Amiga Format CD 27

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READER WARRANT Name: Bernard Cain Language used: Amos Pro In respect of all material which forms my reader contribution to Future Publishing's Amiga Format I hereby warrant that:- (1) The material is original and does not infringe any other material or rights (2) The material does not contain any material which is defamatory, obscene or indecent and is exempt from classification under the Video Recordings Act 1984 (3) That there are no legal claims against the material provided (4) That I have full power and authority to provide this material to Future Publishing ---------------------------------- B-CARD V2.2 - by B. Cain © 1998 BUSINESS CARD MAKER Minimum requirements Workbench 2 with 1 meg ( Not tested on 04 and 06 CPU's ) This program is Public Domain, But the following conditions apply:- 1. B-CARD and B-CARD Docs and supplied template and example files to remain together in the original directory with the original icons as I intended and not to be copied, distributed, or sold separately. 2. Only to be sold & distributed as Public Domain material. 3. Not to be sold for more than the average selling price of one Public Domain disk at any one time. 4. Not to be sold, copied, or distributed as part of or with any commercial or licenceware software or programmers software without my written permission. 5. Not to be used as an enticement to buy goods of any kind which are not Public Domain. 6. I retain copyright to the B-CARD programs and supplied border, design, and template files. !! DISCLAIMER !! NO LIABILITY can be accepted for any loss or damage caused by B-CARD or any related B-CARD program, and NO GUARANTEE is given whether expressed or implied that B-CARD will perform as described in this document or elswhere. If you use B-CARD or B-CARD related programs then you have accepted this disclaimer and all liability for loss or damage rests with you, the user. --------------------- I was asked to program a Business Card Maker for the A1200 and having no example to work on I decided to do it my way, a la B-CARD. Since version 1 a few things have been added, so in B-CARD V2.2 you can for example print cards in 7 colours ( or black if you wish ). B-CARD V2.2 supercedes all other B-CARD versions and should be used in preference, as it will handle colour and monochrome files alike including those produced by previous B-CARD versions, as well as using its own font for increased word input. Cards, designs, and borders produced with B-CARD V1 can be used with this version, but try not to mix V1 and V2 files when creating cards as V1 files only carry 1 ink colour which may cause unpredictable results, however, there is nothing stopping you loading these V1 files into a paint program and increasing the palette to 8 colours and then adding these colours to your card, border, or design and saving back to disk under the original filename. Any cards edited or constructed in B-CARD V2 with original V1 borders or designs and saved to disk will then carry 8 colour palettes the same as V2 files. You should find it easy to use with a couple each of ready made cards, designs and borders thrown in, both in colour and monochrome. You can design your own cards using the templates supplied. A paint program such as DPaint will be required to make your borders and designs using the supplied templates. You will find when you load these templates into your paint program that there are 8 colours in the palette i.e. 0 to 7. YOU MUST ALWAYS USE colours 1 to 7 only. Colour 0 ( background colour white ) must remain white, and must not be used for designing with except to show the background colour through another colour. Colour 0 (white) will defaulted to white by B-CARD automatically as it loads files in. If you only have a monochrome printer you can use the 2 colour templates provided instead of the 8 colour ones described, though it really doesn't matter to B-CARD which templates you use. The 8 colour templates are prefixed with 'Col' so for example the colour template for borders is named ColBORDER.tmp whereas the monochrome template would be simply BORDER.tmp. Any future reference to templates in these docs or the B-CARD program will refer to the 8 colour templates, but the basic rules for using them are the same except for the reference to the number of colours. NOTES FOR B-CARD V2.2 B-CARD now uses its own font for entering text on cards. The name of this font is BCFONT and its presence in the SYS: fonts directory is now necessary for the use of B-CARD. The benefit of this font is twofold. Firstly, you can now enter an average total of 160 letters per card as opposed to the 120 which was possible in earlier versions. This is an increase of 33 per cent!! Secondly, as the font is smaller it looks better in the final printout. Please see INSTALLING TO HARD DISK below also. It seems that quite a few of you are a bit miffed that B-CARD doesn't use a range of different fonts. Well O.K. then you got it, but not in this version as I only typed this little bit in just before I mailed it off to PD land. But it seems I was wrong and you were right as B-CARD just lost the £50 prize for Amiga Format's best monthly Reader Submission in April'98 because of this very fact and was placed as best runner up instead. Please ignore any later reference to no extra fonts in these docs...the fonts are coming, but I need to select some appropriate ones first. See next update !!. FEATURES OF B-CARD V2.2 * Prints 10 cards at once using A4 size card. * Cards shown fully on screen. * Cards can have borders, designs, and text. * Prints in up to 7 changeable colours, or black for monchrome printers or by choice. * B-CARD V1 produced files can be used with or without colour conversion. * Cards can be assembled, edited, and saved, easily and intuitively. * Optionally, cards can be created entirely in a paint program using special template supplied. * Cards shown in 12 background pastels on screen to give an idea of which coloured card to print on including white. * Choice of 7 colours for text entered within B-CARD V2 * Built in 7 Colour Palette Changer * Colour and Monochrome Templates supplied to design your own cards. * Uses its own font ( BCFONT ) * Fully functional and free. FIRST STEPS Everything is set up on this disk to print in Epson mode which is default for most printers, and yes it's ready to go immediately if your printer is set for Epson ( check those DIP switches on your printer ). If you have any trouble or have a monochrome printer then read the next two paragraphs. You will need to install a graphics capable printer driver suitable for your printer in the devs/printers directory before you can print cards, then use the Preferences program to assign your chosen printer driver in 'Change Printer' so it will be loaded automatically when printing. Set your printer DIP switches also as instructed in your printer manual. You will also need the printer.device in devs directory ( this is on the disk ). The cards are printed via the setting in the Prefs Graphics 1 Graphics 2 section which you will find on this disk. Go to the Limits section in Graphics 2 and see the 'Type' is set at 'Ignore', and the 'Left Offset' is set to 'Center' in Graphics 2. This is already done so if you are using B-CARD from its original disk things should work right. If using a monochrome printer then set to use it here by choosing Grey Scale instead of Color, and you may need to install another printer driver also to replace the one supplied. If using from Hard Disk you will have to set up your Printer in Prefs as just described. INSTALLING TO HARD DISK From Workbench simply drag the B-CARD V2 directory to anywhere on your Hard Disk. The BCFONT needs to be installed in your default SYS: fonts directory before B-CARD can be used. ---------------------- 1. MAKING A CARD Please note, this does not involve creating your own designs and borders from scratch, but rather making a card from existing ones. First click on MAKE A CARD box in B-CARD. You will be shown a white card on screen with some text entered, read it. There is a control panel from which you can load borders and card designs, and enter text. Please note, I have decided against the use of different fonts within B-CARD as this can more easily and more flexibly be done within a paint program, in fact you can now create your entire card this way with an extra template I have added for this very purpose. I think this now gives you more control over the final look of your cards. You can enter 5 lines of text with up to 43 letters per line with the BCFONT, which in practice works out on average at a total of 160 letters with room for space between words. If you are using a border round your card you should load this in first. Borders are positioned automatically. If you are not using borders then load a design first before text. Designs are positioned automatically. As designs and borders are created independently of each other you may use different palettes for each, however, you cannot use two different palettes within B-CARD as this would amount to 14 colours. You will have to decide which palette has priority within B-CARD and the way to do this is quite simple. B-CARD will use the palette of the most recent file loaded, in other words if you want to use the border palette, then load it in AFTER the design and vice versa, or better still make design and border files you intend to use together with the same palette within your paint program. All this doesn't matter too much as B-CARD now carries its own Palette Changer with which you can fine tune or alter your card colours completely ( See PALETTE CHANGER below). If you are only using text then enter it straight away. You should be aware that if you are using a design on your card the first two lines should not be used for text or the design will obliterate all of the text. When entering text, click on the ENTER TEXT panel and type in your chosen words. Do not use commas. For some reason any text after commas is not displayed. After this is done press RETURN key and click on a LINE BOX from 1 to 5 where the words are to be placed. If you are not happy with the placement then click on another line to enter the text there. The previously entered line will be erased. You can do this as many times as you wish till you are happy with the text placement. This action is O.K when entering the first line of text but be careful when other lines you are happy with have already been entered, although you can clear lines and designs and start again if you mess things up. When a line has been successfully entered click on ENTER TEXT panel again to enter fresh text on another line. Click on TEXT END when you have completed text entries. To clear designs or text on lines 3, 4 and 5 click on CLEAR TEXT. To clear designs or text on lines 1 and 2 click on CLEAR DESIGN. To clear a border only, click on CLEAR BORDER box. If you wish to clear text from one line only then click on ENTER TEXT and press RETURN key straight after and click on the relevant LINE box to clear the text. Text is not positioned and centred automatically, after all there may be occasions when you don't want to centre it, but there are guide marks on the card and just above and below your typing so you can judge how your text will be positioned on the card. You are only allowed to enter a maximum of 43 letters per line, so don't get clever and enter 143 instead, only the first 43 will be remembered. You will notice the the guides for entering text are wider than the Effective Text Area on the card. This is because the actual font (BCFONT) used on the card is of smaller proportions than the default topaz font used for typing in text. Don't worry though, you will soon get used to the idea. If you centre your text as described it will be placed and balanced correctly on your card. Colour 1 in the current palette is used for text but you can change the colour of text lines individually by clicking on a LINE box and then clicking on a colour of your choice displayed in a row of boxes on screen. This of course will only work if you have first entered text on the chosen line in the current session. When you click on a LINE box you will hear a bell, YOU MUST then click on a colour box, another bell will sound and your chosen text line will change colour. The choice of colours for text is entirely dependent on the palette of the border or design file most recently loaded. Individual text line colours should not be changed with V1 files unless you have a colour printer. You can replace borders, designs, and text at any time on your card till you consider it finished. You can view the card at any time in isolation on screen when you are ready, Click on VIEW CARD. You can then change the background colour to give an idea what is the best colour of card to actually print on. There are 12 example pastel card colours shown here. You may well decide there are enough colours already in the text, border and design and opt to print on white card instead. It has to be said, darker card colours will subtract rather than add to your colour scheme. Return to edit screen when you have finished viewing. Don't forget to save your finished card to disk before you quit the program. DO NOT have more than 25 letters in your card names. DO NOT add any extensions to your card names as this will confuse B-CARD. The extension .crd is added to the end of card names automatically. Palette Changer This is available in the MAKE A CARD and EDIT A CARD sections, and is meant to fine tune or change colours completely in the current palette. For example, you will find it very useful for matching up design and border files which carry different palettes or changing a colour which may not print out very well etc. The idea is to construct or load in a card first, then use the Palette Changer as a final application after other changes have been completed. Click on the PALETTE CHANGER box and you will be presented with a window containing 3 vertical slider bars for changing colours, and a set of 7 small boxes which echo the larger palette boxes on the main screen. Click on any one of these small boxes then use the sliders to change the colour. You will notice the same number palette box on the main screen changes colour also exactly in accordance with the Palette Changer box, as do the colours on your card. You can click on any of the other small boxes and do likewise to other colours. If you find you would rather have the default palette after all, just click on the DEFAULT button and your card's original palette will be returned instantly. If you like the changes you have made then click on the OK EXIT button to return to main screen. As long as you don't load in another border, design, or card the Palette Changer will remember the default palette so you can restore it later if required. 2. LOAD A CARD This loads previously created and finished cards ready for printing or viewing. I have included 2 sample cards which you can load in and print. All B-CARD cards are recognised by the extension .crd in the filename. You need to use A4 size cards plain or coloured, using the facility provided on your printer for printing on to envelopes. You can print on paper also in the normal way. This would be useful for printing newly created cards to see if they are satisfactory. This will save you wasting the more expensive A4 card unecessarily if you are not happy with the printed results. Before printing you can click on VIEW CARD and change the background colour on screen to give an idea which coloured (or plain) card to print on. You will no doubt want to print your own cards made in MAKE A CARD as soon as possible or create new designs for a card from scratch using the supplied templates. Before printing you can choose to print in colour or black if you wish or if you have a monochrome printer. Cards produced with B-CARD V1, and which haven't been converted to 8 colours may not be displayed in the original colour or black they were designed in. Click on PRINT BLACK or on PRINT COLOUR which ever is your choice. 3. EDIT A CARD If you later decide a previously created card needs something added or taken away this is where you can change things. It works almost like MAKE A CARD except you need to load in a complete card first. The filename of the currently loaded card will be shown, with part of the pathname(s). I couldn't manage to just show the filename but no bother, at least you know which card is currently loaded. Just one thing, don't have more than 25 letters in your card names as some of the name will not be printed. DO NOT add any extensions to your card names as this will confuse B-CARD. The extension .crd is added to the end of card names automatically. Editing is as described in MAKE A CARD. 4. PRINTED CARDS The cards will be printed in sets of 10 on A4 size card. There will be small markings in between cards vertically and horizontally, these show where to cut the card so you end up with 10 individual cards. To obtain A4 cards, go to your local art shop or office supplier and ask for A4 Coverboard cards, these come in a bewildering range of colours and styles including fluorescent, pastel, white, gold, silver, and textured. The cost at my local shop ranges from 10p each for the plainer cards to 45p each for the more luxury ones. Giving one example, if you purchase ten 10p cards for £1 this will give you 100 cards at 1p per card. It's possible you could buy these A4 cards cheaper by bulk, ask around. If you need to produce a greater quantity of cards A.S.A.P you may like to invest in a guillotine knife cutter. If you are not familiar with this it is best described as a flat board with a hinged knife at one end. One with a 12 inch blade would do nicely. With this you could say print ten A4 size cards containing 10 business cards each. You would then stack these ten A4 cards together neatly and cut through them all a once using the cut marks already described giving you 100 business cards in next to no time. ------------------------- Now you know how to Make,Edit,Load, and Print cards ( easy wasn't it ? ). The next section will stretch your creativity a bit but don't worry too much if you feel it's beyond you. I have a collection of 71 colour and 59 mono borders available ( with a handful of designs ) which total 395K approx. These borders will not be available in the Public Domain so if you would like to have them, send your B-CARD V2 or blank disk to me and I will place them in COLOUR BORDERS and MONO BORDERS directories on your disk. Do not leave any of your own work on a B-CARD disk you may send to me, as all surplus files are ereased to make room for the new borders. If any bug fixes or updates are made to B-CARD in the meantime then these will be included also. This offer is for U.K. (Great Britain) customers only, Sorry!. These borders cost £2.50. For reason of convenience NO CHEQUES, so make your Postal orders for £2.50 payable to B. Cain. You are advised not to send cash, too risky. Send your B-CARD V2 or blank disk also to :- B. Cain 5, Constance Road, Bolton, Lancs, BL3 4DH --------------------- 5. CREATING BORDERS and DESIGNS ( with templates ) First you should be aware that you MUST use the supplied templates to be sure your borders and designs are created to the correct size and in the correct position expected by B-CARD. Their are 3 separate templates expectedly named ColBORDER.tmp for creating borders and ColDESIGN.tmp. for creating designs, and a template called ColFULLDESIGN.tmp. With the latter you can create an entire card in a paint program and just load into B-CARD for viewing or printing. You need a paint program such as DPaint. The templates are in the Hires ( or Med Res in DPaint ) format. The screen format should remain as 640*256 with 8 colours. Any attempt to change the screen format or number of colours will result in failure or disappointment or both. However B-CARD V2 will return any changed background colour to the original default i.e. white when it loads files in. Any extra colours added will cause B-CARD to reject your files or abort. Whatever you do avoid changing and using colour 0 (white) background colour for designing with for you might just as well have used invisible ink. Any change in screen format though cannot be corrected and may cause B-CARD again to abort. The templates are simply black or coloured rectangles on a white background. In the case of the ColBORDER,tmp template, there are two rectangles, a smaller one inside a larger one. You must create your border in the space BETWEEN the two rectangles. With the ColDESIGN.tmp template there is just one rectangle in which to create a design. You can use as little or as much of space within the border rectangles as you wish as long the border or does not encroach beyond the recommended space. Any part of a border which is outside the recommended limits will be erased by B-CARD V2 so your border will,not be printed completely. A design on the other hand can be in the design box (ColDESIGN.tmp) with similar restrictions as applied to borders or created in the ColFULLDESIGN.tmp template. The ColFULLDESIGN.tmp template is simply a combination of the ColBORDER.tmp and ColDESIGN.tmp templates and is meant to create a card within a paint program rather than in B-CARD. You can place whatever you wish into this as long as no part of the template lines are used by your design or border. The template lines are erased prior to printing. You should only use the ColFULLDESIGN.tmp file if you intend design your ENTIRE card within a paint program. If you do design your entire card within a paint program, YOU MUST save the finished card with the .crd extension to the filename, so that B-CARD will recognise it as a card. Whatever else you do you must retain the screen format at 640*256 with 8 colours. The position and size of the rectangles must not be changed. Do not erase or alter any part of the rectangles but ignore them and save to disk with your completed card, border, or design. In case you were wondering, B-CARD V2 DOES NOT print these template rectangles onto your business cards, they are expressly for the internal use of B-CARD only. You may have clip art available which can be used, there is plenty out there, they should not have more than 8 colour palettes though, so convert them first. If you have an artistic bent you are only limited by your imagination. It should go without saying, but use the spare screen in your paint program for designing then cut and paste the results onto your template screen, Another thing, but very important, save your border or design when finished under another name but ALWAYS with the file extensions .dsg for DESIGNS and .bdr for BORDERS. For example, a ColDESIGN.tmp file you have entered a design into and are going to name 'Plumbing' should be saved as 'Plumbing.dsg' similarly a border you have entered in a ColBORDER.tmp file would be saved as 'Plumbing.bdr' ( without the apostrophes ). A full card made with the ColFULLDESIGN.tmp of course is saved with the extension .crd for reasons already explained. It is your own interests to do this as B-CARD will only display cards, borders, and designs for loading which carry these extensions in the filename. If you accidentally corrupt your original template files, you can create new ones from within B-CARD ( see CREATE TEMPLATES on B-CARD menu screen ). Converting B-CARD V1 files You can use your cards, designs and borders produced by B-CARD V1 with B-CARD V2 without any conversion at all if you wish, but if you wish to add extra colours to your monochrome designs you must load these monochrome V1 files into DPAINT, change the number of colours to 8 and then add colour to them as you see fit. This will involve nearly as much work as making V2 versions but at least you do not have to create a card, design, or border first. Try not to mix V1 and V2 files when creating cards unless you have converted the V1 files to 8 colours first. E N D