80-Bus News |
May–June 1984 · Volume 3 · Issue 3 |
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| ‘1’,‘2’ | – Alter line length – .lin steps (for formatting). |
| ‘W’,‘V’ | – Change screen format (48/80 col)/Remove ‘Menu’. |
| ‘*’ | – Place a marker in text. |
| ‘=’ | – move cursor to marker and delete it. |
| ‘O’ | – Allows renaming of the output file. |
| ‘J’ | – Insert single Character. Avoids ‘I’,‘^Z’ sequence. |
| ‘P’ | – Print File. (To next Page marker, if any exist.) |
| ‘G’,‘^G’ | – Insert (Remove) Page Markers. |
| ‘Z’,(‘Y’) | – Move to Start (End) of text. |
N.B. A few commands do not apply to all Versions of PEN, due to possible Hardware differences, particularly Screens and Keyboards.
Although only a few commands relate to formatting, this is one of the main features of PEN. With a Formatter, one can type away without attempting to regulate the Right hand edge of the display, or relating to Compressed Print on a 15 inch Printer. One simply continues typing until say, a paragraph has been entered. At this stage, the screen display will be ‘ragged’ with some words broken at end of (screen) line. If the formatter is now invoked, the text will be adjusted so that all lines are of the same (preset) length, without any broken words. To achieve this PEN will add some extra ‘space’ characters to the line, at positions where a single space already exists, until the total count is correct. The net result is a very pleasing display. Occasionally PEN cannot continue because a word at end of line is too long, and there are not enough single spaces in the line for formatting. The text is displayed with the cursor pointing to the offending word, and one can hypenate (‘−’ command), or edit to get around the problem. PEN is not permitted to automatically hypenate as this could result in some odd effects. Three or more adjacent spaces are not adjusted, as these could be Indents, Tabs or similar required gaps. Two adjacent ENTER characters are not altered as this is taken to indicate end of paragraph.
The commands associated with formatting are ‘S’, ‘L’ and ‘X’, and they are protected by ‘Are you sure’ to avoid making a mistake such as formatting Source Code. The use of these commands is fully described in the .DOC’s and there is little point in going into the differences here. Normally it is only necessary to place the cursor before the part of the text to be formatted and to issue the ‘S’ command, and confirm with ‘Y’.
There are still a number of commands that have not been mentioned in this short review, largely concerned with setting up system parameters for screen display, formatting or printing, but it is hoped that what has been written will give the reader a good idea of the main features of the PEN family of text Editor/Formatter programs. While it is easy to criticise any Software, and I have mentioned a couple of things in this article, I think that the current issue of PEN will satisfy the Text Editing and Formatting needs of most Home and Small Buisness users in all but the most exacting of tasks, and is well worth the cost.
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