Word processing - Ruler rules, OK

Yes, it's that thing with the tiny little buttons that are almosttons will set your documents on the straight and narrow. And, how to auto-open and export multiple WordPerfect files. impossible to get hold of and which you can never remember what they do.

So here's a quick seven-point bluffer's guide to rulers:

1. The little square at the left of the ruler toggles between left, right, centred and decimal tabs. Choose your tab then single-click on the ruler to place it. You can then drag them around. To get rid of them, drag them right off the bar.

2. The tiny triangles control indents or paragraph boundaries: top left is the first line of a paragraph, bottom left the rest. Dragging the little square below the bottom triangle moves both. The right triangle moves the right boundary of the paragraph.

3. Note that you can move paragraph boundaries outside the page margins.

These settings, as with tabs, only affect the current paragraph so if you want to apply them to several paragraphs you need to select the latter first.

4. With tables you can control column divisions and indents within each column. Text boxes, frames and snaking (newspaper-style) columns also have ruler controls when selected.

5. To set margins with the ruler, put the pointer over the white/grey join so it turns to a double-headed arrow, then drag. This only works in page layout view.

6. Holding down the Alt key as you drag ruler controls gives a continuous numeric readout of the distance between margins, tabs and indents.

7. Finally, if you hide the Word 97 ruler (it's on the View menu, not Tools, Options) to get a little more screen space, you'll find when you waft the pointer over where it should be, it slides out automatically.

Feedback frenzy

David Graham's plight, outlined in my column in the March issue, was that he had 2,000 WordPerfect secondary merge files created in various versions of WordPerfect. He wanted to find a way to automate the opening of each of these files in turn, to export the data from each file to another.

I hadn't a clue how this could be done, so I threw it open to the floor.

James Gilliver and Jon Moorby both rose to the challenge. James first:

"Having faced a similar problem in mass-converting thousands of documents from WordPerfect to Microsoft for one of my clients, I would suggest that WordBasic could provide a medium for such an operation by using it to read each merge file in turn and copy the contents into an appropriate word document (which could then be resaved as a WordPerfect file if required).

"I appreciate that this may seem like sacrilege to a WordPerfect user, but needs must. Alternatively, since WordPerfect secondary merge files can be saved as text (the field and record delimiters become control characters) it should be possible to effect a conversion by concatenating all the files using a macro-equipped DOS text editor (anyone else remember Intel's AEDIT? I still have a copy and I find it invaluable) and reformatting as necessary."

And now, Jon: "I don't have any experience of WordPerfect beyond v5.1, but I suggest that the solution may be one of creating a file list using DIR /b > file.txt. I used to do this a lot to extract data from text output files generated by statistics programs.

"If a macro could be written to do the job for just one of the files (and it may be better to do it by importing into the spreadsheet, rather than exporting from WP, or it may have to be a combination) then a search-and-replace for the CR/LF combination on the file.txt list will enable a macro (presumably a huge one) to be created to process each file in turn, by name. Alternatively, under VBA, Word and Excel 97 would be able to do the job by taking filenames directly from the file.txt file in a loop."

Nerd processor

It struck me that a column on the subject of word processing really ought to concern itself from time to time with the raw ingredients and end product.

After all, were this a column about food processors, then I wouldn't just be rabbiting on about how to clean them, change the fuse, lubricate the bearings and get hardened batter out of the hollow bit that whizzes round.

Most people would expect a recipe or two and perhaps a few tips on where to obtain the best avocados at this time of the year, or the secrets of successful mayonnaise.

However, it seems that because this column is all about computers, we can cheerfully forget about the words themselves and concentrate instead on the perfection of our digital dexterity and general nerdhood.

Which brings me neatly to a fine example. Why do we call people whose technical ability exceeds their social skills "nerds"? Or "geeks"? Or "anoraks"?

The word "nerd" is attributed to the children's writer, Dr Seuss, who, in his 1950 book If I Ran a Zoo, wrote: "And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo and bring back an It-Kutch, a Preep and a Proo, a Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too".

After that, nerd seems to have acquired the meaning of a swot, before being taken up as a computing-specific term. I wonder what accident of language means that we don't speak of nerkles or preeps?

A geek seems to have been popular as a description of a "wild man" kept in a cage at circus sideshows, to entertain the visitors by biting the heads off live chickens or snakes. I don't think they go in for that sort of behaviour in the Redmond office cubicles, so why "programming geek"?

Alternatively, the word in the simple sense of a fool may go back to Shakespeare's day. In Twelfth Night Malvolio says: "Why have you suffered me to be imprisoned ... and made the most notorious gecke and gull that e'er invention played on?"

The most mysterious, however, is the term "anorak". The word itself comes from Greenland and means a waterproof jacket with a hood, usually sealskin and often highly decorated with beads.

Did the Eskimos sit around in their igloos boring each other senseless with techie-speak during the long, dark, Arctic winter? Or did they spend long, cold days standing around kayak-spotting?

Your opinions on this and other important or irrelevant matters would be appreciated.

Questions & Answers

Q: A friendly and helpful colleague installed my software and in Explorer I note that all files etc. that I generate are attributed to Lyn. How can I change the registered name so that it appears correctly? Because I use Word as my email editor the erroneous Lyn appears on that, too.

Lynn Tulip

A: You can change the author name for individual documents from File, Properties (File Summary Info in Word 2). To change the default author name go to Tools, Options, User Information. The name here is originally taken from that given on installation but can be changed - all subsequent documents will reflect the change. You'll still see the original, incorrect name in the Help, About box, but it takes a reinstallation to change this.

Q: Ligatures are letter combinations, such as fi or fl, that are often joined on the printed page to give a more harmonious look. In Times New Roman, for instance the dot of the i interferes with the dangling part of the f. It is possible to get these on a Mac, but how can this be done on a PC?

Nick Lawrence

A: Up until today I'd only seen ligatures in custom-made Adobe Type 1 fonts where they replaced other standard characters in the upper ASCII range, but having a look through the Word 97 Insert Character dialog, under Normal text I found these right at the end of the list. You may need to update the Windows core fonts to get them (see "Euro update" in the "Readers' Tips" box on p328).

Q: My problem is disk space and no money to get more. What I would like is a compact and reliable WP. It has to run under NT4 or, at a push, under OS/2. It can be shareware or preferably freeware. Would you be able to point me in the direction of something like this? It doesn't have to have loads of whizz-bang flashy-button stupid paperclip things; it should just be able to produce a sensible, clear document but be a tad more flexible than Wordpad.

P.S. Could you please send any reply to the_slayer@unforgettable.com as this follows me around.

Jerry

A: I'm rather worried about this slayer who is following you around, but there's a shareware product called Word Express which isn't bad. Last time I looked it had everything except a macro language and took up less than 9Mb of disk space. A UK contact is the Thompson Partnership on 01889 564601 or www.ttp.co.uk.

Alternatively, have a look at Yeah Write and Trellix which were mentioned in the November and December '97 columns (see the Hands On back issues on our cover-mounted CD-ROM).

Q: We have two identical PCs at work, both with identical, or so I thought, Office 97 installations. One takes much longer to close a document, even if it has just been saved. This seems to happen to large and small documents alike. As far as I can tell, all the relevant options in Word are set the same on both machines.

Malcolm Klein

A: It's not Word that is slowing down your machine it's ... (dramatic pause - Nott moves to centre stage, wheels around swiftly, cloak swirling, finger pointing at ...) Outlook! (Lady Bartwell faints, the butler makes a run for it but is seized by two policemen.) Aha! Even if you don't think Outlook is running, it's there, secretly spying on your every move. There is an option to create a "journal" that logs all the files you work on. Turn this off from the Outlook Tools, Options, Journal, Also record files from ... box.

Readers' tips

Euro update

Thank you, Nick Mortimer, for the good news that further fonts with the Euro symbol are available from /www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack/default.htm.

I've since noticed that the Windows 98 beta core fonts all now contain the Euro. The problem is, as we saw in March's column, getting at it.

Personal preference

Thom Milton pointed out a useful tip that really belongs in the Windows rather than the WP section, but never mind. If you use the general MS Office Open Document command, you may find it starts in My Documents irrespective of where you actually keep your documents. You can change this by backing up the Registry, then opening Regedit and going to: HKEY_CURRENT_

USER/ Software/ Microsoft/ Windows/ CurrentVersion/ Explorer/ User Shell Folders. Double-click the entry in the right pane entitled Personal and change it to the path of your choice.

Text squared

Here's an admirably obscure Word tip from someone who signs herself, or himself, Gadiewasam. If you hold down the Alt key while dragging with the mouse, you can select a rectangular area of text such as one column of a tabbed list. Word 2 users can do this with the right mouse button.

No conspiracy

In my March column I mentioned the strange case of the Word file which continued to load from a double-click and have its extra properties visible from a right-click, after the .DOC extension had been removed. Thanks to Ben Summers for the following explanation: "Most MS apps use an OLE-structured storage file format which stores properties - which explains why they still show up as extra tabs on the properties dialog - and the program that created them, in a common format. Windows 95 and NT recognise this format so the conspiracy extends to everyone who uses this file format, support for which is built in to the OS. It basically stores a directory-type structure inside a file."

Please note: although I do like to hear from you, may I please remind you not to send binary attachments to text messages. This especially applies to WP files containing macros - for reasons that should be obvious. Stick to plain-text only, please, for hints, tips and macro code.

You can contact Tim Nott by post via the usual PCW address (p10) or at wp@pcw.co.uk.