Paragraph is a word processor program built using the tools provided by the ProWesS window manager. In its present state, Paragraph should not be consider as a top of the line "word cruncher" as it is slower than all other WP on the QL and miss many text manipulation capabilities. In other words, there are better word processors around to write a 500 pages self biography.
However, Paragraph has a lot to offer. It is mouse based, completely WYSIWYG and, thanks to PROGS ProForma library, has a very good and flexible print quality. Also Paragraph support features not available on any other QL word processor such as Tables, Drawing Tools and Pictures. It can be used to produce good quality letters and documents, presentations and even magazines. This program was conceived not to be better than the other word processing programs on the market, but to offer facilities not available anywhere else. It is such a bad thing to have to use a Windows based PC to write a letter just because "the QL can't do it".
This does not mean that Paragraph weak points will not improve. There is still a lot of improvement possible speed wise and all the missing features will not be missing for ever. The ProWesS environment does not limit in any way Paragraph evolution so all modern Word Processor bell'n'whistles ARE possible. Look for things like "Resizing and drawing things on screen with the mouse, import from Text87/Quill, spell check, Thesaurus/style check etc." any time soon !
I would like to thanks PROGS for the incredible work that they have done to bring us ProWesS/ProForma. The work involved to create such a complete and modern package is tremendous and Paragraph development would have been impossible without it. Good work guys !
Paragraph is a complex program that make extensive use of the ProWesS window manager and the Proforma graphic library. For it to run at a decent speed your QL system must operate at least at superGoldCard speed. You will also need 2 megabytes of RAM or more. Paragraph can run from floppy although it is always better to use hard drives. For example, the following systems should be ok :
Paragraph will run on goldCard system but it is going to be very slow and you might run out of memory when editing large document or when priting. It is also recommended to have higher resolution graphic than the QL 512x256 because at that resolution, it is very difficult to see the text when the full width of the page is on the screen and a fontsize of 10pt is used.
Paragraph is a ProWesS application which means that it obviously need ProWesS to run. ProWesS may or may not be included with your Paragraph distribution but can be obtained from various sources as it is now freely available under the GPL licence. Make sure you have a RECENT version of ProWesS. Version released before the 98/01/16 will not work ! There is an update patch available on the PROGS web page along with the complete version. If you don't have Internet access please contact PROGS.
SMSQ/E is highly recommended as certain Paragraph features will not work as well as they could without it. If you don't have SMSQ/E, you will also need TKII, the pointer environment and the thing system.
Paragraph comes as a ZIP archive. You will need to get a copy of unzip from the public domain. For information on how to use unzip, please read the unzip manual. Extract all the file in a temporary directory. You should have the following files:
ParagraphXXX_exe : the Paragraph program (XXX=version) Paragraph_html : this documentation example_parg : a Paragraph document example smallHeader_lay : a first example layout bigHeader_lay : a second example layout headerfooter_lay : a third example layout fax_lay : a fourth example layout twoColumn_lay : a fifth example layout readme_first : information text that you should read readme_first_old : the readme file included in previous releases changes_txt : history of the changes since V1.00 register_txt : text file explaining how to register
The paragraph executable can be put anywhere you like. It is up to you to make sure your ProWesS/QPACII/Qascade files utilities knows how to start the program. It might be a good idea to put the Ascii text file (readme_first, changes_txt, register_txt) in the same place as the executable file.
Copy the file Paragraph_html in the "ProWesS load point"_doc_ directory. If you want to have online help this file MUST be in that directory. You can put the example_parg file anywhere you like. Most people will create a "document" directory or something similar and put all paragraph documents inside.
The layouts files can also be put in any directory you like. However, Paragraph will be looking for a default layout at startup so if you want your favorite layout to be used you must rename it default_lay and put it in the "ProWesS load point"_mine_ directory or in the system data directory. Paragraph always look first in the current data directory for the "default_lay" layout so you can have your most often used layout in the _pws_mine_ directory and, when needed, put a different layout in your data directory.
You do not need to have a "default_lay" file as Paragraph will work even without one. But after you are more familiar with the program, you will probably create one to save time at startup.
There is little modification to be done to the ProWesS configuration. The only thing that need to be changed is the SYSTEM-DRAGTEST-TIMEOUT value that should be set to at least 10. This is to make sure that there is a big enough difference between selecting text with the mouse and just repositioning the cursor. Use the ProWesS tool in the utility menu to make the change or any text editor.
For the Proforma configuration, make sure you have a printer driver configured for every paper size you might use in Paragraph. Also, if you are using the free 1.XX version, make sure your "default" printer driver is set to one with the same paper size as your working Paragraph document, because v1.XX can only use the default printer driver.
It might also be a good idea to increase the size of the ProForma font cache if you plan to use many different fonts and fontsize.
SMSQ/E users on GC/SGC should limit their parallel or serial printing buffer to a small value like 100 bytes. (See the Printing section of this manual for more detail)
This section is just to demonstrate quickly the different steps needed to create a simple document. Read the rest of the manual for more comprehensive instructions.
Paragraph can be started in two ways. First, it can be "execed" like any other QL program:
ex flp1_paragraph_exe
Also, Paragraph can be used as a thing. This will allow you to load Paragraph once when you start your machine and used as many copies of it using the same code in memory. Beside saving memory, this also means that Paragraph will pop up instantly every time it is awaken. To load Paragraph as a thing type:
lrespr flp1_paragraph_exe
The program can now be awaken with any thing handling utilities such as QPACII.
In version 2.XX, Paragraph can receive a single argument: the name of the file to load. You do not need to put the _parg extension.
When the program window appear on screen you should see your first page with one or more red rectangle defining the regions where you can enter text. Make sure the cursor is in the correct text region (you can re-position the cursor in any text region just by HITing in its boundaries) and type some text. You can also try to change the font or fontsize with the appropriate icons or add bullets etc.
It is important that the mouse cursor be located anywhere on top of your document when typing. If the mouse pointer is outside the Paragraph window or somewhere on the top menus or icons, some text reformatting will not occur and your text will look strange (Usually lines will not be displayed). You will never loose anything however and as soon as the mouse is positioned back on top of your document, the text will reappear as it should. Sometime, even with the mouse pointer on your document, your text will be displayed correctly about 1/2 second after you stop typing.
To save your document and give it a name, HIT on the FILES menu and choose "Save as...". Write a name and press 'Enter'. Your text will be saved and the name of your document will appear in the Paragraph title bar.
Note : You do not need to enter the extension _parg at the end of your file name; it will be added automatically.
There is only one way to quit Paragraph and it is by clicking on the "Quit" button at the upper right corner of the window. Paragraph will always ask you to confirm this action. Right now it is the only precaution against loosing a non saved document!
Paragraph uses layouts to format the pages to the user taste. The type of elements that you can currently put in a layout are : TEXT REGION, IMAGE, TABLES and GRAPHICS.
You create a layout by adding elements from the "LAYOUT/Add element" menu. Paragraph will draw the layout elements on the page in the order they were created. So if element #1 and element #5 overlap one another, element #5 will be seen in full and will hide a part on element #1.
However, a good layout should not have any overlapping regions as a layout with no overlapping region will regenerate faster. For most people however the possibility has been left to put one region on top of another so that putting an image or a table is not too difficult. In that case, the margin of the textregion under the table/image should be changed to avoid overlapping text. Because you can change the margin of individual lines, it is possible to have your text warp around any shape image or graphic.
You don't have to redefine a layout for every page. You also don't need to use the same layout from one page to another. Paragraph offer a range of facilities to reuse layouts from other pages or even restore layout from disk.
The text region is the principal type of element than can be put on a layout. A text region is always rectangular and must fit within the page. Text region can have a black border around them. When text reach the end of a text region it flows automatically to the next non-permanent text region. Margins, as set with the margin icon, are always relative to the text region limits. In others words, the text inside a text region can have any kind of margins like in the picture below:
text region #1
+--------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Asd asd asds |
| jhk uyu iuoiu |
| jhkj kjh kjhh |
| lkjhk kj kjh |
| jkh kj. |
| |
| lskdjf oiusd yujh nhgh jhgjs klhks iuyiu iu uuyu iuyi |
| sdf sdf kljl poip -09 -9wse loio fgdf o oiuooi oiuoio |
| iuyiu jhkjh iuyiuiuyiuy iud nb cw vbbc mnmd jddouiyu |
| lkjh kjhk kjkj. |
| |
| poipoi poipoipo oioi |
| kjh iuy iuuyu iu iui |
| gjhg jhg jgj jh ghgh |
| lkjlk oiuooi oiuoi o |
| [opipo. |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------+
A table is an array of text cells. A text cell behave mostly like a small text region. One exception is that when the text reach the end of the text cell, it will not flow to the next cell but instead the complete row will grow in heigth to make more room for the additional text. Tables are great to show data in tabular form and are a quite flexible tool to organize information and create interesting page layouts. It is possible to show the tables without borders around cells (like if the text had been formatted with tabs) or with a variety of border styles for a very professional look. See the edit table section in this manual.
An image is a graphical entity located in an external file that is supported by one of the ProForma image driver. Well, that doesn't say much you are probably thinking! In more simpler terms, an image is a picture file. There are many type of picture files available but Paragraph can only use those supported by ProForma. (See the section "Import images" in this manual for the supported image formats)
All images can be printed in full color but on screen, they will be displayed using the available colors of your QL system. For many of us, that means only four. Images can be rescaled to any size as long as they fit on the page. Finally, images can have a border of any size around.
The available drawing tools are very limited but still can be of great help to add the final touch to your document. The available tools are : LINE, CIRCLE and BOX. They can be of any color and any thickness. The circle and box can be filled or not.
When you start Paragraph, the program try to load your default page layout in memory. The program will look for a file named "default_lay" in the data default directory and the "PW_load_point"_pws_mine_ directory in that order. If the default_lay file is found, the "In Session" layout is loaded and the first page is created using this layout.
If the default_lay file can not be found, a requester will appear asking you to either browse your drive to choose another layout file to use as the in session layout or use the "Big Text Region" layout for your first page. Please note that if you choose the "Big Text Region" layout, no "In Session" layout is created.
Your first page will then be displayed using the chosen layout. You can however modify you first page layout manually by adding, removing or resizing elements. This newly created layout can be saved if you think that you might need it again latter.
If you know you want to create a document with a saved layout different from your "default_lay", you don't need to rename it to default_lay before starting Paragraph. Simply do this:
Start Paragraph. Your first page will be displayed with your default layout (that you don't want). Click on FILES/Load layout and choose the layout you want for this document. You now have your first page showing the default layout but the "In session" layout is the one you want. Make sure that the "New page layout" option is set to "In session". Now click on FILES/New document, the first page is now what you want.
Once your first page layout looks as you like, what about the other pages. You have three options here depending on the setting of the "New page layout" option.
Every new page will use the "In session" layout that was automatically load at startup or with a "Load layout" command.
Every new page will use the layout defined on the previous page.
Every new page will use the built-in "Big text region" layout which is only one text region as large as your page.
Remember that at any point you can modify the layout of every new page (by adding or deleting elements). Also you can load new "In session" layout as many time as you want in the same document.
All elements, except the drawing elements, have a "permanent" option that can be switch on or off when the element is created or edited. Drawing elements are always permanent.
The difference between a permanent and a non permanent region is very important. As the name suggest, permanent region will be repeated INCLUDING their content from page to page. Obviously, this only apply if the "New page layout" option is set to either "Previous page" or "In session". For example, if the option is set to "Previous page", all permanent regions in your previous page will become part of your new page layout AND the text (or image) inside those region will also appear on your new page. For all other regions in your previous page that are NOT permanent, only the size and position of the region will be copied to your new page but they will be empty.
Make sure your page layout does not contain ONE permanent text region and nothing else. In that situation, when the text reach the end of the text region, the program will enter a recursive page creation loop and will crash. Anyway, having this kind of layout makes no sense!
So how do you do header and footer in Paragraph ? You guessed it ! By using permanent region. Create a small region at the top of the page and make it permanent. Enter some text in it. Now all new page will have the same region on top with the text inside. Change the text in any header and it will change on all page header. What is interesting is that you can have ANY kind of header and footer (Image, text region and even table). For example, you can have your company logo at the top left corner of every page and another text region beside it for the name and address. You can even have a permanent region in the middle of the page if you want. How would you call that ? A stomacher :-)
Text is always inserted at the insertion point, which is displayed on the screen as a vertical bar. This bar is called the text cursor and note that it is different than the mouse pointer. The cursor may be moved within the text by pressing the keyboard arrows or by positioning the mouse somewhere and pressing the HIT button. In a new document, the insertion point is preset in the upper left corner of the first (non permanent) text region.
Characters may be inserted anywhere in a document. When you enter characters on the keyboard, Paragraph inserts them into your document at the location of the text cursor. As you type, your text will automatically wrap around. If the last word of a line does not fit in its entirety, the word will be wrapped around to the next line. Because of this feature, there is no need to press the Return key at the end of each line as you type.
The mouse pointer should be positioned anywhere on top of your working page when you type. For more information about this, see the "Quick start" section of this manual.
Left : Move cursor left one character Right : Move cursor right one character Up : Move cursor up one line Down : Move cursor down one line Ctrl Left : Delete one character to the left Ctrl Right : Delete one character to the right Shift Left : Move cursor left one word Shift Right : Move cursor right one word
Shift Up : Move to start of previous paragraph/line Shift Down : Move to start of next paragraph/line Alt Left : Move to start of current paragraph/line Alt Right : Move to end of current paragraph/line Alt Up : Move to start of previous Text Region Alt Down : Move to start of next Text Region
Please note that TABS are not yet supported in this release of Paragraph. If you need to format text in column, table are much more powerful anyway.
To create a new text region, go in the layout menu then click on the "add elements" menu pick followed by "text region" in the next menu. The "add text region" form will appear. Next, you have to specified the size and position of the region relative to the paper edges. Then, choose wheter you want to have the region surrounded by a black border on the final printed page and if you want your region to be permanent or not. (see the concept section)
Be carefull when you create regions to make sure they are created in the right order, because the text always flows from region#1 to region#2 and so on.
To create a new table, go in the layout menu then click on the "add elements" menu pick followed by "table" in the next menu. The add table form will appear. Enter your table characteristics in the form and quit. The table should appear on your page at the location you specified. The default format (font, fontsize, color etc.) in all of the cells will be the format that was in effect at the cursor position before you created the table.
Here is a description of the possible options:
Number of rows/ number of columns
This specified the size of your table. A table can have any size as long as it fits on the page. You can not have a table spreading on more than one page. It is possible to add and remove rows/columns later on so don't worry if you are not quite sure about how many rows or columns you need.
Column size and number of line per row
This is where you tell Paragraph the dimensions of your rows and column. When you create a table, all columns have the same dimension and all rows have the same number of line. See the Modifying table section of this manual to learn how to modify single row or column dimension. The column size must be specified in the default units as set in the OPTION menu. The row size is specified in "number of line" because it is easier to figure out the correct value this way. Remember that the line format use in the table is the same as the current format before the "Create table" command was issued.
Position of the table
Only the position of the upper left corner of the table need to be specified as the size of the complete table is defined by the number of rows/columns and their size. The values for the top left corner position are always relative to the top and left edge of the physical paper. The units are as per the setting in the Option menu.
Print border
This is a "Yes"/"No" entry field indicating whether or not you want the table borders to appear on the final paper print. If you choose "No", the borders will still be displayed on screen (for convenience) but in green instead of the normal black.
To place an image in your document, go in the LAYOUT menu and choose "Add element / image ". A form will appear where you need to specified your image characteristics. First the file name must be chosen using the ProWesS file requester. As soon as the file is selected, Paragraph check if it recognize the file format and warn you if it fail to do so. Next you need to enter the picture position and size. This is done by specifying the size of the final image on screen (in your default units) and the distance between the edges of the paper and the limits of the pictures.
Finally, choose wether you want a border around the image by entering its size in pt (0 for no border). You will also have to decide if the image will be permanent or not. A permanent image will be transferred from page to page. If it is not permanent, only the size and position will be transferred but the actual image will be undefined. When all image characteristics have been entered, quit the form and your image should appear on screen.
When you create a document containing images, you must understand that the actual images are not included in the paragraph document but remains independent files. When you put an image in a document, Paragraph will remember where on your disk the image file was located. Later when you, or someone else, reopen that document, Paragraph will look for the image file at the same location that was specified when the document was created. In other words, make sure you don't move your images around your devices too often because Paragraph will get confused !
To help with this situation, (espacially if want to look at a document with images produced by someone else) Paragraph will have the following behavior if it does not find an image file at the location it was first created. First it will look in the "image directory" as configured with the standard config utilities and failing to find it there, will finally try the current data directory. So if you receive a document from someone else, put the document and the image files in your data directory and everything should be fine.
The supported pictures format are : GIF, PIC and LineDesign files. (In version 2.0 and above, the QL 512x256 screen format is also supported). When other graphic drivers will be written for ProForma (TIFF, JPEG, BMP, PostScript), Paragraph will support those new format automatically.
To create a graphics element in your document click on the layout menu then on "Add element / graphic". All graphic elements in Paragraph are vector based so they will be printed using the full resolution of your printer.
When the "Drawing tool" form is on screen, choose between the available geometry for your graphic using the pull down menu (Choices are Line, Box and Circle). Next specify the graphics size and location :
In the "X origin" and "Y origin" fields, enter the location of one of your line end point. The coordinates are in the default units and are measured from the top left corner (going left is X positive, going down is Y positive). In the "X destination" and "Y destination" fields, enter the coordinates of the other end point (again from the top left corner).
In the "X origin" and "Y origin" fields, enter the location of your box top left corner. In the "X destination" and "Y destination" fields, enter the coordinates of the lower right corner.
In the "X origin" and "Y origin" fields, enter the location of your circle center. The radius should be entered in the "X destination" field. (I know that there was no way to be able to figure out where to put the radius before the docs...)
The "filled" option only apply to box and circle and will fill the inside of the box or circle. You can also specified a line thickness (in pt). And line thickness of zero will produce the thinness possible line your printer can do. The color option will bring the standard color menu for you to choose from.
The current page can be viewed at many zoom level from 50% to 400% of the real size. You can edit your text at any zoom level. This can be useful for example if your work with very small fontsize or if you want to have a whole page preview before printing. When the whole page is not showed on screen, Paragraph will scroll the page as you type to make sure that the cursor is always visible.
In version 2.xx, the current zoom level is highlighted in the zoom menu. Also, if you choose a zoom level of 50%, the program will display two pages on the screen side by side; the current one and the one after (if there is one). Please note that you can only work in the current page (the left one). This feature is mainly intended for producing a more complete print preview facility.
Paragraph do not refresh your display every time you type a letter. Instead it will update the current character/line/text region/page depending on the user action. To make sure that your screen is always up to date, it is important to position the mouse pointer inside the typing window (i.e. not on the top menus) or else some screen refresh will not append. If you think that your screen looks strange you can always force a complete refresh by hitting on the scroll bars.
You can go up and down your pages by clicking on the arrows at the top right of the screen. It is also possible to go directly to a particular page by choosing from the drop down list just left of the arrows. Also, most cursor movements will allow you to navigate between pages.
Many editing features works on selected text or blocks. Text can be selected in two ways.
The first way is by selecting the start and the end of the block with the mouse. To select the start of the block, position the mouse at the correct position and press the left mouse button for a little while until you hear a beep. (If you don't hold the button long enough this will only reposition the typing cursor) You will see the start of block marker in red. To select the end of the block, simply hit anywhere inside the same text region / cell. There is no need to hold the mouse button between the start of the selection and the end. You can also use the F7/F8 keys to marks the start and end of block respectively.
You can also quickly select a word by clicking the right mouse button (DO) over it and select a complete paragraph by double clicking again with the right mouse button. These shortcuts only work in text region. They don't work in table cells as in that case the right mouse button brings the row/column submenu.
Right now, you can not select text spanning on more than one text region. In other words, the start of the block and the end of the block must be in the same text region /cell. This is a serious limitation that we plan to remove in the future.
The font icon is the first one from the left. If there is no active selection, clicking on the left or right mouse button will allow you to change the current typing font. A list of all the available fonts on your system is displayed. Hitting on the font name will change the active font.
If there is an active selection when the icon is activated, all the text included in the selection will change to the new font. The active font is also changed. To change the size of the current font and/or selection proceed the same way. Note that line heigth will adjust to the taller font size of all the characters.
V2.xx have these added features: in the font requester, the current font name and size is displayed at the top. This is usefull if you don't remember the font you were using. In the font size requester, more predefined font size are available and, if you have special needs, you can specified any font size by entering its value in the top input field.
The color icon (third from the left) allows to change the ink, paper and strip color of your text. The ink color is the color of the letters. Paper and strip color are for the paper color of the current line. The difference between paper and strip is: paper color is always from the left margin to the right margin no matters the amount of characters in the line. Strip color will be displayed only under the characters present in the line.
The color icon has two different behaviors depending if you do a HIT or a DO. A HIT will bring you a choice of colors that will affect the INK of the text. A DO will show you a submenu with the choice of ink, paper, strip color to change. Again, if there is a active selection, this command will change the color of all the text of the selected block otherwise the current typing color will be changed.
Available colors :
V1.xx of Paragraph offers a choice of eight basic colors plus eight shades of grey. In V2.xx many additional colors are supplied.
The underline icon is the fourth one from the left. If there is no active selection, clicking on the left or right mouse button will change the active format to underline. To stop the underline feature, click again on the icon. If there is an active selection when the icon is activated, all the text included in the selection will become underlined. The next character you type will also be underlined as this is now part of the active format.
There is a small problem on screen with underlined text. Sometime when working on the line bellow the one that have underlined text, the line under the text will disappear. Don't worry, the text is still underlined, just refresh the screen (HIT on the scroll bar) and the text will revert to it's correct state. This is only for the screen, printing is not affected.
The justify Icon can be used to change the justification of your text i.e. how it align with the left and right margin.
As a general rule, the justification used for new lines of text is always the same as the one used on the previous line. So, to change the justification to something else you need to HIT or DO on the justify icon. There is a difference between HIT & DO for this icon. A HIT will change the justification of the complete current paragraph where a DO will change the justification of the current line only .
If a block of text was selected before HITTING the justification icon, all paragraphs within that block will change to the new settings including the ones where the start of block and end of block markers are.
At the beginning of a new paragraph both HIT and DO have the same effect (the justification of the "first" line is changed and all other lines in that paragraph will used it too). But if you try HIT and DO in the middle of an existing paragraph you will see the difference. A HIT or a DO will bring the Justification form. You can then choose one of the four options for justification.
There is four type of justification available.
This is the "standard" justification. It will align the start of each line with its left margin. If the last word does not fit on the line, it is switched to the following line. The right end of the line is not aligned with the right margin. Of the four types of justification, left justified will allow for much faster typing! So you can type everything left justified and change your document justification only at the end.
This is quite like the left justified option except that the lines are adjusted to the right margin. The beginning of each line is not aligned with the left margin. This can be useful for something like your address at the top right corner of a letter.
With this kind of justification, the lines are adjusted to both the left and right margin. To achieve the right line length, paragraph will add spaces between every word in the lines. Please note however that as long as the cursor is on a total justified line, the line will be displayed with left justification. As soon as the cursor switch to another line, the "total justified line" will be displayed back with total justification.
All lines are centered between the left and right margins. Useful for titles and ... poems.
Some may wonder "why should I want to change the justification of one line inside a paragraph". Well try this: type a paragraph total justified with the last line half the length of the others. Then go with the cursor on the last line and HIT the justify icon. Choose center justification. Look nice hein ? And it is still behave as ONE paragraph. (Try to add words in the middle of the paragraph and watch the last line adjusting itself correctly). Try to do this with Micro$oft Word !
The left and right margins define your text's distance from the sides of the text region or table cell. The margin icon is used to change the margins of a complete paragraph (with 'HIT') or individual line within a paragraph (with 'DO'). To change the margins of a single existing paragraph, click the mouse in the paragraph to be changed. Next, 'HIT' on the margin icon, the "Set paragraph margins" form should appear. You can either enter the appropriate values in the fields or press on the ">>" or "<<" buttons. These buttons will increase or decrease the margin in the direction the arrows point to by a fixed amount as set in the "Indent distance" in the option menu. Again, if there was a block selection active before you HIT the margin icon, all paragraph included in the selectionwill change to the new setting.
For setting individual line margin you use the same procedure. You should always start with the first line in your paragraph then the second line until you reach the last line of the paragraph. This is because setting a line margin also set to the same margin all the following lines of the same paragraph. This technic requires some practice. But, with some work, you can make your text flow around any shape (lineDesign pictures, Paragraph graphics) and still keep you paragraphs as single entities.
The values in the entry fields should be entered in the default units as set in the OPTION menu.
You can easily add or remove bullets in front of lines and paragraphs. To add a bullet in front of an existing paragraph, position the cursor in that paragraph and HIT the "Bullet" icon. Your text will be shift to the right to make room for the bullet. (The shift distance is as per the "Indent distance" setting in the Options menu). If you HIT again on the bullet icon, your text will be indented even more. Putting a bullet is a bit like setting the left margin. It has the same effect i.e. the left margin will change if you put a bullet.
To remove or reduce the margin created by the bullet, just DO on the "Bullet" icon as many times as required.
Also, bullets can be created automatically as you type. Paragraph will assume that if your current line/paragraph has a bullet, you will want another bullet on your next line when you press enter. If it is not the case, simply remove it with one or more 'DO' on the icon.
The Layout/Edit/text# menu pick let you resize and/or reposition text regions. This works even if text is already present in it. If a text region filled with text is resized to a smaller dimension, the text that no longer fits will be transferred to the next available text region. Please note that at the moment, making a text region larger will NOT bring back text from the next text region !
All the numeric entries are in the default units as set in the OPTION menu. You can navigate between the entries with the TAB key and with the arrow keys. You can also change your mind about having a black border or not around the text region.
There is two ways you can modify the appearance of a table once it has been created. First, as for all other elements, you can go in Layouts/Edit/table#. This will present you with some general table properties that you can modify. You can change the table position and the size of column/row. Note that if you change the column size and/or the number of lines per row the complete table will change to those new settings (i.e. all rows and/or all columns). In this form you can also specify if you want the table borders to appear on the printed document. (If you say no, you will still see the borders on screen (in green) but they will not show on paper)
The other way to modify a table is to pop-up the cell/column/row modification form. To do this, simply right click into a cell with your mouse and the form will appear on screen. (for the rest of this chapter, the cell you right clicked in will be referred to as the current cell, its row the current row and its column the current column)
(Note: since right-click in a table brings the cell/column/row forms, that means that the "word select" functionality available in text region will not work. You can still select the current word with the f6 key or by selecting the start & end with the mouse)
The cell/column/row form has two loose items named "Add row" & "Add column". If you left-click (HIT) on the "Add column" button, a new column will be added at the left of the current column. If you right-click (DO) the column will be added to the right. The new column will have the same width as the current one.
The procedure is the same to add rows. A HIT will add a new row before the current row and a DO will add it after.
Adding rows and columns make the table grow in size. So it is possible that it could spread over some other region or even out of the physical page. Resize your rows & columns accordingly.
The delete row and delete column buttons will remove the current row or column. The cursor will move to another valid cell. There is no way you can recover the deleted row/column so be careful.
Just bellow the Add/Delete buttons there are three entry fields that can be used to resize the rows, columns and individual cell width. The values showed in the fields reflect the actual size of the current cell, row and column. Those values are, as usual, displayed in the current units as set in the option menu.
To change the current column width, enter a new value in the text field and close the form. The current column will resize and the text inside will be reformatted to fit the new dimensions. In the case of a column width reduction, it is possible that some cells will grow in heigth so that all their text is displayed.
Changing the current row heigth works the same. This allows you to have a more precise control of the row heigth than specifying the number of lines per rows when you create or edit the whole table. Remember that you can not reduce the heigth of a row to less than what is required to display all the text in its cells.
It is also possible to change individual cell width. When you change the width of the current cell, the cell at its right will also resize so that there is no overlap or blank space between them. There is currently a bug associated with changing cell width: Once you have change one or more cell width, do not attempt any kind of global modification on the table (like moving it elsewhere or changing the border style) or else it will become corrupted. In other words, changing cell width should be the LAST thing you do to your table. The other way you can re-edit globally your table is to change back to their original width all individual cell that where modified, do your global modification and change once again the width of the cells you want.
Beside the ability to switch all table border off (as explained earlier) it is also possible to switch individual cell border on & off. For example, if you want the top row to appear without border, right click in every cells in that row and set the border option to NO. Note that, when using border style 'A', cells borders are on top of each other so removing the border around a cell in the middle of the table (style A) will not show much differences because the surrounding cells have their borders on. It is better to play with that feature to see what it can do or can not do.
For images and graphics, the edit form has exactly the same options as the creation form. This means you can redefine anything; position, size, border, shape etc.
These commands are used to move, copy and delete blocks of text. The first thing you need to do is to define the block of text you want to use. Then, go in the edit menu and click on one of the command :
The "Cut" and "Copy" command will transfer the text you highlighted from the document to the "clipboard", a place where Paragraph stores text temporarily. After the text is transferred to the clipboard, "cut" will delete it from your document while "copy" will leave it there.
Please note that only one block of cut or copied text can be placed on the clipboard. If new text is cut or copied, previous clipboard text will be removed to make room for the new text. Also, the clipboard IS NOT the SCRAP although they share the same functionalities. SCRAP support will be added in a next version of Paragraph.
The "delete" command will remove the block of text from your document. Nothing will be copied to the clipboard. Right now, this command can not be "Undo" so be careful.
Paste can be used only after a cut or a copy i.e. there must be something inside the clipboard. Paste will insert the content of the clipboard at the current cursor position, or if there is a selection, will replace the active block with the clipboard content. Paste do not clear the clipboard so you can Paste the same block of text many times.
When revising a document, you may wish to locate and/or replace certain words, phrases or numbers. Paragraph "Search" and "Replace" commands enable you to do so without having to read the entire document on the screen.
The search command can be found in the EDIT menu. It will bring the "search form" on screen. Enter the desired character, word, number or phrase in the "string to search" field. Next set the search parameters by choosing from the pulldown menus:
When you are done with the parameters, click on the "FIND" button. Paragraph will search for the indicated string and will position the cursor at the beginning of the found string.
If you want to locate text and replace it with alternate text, you may do so with Paragraph "Replace" command. With this command, you can replace one or all occurrence of your text. The replace command can be found in the EDIT menu and will bring the "Replace form" on screen. The "String to search","From" and "Case sensitive" entries are to same as in the search command. Specify the replacement text and the quantity you want to change (currently, only One or All is supported).
With both Search and Replace, Paragraph will remember the search string and the search parameters. But after the first successful search or replace, the "From" parameter will always be changed to "cursor" so that if you bring the search or replace form again and immediately click on "Find", Paragraph will find or replace the next occurrence of the search string. You can also press the F9 key to search or replace the next occurrence.
This command will change the case of all characters in a block to either LOWER or UPPER case. A selection must exist before this command is issued.
Once in the FILES menu, you can save your document by hitting "save..." or "save as...". "Save" will save the document with the current name and in the current directory assigned to this document. A new document is always called "Document1" and will save in your current data_directory. With "save as" you can change the name of your document or its location on your disk. Once you used "save as", the location on disk is set for this document until the next "save as"; changing you data directory will not do anything for this document. Also, after a "save as", the name of your document appear at the top of your screen.
You can perform the equivalent of the "save" menu pick by right clicking (DO) on the FILES button. This will save your document using the same name and location.
This brings a previously saved document for edition in Paragraph. As only one document can be edited in a Paragraph session, loading a document will destroy any document that was in the work. (If you want to work on more than one document at a time, then open as many Paragraph session as you need).
Presently, loading a document will NOT bring back the in session layout that was used (if any) when the document was created. It must be done manually. This is only an issue if the "next page layout" option is set to "In session".
Please note that the file format has changed between versions 1.05/2.01 and 1.06/2.02. Paragraph versions 1.06/2.02 and later can still read the old file format and will automatically convert it to the new format but the old Paragraph can not load document created with the new format.
To make sure you don't end up loosing all your work when lightning strikes and you didn't save for three hours, Paragraph has the ability to save your work at periodic intervals. Paragraph will never save your document while you are typing, it wait for you to make a pause and, if the time delay between each save has expired, will save your work using the same name and directory with an added ~ at the end of the name. If you don't want automatic save to take place, set the value in the OPTION menu to zero.
Beside being load automatically at startup, a new "In session" layout can be loaded at any time using the load layout command from the FILE menu. The previous In session layout will be destroy, but the pages that were created using that previous layout are OK and will keep there configuration.
Loading an "In session" layout does not change the layout of the current page. But all new page can be created using it. (If your "New page layout" option is set to "In session" obviously.)
This command will create a layout file (ending with _lay) from the current page showed on the screen. If you have permanent text region or tables, their contents will be saved as well so be sure that everything on the page is as you want it. Also, pay attention to your permanent images because only the path to the image is saved in the layout so you must be sure that this image will always be available for the other documents you will made with this layout.
Saving a layout does not change the "In Session" layout ! You need to do a "Load layout" to use it.
You can insert ASCII text inside a Paragraph document. The text will be inserted at the current cursor position and will spread to other textregions/pages if necessary. Also, note that the inserted text (all of it, even the parts that end up on different text region/page) will be showed on screen using the current format. (Font, fontsize color, margin etc). As Paragraph need to convert the text to fit in the document, the operation can take a non negligible amount of time. As an example, inserting a 25 pages text file can take close to one minute on a SuperGoldCard system...
Also, the insert command use a lot of memory which limit the size of the text you can import. This memory is not released to the system after completion but is made available to Paragraph for its future memory needs. This is not a bug, it is just not quit elegant programming.
In version 2.XX, you can export part or all your document in ASCII. The "export text" action can be find in the FILES menu.
You can export the full document, the current page or only the current text region. When exporting complete page(s), the text regions in those pages will be exported in the order they where created, not necesseraly from top to bottom. Please note that right now Paragraph can not export the content of complete tables. But, if your cursor is within a table cell, you can export that cell by clicking on "export current text region".
In V2.XX, document can be exported in HTML. Text regions, tables and images are supported along with the different font and font size, bullets, bold, italic, and underline.
Paragraph will also try to produce a HTML document matching as close as possible the layout of the Paragraph document. This means it is possible to create HTML pages with multi-column text, images and tables anywhere on the page etc. All elements will roughly have the same size ratio compare to each other than in the Paragraph document.
Colors in HTML output are not yet implemented in this release but will be in the next one! Also graphics elements are not supported (and will never be). Also, please note that the HTML code produced by Paragraph is to advanced to be read with The Reader included in ProWesS in its present state. You need some other browser like Netscape or Internet Explorer.
Printing in Paragraph is accomplished by using the ProForma printer drivers supplied in your ProWesS distribution. For best results, you should configure your printer driver to use the same page dimension than the Paragraph document. I.e. if you are using a A4 paper size in Paragraph, your document should be printed using a Proforma driver configured for a paper size of 209.90 x 297.04 mm. In the free 1.xx version, you can not choose the printer driver from within Paragraph. Paragraph will always print using the default printer driver. This means that you must change your default printer driver every time you change page size and/or printer using the configuration program supplied with ProWesS. In version 2.xx, you can choose the printer driver you need from the pull-down menu at the top of the print form. Note that in fact, you CAN use a wrong printer driver as long as it is configured for a paper size equal or larger than the paper you choose in Paragraph.
A HIT on the PRINT menu will bring the print options form. Beside the printer driver, you can specify the following options:
When you have set your options, click on the "GO" button to start printing. If you HIT "quit", you will exit the form without printing anything. Printing takes a lot of memory and it is possible your computer could hang if you are running short of available memory.
WARNING
If you are using SMSQ/E, you will probably experience printing problem, even for small document, if you have 4meg of memory or less. Paragraph needs a big amount of memory to print but this amount is always the same and is independant of the document size. The problem is that SMSQ/E is buffering the printer output send to the PAR or SER device causing the remaining memory to fill quickly. Because Paragraph prints in graphics mode on your printer, the SMSQ/E print buffer might receive over 1 meg of data. The cure is to disable the SMSQ/E PAR or SER buffer with the following commands:
PAR_BUFF 100 (if you are printing on the parallel port) or SER_BUFF x,100 (if you are printing on the serial port 'x')
The OPTIONS menu allow you to change the behavior and/or look of Paragraph.
This option is not yet working. It will allow you to switch between the actual menu bar and, for those with high resolution screen, one with additional menus and information.
Page size is used to define the dimensions of your document page. The available paper size for the 1.xx version are :
Normally, you would choose the page size at the beginning of a new document. But it is also possible to resize the pages of a document already containing text. Be sure that your longest word is smaller in length than the newly resized text regions or the program could crash ! (Better do it when there is no text !)
The unit of measure setting is used to specify the measurement system for your document. You can choose between point, millimeter and inches. All values fields, except when the units is displayed in the field description, will use that unit setting.
By default, all text regions appear on screen with a red border around them. This is useful if you have complex page layouts. If you use only simple one or two text regions layout, you can switch the red border off so the screen looks more like the final printed document.
As showing image on screen can take a lot of time (especially for GIF), the default behavior of Paragraph is to display only the outline of the image with its name inside. This will regenerate much faster than when the real image is on screen. But if you have a very fast machine, you can turn on the images on screen. Note that the images will always be printed on paper.
ProWesS usually produce the page by doing all text and graphic rendering in the background until the page is ready to display then it show the page on screen all in one shut. If you put this option to YES, you don't have to wait for the page rendering to be finished before you can see something on the screen as the screen will be updated periodically during the process. Might be useful for image like GIF that are very long to display.
This is where you decide how all new page layout will look like. You can choose between a single big text region, same thing as the previous page or to use the loaded "In session" layout. The default value is "Big text region" unless a layout was loaded. In that case it set itself automatically to "In session". (But you can switch the value to "Big text region" or "Previous page" at any time even if there is an In session layout)
Change the cursor color. Choices are Black, Red, Green. After a color change, the cursor will actually use the new setting only after the next character typed or page redraw.
The distance (in pt) used by bullets and margins.
Paragraph is configurable using a standard Level 2 configuration tool like menuconfig or the procon utility in the ProWesS package. Most of the settings in the OPTION menu can be configured to your taste along with a couple of other things. The configurable options are :
Please send all bug report directly to the author and preferably by E-mail.
Francois Lanciault 11 Marcel dube Blainville, QC Canada, J7C 4W4 Phone: 450-433-3151 E-mail : lancif@videotron.ca
To be done.