NOTICE: This article originally appeared in the May, 1990 issue of Atari
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The Agony and the AW+

Atari Writer+ VIII for Those Who Don't Want to Read the Book

Jimmy Boyce (CACE)

Well gang, let's look at what we have covered to date. We talked about the
MAIN MENU and most of what it is about. The text screen was covered to a fair
thee well. Then, there are the error messages you can receive that are not in
the book...such as STRING TOO LONG.  This thing will drive you nuts...well,
it drove me nuts. It sometimes occurs when you type a string of letters,
numbers and/or spaces for a long length without a carriage return, but this
doesn't happen very often. (Wouldn't you know I just tried it in order to
give you some idea of how many bytes were required, and it would not work!)

Usually this happens when I am trying to put a graph together on AW+. I get
STRING TOO LONG when I use [OPTION][P] to see what the graph looks like
before I print it.  Another way to keep this from happening to you is to make
sure you end your file with a [RETURN].

Of course you remember that, when you get stuck and all else fails, striking
the good ole [ESC] key at least gets you back to the MAIN MENU.

Then there is the bit about setting up for paragraph indentation. You forgot?
OK, here it is by the keystrokes: [ESC] = main menu, [G] = global format, [I]
= paragraph indentation, type in the number for the amount of spaces you wish
to have for your paragraph indentation. Next, [RETURN] and [ESC], which gets
you back to the MAIN MENU. Then, you can strike [E] or [BREAK] to get back to
your typing of the next great novel (since the first one didn't pan out).

Now, when you wish to indent for a paragraph, all you do is hold down the
[CONTROL] key and strike the letter [P]. It will look like a funny P on the
screen and will not print out, but it will leave the required number of
spaces for the indentation.

I think we have edited this thing from one end to the other. Remember, when
you are deleting something that it is not lost. You can retrieve it by
pressing [SHIFT] and [INSERT]. For you folks with two disk drives and for
those of you who put write protect override switches on your drives --
remember where the disk is at that you wish to format. YOU COULD WIPE OUT
YOUR PROGRAM DISK!!!

Another little thing to remember whenever you save a file in ASCII ([CONTROL]
[S])...leave out all of your printer control commands. Usually, the main
reason for saving in ASCII is to send it to a different type of computer via
modem. All those control characters mess up the file for the recipient of
your hard work, and then they have to get rid of the gobbledygook you sent
them.

On headers, footers and page numbering, all I can say is that some printers
do it and some don't. I have no vague notion why. The same logic applies to
subscripts and superscripts and the book's directions for using them. Some
printers do 'em and some don't, and that is why they are in the type font
section of your custom printer driver.

What about chaining files? I cannot remember if I covered that or not but
here goes: Let's say you have several small files (chapters) you want to
print as one long file (the great American novel). At the end of each small
file, type in the following (in capital letters): [CONTROL][V] D1:FILENAME
[RETURN], where D1 equals the drive and FILENAME equals the name of the next
file to be printed. This way, you control what sequence those short files
will be printed in.

PAGE EJECT is another handy item. [CONTROL][E] [RETURN] will end a page and
continue printing on the next page.

TAB SETTING is a nice function, especially for writing columns of things,
like numbers. Pressing the [TAB] key moves the cursor from arrow to arrow
(those little pointy things in the lower screen). Look at what happens when
you depress and hold the [CONTROL] key and then tap the [TAB] key. All the
little arrows went away, and a message (TABS CLEARED) was displayed until you
stroked the next key.

Now you have no tabs set, and when you next happen to strike the [TAB] key,
it blows away all your work. Naah, just kidding...it just repeats the "tabs
cleared" message.  At this point, all the arrows are gone and you will want
to set up your own tabs. Just place the cursor where you want a tab to be and
hold down the [SELECT] key and strike the [TAB] key. You will notice an arrow
has appeared in the bottom screen, and the message TAB SET is displayed.
Continue doing this to set other tabs.

Suppose you goofed, and one arrow is not where you wished after placing
several tab settings. Erase them all and start over? Phooey on that idea...
try this instead: move the cursor over the offending tab arrow, hold down the
[START] key and hit the [TAB] key. The offending arrow is erased, but the
rest of the arrows remain. This operation will not affect your text if the
cursor is placed on a letter.

Folks, I am going to let you down when it comes to the section on SECTION
HEADINGS <pg 42>. I have never used it. I have tried it, but it makes no
sense to me.

On to better things...FORM PRINTING <pg 43>. This is a handy thing for people
that want to send a form letter for whatever reason. Let's say you want to
send a letter to several publishers to get your novel published. Let's face
it...to delete and type in a new name and address each time you want to send
that letter would be a massive pain in certain lower regions of the anatomy.
So, wherever that address is to appear, type in [OPTION][INSERT]. At this
point, a little box with a bent down pointing arrow in it will appear on the
screen. When you start printing your letter to your several publishers, AW+
will stop at that command and wait for you to type in that line and hit
[RETURN]. If you have several lines to type in, as most addresses have, enter
the [OPTION][INSERT] command for each line and hit [RETURN] after typing each
line.

Once you type in all the necessary lines, printing will continue. When AW+
starts printing the second copy, you will go through the same process until
you have several letters for several publishers.

Speaking of printing, you can do some special printing codes for jazzing up
your hardcopy. (Take a look at your printer's manual if you wish to do
something different.) For example, let's say I want to space my lines only
one seventy second of an inch apart. The hexidecimal code for my printer
(yours may be different!) is 27,65, and a number to represent the space I
want. It would be typed in the following manner: [CONTROL][O][2][7]
[CONTROL][O][6][5] [CONTROL][O][1]. Now, that is a lot of keystrokes, but
realizing you can do some eye-catching things will make your work more
readable and will be better remembered by the reader.

Well folks, that pretty well takes care of writing, editing, spell checking
and printing your bit of literary genius. That leaves us with Mail Merge,
AW+'s database portion of the program, and that will be covered next time.
Bye for now.