CFOG's PIP, May 1988, Volume 7 No. 3, Whole No. 65, page 33

CFOG On the Move to Skokie Public Library

by Benjamin H. Cohen

CFOG has a new home, at least for the Summer of 1988. My wife spotted a local newspaper story noting that the Skokie Public Library will be open on Sundays this summer: a new policy. When I called they advised that they were not taking on new groups on a regular basis, but on the other hand, they were getting two new IBM clones to augment their two Apples and had just started talking about a user group. So, we'll be the guests of the Skokie Public Library, 5250 Oakton Street, Skokie for our June, July, and August meetings.

The dates are June 26, July 31, and August 28, the last Sunday in each month. The meeting room on the second floor holds up to 75 people, so it's more than adequate for our current needs.

The Skokie Public Library is readily accessible from the Edens Expressway, by exiting at Dempster Street southbound, or Touhy northbound. From Dempster, go east to Gross Point Road and turn right. Almost immediately, you'll turn left (sort of!) to head south on Laramie one mile to Oakton Street. The library parking lot is straight ahead across Oakton.

The Touhy exit ramps are under repairs this summer; part of the time you won't be able to get off eastbound and part of the time you won't be able to get off westbound. It doesn't matter: take the one that is open. If you've gone east on Touhy, take Cicero Avenue north to Lincoln Avenue. Bear left on Lincoln. You will get to a stop sign before long where Lincoln intersects with Niles Center Road. Lincoln goes right, along with Niles Center Road. You go straight ahead on Galitz. Turn right into the library parking lot about half a block ahead.

If you have gone west on Touhy, go to Niles Center Road, about half a mile, and turn right. On Niles Center Road you'll get to that stop sign at the intersection with Lincoln Avenue. Turn left on Galitz and then right into the library parking lot.

The meeting room space is reserved for us from 1 to 5 p.m., the only hours that the Library is open on Sunday.

If the arrangements are satisfactory to us and the Library, there's a chance that we'll be invited to meet in Skokie every month on a regular basis.

CFOG's PIP, May 1988, Volume 7 No. 3, Whole No. 65, page 33

Some Collected WordStar and MailMerge Help

by Dick Comegys and Orlo Hoadley

[This article was taken from the Quad City All Computer User Group newsletter, Q BITS. "Ed." here refers to Bob Lay, editor of Q BITS.-- bhc]

(The next two paragraphs have been added by Q BITS editor Bob Lay, the rest are from the Lily Pad newsletter with credits as shown. Q BITS Ed.)

If you use WS 2.26 or 3.3's [CTRL]PS underline print feature you are already aware that the word(s) are underlined, but not the spaces between. To underline the spaces too, simply enter [CTRL]PF (the seldom understood phantom space) INSTEAD OF A SPACE between the words you want connected with a continuous underline. You can also enter an underline (the uppercase dash key, "_") instead of a space.

[This will tie your words together, so you may want to do this AFTER you have done your final format, since words tied together in this way won't break for a line end. Note also that some dot-matrix printers may use a different set of pins for the "_" than for a normal underscore. This article was written before WS4 was released, so the comments apply only to WS versions prior to Release 4. For example, WS4 supports continuous underscore with the ".UL ON" command. -- bhc]

When printing a document containing a period or dot in the first column position you know it won't print because WS thinks it's a dot command and will therefore either ignore or so interpret it. You can print it though, by entering [CTRL]PF [CTRL]PG. [For clarity, I've inserted a space between these commards. You would enter them without a space between. -- bhc] What you've done is enter a phantom space and erased it with a phantom rubout, so WS "sees" the dot or period as being in the third column, but when you print it the phantom rubout rubs out the phantom space and prints the dot in the first column position. Don't worry about whether you can follow the logic, it DOES work! I'll even prove it in printing the following articles.

[Of course you can use any two non-printing characters that are toggles, too, like [CTRL]PS [CTRL]PS. On some printers one or both of the phantom space and the phantom rubout actually print a character. Check yours. -- bhc]

MailMerge to Control Formatting:

(Reprinted from THE LILY PAD newsletter of the First Rochester Osborne Group, by Dick Comegys.)

I print-out a lot of MBASIC routines. The lines are often long, and while I can do a direct page-by-page Listing to the printer from MBASIC, it's a hassle -- especially when I work a lot in ASCII text with WS's N mode, or VDO.

Now I get great print-outs from text: full margin control, and realignment (if at all possible) on a space, and not in the middle of a word or expression (as MBASIC is prone to do). All I do is call up the following file on the MailMerge M (Merge print) commaid from WS:

A:ASC/PRN.MRG [ESC]

(Entering [ESC] gets you past all the subsequent WS or MM queries, if you want to accept the default settings for each. In WS version 2.26 this only works if entered after the file name, in versions 3.0 and later it works when entered after ANY of the queries. Ed.) [With WS 4 you can hit the [ESC] key immediately after entering "p" or "m". -- bhc]

The entire contents of that file (ASC/PRN.MRG) are as follows [and here is where I demonstrate the [CTRL]F [CTRL]G 'magic'):

.PF ON
.RM 85
.PO 5
.MT 3
.AV "Heading Title: ",HDG
.HE &HDG&       Page -#-
.AV "File (d:filename.ext) to print: ",FYL
.FI &FYL&
.PA

Note the .PF ON that says "take over print control", and the .RM for a right margin at column 85 after a narrow 5 (.PO 5) for left margin. The .MT 3 assures room for a heading, since I default my top margin to 0 (as well as my bottom margin on a page length of 60 lines).

So what happens? First I'm prompted to enter a label to be printed as the heading (with automatic page numbering) on each page. Next I'm prompted to enter the drive and filename of the file to print. From there WS does it all; and would do the same for any rough text fed it.

(If you're using WS ver. 3.3, get out your copy of WS version 2.26 and it's compatible MM program, because one of the things the 3.3 "upgrade" took away was MM's .RM command to allow setting the right margin. Q BITS Ed.) [But, WS4 allows you to set both right and left margins and "paragraph margin", a different margin for the first line of each paragraph. -- bhc]

The Easy Way to Make a Letter File Print its Own Envelope!

(The following also reprinted from THE LILY PAD newsletter of the First Rochester Osborne Group, was written by H. Orlo Hoadley.)

Using a key redefinition utility such as SmartKey, or the eminently more affordable QK21.COM to be found on FOG/CPM.045, [or Eric Gans's GKX39O,] or even using one of your less expendable function keys on the Osborne 1 or Executive (this string would take up 33 of the alloted spaces!), program a key with the following sequence:

(1)  [CTRL]KB
     [CTRL]X [CTRL]X [CTRL]X [CTRL]X
     [CTRL]KK
(2)  [CTRL]QC
(3)  [CTRL]KR /FV [RETURN]
(4)  [CTRL]QC
(5)  [CTRL]KC

[I've modified this to fit the PIP format. Each 'group' of commands is separated on a line, and spaces have been put between characters so you can see what's going on. -- bhc]

To use it, edit and format the letter, making sure the last line ends with a hard carriage return. Go back to the top of the letter and put the cursor at the head of the first line of the address (addressee's name). Pressing the key you have redefined as above will then

1. Mark four lines of the address as a block, the number of lines being determined by the number of [CTRL]X's you have between the [CTRL]KB and [CTRL]KK;
   
   
2. Move the cursor to the end of the letter ([CTRL]QC);
   
   
3. Read your file /FV (described below), which contains formatting controls for printing the envelope ([CTRL]KR/FV<cr>);
   
   
4. Move the cursor to the new end of file ([CTRL]QC again);
   
   
5. And copy the address block to the end of the file ([CTRL]KC).

The contents of file /FV should be some or all of the foliowing:

.PA Necessary to eject the last page of the letter and to let the formatting controls know where the top of the envelope is. In other words, the envelope is regarded as one additional page of the letter.

.OP Needed only if you are numbering the pages of the letter.

.PO mm Sets the left margin for the address block on the envelope, where mm = the number of spaces from the left. Usually about 40 for a #10 envelope.

.MT nn Controls the vertical position of same. If you get a fuss-budget remark about page length, from WS 2.26 or WS 3.3, ignore it.

.HM qq Set qq = nn-1, so the (phantom) heading line is the first printable line of the new page (envelope), and the envelope can be put in the printer with it's top edge in the same position as the top of the letter page.

.HE[CTRL]PC This is the heading that stops the printer so you can put in the envelope. It could be omitted if you used the Page Pause option on the print menu.

Note too, that the file /FV on various disks might contain other numbers for different size envelopes and/or address placement but the same key you have programmed will summon whichever version is available.

One for WordStar 3.3

(The following, also from THE LILY PAD newsletter of the First Rochester Osborne Group, is another contribution from H. Orlo Hoadley. It describes a very significant feature MicroPro added to MailMerge for WS version 3.3)

MailMerging with WordStar version 3.3 allows "conditional" statements -- the "IF" and "THEN" that are a key feature of BASIC and many other programming languages. Here, for instance, is a MailMerge "command" file to allow selection of up to four files for printing in a single output document:

.DM Prints up to four specified files sequentially
.DM If less than four files, answer the queries at
.DM    the prompt(s) with X or x
.AV " First file: ",F1
.AV "Second file: ",F2
.AV " Third file: ",F3
.AV "Fourth file: ",F4
.IF &F1& = "X" .OR. &F1& = "x" GOTO END
.FI &F1&
.PA
.IF &F2& = "X" .OR. &F2& = "x" GOTO END
.FI &F2&
.PA
.IF &F3& = "X" .OR. &F3& = "x" GOTO END
.FI &F3&
.PA
.IF &F4& = "X" .OR. &F4& = "x" GOTO END
.FI &F4&
.PA
.EF END
.PA

[Orlo doesn't mention it, but such a print-command file run under MailMerge can also contain prompts for page-length, heading, and footing, even providing for .AV input of the heading/footing text. One caution, however: formats contained INSIDE the files called up under the .FI command will OVER-RIDE the formats entered in response to prompts in the "command" file. Dick Comegys, Lily Pad Ed.]

[For this reason, it doesn't hurt -- and might help! -- to put in lines with the commands .he, .h2, .h3, .fo, .f2, .f3, and .pn 1, to make sure that each document does not have the headers, footers or page numbers from a previous document! I also use a blank line before the .PA in each case to prevent the mishap that occurs if there is a line without a [RETURN] at the end of a file. -- bhc]

(The implication should be clear if you ever have need to put out documents using a lot of repeat phrases or clauses but not always using all of the clauses, or in the same order, such as contracts, project specifications, dun letters, or other types of "boilerplate." You could use this idea and literally custom build documents or letters from "stock" files, on the fly. In fact, for author my next year's salary as Q BITS editor! Q BITS Ed.) [And he gets twice as much as CFOG pays the PIP editor! -- bhc]