .DCT .SPD .PGF). All must
be present for the search engine to work and all must be transferred to
transfer a document to another computer. These files are produced by the
Loading/Indexing process.
Stopwords.
In any text data base application the most frequent 40 words in the language
take up about 40% of the disk space. You do not usually want to able to
search for words like AND, THE and similar words (each occurrence of a word
which you do wish to be able to search for takes 10 bytes of space - if you
do not wish to be able to search for a word it only takes 2 bytes.)
A file called STOPWORD is included, and the words in that file will not be
indexed for searching. You may edit the file with any ASCII word processor
to change the selection of stopwords, or you may delete it entirely if you
wish every word to be indexed for searching. Unless you include them in the
STOPWORD file, initials are treated as words and it is advisable to STOPWORD
them in most cases (computer people will probably not want to stopword the
initial "C" since they will want to index references to the "C" language.)
The system is "Case Blind", i.e. although it will display both capitals and
lower case it treats them as identical for indexing and searching and it is
therefore not necessary to STOPWORD "The" if you have done it to "the".
If Racontex files produced by different runs with different stopword lists
are merged using the merge facility referred to later, the resulting files
will be stopworded as if the stopword lists had also been merged. Using this
it is possible to load a document with a very small (or even non-existent)
stopword list and then apply stopwords later if storage considerations make
this necessary. If the Racontex files are still named "OUTFILE" with various
extensions, this may be achieved by changing the stopword list and then
issuing the command INDEX NUL, which will add no new text but will apply the
new stopwords.
Racontex Manual Page 7
Delimiters.
The loading system needs to know what constitutes a separate word. A space
always means the end of a word, but what about a hyphen? A "delimiter" means
a character which indicates the end of a word, and because different
applications may need a different set of delimiters the system allows you to
change them.
For example, if a period is embedded in a word it may just mean that the
typist forgot a space and in pure text documents you probably want the period
to be a delimiter. However in a document listing radio frequencies you
probably want "142.299" to be treated as one word and not two.
In the file INDEX.BAT the following line appears in two places
indbat %1 outfile -+\/,.!()[]{};:
The string of characters which looks like a comic book cuss word indicates
which characters will be used as delimiters. You may edit this string to
change the selection (remember to do it in both places). If you do not
include at least one character in the delimiter string the loading process
assumes you forgot and uses !&()-_+=\/,.:;[]{}?<>
as delimiters.
Formatting.
The loading process takes the FormFeed character (ASCII 12) as the end of a
"logical page", even though that may require more than one screen to display
a page in the Racontex search program. That logical page is used in the
search program when a search is made for words on the "Same Page". If you
are formatting a text file specifically for use with Racontex you should bear
in mind your screen characteristics to make your searches as convenient as
possible. If the searches will be performed on a "text only" system or on a
system with a Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) there is room for 24 lines of 80
characters each on the search screen at once. EGA will allow 35 lines of 80
characters each, VGA 49 lines of 80 characters each and Hercules will allow
35 lines of 90 characters wide. If the text file does not match these, there
is no real problem as the search program will "wrap" lines that are too wide
and will "scroll" pages that are too long.
Since the objective is to maximise use of the display screen, "nul" lines
often used for double spacing are eliminated. If there is a requirement for
a blank line to appear on the display, include at least one space on the
line.
Racontex Manual Page 8
If you are preparing a copy of a file where paragraphs of it for some reason
are logical units (e.g. sections of a statute, procedure manuals, library
catalogues etc.) it often helps to set them up as "logical pages" so that the
"same page" search will find combinations of words in the same paragraph.
Merging Files
The system provides the means to merge documents produced by different runs
of the Loader/Indexer. You just enter the command
MERGE filea fileb filec
where filea and fileb are the names of the suites of files to be merged
(without extension but optionally with pathnames) and filec is the name the
merged suite of files is to be given (and cannot be the same as filea or
fileb).
Please note that the merge facility will not merge files produced by
different licensed copies of the Loader/Indexer (this is to avoid
compromising the copyright notice of those who publish documents in Racontex
form with their own copyright notice showing on the title screen).
Copy Prevention
Once RACONTEX database files have been installed on a particular machine
they may be "FIXED" on that machine. This does not prevent their being moved
to other locations on that machine or backup copies being made, but the
copies will only work with a copy of RACONTEX on that machine. If run on
another machine the only action will be to display a message to that effect.
(If run on another machine with an earlier version of Racontex, the message
reports "Files damaged or altered", if run with a current version version of
Racontex the message says "Removed from machine authorised to run" it.)
This is achieved by using the program RCNTXFIX.EXE. The command RCNTXFIX
FILEA will render non-portable the database files with the filename FILEA.
If run on files produced by an unregistered version, this may be reversed by
running the UPDATE program. Since the UPDATE program will not work on files
produced by a registered version, such files will remain "fixed" no matter
what.
This feature prevents copies of a database being made by unauthorised
persons. The originals are normally kept by an authorised person and
installed on the user machine by that person and then "RCNTXFIX"ed.
Additionally, the ability to do a one key unload of the whole database to a
file is disabled by the "fixing" process, to protect the copyright of those
Racontex Manual Page 9
using RACONTEX to publish proprietary material. The optional "Publishers'
Package" produces an "install" procedure which automatically "fixes" files as
they are installed on a client's machine.
For the REALLY technical:
The loading process operates as follows:
The LOAD command invokes a batch file LOAD.BAT which calls a program BREAKIT.
If the file you instruct it to load is longer than 250kb this program creates
working files by breaking up the input file into a series of files (named
P!.1, P!.2 etc) each no greater than about 250kb. It then writes a file
INDEX1.BAT consisting of one line INDEX P!.1 P!.2 ...etc. After BREAKIT has
executed LOAD.BAT chains to INDEX1.BAT which in turn calls INDEX.BAT (the
main loading "engine").
INDEX.BAT takes as parameters the names of the files to be indexed and added
to the OUTFILE.* database files. For custom applications you may replace the
LOAD.BAT front end process with your own program provided that it leaves
input files not significantly larger than 250kb, and is followed by a call to
INDEX.BAT. (If you know that your files are within the size limit you may
initiate the process by calling INDEX.BAT directly.)
For example you may have an application designed to print a document (e.g. a
library catalogue, Rolodex cards etc) with a standard number of heading lines
on each page or with some consistent separator for "logical pages" of
information. You could write a simple BASIC program which will read that
file, ignoring the heading lines and inserting FormFeed characters between
the logical pages, and writing out a series of files for input into
INDEX.BAT.
The file size limitation is there because Racontex can handle files whose
index would be too large to fit into memory and it therefore loads them by
indexing sections and merging the indexed sections on the hard disk.
The programs used by INDEX.BAT are described below:
INDBAT.EXE file1 file2 delimiters
Reads in file1 and produces output files named file2 with various extensions
using delimiters as given (see above re delimiters). Defaults: file1=INFILE
file2=OUTFILE.
Racontex Manual Page 10
MERGBAT.EXE filea fileb filec
Merges files produced by INDBAT.EXE, filea is the name of the first set of
input files (without extension) fileb is the same for the second set of input
files and filec is the name to be assigned to the output files. Defaults
filea=INFILE1 fileb=INFILE2 filec=OUTFILE.
Note that before running MERGBAT.EXE it is necessary to rename "filea".TXT
(i.e. the file with the extension .TXT produced by INDBAT.EXE) as "filec".TXT
as is done in INDEX.BAT.
As inspection of INDEX.BAT will show, the process of indexing and merging
will continue until all of the files named on the INDEX.BAT command line have
been processed.
Please note that it is necessary to copy the file LICENCE.PGF to "filec".PGF
after all of the indexing and merging.
SPEEDIND filec
Examines the output files denoted by filec (defaults to OUTFILE) and writes a
file used later by the Racontex search program in conjunction with the other
files produced by INDBAT.EXE and MERGBAT.EXE.
If the loading process detects errors during the run, it writes details of
the errors to a file called RCNTXERR.LST, and INDEX.BAT warns of the
existence of such a file.
Program Limitations.
At present the system is limited to documents of 16000 pages long or less -
there is no limitation to page size.
The system is a "database" type system in that each word found in the input
is stored only once (in lower case) and all subsequent references to it use
pointers and case flags. The "dictionary" must reside in memory and is
limited to 65000 bytes - this is always adequate since it allows for the
storage of over 10,000 different words for use in a given document and most
people have a normal vocabulary smaller than this (also a document is likely
to refer to a sub-set of human experience and therefore use a more limited
vocabulary). If the loading system runs out of dictionary space, it
continues to run but substitutes ? for the word it cannot store and writes
the word with an appropriate message to the RCNTXERR.LST file). In this
extremely unlikely event you may elect to leave the document with the odd "?"
in it or break up the document into two sections and handle each section as a
separate document.
Racontex Manual Page 11
The only other limitation is the size of the hard disk on the machine being
used. Because the loading program substantially compresses the text it is
not uncommon (with an appropriate stopword list) for the output files from
the loading process to be smaller in total than the input text file.
Racontex Manual Page 12
SEARCH SYSTEM INSTRUCTIONS
This system is designed for the RApid CONTEXtual search of documents for
keywords and combinations of words. It works quickly because it operates
mainly in memory - bringing in a specially prepared copy of the document and
then working on it (if your machine has insufficient memory to hold the
document - often the case with large documents like statutes, Racontex will
"page" the files into memory at a slight penalty in speed - if you use a hard
drive you will not notice the difference). The program will only work on
documents prepared by licensed users of its companion index preparation
system and will display on its title screen the licensing details.
(Companies wishing to market documents in this form should contact the author
to discuss royalty arrangements.)
Simple Searches.
The program is invoked by typing at the A> prompt (C> or D> with a hard
drive):
RACONTEX [FILE]
where [FILE] is the name of the prepared document file set. For example to
search the copy of the Industrial Relations Act saved as IRACT you would type
RACONTEX IRACT (if you use a menu system, selecting the appropriate menu item
would do this for you).
If you use a hard drive you may copy all of the files on the distribution
disk to that drive, and then run the program from its prompt (usually C>).
Display Options.
Racontex will detect whether you have a colour card installed for your
monitor, and will use colours to enhance the menu if it finds one. Sometimes
a computer has a colour card installed, but uses a monochrome monitor (a
common situation with laptops using liquid crystal screens, and VGA (e.g.
PS/2 50) machines with monochrome monitors) which causes some menus to be
difficult to read. In that situation Racontex may be invoked by
RACONTEX [FILE]/m
and it will use its monochrome setup whether or not a colour card is in use.
Racontex cannot always get a whole page of a document on the screen, and in
this case it displays the page a screen at a time. The standard method of
Racontex Manual Page 13
moving down such a page is to show each screen full separately, since this is
the fastest method of display (particularly with liquid crystal screens). An
optional method is to "scroll" the screen like credits on a film, and this
may be preferable if the pages of a document are only slightly longer than
the screen. This option is selected by invoking Racontex by
RACONTEX [FILE]/s
(If both of the above are wanted, use RACONTEX [FILE]/m/s)
If Racontex detects that your computer has a graphics card which can support
more than 25 lines of text on the screen (Hercules, EGA or VGA) it will offer
you the opportunity to switch to graphics mode in order to get more of the
page on the screen (36 lines for EGA and Hercules, 50 lines for VGA). If for
some reason you do not want to be offered this choice (e.g. the slightly
slower screen writing is a concern, or you don't like the smaller letters, or
your display is not fully IBM compatible) you may force the non-graphics mode
to be used by invoking Racontex by
RACONTEX [FILE]/ng
If Racontex detects a mouse, it will allow you to use it to navigate around
the screens. If you do not wish this you may disable it by adding /nm as
a start up option)
If your system has a problem with programs which write directly to the
hardware, add the option /DV and the program will use DOS Video calls, which
are slower but may avoid some problems.
The program will now load itself and the files it needs to operate and after
a little chugging around will display "press any key to continue". After you
have pressed a key it will display a screen like this:
|Word to find? |
| |
| [ENTER] then [ESC] to quit. [F9] to display first page. [?] for help |
Note that whenever you see a question mark "?" in the menu bar at the bottom
of the screen you may display a help screen by pressing the [?] key.
Racontex Manual Page 14
At this point you may press [F9] to jump straight to the first page of the
document, or you may enter a word to search for.
If you are searching the Industrial Relations Act for references to the word
"oath", you would type in "oath" and press enter, like this:
|Word to find? oath |
| |
| [ENTER] then [ESC] to quit. [F9] to display first page. [?] for help
|
and the computer would respond:
|Word to find? oath |
| oath 9 occurrences |
| |
|[ESC]=Quit [F1]=OR [F2]=Same Page[F3]=Word Proximity [F8]=Tally[F9]=Dsply[?]|
You could then press [F9] and the computer would display:
|Evidence |
| 19. (1) The council may receive and accept such evidence and information|
|on oath, affidavit or otherwise as in its discretion it considers proper, |
|whether or not the evidence is admissible in a court of law. |
| (2) The council may request and receive a report from a person it |
|appoints to investigate an application or to investigate and attempt to |
|settle a dispute under this Act, a collective agreement or the regulations.|
|The council may, in its discretion, in a proceeding or class of proceedings|
|consider the contents of a report without disclosing them to any party. |
| |
|[ESC] [P] [PGDN] [PGUP] [END] [HOME] [<-] [v] [->] [^] ([?] for help) |
Notice how the word "oath" is highlighted on the screen.
{In these instructions [v] represents the down arrow and [^] represents the
up arrow because some printers object to the codes for the actual
characters.}
The "menu" at the bottom of the screen allows you to navigate through the
document. In the example given, the Industrial Relations Act has been set up
with one "page" equal to one section (note that some "pages" fill more than
one screen). Therefore the key [PGUP] takes you to the previous section
Racontex Manual Page 15
(i.e. Section 18), [PGDN] takes you to the following section, [HOME] takes
you to the beginning of the Act and [END] takes you to the end of the Act.
The arrow keys take you around the pages your search found, [<-] will take
you to the previous section containing your search key, [->] will take you to
the next one, [^] will take you to the top of your current page (it may be
too long to fit on the screen) and [v] will take you to the current one (you
may have moved away from it with the [PGUP] and [PGDN] keys. [ESC] will take
you back to search for a different set of key words. In this case we hit
[->] and the computer displayed:
|Summons and discovery of documents |
| 20. On the recommendation of an officer appointed under section 8 or96,|
|or on its own motion, the council has power to summon and enforce the |
|attendance of witnesses and compel them to give oral or written evidence on|
|oath and to produce the documents and things the officer or the council |
|considers requisite to the full investigation and consideration of matters |
|within his or its jurisdiction in the same manner as a court of record in |
|civil cases. |
| |
|[ESC] [P] [PGDN] [PGUP] [END] [HOME] [<-] [v] [->] [^] ([?] for help) |
Word Proximity Searches
Sometimes the computer indicates that there are too many instances of a word
for anyone to want to look at all instances (try "picket$" in the Industrial
Relations Act - the $ [or % or * for those familiar with other "wild card
characters"] indicates that you want all words beginning with picket, and
would include pickets, picketing etc.) In that case you might want to try
combining it with another word. In our example we could look for oath only
within a given number of words of some other word, in this case "eviden$".
To do this we select "word proximity" from the "word to find" screen by
pressing [F3] on that screen, and the computer responds with:
| |
|[F1]=Adj [F2]=Within 2 words [F3]=4 [F4]=8 [F5]=16 [F6]=32 [F7]=64 [F8]=128|
| |
To tell it that we only want to look for our next word within sixteen words
of the last one, we press [F5] and then see:
Racontex Manual Page 16
|Word to find? within 16 words of previous set|
| |
| |
| [ENTER] then [ESC] to quit. [?] for help |
to which we respond as follows, and get the result shown:
|Word to find? eviden$ within 16 words of previous set|
| evidence 31 occurrences |
|evidentiary 1 occurrence |
| |
|[ESC]=Quit [F1]=OR [F2]=Same Page [F3]=Word Proximity [F8]=Tally[F9]=display|
This time when we press [F9] we get the following result:
|Evidence |
| 19. (1) The council may receive and accept such evidence andinformation|
|on oath, affidavit or otherwise as in its discretion it considers proper, |
|whether or not the evidence is admissible in a court of law. |
| (2) The council may request and receive a report from a person it |
|appoints to investigate an application or to investigate and attempt to |
|settle a dispute under this Act, a collective agreement or the regulations.|
|The council may, in its discretion, in a proceeding or class of proceedings|
|consider the contents of a report without disclosing them to any party. |
| |
| |
|[ESC] [P] [PGDN] [PGUP] [END] [HOME] [<-] [v] [->] [^] ([?] for help) |
Notice that both "oath" and "evidence" ( also "evidentiary") are highlighted
and how only pages containing both words are displayed as you proceed through
the document using the [->] key.
Sometimes it is necessary to find a combination of one of several words in
combination with one of another set of words. e.g. to find all references to
picketing an ally you would need to find the combinations given by:
picket$
[F3] or [F2] (word proximity or same page)
Ally
Racontex Manual Page 17
[F1] ("or")
Alli$ (to catch "allies" "allied" etc)
[F9] ("display")
The proximity search may continue for as many proximity combinations as
needed, but it must be remembered that what the proximity "engine" is doing
is dropping out references to the first search key set found which do not
satisfy each succeeding condition. To assist this process the computer
displays a history of "The Search So Far" in a box at the right of the
screen. At the end of each set of "OR" conditions (indicated by selecting
some key other than F1) the computer performs this dropping out operation and
displays the number of pages remaining which satisfy the search criteria.
When F9 is selected those remaining occurrences are displayed. The F8
"Tally" option is provided to allow a display of the number of hits remaining
before the "display" option is selected so that if too many remain a further
criterion may be specified.
Printer and File Output.
When you have a document displayed on the screen, another choice shown on the
menu is [P]. Pressing the P key will tell the system that you wish to have a
copy of the current page (or - for files not protected with the RCNTFIX
feature - all pages or those pages with "found" occurrences) printed for some
purpose. The first time you press the P key, you will be given a choice of
output forms. You may either direct the output to your printer or to a file
for later printing, or for incorporation in some other document. It makes it
easier to find if you include the pathname of your word processing directory
in the file name (otherwise the file will be placed in the DOS "current
directory").
You may also select a file output format for later use. If you select plain
ASCII, the file produced will contain straight text. If you select ASCII
with {} highlighting, the keywords will appear in the file enclosed in { }
brackets. You may then use your word processor to change these to whatever
code it uses to turn on and off whatever form of highlighting you require.
If you select WordPerfect with bold, the file will be written in WordPerfect
format, with the keywords set to bold print. The file will be produced in
WordPerfect version 5.0. WordPerfect 5.1 will also read this file format.
If you require a file in WordPerfect 4.2 format, start up RACONTEX with /WP42
as an option on the command line.
If a file with the name you give exists, the new information will be appended
to it, and if you specified WordPerfect format, RACONTEX will add its new
information in the same version.