The Business Master (3rd Edition)

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A L P H A Q U O T E _____________________ (C) Copyright 1989, 1990 ALPHABTYES, INCORPORATED 111 Eighth Street, S.E. Washington, D.C. 20003 (202) 546-4119 Bruce Robey CompuServe: 71131,2734 Version 2.3 ┌─────────┐ This program is produced by a ┌─────┴───┐ │ (R) member of the Association of ──│ │o │────────────────── Shareware Professionals(ASP). │ ┌─────┴╨──┐ │ Association of ASP wants to make sure that │ │ │─┘ Shareware the shareware principle works └───│ o │ Professionals for you. If you are unable to ──────│ ║ │──────────────────── resolve a shareware-related └────╨────┘ MEMBER problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at P.O. Box 5786, Bellevue, WA 98006 or send a Compuserve message via easyplex to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536 Shareware Concept _________________ ALPHAQUOTE is Shareware, not in the Public Domain. You are granted, at no charge, the right to determine the suitability of this software for your needs. If you do find ALPHAQUOTE suitable and make use of it, you are expected to register with the author. Registration will remove the delay screen, grant unlimited telephone support privileges and provide printed documentation with ample screen examples. Your contribution helps shareware authors bring better and more affordable software to you. Please redistribute this program to others. Registration $29.00 Visa and MasterCard honored DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY ______________________ DUE TO THE LARGE NUMBER OF HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENTS INTO WHICH THIS PROGRAM MAY BE PLACED, NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED. THOROUGHLY TEST THIS PROGRAM WITH NON-CRITICAL DATA BEFORE RELYING ON IT. THE USER MUST ASSUME THE ENTIRE RISK OF USING THIS PROGRAM. THE SELLER'S MAXIMUM LIABILITY WILL BE LIMITED TO REFUND OF THE PURCHASE PRICE OR PROGRAM REPLACEMENT. REGISTRATION FORM _________________ To register ALPHAQUOTE 2.0 please fill out this form and send it with a check, Visa or MasterCard number in the amount of $29.00 to: AlphaBytes, Inc 111 8th St., S.E. Washington, DC 20003 NAME: _________________________________________________ ADDRESS: ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ VISA/MASTERCARD NO. ___________________________________ EXPIRATION DATE _________/__________/_______________ SIGNATURE ____________________________________ Total enclosed _____ Disk Size: __ 5 1/4'' __ 3 1/2'' Where did you get this program? ____________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Comments/Suggestions ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Thank you! TABLE OF CONTENTS _________________ PURPOSE .....................................................1 IF YOU ARE A TRADITIONAL TYPESETTER?.........................1 WHAT IF YOU ARE NOT A TRADITIONAL TYPESETTER.................1 INSTALLATION.................................................2 STRATEGIES...................................................2 MAIN MENU....................................................3 [S]ETUP....................................................4 [E]STIMATE/COPYFIT.........................................4 [P]RINT....................................................7 [V]IEW STATUS..............................................7 [R]ESET STATUS.............................................7 [D]ISK.....................................................7 [H]ELP.....................................................8 [C]ALULATOR................................................8 OTHER PROGRAMS...............................................9 ALPHABYTES, INCORPORATED is a member of: The Association of Shareware Professionals Printing Industries of America Printing Industries of Metropolitan Washington National Composition and Prepress Association Page 1 PURPOSE _______ ALPHAQUOTE is a typesetting estimating and copyfitting program written for the IBM-PC and close compatibles. The intent of the program is to offer the user an easy, fast, and consistent method of pricing work or comparing the price of desktop publishing with traditional typesetting. This 2.0 version has been totally rewritten in the 'C' programming language. New additions include the ability to print attractive reports, save estimates to disk, instantly preview estimates, and calculate from printed pages as well as from a character count. ALPHAQUOTE features a pop-up calculator that not only does standard math, but performs difficult typesetting conversions such as inches to picas and points and picas and points to inches. The methods and formulas in ALPHAQUOTE are based on the author's 20 years of experience in the typesetting and printing industry. With the high number of variables in typesetting or desktop publishing no estimating program can offer 100% accuracy. However, by answering the questions in ALPHAQUOTE consistently and honestly, this program will deliver highly accurate results. ALPHAQUOTE's results can never be any more accurate than the data you supply. WHAT IF YOU ARE A TRADITIONAL TYPESETTER ________________________________________ ALPHAQUOTE was a commercial software program written specifically for the typesetting industry. With the recent success of shareware as a marketing tool for software developers, ALPHAQUOTE has been rewritten and re-released as shareware. A traditional typesetter will find ALPHAQUOTE straightforward. Enter your company's hourly rates in the [S]etup section, then answer the questions in [E]stimate/Copyfit. Be sure to determine which strategy you will be using before beginning. WHAT IF YOU ARE NOT A TRADITIONAL TYPESETTER. _____________________________________________ One of ALPHAQUOTE's great strengths is its ability to show the non-traditional typesetter or desktop publisher what his or her product is worth compared to the traditional method. Whether it's for budget purposes, or to show the "BOSS" what you're worth, ALPHAQUOTE is an indispensable tool. One great difficulty non-traditional typesetters may encounter is the determination of the hourly rates for a particular area. Determination could be made by calling a local traditional typesetter asking for hourly rates, but a favorable reply would be doubtful. Page 2 To solve the problem a program named generate.exe was included in the archive you received. When run separately, generate.exe will create hourly rates specific for your operation. Generate.exe asks four basic questions relating to geography and type of work you wish to estimate. By default, the setup information, contained in a file named "alpha.dta" is calibrated for the Washington, DC area. You may leave the setup as it is or run the generate.exe program to customize the rates for your area. Generate will change the setup file "alpha.dta" to reflect the new hourly rates. INSTALLATION ____________ Copy the archive file you received (AQ??.EXE) to a subdirectory of your choice. After changing to that subdirectory type the name of the file (example AQ20). The program will be unbundled automatically. To activate ALPHAQUOTE: type AQ. This unregistered copy of ALPHAQUOTE will display a 20 second plea for registration before the program begins. Registered versions of ALPHAQUOTE will bypass the delay, provide a printed manual and free telephone support. STRATEGIES __________ ALPHAQUOTE can be used to estimate many different types of publications such as magazines, newspapers, newsletters and books. There are two basic estimating strategies to use with ALPHAQUOTE -- one strategy for a consistent layout and another for an inconsistent layout. For example, books and technical documents generally have a consistent layout. Page after page is virtually the same with an occasional chapter drop or piece of spot art or halftone. For these projects ALPHAQUOTE is quite straightforward. Answer the questions from the various menus as they are presented and when finished, press 'V' from the MAIN MENU to preview the results. Magazines are an example of inconsistent layout. The opening pages may be two columns and later one three columns. The typeface and point size may vary and some pages may be more complex than others. The best approach to an inconsistent layout is to estimate each page separately. Page 3 ALPHAQUOTE allows input based on the number of characters or number of pages to describe the length of the document to be estimated. For an inconsistent layout, answer the Number of Characters question with zero (0) and the Number of Pages with 1. Answer all of the other questions appropriately. Press 'V' from the MAIN MENU to see the results for page 1. Select 'E' from the MAIN MENU. Using the PGDN, PGUP and CURSOR keys, navigate to the items that change for page 2. For example, page 1 is a 2 column page, but page 2 is 3 columns. Navigate to the columns question change the 2 to a 3 then press F2 for the result. ALPHAQUOTE will quickly recalculate using the new information. Go through the entire job looking for exceptions, making just those changes, and then press F2 for an immediate preview. Magazines tend to have sections that are the same. Lumping like sections together will speed the estimating process. Unfortunately, version 2.0 of ALPHAQUOTE does not keep track of the individual pages when estimating an inconsistent layout. Keep track of each page, and then add them together after the last page for a job total. MAIN MENU _________ The MAIN MENU shown below is the access point for all of the functions of the ALPHAQUOTE program. Select the letter of the function you wish to use. After completion of the function, ALPHAQUOTE will return to the MAIN MENU at which time another selection can be made. Please read all of this documentation before attempting to run the program. M A I N M E N U [S]etup [E]stimate/Copyfit [P]rint [V]iew Status [R]eset Status [D]isk [H]elp [C]alculator [Q]UIT SELECTION ▓"); Page 4 [S]ETUP _______ The answers to the questions in the SETUP function need only to be entered initially or when hourly rates change. Answer the questions as they appear. If SETUP has been completed once, those values will appear in the response boxes when SETUP is recalled. They may be modified at this time. All penalty and credit percentages are percentages which will be applied against the base price. In the example, a response of Fair for Copy/Pasteup conditions, will result in 15% of the base price ADDED to the base price. example Copy/Pasteup conditions percentage PENALTY factors Good % 5 Fair % 15 Poor % 30 Telcomm/Media percentages are CREDITS and will SUBTRACT that percentage from the base price. Use the Language/Tabular penalty for any more difficult work such as math, run-arounds, or tabular. example Telcomm/Media coding CREDIT percentage factors Good % 7 Some % 20 All % 30 Page two of the SETUP function contains questions pertaining to Company Name, Company Address, Company City/State. The responses are used to form the masthead portion of the printed report produced by selection [P]rint of the MAIN MENU. ALPHAQUOTE contains a generic printer driver program that works on most printers. Select "D" for a dot matrix printer, "L" for a letter quality printer or "G" for generic. For LaserJet owners select "G". This completes the SETUP function. Again, this function needs to be accessed only when changes occur to the hourly rates or percentage factors. [E]STIMATE/COPYFIT __________________ After selecting [E]stimate/Copyfit from the MAIN MENU three questions appear. The questions are are Customer Name, Description, and Estimator. The answers not only serve to identify the estimate but are also a part of the printed report. Please note that at the bottom of the screen appears a box with six F key (function key) options. These six keys may be pressed for instant response from almost anywhere in the program. You may navigate (cursor up, down, etc.) to any question, change that answer, then press F2 to view the effect of the change. Page 5 ┌──╖ ┌──╖ ┌──╖ ┌──╖ ┌──╖ ┌───╖ │F1║█ HELP │F2║█ STATUS │F3║█ CALC │F4║█ MAIN │F5║█ DOS │F10║█ QUIT ╘══╝█ ╘══╝█ ╘══╝█ ╘══╝█ ╘══╝█ ╘═══╝█ ▀▀▀ ▀▀▀ ▀▀▀ ▀▀▀ ▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀ F1 Context sensitive help from almost anywhere in the program. F2 Instant recalculation with a preview of the estimate. F3 Graphic arts calculator F4 or ESC Return to the MAIN MENU. F5 Shell to DOS. Type exit to return to ALPHAQUOTE F10 Quit to DOS Please answer the questions as they appear. You may use PGUP, PGDN, or CURSOR UP, DN, LEFT, RIGHT or BKSP. The insert key is a toggle for insert and overstrike. Enter the number of characters. This may be derived from reading a disk directory (if needed use F5 DOS to get a disk directory) or, in the case of manuscript, counting the number of characters on an average page then multiplying that times the number of pages. If you do not know how many characters are in the job, enter 0 (zero) and the next prompt will be Number of Pages. This refers to typeset pages and is very useful in estimating jobs that are already typeset and printed. Enter the number of pages and ALPHAQUOTE will calculate the number of characters after you have filled in the point size and leading. Note that any answer other than 0 in the No. Characters prompt will cause the cursor to skip to point size. The program must know either the number of characters or the number of pages. If you choose to estimate from characters you will not be allowed to change the pages. ALPHAQUOTE will calculate the pages for you. If you choose pages, ALPHAQUOTE will calculate the number of characters for you. Enter the point size in points and decimal tenths. Enter the leading in points and decimal tenths. Enter the column width in whole picas, then points. example: Width 21 Points 06 At the prompt for Characters Per Pica, a pop-up box appears which contains typical characters-per-pica values for large, medium and small typefaces. You may use these values or values from your own reference. A list of typefaces and the size categories they fall in can be found in the HELP system under selection [H]elp. HELP also contains a graphic description of the relationship of point size and leading. Page 6 Enter the number of columns (1,2,3, etc.). Enter the Page Depth or image area in picas and decimal tenths. Enter the Page Density. Page Density is the relationship of type to white space within the image area on the average page. Use the value you feel best describes the percentage of type on a page. If the type density varies greatly throughout the job, divide it into similar sections, calculating each section and then adding the result. Enter the Foreign or Tabular Percentage. This is the percentage of the job that consists of foreign language, tabular, math, or other more difficult material. Copy Condition relates to the legibility, organization, and completeness of the copy. The response to this question references the penalty percentage entered in SETUP and this percentage is added to the base price. If the job is telecommunicated or is supplied on disk the answer to this question should be 0. If the next question, Media/Telcom is answered Y, then another question will appear asking for the amount of coding supplied. The response to this question references the credit percentages in SETUP. This percentage is SUBTRACTED from the base price. Is Pasteup required Y/N. If the answer is Y, then several other questions appear. Pasteup dimensions are entered in inches and decimal inches. Condition relates to the condition of the pasteup. Things to take into consideration here are the condition of the customer supplied dummy, printed sample, necessity of halftone sizing, organization and cleanliness. This response references the penalty percentage values in SETUP and this percentage is ADDED to the pasteup price. Design (hours) should be answered with hours and decimal hours. This response is multiplied times the design hourly rate and becomes the design charge. Enter the Overtime rate as follows ( 1.5 = time and one half, 2 = double time, 3 = triple time). Percentage done on overtime is the portion of the job, expressed as a percentage, that was actually performed on overtime. Outside charges are considered to be any charges incurred away as outside costs. Include such costs as printing, headlines, and additional freelance labor. Delivery charges should include all possible deliveries. Examples are initial pick up, galley proofs, page proofs, and the final delivery. Outside purchases and Delivery charges are entered as dollars and cents. Page 7 [P]RINT _______ ALPHAQUOTE contains a generic printer driver which will work on most printers. Select [P]rint from the MAIN MENU and the printer will be activated, printing the information from the SETUP, and the values for the current estimate. The printed report is intended for filing, although subsequent versions of this program will offer a PostScript output driver suitable supplying printed estimates for direct presentation to the customer. You may make use of the notes area and fill in the name of the person to whom the estimate was given. [V]IEW STATUS _____________ The VIEW STATUS (preview) function is enabled by selecting [V]IEW STATUS at the MAIN MENU or pressing F2 elsewhere in the program. VIEW STATUS opens a window that totals and displays the data gathered at that point in the program. Cost information is broken down into base price, additionals (penalties and other charges), total price, and price per page. When an estimate is recalled from disk, the status should be checked. This will allow verification of the file and retotal the values present. Press F3 to zoom in, for more cost detail. The COST SUMMARY window gives more specific price information. Each penalty, credit, and work area charge is displayed. Telcomm is shown as a credit and is subtracted from the total. Price per page is the total price divided by the number of pages. [R]ESET STATUS ______________ RESET SATUS will initialize the status window. All of the values will return to zero. For your convenience, the Customer Name, Job Name and Estimator will remain. Always use this option to clear the screen prior to recalling an estimate file from disk. [D]ISK ______ This option allows [R]etrieve, [S]ave, and [D]irectory. All estimates, when saved, are automatically given the extension ".est". Answer the prompt for drive, path, and file name in the standard DOS form: d:bugle,c:\xywrite\bugle, c:\xywrite\alpha\bugle etc. Page 8 For both the [R]trieve and [S]ave option, the ".est" extension is automatically supplied. Give only the name for the file (Bugle, Acme, etc.). The [S]ave option will issue a warning if the estimate file you are trying to save already exists. To obtain a directory listing from a subdirectory, please include the trailing backslash (d:\xywrite\*.est). The ".est" is provided. Prior to retrieving an estimate from disk, use option [R]ESET STATUS from the MAIN MENU to clear the previous status information. [H]ELP ______ ALPHAQUOTE offers extensive on-line help which is available through option [H]ELP of the MAIN MENU. Nine pop-up help areas are currently included with the program are all available from the MAIN MENU option [H]ELP. While in other sections of the program, help screens specific to that area are available by depressing F1. CALCULATOR __________ A pop-up calculator is available in ALPHAQUOTE. Press F3 anywhere in the program or [C]ALCULATOR from the MAIN MENU and the calculator will pop on the screen. The calculator features addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Additionally, the calculator converts inches to picas and points and, conversely, converts picas and points to inches. Enter the first number at the prompt. Next enter the operator (+ add, - subtract, multiply, / divide) followed by the second number. Press enter and the total will appear on the right. To convert from picas and points to inches, enter the picas and points with a comma separating them (21 picas 6 points = 21,06) at the prompt. Fewer than 10 points must have a preceding zero (01, 02, 03, 10, 11, 12). Enter P for the operator. The result will be display as inches and decimal tenths of inches. To convert from inches to picas and points enter the inches as inches and decimal inches at the first prompt. Enter I as the operator. The result will be displayed as picas and points. Enter the 1st number [ENTER] 256▒▒▒▒ ▒ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ Enter the operator(*,+,-,/,P,I) 256▒▒▒▒ * ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ Enter the 2nd number [ENTER] 256▒▒▒▒ * 2▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ The answer 256▒▒▒▒ * 2▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ =512 Page 9 Two additional features of the calculator offer pica and inches conversions. Enter the Picas & points (note 25.06▒▒ █ ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ .06 not 6) [ENTER] Enter P as the operator [ENTER] 25.06▒▒ P ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ The answer 25.06▒▒ P Picas & pts -> 4.25 Inches To convert inches to picas and points use the I operator. OTHER PROGRAMS ______________ Another program available from AlphaBytes is CODE TO CODE. CODE TO CODE is also shareware and registration is $29.00. CODE TO CODE automatically removes cryptic codes left in text files by typesetting and desktop publishing programs. Codes can be stripped completely, or moved to another file. If the codes are moved to another file, the stripped file can be edited and then have the codes reinserted in their new relative position. The program can automatically split and rejoin large files allowing several people to work on the same job at the same time. CODE TO CODE is menu or command driven. THE END